Numbered Discourses: Tens, Elevens

ฉบับแปลอังกฤษ · Sutta Piṭaka — The Basket of Discourses · Volume 24 · 391 pages

Summarized by AI from the full volume (151 topics) — click to jump to where each topic begins.

Page 1–2 AN 10.1 The Goal and Benefit of Ethics Ānanda asks the Buddha what benefit comes from ethical conduct, and the Buddha traces a causal chain: ethical behavior naturally produces freedom from regret, which gives rise to joy, then rapture, tranquility, bliss, meditative immersion, true knowledge and seeing, disillusionment and dispassion, and finally the knowledge and vision of liberation. Each stage is shown to be the natural fruit of the one before it, so ethics is not an isolated rule but the first link in a progressive path culminat
Page 3–4 AN 10.2 Making a Wish Restating the same nine-link chain from the previous sutta, the Buddha explains that a virtuous person never needs to wish for the good qualities that follow ethical conduct - they arise spontaneously and inevitably, one thing naturally leading to another. Freedom from regret, joy, rapture, bodily tranquility, bliss, immersion, true knowing, disillusionment, and finally liberation all unfold as a matter of course once their prior cause is established. The point is that spiritual progress is lawf
Page 4–8 AN 10.3-10.5 Vital Conditions (Buddha, Sāriputta, Ānanda) This teaching is given three times - once by the Buddha, once by Sāriputta, and once by Ānanda - always in identical terms, showing the doctrine is settled and universally understood among the Buddha's chief disciples. It states that an unethical person destroys the vital condition (a necessary supporting cause) for each successive quality in the same nine-stage sequence - freedom from regret, joy, rapture, tranquility, bliss, immersion, true knowledge, disillusionment, and liberation - while an
Page 9–11 AN 10.6-10.7 A State of Immersion Beyond Perception Ānanda asks whether a mendicant could attain a state of meditative immersion in which none of the elements, the formless meditative dimensions, or "this world" and "the other world" are perceived as such, and yet perception is still present. The Buddha, and in the companion sutta Sāriputta independently recounting his own experience, confirms this is possible: it occurs when one perceives only that the stilling of all activities, the letting go of attachments, and the ending of craving is peacef
Page 12–16 AN 10.8-10.10 Inspiring All Around Across three near-identical suttas the Buddha lists ten qualities that make a mendicant fully accomplished and "impressive all around": faith, ethics, learning, the ability to teach Dhamma with assurance, expertise in monastic law, forest dwelling, and realization of liberation, with the tenth culminating quality varying between the three versions - mastery of the four absorptions, the formless liberations, or the higher knowledges such as recollecting past lives and clairvoyance. Each version f
Page 16–17 AN 10.11 Lodgings The Buddha teaches that a mendicant endowed with five personal factors, who also resorts to a lodging with five suitable factors, will quickly attain liberation. The personal factors are faith in the Buddha's awakening, good health and digestion, honesty with the teacher and companions, energetic effort to abandon unskillful and cultivate skillful qualities, and wisdom into arising and passing away. The lodging's five factors concern practical suitability - not too far or near, quiet, free of pe
Page 18 AN 10.12 Five Factors A mendicant who has abandoned five hindrances - sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt - and who possesses the five qualities of an adept, namely perfected ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and knowledge and vision of freedom, is declared "consummate," the supreme type of person within the teaching. The sutta is a concise, almost verse-like statement pairing what must be given up with what must be gained, framing the arahant's attainment as a bal
Page 19 AN 10.13 The Ten Fetters The Buddha defines the ten fetters that bind beings to repeated existence: the five "lower" fetters - identity view, doubt, misapprehension of precepts and observances, sensual desire, and ill will - which tie beings to the sensual realm, and the five "higher" fetters - desire for rebirth in the realm of form, desire for rebirth in the formless realm, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance - which persist even for advanced meditators. This is a foundational doctrinal list used elsewhere to define
Page 19–23 AN 10.14 Hard-heartedness and the Waxing and Waning Moon The Buddha describes five kinds of "hard-heartedness" - doubt about the Teacher, the teaching, the Saṅgha, the training, and resentment toward one's spiritual companions - and five "shackles of the heart," including craving for sensual pleasures, for one's own body and for physical form, overindulgence in food and sleep, and practicing the spiritual life merely hoping for rebirth as a god. If not abandoned, these guarantee decline in skillful qualities, just as the moon wanes night after night i
Page 23–24 AN 10.15 Diligence as the Root of All Virtue Using a string of vivid similes - the Buddha as foremost among all beings, an elephant's footprint containing all other footprints, a roof's rafters converging at the peak, the finest root, heartwood and flower, the wheel-turning monarch, moonlight outshining the stars, the autumn sunrise dispelling darkness, and all great rivers flowing to the ocean - the Buddha teaches that diligence is the single quality in which every other skillful quality is rooted and converges. The cumulative effect of t
Page 25 AN 10.16 Worthy of Offerings The Buddha names ten types of individuals worthy of gifts, hospitality, and reverence as the supreme field of merit for the world: a fully awakened Buddha, an independent Buddha, and eight kinds of noble disciples at various stages of realization, from one "freed both ways" down to a "follower of teachings" and a "lamb of the flock." This ranked list gives the lay and monastic community a doctrinal map of which kinds of spiritual attainment are recognized as most worthy of support.
Page 25–27 AN 10.17 A Protector (1st) The Buddha teaches that living without a spiritual protector is suffering, and lists ten qualities that function as an inner protector: ethical restraint, deep learning of the teachings, good spiritual friends, being easy to admonish, competence and helpfulness in communal duties, love of the Dhamma, energetic effort, contentment with basic requisites, strong mindfulness, and wisdom into arising and passing away. These qualities are offered as the true safeguard a mendicant needs, since no exter
Page 27–31 AN 10.18 A Protector (2nd) Repeating the same list of ten protective qualities from the previous sutta, this version adds that when a mendicant possesses each quality, senior, middle, and junior mendicants alike judge them worth advising and correcting, and being treated with such goodwill by the community, that mendicant can expect only growth and never decline. It extends the earlier teaching by showing how personal virtue also earns the trust and mentorship of the monastic community, creating a reinforcing loop between
Page 31 AN 10.19 Abodes of the Noble Ones (1st) In a brief summary statement, the Buddha lists ten "abodes" in which noble ones of the past, present and future dwell: having given up five factors, possessing six factors, having a single guard of mindfulness, four supports, having cast aside dogmatic views, having entirely given up searching, having unsullied intentions, having stilled the bodily process, and being well freed in mind and by wisdom. This terse list previews the detailed exposition given immediately afterward in the following su
Page 31–34 AN 10.20 Abodes of the Noble Ones (2nd) The Buddha unpacks each of the ten "abodes of the noble ones" introduced in the prior sutta in full: the five hindrances given up; the six sense-doors guarded with equanimity; the heart guarded by mindfulness; the four supports of using, enduring, avoiding and dispelling; freedom from dogmatic metaphysical views about the eternity or finitude of the cosmos, the relation of soul and body, and the status of a Realized One after death; giving up all searching for sensual pleasure, continued existen
Page 34–38 AN 10.21 The Lion's Roar Comparing the Buddha's teaching to a lion's confident roar before the hunt, the sutta describes the ten unique "powers" of a Realized One that let him teach with total self-assurance: knowing what is possible and impossible, the results of past and future deeds, where every path of practice leads, the diversity of the world and of beings' inclinations and faculties, the minds of other beings, the states of meditative absorption, his own countless past lives in detail, the passing away and rebirt
Page 38–41 AN 10.22 Hypotheses Ānanda draws out from the Buddha essentially the same list of the ten powers of a Realized One as in the Lion's Roar sutta, but framed here as the Buddha's claim to unsurpassed knowledge of "hypotheses" - his ability to discern, for any given case, whether something exists or not, and whether it is inferior or superior. The Buddha states there is no knowledge greater or finer than this comprehensive, case-by-case penetration of reality, reinforcing the same ten powers as the basis of his teachin
Page 41–44 AN 10.23 What Must Be Given Up by Body, Speech, and Wisdom The Buddha distinguishes three categories of unwholesome things and how each must be abandoned: bodily misconduct is corrected through bodily reform after being pointed out by companions, verbal misconduct through verbal reform, but mental defilements - greed, hatred, delusion, anger, hostility, disdain, contempt, stinginess, "nasty jealousy" (resentment at others' good fortune), and "corrupt wishes" (pretending to virtues one lacks) - cannot be fixed by bodily or verbal correction alone, only b
Page 44–48 AN 10.24 By Mahācunda: Testing Claims Against Reality Venerable Mahācunda warns that a mendicant may claim knowledge, meditative development, or both, but if they are still mastered by greed, hatred, delusion, or the other defilements listed in the previous sutta including nasty jealousy and corrupt wishes, then their declaration should be judged false, since they plainly lack the wisdom needed to have actually eliminated those defilements. He drives the point home with the simile of a poor person falsely claiming to be wealthy who cannot produce m
Page 48–49 AN 10.25 Meditation on Universals The Buddha lists the ten kasiṇa meditations - contemplating the "universal" totality of earth, water, fire, air, the colors blue, yellow, red and white, space, and consciousness - each perceived as pervading above, below, and across without limit. This brief technical catalogue names the meditation objects used to develop the deep concentration states explored in the following sutta.
