[430] "It can be done, bhikkhu," the Blessed One said. "Suppose, bhikkhu, there were a great mountain of rock, a yojana in length, a yojana in width, a yojana in height, without cracks, without hollows, one solid mass. At the end of every hundred years a man would stroke it once with a cloth of Kāsi. That great mountain of rock, bhikkhu, would more quickly be worn away and used up by this effort, but not so an eon. So long, bhikkhu, is an eon. And of eons so long, bhikkhu, not just one eon has been wandered through, not just a hundred eons have been wandered through, not just a thousand eons have been wandered through, not just a hundred thousand eons have been wandered through. Why is that? Without discoverable beginning, bhikkhu, is this saṃsāra … So much so, bhikkhu, that this is enough to become disenchanted with all formations (saṅkhārā), enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them."
The fifth.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.