But had the Buddha felt that the experience of the realm of infinite space (ākāsānañcāyatana) was an experience of something that is ontologically existent, there would be no effort needed to confirm that the cosmos was infinite, and he could have immediately answered that the cosmos is indeed infinite.a His refusal to answer the question one way or the other would imply that he did not think he was experiencing an ontologically existent infinite space in the first of the immaterial states.