Page 49–50 AN 10.26 With Kāḷī: Beyond the Kasiṇa Attainments The laywoman Kāḷī asks Mahākaccāna to explain a cryptic verse of the Buddha's about having "reached the goal, peace of heart" by conquering attachment and awakening alone in seclusion. Mahākaccāna explains that various ascetics and brahmins mistake the attainment of each universal kasiṇa meditation - earth, water, fire, and so on through consciousness - as the ultimate goal and are reborn accordingly, whereas the Buddha directly saw the origin, drawback, and escape from each such attainment. Pre
Page 51–55 AN 10.27 The Great Questions (1st) Wanderers of other religions challenge some mendicants, asking what distinguishes the Buddha's instruction to "directly know all things" from their own identical-sounding teaching. Unable to answer, the mendicants bring the question to the Buddha, who explains that his teaching can be tested through a graded series of questions, summaries and answers running from "one thing" up to "ten things," which only he or his trained disciples can adequately answer, since anyone else questioned this way wo
Page 56–58 Conclusion of ‘The Great Questions’ (1st): The One-to-Ten Formula This is the concluding portion of a formulaic teaching that runs through a sequence from ‘one thing’ to ‘ten things,’ pairing each number with a specific list of Dhamma categories such as the grasping aggregates, sense fields, planes of consciousness, worldly conditions, abodes of beings, and the ten unskillful deeds. The refrain repeated after each number is that becoming completely disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding that set of things, by fully seeing its limits and meaning, is
Page 58–62 The Great Questions (2nd): The Nun Kajaṅgalikā’s Explanation Lay followers of Kajaṅgalā ask the nun Kajaṅgalikā to explain a cryptic saying of the Buddha’s about ‘one thing’ through ‘ten things,’ since they have not had the chance to ask him directly. She walks them through the same numerical schema — one thing being that all beings are sustained by food, up through the ten skillful deeds — explaining that disillusionment and full understanding of each set of items leads to the ending of suffering. When the lay followers report her answer to the Buddha, h
Page 62–69 Kosala (1st): Everything Exalted Eventually Decays The Buddha uses King Pasenadi — the most powerful ruler as far as the lands of Kāsi and Kosala extend — to illustrate that even the most exalted worldly position eventually decays and perishes, so a wise disciple loses desire for it. He scales the argument up cosmically through galaxies ruled by a ‘Great Divinity,’ through the luminous gods who first populate a newly-forming cosmos, through the ten universal meditation objects (earth, water, fire, wind, colors, space, and consciousness), the eig
Page 69–74 Kosala (2nd): King Pasenadi’s Devotion to the Buddha King Pasenadi of Kosala, returning triumphant from battle, visits the Buddha and prostrates himself with unusual physical devotion, kissing his feet and announcing his own name twice. When the Buddha asks why, the king lists in detail the grounds for his gratitude and love: the Buddha’s work for the welfare of many, his mature and noble ethical conduct, his contentment with simple wilderness lodgings and requisites, his worthiness as a supreme field of merit, his easy access to liberating conver
Page 74–75 With Upāli: Why Training Rules Exist and When Recitation Is Suspended Venerable Upāli asks the Buddha why he established training rules and the monastic code at all, and the Buddha explains ten purposes: securing the wellbeing and comfort of the Saṅgha, restraining difficult individuals while protecting well-behaved mendicants, preventing defilements in this life and future lives, inspiring and strengthening lay confidence, and preserving and supporting the training. Upāli then asks about the ten specific circumstances under which the periodic recitation of the mo
Page 75–77 Qualities Needed for Vinaya Roles: Judge, Ordination, Dependence, Novice In a run of parallel questions, Upāli asks what qualities are needed to act as an impartial judge in a disciplinary dispute, to ordain new monks, to serve as a preceptor giving dependence to a junior, and to have a novice attend on oneself. In each case the Buddha gives largely the same core list — being ethical and well-versed in the monastic code, being deeply learned in the teachings, and being able to care for the sick, resolve dissatisfaction, dispel remorse, correct wrong views, and encour
Page 77–80 Schism and Harmony in the Saṅgha The Buddha defines ‘schism in the Saṅgha’ as occurring when a mendicant deliberately misrepresents, on ten points, what is or is not the teaching, the training, or what the Buddha actually said, practiced, or prescribed, and then splits off to act and recite the code autonomously; ‘harmony’ is the exact mirror opposite. When Venerable Ānanda asks the same two questions, the Buddha adds the ethical stakes in verse: one who splits a harmonious Saṅgha ‘brims with sin that lasts an eon’ and burns in
Page 80–82 Roots of Dispute in the Saṅgha Upāli asks the root cause of the fights, quarrels, and disputes that disturb the Saṅgha's happiness, and the Buddha again points to the pattern of misrepresenting the teaching, the training, and what he himself said, practiced, or prescribed. Two further short suttas each enumerate ‘ten roots of dispute’: the first simply repeats this same doctrinal-misrepresentation list, while the second gives a distinct, more legal list concerned with mischaracterizing offenses — treating a non-offense as an
Page 82–85 At Kusinārā: Checking Yourself Before Accusing Another At Kusinārā, the Buddha teaches that a mendicant who wants to accuse another of wrongdoing must first honestly check five things in themselves: whether their own bodily and verbal conduct is blameless, whether their heart is free of resentment toward the person they intend to accuse, whether they are sufficiently learned in the teachings, and whether they have mastered the monastic code well enough to cite exactly where the Buddha spoke on the matter if challenged. A critic who fails any of thes
Page 85–87 The Drawbacks of Entering a Royal Compound The Buddha lists ten practical dangers a monk risks by frequenting a royal palace, most concerning suspicion and scandal: a smile exchanged with the queen can be read as evidence of an affair, an unexplained royal pregnancy or a lost gem can be blamed on the visiting monk, leaked secrets or a strained father-son relationship can likewise be pinned on him, and political decisions such as promotions, demotions, or troop movements that upset courtiers can be attributed to his supposed influence ove
Page 87–91 With the Sakyans: Wealth Cannot Buy a Single Happy Day Visiting Sakyan lay followers admit they only sometimes observe the eight-factored sabbath, which the Buddha calls a real loss given the constant threat of old age and death. He builds an extended comparison in which even a man who earned a fortune of a hundred or a thousand dollars a day for a hundred years would not gain even a single day of true, lasting happiness from that wealth, because sensual pleasures are impermanent, hollow, and deceptive. By contrast, through a shrinking peyyāla runni
Page 91–92 With Mahālī: The Roots of Good and Bad Deeds Mahālī the Licchavi asks the Buddha what causes people to do bad or good deeds. The Buddha traces bad deeds to greed, hatred, delusion, irrational attention, and a wrongly directed mind, and traces good deeds to their opposites — contentment, love, understanding, rational attention, and a rightly directed mind. He concludes that it is precisely because these ten root conditions exist in the world that we see both immoral and moral conduct among people, offering a compact statement of the psychol
Page 92–93 Ten Regular Reflections for a Renunciate, and What Exists Because of the Body The Buddha gives ten reflections that anyone who has gone forth should regularly review, including remembering that one has given up caste-based status, that one's livelihood now depends on others' generosity, that one's conduct must differ from a layperson's, self-checks on whether companions could fault one's ethics, awareness of eventual separation from everything dear, full ownership of and responsibility for one's own deeds, and honest self-assessment of daily spiritual progress so as not t
Page 93–96 Fights, and the Ten Warm-Hearted Qualities for Communal Harmony The Buddha finds mendicants quarreling and wounding each other with harsh words after their meal, and rebukes this as unbefitting people who left lay life out of faith. In response he lists ten ‘warm-hearted qualities’ that produce fondness, respect, and harmony: being ethical, deeply learned in the teachings, having good friends, being easy to admonish, being diligent and skilled at communal duties, loving the teaching, being energetic in giving up unskillful and cultivating skillful qualities,
Page 96–100 Encompassing Your Own Mind: The Mirror Simile The Buddha, and in a parallel sutta Sariputta speaking in his own voice, teaches that a mendicant unable to read others' minds should at least learn to examine their own. Using the simile of a young person checking their face in a mirror or a bowl of clear water for blemishes, the teaching lists ten things to check for in oneself — covetousness, malice, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness, doubt, irritability, mental corruption, physical disturbance, energy, and immersion in samādhi — and call
Page 100–104 Stagnation, Decline, and Growth in Skillful Qualities The Buddha states that he praises growth in skillful qualities and considers even mere stagnation, let alone outright decline, unworthy of praise, then precisely defines all three: decline is when a mendicant's faith, ethics, generosity, wisdom, and eloquence visibly worsen over time; stagnation is when these qualities plateau, neither falling nor rising; and growth is when they keep increasing. The sutta then folds back into the same mirror self-examination teaching from the preceding suttas, a
Page 104–109 Checking for Serenity and Discernment; Two Kinds of Everything to Frequent Continuing the self-examination framework, the Buddha teaches a mendicant to check specifically for serenity (calm concentration) and discernment (insight): if one has serenity but lacks discernment, one uses that serenity as a base to develop discernment, and vice versa; if one has neither, urgent effort is needed; and once both are present, one simply continues meditating to end the defilements. The sutta then pivots to a related but distinct teaching covering six categories — robes, almsfood,
Page 109–110 Decline and Non-Decline, as Explained by Sāriputta (excerpt ends mid-sutta) Mendicants ask Sāriputta how the Buddha defines a person who is ‘liable to decline’ versus one who is ‘not liable to decline.’ He explains that a person liable to decline fails to hear new teachings, forgets what they have already heard, neglects to keep practicing familiar teachings, and fails to come to new understanding, while a person not liable to decline succeeds at all four of these. The passage then returns once more to the recurring refrain that a mendicant unable to read others' minds
Page 111–112 Checking One's Own Mind (concluding section, AN 10.55) This is the tail end of a discourse on self-examination, using the simile of a person checking their reflection in a clean mirror or bowl of water for dirt on their face. In the same way a mendicant should regularly check whether ten skillful qualities are present in the mind, such as contentment, good will, freedom from dullness, calm, confidence, love, purity of mind, and joy and serenity connected with the teaching. If some qualities are missing, the mendicant should apply the same urgency to
Page 112 AN 10.56 Ten Perceptions Leading to the Deathless (1st version) The Buddha gives a short, self-contained list of ten perceptions that are very fruitful when developed because they culminate in freedom from death. This first version names ugliness, death, the unattractiveness of food, dissatisfaction with the whole world, impermanence, suffering within impermanence, not-self within suffering, giving up, dispassion, and cessation. No further explanation is given here; the list functions as a checklist of contemplations meant to loosen attachment to the body an
Page 113 AN 10.57 Ten Perceptions Leading to the Deathless (2nd version) This companion discourse offers a second, overlapping list of ten perceptions with the same stated benefit of leading toward freedom from death. It includes impermanence, not-self, death, the unattractiveness of food, and dissatisfaction with the world, but replaces some items from the previous list with five stages of a decomposing corpse (a skeleton, a worm-infested corpse, a livid corpse, a split-open corpse, and a bloated corpse). These corpse contemplations are traditional charnel-ground me
Page 113–114 AN 10.58 What Is the Root of All Things? The Buddha coaches the mendicants on how to answer other wanderers who ask what all things are rooted in, produced by, and culminate in. The prescribed answer traces a chain: desire is the root of all things, application of mind produces them, contact is their origin, feeling is where they converge, immersion (samadhi) is their chief factor, mindfulness is what governs them, wisdom oversees them, freedom is their essence, freedom from death is their goal, and extinguishment (nibbana) is their cu
Page 115 AN 10.59 Keeping the Resolve of Going Forth A brief exhortation urging mendicants to keep their minds as firmly resolved as they were on the day they first went forth from home life, so that arisen unskillful qualities gain no foothold. The mind should stay consolidated in the perceptions of impermanence, not-self, ugliness, and drawbacks, and in clear knowledge of what is fair and unfair, what exists and doesn't, and how the world arises and passes away, culminating in the perceptions of giving up, fading away, and cessation. The promise
Page 115–120 AN 10.60 With Girimānanda: Ten Perceptions to Heal Illness When Venerable Girimānanda falls gravely ill, Ananda asks the Buddha to visit him out of compassion; instead the Buddha teaches Ananda ten perceptions to recite to the sick monk, predicting his illness may subside on hearing them. The list moves through impermanence and not-self (applied to the aggregates and sense fields), a detailed contemplation of the body's ugliness (listing its parts), and its many possible diseases and afflictions, then through giving up unwholesome thoughts, fading away,
Page 120–128 AN 10.61–10.62 The Fuel for Ignorance and Craving, and for Knowledge and Freedom The Buddha teaches that ignorance and craving for continued existence do not arise from nowhere but need fuel, just as fire does, and traces a nine-step causal chain backward: ignorance is fed by the five hindrances, which are fed by the three kinds of misconduct, then lack of sense restraint, lack of mindfulness and awareness, unwise attention, lack of faith, hearing false teachings, and ultimately associating with bad companions. This is illustrated by rain falling on a mountaintop and cascadi
Page 129 AN 10.63–10.64 The Ten Kinds of Noble Individuals These two short, nearly identical discourses classify noble disciples into ten types based on how they complete the path to awakening. Five conclude their path within this very existence (one with at most seven more rebirths, one who goes family to family, one who needs only one more rebirth, the once-returner, and the arahant), while five conclude it only after leaving this life behind, attaining final nibbana at different points and by different degrees of effort, up to the one who ascends all
Page 129–130 AN 10.65 What Is Happiness, What Is Suffering? (1st) The wanderer Sāmaṇḍakāni asks Venerable Sāriputta this basic question, and Sariputta redefines the terms in a strikingly ascetic way: rebirth itself is suffering, since it brings cold, heat, hunger, thirst, the indignities of bodily functions, exposure to violence, and the burden of relatives and friends, while the absence of rebirth (final liberation) is happiness precisely because it is free of all of that. The teaching reframes happiness not as pleasant feeling within life but as freedom from
Page 130–131 AN 10.66 What Is Happiness, What Is Suffering? (2nd) With the same questioner and setting, Sariputta now answers the question specifically with respect to the monastic training itself rather than existence in general. Dissatisfaction with one's practice is suffering, manifesting as an inability to find happiness while walking, standing, sitting, lying down, or in any dwelling place; contentment in all these same postures and settings is happiness. The point is that wellbeing for a mendicant is an internal quality of satisfaction with one's practic
Page 131–134 AN 10.67 At Naḷakapāna: The Waning and Waxing Moon (1st) While resting his sore back, the Buddha asks Sariputta to give the assembled monks a Dhamma talk, and Sariputta teaches that someone lacking faith, conscience, prudence, energy and wisdom can only decline in skillful qualities, just as the moon wanes night after night in its dark fortnight; he lists ten such declining traits including faithlessness, lack of conscience, laziness, bad friendships, and wrong view. He then gives the mirror-image teaching: someone with those five qualities grows like
Page 135–137 AN 10.68 At Naḷakapāna: The Waning and Waxing Moon (2nd) In the same setting as the previous discourse, Sariputta again teaches the Buddha's monks while the Buddha rests, giving a closely related version of the waxing-and-waning moon simile. Here decline is tied not just to lacking faith, conscience, prudence, energy and wisdom, but specifically to being unwilling to listen to the teaching, to memorize it, examine its meaning, and practice accordingly, while growth belongs to one eager to do all of this. As before, the Buddha rises and personally affi
Page 138–139 AN 10.69 Right Topics of Conversation (1st) The Buddha finds mendicants gathered after their almsround indulging in idle chatter about kings, armies, food, clothes, family, and other worldly matters, and rebukes this kind of talk as unbefitting those who have gone forth from lay life. He then lays out ten topics that are appropriate for mendicants to discuss instead: having few wishes, contentment, seclusion, aloofness from company, rousing energy, ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and the knowledge and vision of freedom. He promises th
Page 140–141 AN 10.70 Right Topics of Conversation (2nd) / Ten Grounds for Praise The same scene of mendicants caught in worldly chit-chat recurs, but this time the Buddha responds with ten grounds on which a mendicant earns genuine praise. Each ground pairs personal embodiment with teaching: a mendicant deserves praise who personally has few wishes and also speaks to others about having few wishes, and likewise for contentment, seclusion, non-entanglement, energy, ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and the knowledge and vision of freedom. The teaching stresses that credible
Page 141–143 AN 10.71 Legitimate Wishes of a Mendicant The Buddha lists a series of wishes it is natural for a mendicant to hold, such as being liked and respected by fellow monastics, receiving adequate robes and requisites, making the gifts of donors and the memory of deceased relatives spiritually fruitful, being content with whatever one receives, enduring physical hardship and unwelcome criticism, mastering desire, discontent, fear and dread, gaining meditative absorption at will, and ultimately realizing full liberation. For every single wish,
Page 143–145 AN 10.72 The Ten Thorns to Meditation When boisterous Licchavi nobles crash noisily into the forest near where several senior disciples are staying, the monks quietly relocate to a quieter grove to meditate undisturbed; the Buddha praises their instinct and generalizes it into a teaching on ten ‘thorns’ that obstruct specific attainments. Company is a thorn to one who loves seclusion, focusing on beauty is a thorn to meditation on ugliness, watching entertainment is a thorn to sense restraint, and proximity to women is a thorn to ce
Page 146 AN 10.73 Rare and Desirable Things, and What Blocks or Nourishes Them The Buddha names ten things that people find likable, desirable, and rare in the world: wealth, beauty, health, ethical conduct, the spiritual life, friendship, learning, wisdom, good qualities, and heaven. For each one he then names a specific obstacle that blocks it, such as laziness blocking wealth or bad friendship blocking ethical conduct, and a specific practice that nourishes it instead, such as diligence producing wealth or good friendship producing ethical conduct. The teaching function
Page 147 AN 10.74 Growing in Ten Ways A short teaching on the twofold growth of a noble disciple, who grows outwardly in fields, wealth, family, staff, and livestock, gaining worldly prosperity and respect, while also growing inwardly in faith, ethics, learning, generosity, and wisdom, gaining spiritual maturity. The ideal held up is a person who develops in both dimensions simultaneously, seeing clearly and flourishing both materially and spiritually in this very life.
Page 148–154 AN 10.75 With Migasālā: Why Do Unequal People Get the Same Rebirth? The laywoman Migasālā is troubled that her celibate father Purāṇa and her non-celibate uncle Isidatta were both declared by the Buddha to have been reborn in the same heavenly realm as once-returners, despite their very different conduct; Ananda relays her puzzlement to the Buddha. The Buddha rebukes the comparison as beyond the competence of anyone but a fully awakened Buddha, then explains through five parallel pairs of cases — an unethical person, an ethical person, a very lustful person, an
Page 154–159 AN 10.76 The Chain of Conditions Behind Rebirth, Old Age and Death The Buddha explains that a Buddha only arises in the world, and the teaching only shines, because rebirth, old age and death exist as problems to be solved; he then works backward through nine linked triads of causes that must be abandoned before those three can be ended. Greed, hatred and delusion must go first, but they themselves depend on wrong view, doubt and misapprehension of rules, which depend on unwise attention, a wrong path and mental sluggishness, which depend on unmindfulness and a
Page 160–161 AN 10.77–10.80 Four Short Teachings: The Crow, the Jains, and Resentment This cluster gathers four brief, independent teachings placed together at the close of a chapter. A bad mendicant is compared to a crow, sharing its ten bad qualities of being rude, gluttonous, cruel, feeble, and grasping; Jain ascetics are said to possess a parallel set of ten faults including faithlessness, self-glorification, and rigid attachment to their own views. The Buddha then lists ten grounds on which resentment typically arises, all variations on believing that someone has wronged one
Page 161–162 AN 10.81 With Bāhuna: What Has the Realized One Escaped? Venerable Bāhuna asks the Buddha how many things he has escaped from in order to live detached, liberated, and with a mind free of boundaries. The Buddha answers ten: the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, choices and consciousness, together with rebirth, old age, death, suffering and defilements. He illustrates this with the classic image of a lotus that grows up out of the water yet rises above it and stands untouched, comparing this to how the Buddha lives fully within the world wi
Page 162–164 AN 10.82 With Ananda: Ten Qualities That Block or Enable Growth Addressing Ananda directly, the Buddha states plainly that it is simply impossible for a mendicant with certain qualities to grow, improve, or mature in the teaching and training: being faithless, unethical, unlearned, hard to admonish, keeping bad friends, being lazy, unmindful, discontented, holding corrupt wishes, or holding wrong view. He then gives the exact mirror list of ten qualities — faith, ethical conduct, being a learned memorizer, being easy to admonish, good friendship, energy, min
Page 164–165 AN 10.83 With Puṇṇiya: Why the Buddha Sometimes Feels Inspired to Teach Venerable Puṇṇiya asks the Buddha what causes him to sometimes feel inspired to teach the Dhamma and other times not to. The Buddha begins to answer with a chain of necessary steps on the listener's part: having faith is not enough unless a mendicant also approaches him, and approaching is not enough unless they pay homage, and paying homage is not enough unless they ask questions, continuing through actually listening, remembering what was heard, examining its meaning, and practicing in line wi
Page 166 Conclusion: What Inspires the Buddha to Teach (end of AN 10.83) This short passage is the closing portion of a discourse (begun in the preceding chunk) describing what makes the Buddha feel genuinely inspired to teach someone. It lists ten qualities of an ideal student: having faith, approaching the teacher, paying homage, asking questions, listening attentively, remembering the teachings, examining their meaning, practicing in line with the teaching, having a pleasant voice, and encouraging fellow practitioners. The point is that teaching flourishes when th
Page 166–168 AN 10.84 Declaration Venerable Mahāmoggallāna explains what happens when a mendicant prematurely declares full enlightenment. When the Buddha or a skilled disciple probes such a claim by reading the person's mind, they often discover the declaration is false: the mendicant is actually still irritable, resentful, contemptuous, jealous, stingy, devious, or deceitful, or is driven by unfulfilled desire, and has merely stopped halfway after some minor attainment. Each of these traits is named as a cause of "decline" in
Page 168–172 AN 10.85 A Boaster Venerable Mahācunda addresses mendicants who falsely boast of having mastered the four absorptions, the formless attainments, and the cessation of perception and feeling. When such a person is questioned closely by the Buddha or a skilled disciple, the falsehood collapses, revealing that the boaster is actually unethical, unfaithful, poorly learned, hard to correct, keeps bad friends, is lazy, unmindful, deceptive, burdensome, or lacks wisdom. Mahācunda illustrates this with the simile of a frie
Page 172–175 AN 10.86 Overestimation Venerable Mahākassapa discusses mendicants who sincerely but mistakenly believe they have attained enlightenment through self-overestimation rather than deliberate lying. Investigation reveals two underlying causes: first, such a person is often extremely learned and skilled at reciting and analyzing the teachings, which can be mistaken for actual realization; second, they are still dominated by covetousness, ill will, dullness, restlessness, or doubt, and take pleasure in work, talk, sleep, and
Page 175–180 AN 10.87 Disciplinary Issues (Kalandaka) Addressing the mendicant Kalandaka, the Buddha contrasts ten unskillful qualities that destroy fondness, respect, and unity within the community — raising disciplinary disputes rather than settling them, unwillingness to train, corrupt wishes, irritability, denigrating others, deviousness, deceit, inattention to the teachings, avoiding retreat, and inhospitality — with their ten skillful opposites, which foster genuine harmony and esteem. The Buddha uses the simile of a wild, tricky colt that lo
Page 180–181 AN 10.88 An Abuser A brief, stark warning: any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will inevitably meet one of ten disasters. These range from failing to achieve what has not yet been achieved and losing what has been achieved, to contracting severe illness, going mad, dying with a troubled mind, and being reborn after death in a place of loss or hell. The teaching underscores how seriously verbal cruelty toward fellow practitioners and denigration of noble disci
Page 181–186 AN 10.89 With Kokālika The mendicant Kokālika repeatedly accuses Sāriputta and Moggallāna of having corrupt motives, and three times the Buddha rebukes him and asks him to trust these two esteemed monks instead. After Kokālika leaves unconvinced, his body erupts in boils that grow ever larger until he dies in agony, and he is reborn in the terrible "Pink Lotus" hell for having slandered noble disciples. A divine being named Tudu tries in vain to warn him beforehand, reciting verses that a person is "born with an axe i
Page 186–188 AN 10.90 The Powers of One Who Has Ended Defilements Sāriputta answers the Buddha's question about what qualifies a mendicant to rightly declare "my defilements have ended." He lists ten grounds of confidence: clearly seeing with wisdom that all conditions are truly impermanent, seeing sensual pleasures as like a pit of glowing coals, having a mind that naturally inclines toward seclusion, and having thoroughly developed the core practices of the path — the four establishments of mindfulness, four right efforts, four bases of psychic power, five f
Page 188–195 AN 10.91 Pleasure Seekers Speaking to the householder Anāthapiṇḍika, the Buddha systematically classifies ten types of "pleasure seekers" in the world according to three factors: whether they earn wealth by legitimate or illegitimate (coercive) means, whether they enjoy that wealth themselves, and whether they share it generously to make merit. Each combination is evaluated as deserving praise or criticism on specific grounds, methodically working from the worst case (illegitimate means, no enjoyment, no sharing) to the
Page 195–198 AN 10.92 Dangers The Buddha tells Anāthapiṇḍika under what conditions a noble disciple may confidently declare themselves free of rebirth in the lower realms and destined for awakening as a stream-enterer. This requires quelling five fears and enmities by keeping the five ethical precepts (not killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, or taking intoxicants), possessing four factors of stream-entry (confirmed confidence in the Buddha, the teaching, the Saṅgha, and one's own ethical conduct), and having clearly
Page 198–202 AN 10.93 What Is Your View? Visiting a monastery of wanderers of other religions, Anāthapiṇḍika refuses to state his own views until they first state theirs, and they proceed to declare various classic metaphysical positions (the cosmos is eternal or not, finite or infinite, whether the soul and body are the same, whether a realized being exists after death, and so on). Anāthapiṇḍika systematically shows that every such view, having arisen either from irrational reasoning or from hearsay, is created, conditioned, and depen
Page 202–206 AN 10.94 With Vajjiyamāhita The householder Vajjiyamāhita defends the Buddha against wanderers who accuse him of either condemning all forms of ascetic mortification or of being a nihilistic "exterminator" who refuses to make any positive statements. He explains that the Buddha analyzes each case rather than taking one-sided positions, and does make clear statements about what is skillful and unskillful. Returning to the Buddha, he receives confirmation and an elaboration of this Middle Way: the Buddha does not universally
Page 206–209 AN 10.95 With Uttiya The wanderer Uttiya questions the Buddha on the classic set of unanswered metaphysical questions (whether the cosmos is eternal or finite, whether a realized being exists after death, and so on), and the Buddha repeatedly declines to affirm any of them, explaining instead that he teaches purely to help beings overcome sorrow and suffering. When Uttiya presses whether the Buddha's teaching saves the whole world, half, or a third, the Buddha stays silent, worrying Ānanda that this might be misread
Page 209–212 AN 10.96 With Kokanada While bathing at the hot springs near Rājagaha, Venerable Ānanda is questioned by the wanderer Kokanada with the same set of ten metaphysical propositions about the eternity of the cosmos and the fate of a realized being after death. Ānanda denies holding any of these views as his own, yet insists this is not because he lacks knowledge or insight — when asked how both can be true, he explains that each of the ten propositions is itself a "misconception," and that he understands the scope, ground
Page 212–215 AN 10.97 Worthy of Offerings Dedicated to the Gods The Buddha describes ten qualities that make a mendicant a truly worthy recipient of offerings and the supreme field of merit for the world. These include being ethically restrained, deeply learned in the teachings, having good spiritual friends, possessing right view, and having mastered the higher forms of knowledge: psychic powers (such as walking through walls or flying), clairaudience, the ability to read others' minds, recollection of countless past lives, clairvoyant perception of beings'
Page 215–216 AN 10.98 A Senior Mendicant The Buddha lists ten qualities that allow a senior mendicant to live comfortably and be at ease in whatever region they reside. These include long standing in the monastic life, strict ethical discipline, deep learning in the teachings, thorough mastery of both monastic codes of rules, skill in resolving disciplinary disputes, genuine love for the teaching, contentment with basic requisites, dignified and composed conduct, effortless mastery of the four absorptions, and final liberation through
Page 216–220 AN 10.99 With Upāli (Gradual Training, beginning) Venerable Upāli asks permission to live alone in wilderness retreats, but the Buddha cautions that solitude without meditative stability is dangerous, using the image of an elephant safely fording a deep lake versus a rabbit or cat that rashly plunges in and sinks or is swept away, since their small size finds no footing in the depths. He extends this with a series of similes about a child's games maturing from playing in filth, to toy games, to enjoying the five kinds of sensual pleasure as an
Page 221–224 With Upāli: The Gradual Training to Awakening (conclusion) This continues a teaching to Upāli describing the gradual training: guarding the senses so that seeing, hearing, and the other senses don't trigger covetousness or displeasure, acting with full situational awareness in daily activities, and retreating to a secluded lodging to meditate. The Buddha walks through the abandoning of the five hindrances and the progressive attainment of the four absorptions, then the four formless states, repeatedly asking "Isn't this state better than what they had b
Page 224 AN 10.100: Cannot Realize Perfection A brief teaching stating that without giving up ten defiling qualities—greed, hate, delusion, anger, hostility, disdain, contempt, jealousy, stinginess, and conceit—a person cannot realize perfection (full awakening). Once these ten are abandoned, however, perfection becomes attainable. The sutta simply names the obstacles and their removal as the condition for spiritual completion.
Page 224–225 AN 10.101: Perceptions for Ascetics The Buddha describes three perceptions that renunciants should cultivate: recognizing that one has secured freedom from caste and class, that one's livelihood now depends on others' generosity, and that one's conduct should therefore be different from a layperson's. Developing these three perceptions is said to fulfill seven further qualities: consistently ethical behavior, contentment, kindness, humility, eagerness to train, mindful reflection on the purpose of one's requisites, and diligence.
Page 225–226 AN 10.102: The Seven Awakening Factors and Three Knowledges The Buddha teaches that developing and cultivating the seven awakening factors—mindfulness, investigation of principles, energy, rapture, tranquility, immersion, and equanimity—fulfills three higher knowledges. These are the recollection of one's own many past lives in detail, clairvoyant insight into how other beings pass on according to their karma, and the direct realization of freedom through the ending of defilements. The sutta presents the awakening factors as the practical engine that pro
Page 226–227 AN 10.103: The Wrong Way and the Right Way The Buddha lays out a causal chain showing how relying on the wrong way leads to failure: wrong view produces wrong purpose, which produces wrong speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, immersion, knowledge, and finally wrong freedom. He then gives the mirror-image chain for the right way, where right view sets off a cascade ending in right freedom and success. The teaching frames the eightfold (here tenfold) path as a sequential, self-reinforcing process rather than a list of unrelated
Page 227–228 AN 10.104: The Seed Simile The Buddha compares a person of wrong view to a bitter seed—neem, angled gourd, or bitter gourd—planted in moist earth: whatever nutrients it draws from the soil will only make it more bitter, because the seed itself is bad. In the same way, whatever a person of wrong view intends or does will lead to suffering, because their underlying view is bad. Conversely, a person of right view is like a sweet seed such as sugarcane or rice, whose every action tends toward what is likable and beneficial, b
Page 228–229 AN 10.105: Ignorance and Knowledge The Buddha explains that ignorance is the starting point for a cascade of unskillful qualities: sunk in ignorance, a person produces wrong view, which in turn generates wrong purpose, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, immersion, and finally wrong freedom, all without conscience or prudence. Knowledge works the same way in reverse, with a person firm in knowledge producing right view and the full chain through to right freedom, accompanied by conscience and prudence. The sutta iden
Page 229–237 The Ten Things Removed: Wearing Away, Washing, Purging, Vomiting, Blowing Away This is a run of five short, formulaic suttas that all repeat the same core statement—that right view wears away wrong view, right purpose wears away wrong purpose, and so on through right freedom wearing away wrong freedom, with skillful qualities growing as each wrong factor is removed—dressed up in five different vivid images. The first calls this process a "wearing away"; the second recasts it as a "noble washing" that the Buddha contrasts with a crude southern bone-washing ceremony of feast
Page 237 AN 10.111–10.112: Defining an Adept A mendicant asks the Buddha how an "adept" (one who has completed the training) is defined, and the Buddha answers that it is a mendicant who possesses an adept's right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right immersion, right knowledge, and right freedom. The following short sutta simply restates the same list as the "ten qualities of an adept" without the narrative frame. Together these two very brief suttas define spiritual comp
Page 238 AN 10.113: Bad Principles with Bad Results (1st) The Buddha teaches that one should know "bad principles with bad results"—identified as the ten wrong factors from wrong view through wrong freedom—and "good principles with good results"—the ten right factors from right view through right freedom. Having distinguished these, one's practice should follow the good principles that yield good results. This short sutta introduces the bad-principle/good-principle framework that several following suttas will elaborate.
Page 238–240 AN 10.114: Bad Principles and Good Principles (2nd) The Buddha refines the previous teaching by separating out four distinct categories: bad principles (the ten wrong factors themselves), good principles (the ten right factors), bad results (the many unskillful qualities that arise because of each wrong factor), and good results (the many skillful qualities that develop because of each right factor). He then works through each of the ten factors—view, purpose, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, immersion, knowledge, and freedom—show
Page 240–246 AN 10.115: Bad Principles (3rd) — Ānanda Explains the Heartwood Simile After giving a brief, unexplained summary statement on bad and good principles and results, the Buddha retires to his dwelling without elaborating, leaving the mendicants to wonder who can explain it. Rather than returning to ask the Buddha directly, they go to Venerable Ānanda, who rebukes them with the simile of a person seeking heartwood who bypasses a tree's roots and trunk to search for it uselessly among the branches and leaves—meaning they overlooked the Buddha, the true source of the tea
Page 246–249 AN 10.116: With Ajita — True versus False Astuteness The wanderer Ajita tells the Buddha about a rival teacher known as "Astute," who has devised roughly five hundred debating arguments capable of refuting other religious teachers. The Buddha explains that merely rebutting unprincipled statements with unprincipled statements—or even principled statements with unprincipled ones—only delights an equally unprincipled crowd who mistake clever refutation for real wisdom. True discernment, the Buddha says, consists instead in knowing the ten bad princip
Page 249–250 AN 10.117: With Saṅgārava — The Near Shore and Far Shore The brahmin Saṅgārava asks the Buddha to define the "near shore" and the "far shore." The Buddha identifies each of the ten wrong path factors as the near shore and each corresponding right factor as the far shore, observing that few people among humans actually cross over to the far shore while most just run around on the near shore. He closes with verses describing how an astute person, having renounced home and sensual pleasure, develops bright qualities and the awakening factors, and is fina
Page 250–251 AN 10.118: The Near Shore and Far Shore (restated to the mendicants) The Buddha repeats the near-shore/far-shore teaching from the previous sutta, this time addressing the mendicants directly rather than in response to a brahmin's question. He again equates the ten wrong path factors with the near shore and the ten right factors with the far shore, and closes with the same verses about how few people cross over and how the astute person renounces sensual pleasure to reach the awakening factors and final quenching. The repetition without the dialogue frame emphasi
Page 251–253 AN 10.119: The Ceremony of Descent (1st) — With Jānussoṇi On the sabbath, the brahmin Jānussoṇi appears before the Buddha freshly bathed, in new linen robes, holding fresh grass, and explains that this is the brahmanical "ceremony of descent": bathing, making a bed of cow dung and grass, rising three times in the night to worship the fire while chanting "We descend, lord!", and feeding the fire and the brahmins with rich food. The Buddha contrasts this with the "noble descent," in which a disciple reflects that each of the ten wrong path factors has a
Page 253–254 AN 10.120: The Ceremony of Descent (2nd, restated to the mendicants) The Buddha restates the "noble descent" teaching directly to the mendicants without the brahmin dialogue frame, explaining that a noble disciple reflects on the bad result of each of the ten wrong path factors and thereby abandons and descends from each of them in turn, from wrong view through wrong freedom. This concise version distills the ceremony described in the previous sutta into a plain doctrinal statement for the monastic community.
Page 254 AN 10.121: Right View as Forerunner A brief simile compares right view to the dawn, which is the forerunner and harbinger of the sunrise. In the same way, the Buddha says, right view is the forerunner of all skillful qualities, setting in motion the chain that runs from right purpose through right speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, immersion, knowledge, and ultimately right freedom.
Page 254–255 AN 10.122: The Ending of Defilements The Buddha states simply that developing and cultivating the ten right path factors—right view through right freedom—leads to the ending of defilements. It functions as a compact restatement of the path's ultimate purpose before a long run of similarly patterned short suttas that follow.
Page 255–258 AN 10.123–10.133: The "Purified" Series — Only Within the Holy One's Training This is a run of eleven very short, near-identical suttas, each stating that the ten right path factors (right view through right freedom) cannot be purified, cannot arise, are not very fruitful, do not remove greed, hatred, and delusion, do not lead to disillusionment and awakening, and cannot even be developed or cultivated apart from training under a Buddha ("the Holy One's training"). Each sutta in the series simply substitutes a different verb or quality into the same fixed template, and th
Page 258–261 AN 10.134–10.144: The "Good and Not Good" Series Another long run of nearly identical short suttas, each contrasting the ten wrong path factors against the ten right path factors under a different pair of labels: good and not good, the teaching of the noble ones versus not, skillful versus unskillful, beneficial versus harmful, the teaching versus not the teaching, defiled versus undefiled, blameworthy versus blameless, mortifying versus unmortifying, leading to accumulation versus dispersal, and having suffering versus happiness as their outc
Page 261–265 AN 10.145–10.154: The "Noble Path" Series A further extended run of formulaic short suttas, again contrasting the ten wrong path factors and ten right path factors, this time under headings such as the noble path versus the ignoble path, the dark path versus the bright path, the true teaching versus the false, the teaching of true persons versus untrue persons, and things that should or should not be activated, cultivated, developed, made much of, recollected, and realized. Each sutta is a near-identical restatement of the same tenfold
Page 265–267 AN 10.155–10.166: Individuals Worth Associating With The Buddha teaches that one should not associate with, frequent, pay homage to, venerate, praise, respect, or revere a person who embodies the ten wrong path factors, since such a person is not a success, is impure, is overcome by conceit, does not grow in wisdom, and abounds in wickedness. Conversely, one should do all of these things toward a person who embodies the ten right path factors, who succeeds, is pure, overcomes conceit, grows in wisdom, and abounds in merit. The text explicitly pres
Page 267–269 AN 10.167: The Brahmin Ceremony of Descent (ethical version) Paralleling the earlier ceremony-of-descent sutta, the brahmin Jānussoṇi again describes the brahmanical ritual of bathing, fresh grass, and worshipping the fire through the night while chanting "We descend, lord!" This time the Buddha's "noble descent" is framed not around the eightfold path factors but around the ten courses of unwholesome action: a disciple reflects that killing living creatures, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, backbiting, harsh speech, talking nonsense, covetousness, ill
Page 269–271 AN 10.168: The Noble Descent (ethical version, restated to the mendicants) The Buddha restates the ethical version of the noble descent directly to the mendicants: a noble disciple reflects that each of the ten unwholesome courses of action—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, backbiting, harsh speech, talking nonsense, covetousness, ill will, and wrong view—has a bad result in this life and beyond, and so abandons and descends from each one. This concise restatement mirrors the pattern seen earlier with the path-factor version of the same teaching.
Page 271–272 AN 10.169: With Saṅgārava — The Near Shore and Far Shore (ethical version) Saṅgārava again asks the Buddha to define the near shore and far shore, and this time the Buddha maps the ten unwholesome courses of action—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, nonsensical speech, covetousness, ill will, and wrong view—as the near shore, with their wholesome opposites as the far shore. The sutta closes with the same verses used earlier about how few people cross over to the far shore and how the astute person, renouncing sensual pleasure an
Page 272–273 AN 10.170: The Near Shore and Far Shore (ethical version, restated to the mendicants) The Buddha repeats the ethical near-shore/far-shore teaching directly to the mendicants, again identifying the ten unwholesome courses of action as the near shore and their wholesome counterparts as the far shore, closing with the familiar verses about the rarity of crossing over and the astute person's path to quenching through the awakening factors.
Page 273–274 AN 10.171: Bad Principles with Bad Results (ethical version, 1st) The Buddha teaches that killing living creatures, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, backbiting, harsh speech, talking nonsense, covetousness, ill will, and wrong view are "bad principles with bad results," while refraining from each of these ten and cultivating their positive counterparts (including contentment, good will, and right view) constitutes "good principles with good results." This mirrors the earlier bad-principles teaching but grounds it in basic ethical conduct rather than
Page 274–275 AN 10.172: Bad Principles (2nd, ethical version) — Approaching Mahākaccāna As in the earlier episode with Ānanda, the Buddha gives a brief, unexplained summary statement on bad and good principles and results—this time concerning the ten courses of action—and then retires to his dwelling without elaborating. The mendicants, left puzzled, recall that Venerable Mahākaccāna is praised by the Buddha and capable of explaining such teachings in detail, and decide to go ask him rather than return to the Buddha. The text breaks off as the mendicants approach Mahākaccāna and ex
Page 276–281 Mahākaccāna Explains the Buddha's Summary on Good and Bad Principles A group of mendicants who failed to ask the Buddha to explain a brief teaching he gave before retiring seek out Venerable Mahākaccāna instead. He first rebukes them with the simile of a person seeking heartwood who bypasses the roots and trunk of a great tree to search the branches and leaves in vain, saying they should have asked the Buddha himself. Pressed further, he agrees to explain, unpacking "bad principles and good principles, bad results and good results" as the ten courses of unskillfu
Page 281–282 Bad Principles and Good Principles (3rd) The Buddha himself directly teaches the same ethical framework just explained by Mahākaccāna, without an intermediary this time. He restates that mendicants should know bad principles, good principles, bad results, and good results, then walks through the identical list of ten unskillful courses of action and their skillful opposites, showing the bad or good qualities each produces. The teaching functions as a plain restatement in the Teacher's own voice of the framework already unpacked in the
Page 282–283 Sources of Deeds The Buddha teaches that each of the ten unskillful actions - killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, backbiting, harsh speech, idle chatter, covetousness, ill will, and wrong view - is threefold in its origin, caused by greed, hatred, or delusion. He concludes that greed, hatred, and delusion are therefore the true "sources and origins" of unwholesome deeds, and that when these three roots end, the deeds themselves cease to arise. This locates the deepest cause of unethical behavior not in
Page 283 The Bypass A very brief teaching stating that the Buddha's teaching offers a genuine escape route from each of the ten unskillful actions: refraining from killing bypasses killing, not stealing bypasses stealing, refraining from sexual misconduct bypasses sexual misconduct, and so on through lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter, covetousness, ill will, and wrong view. The point is that the Dhamma is not merely a diagnosis of unwholesome behavior but a practical way out of it, matched item for
Page 283–290 With Cunda: True Purity Versus Ritual Purity Cunda the smith visits the Buddha and describes the ritual purification taught by western brahmins - stroking earth, cow dung, or grass on rising, tending the sacred flame, revering the sun, and bathing in water three times a day. The Buddha contrasts this with "purity in the training of the Noble One," defining impurity and purity as threefold in body, fourfold in speech, and threefold in mind through the same ten courses of unskillful and skillful action, describing each in vivid behavioral de
Page 290–295 With Jānussoṇi: Do Gifts for the Dead Actually Help? The brahmin Jānussoṇi asks the Buddha whether gifts and memorial offerings made for departed relatives truly reach and benefit them. The Buddha explains it depends entirely on where the deceased has been reborn: offerings can only aid relatives reborn as ghosts, who survive partly on food given by living kin, whereas those reborn in hell, as animals, as humans, or as gods each survive on the food proper to that realm and cannot be reached by the gift. He reassures Jānussoṇi that giving is never
Page 295–302 Twenty-One Ways of Naming the Same Ten Good and Bad Qualities A long run of short, tightly formulaic paired teachings (Numbered Discourses 10.178 through 10.198) in which the Buddha repeatedly presents the identical set of ten unskillful qualities against their ten skillful opposites, simply relabeling the pair each time: "good" versus "not good," the teaching versus non-teaching "of the noble ones," "skillful" versus "unskillful," "beneficial" versus "harmful," "defiled" versus "undefiled," "blameworthy" versus "blameless," "mortifying" versus "unmortifyi
Page 302–304 How the Ten Qualities Determine How a Person Should Be Treated Another peyyāla-style series (Numbered Discourses 10.199-210) applies the same ten bad and ten good qualities to how one should relate to other people. The Buddha states in turn that one should not associate with, frequent, pay homage to, venerate, praise, revere, or defer to a person who has the ten bad qualities, and should do all of these toward someone with the ten good qualities; likewise, possession of the ten qualities determines whether a person counts as a "success," is "pure," has "won
Page 304–308 Heaven and Hell (1st): The Full Ten Qualities in Detail This sutta gives the fullest, unabbreviated statement of the ten-quality ethical framework applied directly to rebirth. It describes in vivid detail each of the ten unskillful qualities - being "violent, bloody-handed, a hardened killer," stealing with intent, sexual misconduct against protected women, lying under oath, backbiting, harsh speech, idle chatter, covetousness, malicious intent, and wrong view (denying karma, rebirth, and the value of spiritual practice) - declaring that someone with
Page 308–309 Abbreviated Repeats: Heaven and Hell for a Lady, a Laywoman, and Self-Assurance A cluster of short, heavily abbreviated repeats of the preceding "heaven and hell" teaching, using ellipsis to skip the detailed descriptions already given in full. The pattern is restated once more in general form, then specifically for "a lady" and "a laywoman," and finally reframed to ask whether a laywoman living at home is inwardly "self-assured" or not. In each case, possession of the same ten bad or ten good qualities is what decides the outcome - whether that outcome is rebirth in hell o
Page 309–313 Creepy Creatures: Deeds as the Womb of Rebirth The Buddha teaches that "sentient beings are the owners of their deeds and heir to their deeds," using the striking image of "creepy" or crooked conduct. Someone who acts crookedly in body, speech, and mind through the ten unskillful actions is said to be reborn either in an intensely painful hell or among "creepy" animals that slink away at the sight of humans - snakes, scorpions, centipedes, mongooses, cats, mice, and owls. By contrast, someone whose conduct is upright and virtuous through the
Page 313–321 Intentional Deeds Must Be Experienced (1st and 2nd) The Buddha declares that intentional deeds, once performed and accumulated, cannot simply be eliminated without being experienced - their result must ripen sometime, whether in this life, the next, or some later existence, and there can be no ending of suffering without working through them. He details the three bodily, four verbal, and three mental "corruptions and failures" that make up the ten unskillful actions, comparing their certain result in a bad rebirth to throwing "sure-bet dice" that
Page 321–323 The Body Born of Deeds: Heart's Release by Love and Equanimity After restating that intentional deeds must inevitably be experienced, the teaching turns to describe how a noble disciple, free of desire and ill will, meditates spreading a boundless heart of love (and likewise compassion, rejoicing, and equanimity) in all directions until it fills the whole world without limit. The Buddha uses the example of a child who develops this "heart's release by love" from earliest childhood to argue that such a mind, being so vast and well-developed, has no room left
Page 323–325 Unprincipled and Principled Conduct A brahmin asks the Buddha why some beings, after death, are reborn in hell, the underworld, or a bad place, while others are reborn in heaven. The Buddha answers simply: unprincipled and immoral conduct causes the former, and principled and moral conduct the latter. Pressed to explain the detailed meaning, he again unpacks these two general terms into the familiar threefold-bodily, fourfold-verbal, threefold-mental structure built from the same ten courses of unskillful and skillful action. Sati
Page 325–330 Ten, Twenty, Thirty, and Forty Qualities: Compounding Culpability A final peyyāla-style run (Numbered Discourses 10.221-224) restates the ten bad and ten good qualities that place a person in hell or heaven, but now scales the teaching up in stages. With ten qualities the basic list of unskillful or skillful actions applies as before; with twenty qualities, encouraging others to do the same things is added; with thirty, approving of others doing them is added; and with forty, praising these things is added on top. The escalating structure makes the point that
Page 332–334 Closing Peyyāla Series of the Tens: Qualities, Perceptions, and the Uprooting of Greed and Other Defilements This is the formulaic closing run of the Book of the Tens, made up of terse repetition-texts (peyyāla) rather than fully written-out discourses. It cycles briefly through sets of ten, twenty, thirty, and forty qualities that determine whether someone is reborn broken and damaged or intact and unscathed, in hell or in heaven, and how a fool versus an astute person is recognized. It then launches into a vast mechanical series titled "Abbreviated Texts Beginning With Greed": for insight into and co
Page 334–336 What's the Goal? (11.1) Ānanda asks the Buddha what the point of ethical conduct actually is, and the Buddha answers with a chain of causation: freedom from regret is the benefit of ethics, joy is the benefit of freedom from regret, and from joy comes rapture, from rapture tranquility, from tranquility bliss, from bliss immersion (samādhi), from immersion true knowledge and vision, from that disillusionment, from disillusionment dispassion, and from dispassion the knowledge and vision of freedom itself. Each link is dr
Page 336–338 Making a Wish (11.2) The Buddha restates the same eleven-link chain from the previous sutta — ethics, freedom from regret, joy, rapture, tranquility, bliss, immersion, true knowledge and vision, disillusionment, dispassion, and freedom — but reframes it as something that unfolds spontaneously rather than something to be wished for. An ethical person need not wish "may I have no regrets," because freedom from regret naturally follows from ethical conduct, and in the same way each subsequent stage arises naturally fro
Page 338–339 Vital Conditions, 1st (11.3) The Buddha describes the same eleven-factor chain in reverse, showing what is destroyed when a prior link is missing: an unethical person destroys the vital condition for freedom from regret, one who then has regrets destroys the condition for joy, and so on up through dispassion and the knowledge and vision of freedom. He illustrates this with the simile of a tree that lacks branches and foliage, whose shoots, bark, softwood, and heartwood cannot grow to fullness. The Buddha then gives the posi
Page 339–341 Vital Conditions, 2nd (11.4) Here it is Venerable Sāriputta, rather than the Buddha, who addresses the assembled mendicants and delivers the identical elevenfold teaching on vital conditions — how lacking ethics destroys the condition for freedom from regret and so on up the chain to knowledge and vision of freedom, and conversely how fulfilling ethics fulfills each condition in turn. He uses the same withered-tree and flourishing-tree similes as before. The sutta shows that this teaching was not unique to the Buddha but co
Page 341–342 Vital Conditions, 3rd (11.5) This time it is Venerable Ānanda who addresses the mendicants and repeats the same elevenfold chain of vital conditions and the same two tree similes — the branchless tree that cannot mature, and the leafy tree that grows to fullness. As with the Sāriputta version, the sutta demonstrates that leading disciples besides the Buddha himself can expound this core teaching accurately and completely. The threefold repetition across Buddha, Sāriputta, and Ānanda reinforces the teaching's importance with
Page 342–343 Disasters (11.6) The Buddha warns that any mendicant who abuses and insults fellow renunciants, denouncing noble ones, will inevitably fall into one of eleven disasters: failing to achieve what has not yet been achieved, losing what has already been achieved, never refining their good qualities, overestimating their qualities, living the spiritual life in dissatisfaction, committing a serious offense, disrobing to return to lay life, falling severely ill, going mad, dying with a troubled mind, and being reborn i
Page 343–346 Percipient (11.7) Ānanda asks the Buddha whether a mendicant could attain a state of immersion so total that they no longer perceive earth, water, fire, or air as such, nor any of the formless dimensions, nor this world or the other world, nor anything seen, heard, thought, or known — and yet still be percipient. The Buddha confirms it is possible: such a state arises when a mendicant perceives only that "this is peaceful, this is sublime — the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the en
Page 346–348 Focus (11.8) Ānanda asks a closely related question: can a mendicant attain an immersion in which the mind no longer focuses on the six sense fields, the four elements, the formless dimensions, this world or the other world, or anything cognized — yet the mind still remains focused on something? The Buddha again confirms this is achieved when the mendicant's focus rests solely on the peaceful and sublime nature of nibbāna: the stilling of all activities, the ending of craving, cessation. The sutta is essenti
Page 348–352 With Sandha (11.9) Staying at Ñātika, the Buddha instructs Venerable Sandha to "meditate like a thoroughbred, not like a wild colt." A wild colt tied at the feeding trough thinks only of fodder, just as an unskilled meditator sits in the forest still absorbed in sensual desire, ill will, dullness, restlessness, or doubt, and meditates dependently — clinging to the elements, the formless spheres, this or the other world, and to what is seen, heard, or thought. A fine thoroughbred, by contrast, doesn't think of fodd
Page 352–354 At the Peacocks' Feeding Ground (11.10) Staying near Rājagaha, the Buddha declares that a mendicant reaches the ultimate goal and becomes best among gods and humans through several different triads: the complete range of an adept's ethics, immersion, and wisdom; or the three demonstrations of psychic power, mind-reading, and instruction; or right view, right knowledge, and right freedom. He adds a final pair — knowledge and conduct — quoting the divinity Sanaṅkumāra's verse that "the aristocrat is best among people who take clan as th
Page 354–360 With Mahānāma, 1st (11.11) Mahānāma the Sakyan, hearing that the Buddha is about to depart Kapilavatthu once his robe is finished, asks how a layperson should live given the many possible ways of practice. The Buddha first names five foundational qualities — faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom — and then teaches six recollections to be developed on that base: recollecting the Buddha's virtues, the well-explained teaching, the well-practicing Saṅgha, one's own intact ethical conduct, one's own generosity, and
Page 360–362 With Mahānāma, 2nd (11.12) In a near-identical follow-up, set after Mahānāma has recovered from an illness, the Buddha again teaches him the same five foundational qualities and six recollections — of the Buddha, the teaching, the Saṅgha, one's ethics, one's generosity, and the deities. The key addition here is the Buddha's instruction that these recollections should be practiced continuously in every posture and situation: "while walking, standing, sitting, lying down, while working, and while at home with your children.
Page 362–365 With Nandiya (11.13) The Sakyan layman Nandiya, who moves to Sāvatthī to stay close to the Buddha, asks the same question about how to live given the many kinds of practice. The Buddha gives six foundational qualities (adding ethics to the earlier five) and then five internal mindfulness practices to establish on that base: recollecting the Buddha, the teaching, one's good friends, and one's own generosity, plus recollecting the mind-made deities who, like an irreversibly freed mendicant, see nothing further that ne
Page 365–370 With Subhūti (11.14) Venerable Subhūti brings a newly ordained mendicant named Saddha to the Buddha and asks him to explain the outward evidences of genuine faith so he can judge whether Saddha exhibits them. The Buddha lists eleven marks of a person's faith made visible in conduct and attainment: being ethical, being learned in the teachings, having good friends, being easy to admonish, being diligent and skilled in communal duties, loving the Dhamma, being energetic, mastering the four absorptions, recollecting on
Page 370–371 The Benefits of Love (11.15) The Buddha teaches that cultivating and consolidating the heart's release through loving-kindness (mettā) yields eleven concrete benefits: one sleeps at ease, wakes happily, has no bad dreams, is loved by humans and non-humans alike, is protected by deities, cannot be harmed by fire, poison, or blade, has a mind that settles quickly into immersion, has a clear and bright complexion, dies with an untroubled mind, and — if no higher attainment is reached — is reborn in a heavenly realm of Brahmā.
Page 371–376 The Wealthy Citizen: The Eleven Doors to the Deathless (11.16, part 1) The wealthy householder Dasama travels to see Venerable Ānanda and asks whether there is a single teaching, rightly explained by the Buddha, that leads a diligent mendicant all the way to liberation. Ānanda answers that there is not one but eleven such "doors": each of the four absorptions (jhānas), each of the four divine abodes (love, compassion, rejoicing, and equanimity radiated boundlessly to the whole world), and each of the three formless attainments (infinite space, infinite consciousnes
Page 376–377 The Wealthy Citizen: Dasama's Gratitude (11.16, part 2) Overjoyed at Ānanda's answer, Dasama compares his discovery of the eleven doors to freedom from death to stumbling upon eleven entrances to a treasure trove, or to a burning house with eleven doors through any of which one could escape to safety. Noting that other religious teachers charge a fee for such instruction, he insists on making an offering to Ānanda in gratitude. He then assembles and personally feeds the entire Saṅgha of Vesālī and Pāṭaliputta, clothes every mendicant with a pair of r
Page 377–381 The Cowherd: Eleven Failings (11.17, part 1) The Buddha compares a mendicant who cannot flourish in the training to an incompetent cowherd who lacks eleven skills: not knowing form (the four elements and what derives from them), not recognizing character through deeds, not weeding out arising unwholesome thoughts ("not picking out flies' eggs"), not guarding the sense doors ("not dressing wounds"), not teaching the Dhamma to others ("not spreading smoke"), not consulting learned elders to resolve doubts ("not knowing the ford"), finding no
Page 381–384 The Cowherd: Eleven Strengths (11.17, part 2) The Buddha then gives the positive mirror image: a mendicant who can achieve growth and maturity in the training is like a skilled cowherd who possesses all eleven abilities — knowing form, discerning character through deeds, promptly abandoning unwholesome thoughts, guarding the six sense doors, teaching the Dhamma fully to others, consulting elders to resolve doubts, finding genuine joy and inspiration in the teaching, understanding the eightfold path, mastering the four establishments of mind
Page 384–385 Immersion, 1st (11.18) A group of mendicants ask the Buddha the same question Ānanda asked earlier: can a mendicant gain an immersion so complete that they no longer perceive earth, water, fire, air, the formless dimensions, this world, the other world, or anything seen, heard, thought, or known — and yet still perceive? The Buddha confirms it, explaining again that this occurs when the mendicant's perception rests solely on "this is peaceful, this is sublime" — the stilling of all activities and the ending of craving
Page 385–387 Immersion, 2nd (11.19) The Buddha again poses the same question to the assembled mendicants about the extraordinary state of perception-without-perceiving-objects, and this time the mendicants themselves ask him to clarify it directly rather than working it out. He confirms that such an immersion is indeed possible and explains it once more through the same formula — perceiving only the peaceful, sublime cessation of all conditioned activity. The repeated restatement across three consecutive suttas (11.7, 11.18, 11.19
Page 387 Immersion, 3rd (11.20, opening) A group of mendicants approach Venerable Sāriputta directly, exchange the customary greetings, and sit down to ask him a question — the text breaks off here at the end of this excerpt, evidently about to pose the same question on perception-without-perceiving that has structured the three preceding suttas. This final sutta appears set to complete the pattern by seeking Sāriputta's own confirmation and explanation, paralleling how Sāriputta separately corroborated Ānanda's account of the Buddha's
Page 388–390 The Formless State of Immersion Beyond All Perception This group of near-identical discourses (framed first as a question put to the Buddha, then repeated as Sāriputta's teaching to a group of mendicants) describes an extraordinary meditative attainment: a state of immersion so refined that the meditator no longer perceives the elements of earth, water, fire, or air, the formless spheres, this world or the next, or anything seen, heard, sensed, or known - and yet perception has not ceased altogether. The puzzle posed is how perception can still be
Page 391–392 The Cowherd Simile Applied Across the Six Senses (AN 11.30–982) This long, highly formulaic series uses the image of an incompetent cowherd - one who cannot recognize his cattle, tend their wounds, find fords and pastures, or otherwise manage a herd - to represent a mendicant who lacks the eleven qualities needed to meditate on impermanence, suffering, not-self, ending, vanishing, fading away, cessation, and letting go. The same elevenfold template is then mechanically cycled through every facet of sensory experience: the six sense faculties (eye, ear, nose,
Page 393 Eleven Qualities for Overcoming Greed, Hatred and Other Defilements, and the Closing of the Elevens This closing chapter teaches that eleven qualities - the four absorptions (jhānas), the four boundless qualities of love, compassion, rejoicing, and equanimity, and the three formless attainments of infinite space, infinite consciousness, and nothingness - should be developed for insight into greed. The same elevenfold set is then said to bring about the complete understanding, complete ending, giving up, vanishing, fading away, cessation, and final letting go of greed, and the whole formula is