Minor Texts: Khuddakapāṭha, Dhammapada, Udāna, Itivuttaka, Suttanipāta

ฉบับแปลอังกฤษ · Sutta Piṭaka — The Basket of Discourses · Volume 25 · 535 pages

Summarized by AI from the full volume (302 topics) — click to jump to where each topic begins.

Page 1 Khuddakapāṭha 1: The Three Refuges This brief opening passage is the ritual formula by which a Buddhist formally commits to the path, declaring reliance on the Buddha as teacher, the Dhamma as teaching, and the Saṅgha as spiritual community. The formula is repeated three times, a traditional method of solemn affirmation used to mark ordination or the start of any devotional practice. It functions less as doctrine than as an act of orientation, establishing where one turns for guidance and support in facing life's difficulties.
Page 1–2 Khuddakapāṭha 2: The Ten Precepts This passage lists the ten ethical training rules undertaken by novice monastics, extending beyond the five precepts kept by lay Buddhists. They cover not harming living beings, not stealing, celibacy, truthful speech, and avoiding intoxicants, plus renunciant-specific restraints such as not eating after midday, avoiding entertainment and self-adornment, not using luxurious beds, and not handling money. Together they outline a disciplined lifestyle meant to reduce distraction and strengthen the
Page 2 Khuddakapāṭha 3: The Thirty-Two Parts of the Body This short meditation text is simply an inventory of bodily components — hair, nails, skin, organs, and fluids — recited as an object of contemplation. Reflecting on the body part by part is a classical practice for undercutting vanity, lust, and attachment to physical appearance by revealing the body's plain, unglamorous constituents. It is meant to cultivate dispassion and a realistic view of the body rather than disgust for its own sake.
Page 2–3 Khuddakapāṭha 4: The Boy's Questions Structured as a catechism running from one to ten, this piece pairs each number with a core Buddhist teaching, such as "one" being the food that sustains all beings, "four" being the four noble truths, and "eight" being the noble eightfold path. It is a mnemonic device likely used to instruct young novices, compressing major doctrinal categories into a memorable numerical sequence. The playful question-and-answer format makes foundational teachings easy to recall and recite.
Page 3–4 Khuddakapāṭha 5: Blessings (Maṅgala Sutta) A radiant deity visits the Buddha at night and asks him to declare the highest blessing, prompting a long list of qualities and conditions that constitute a genuinely auspicious life. Rather than lucky charms or omens, the blessings named are ethical and practical: avoiding bad company, honoring parents, right livelihood, generosity, patience, contentment, and ultimately realizing the truths that free the mind from worldly turbulence. The sutta redefines a blessing as the cultivation of virtue a
Page 4–9 Khuddakapāṭha 6: Gems (Ratana Sutta) This protective chant invites all beings, human and non-human, to listen and be at peace, then praises the three gems — the Buddha, his teaching, and the community of awakened disciples — as unequaled treasures whose truth brings safety and well-being. Each verse ends with the refrain that by this truth, may you be well, turning descriptions of the qualities of enlightened beings into a blessing formula. It describes the spiritual attainments of those who have seen the truth, their freedom from
Page 9–11 Khuddakapāṭha 7: Outside the Walls (Tirokuḍḍa Kaṇḍa) This text addresses the traditional practice of dedicating merit to deceased relatives reborn as hungry ghosts, imagined waiting outside the walls of their old homes for offerings that never come because the living have forgotten them. It urges people to give food and gifts to the Saṅgha on behalf of their dead kin, explaining that such ghosts cannot farm or trade but instead depend entirely on merit transferred by living relatives. The passage frames memorial giving as both a compassionate duty
Page 11–13 Khuddakapāṭha 8: A Treasure Trove (Nidhikaṇḍa Sutta) Using the image of a person burying savings for emergencies, this text points out that buried wealth can always be lost — stolen, forgotten, seized by rulers, or swept away — and offers no true security. It contrasts this with an inner treasure built through generosity, ethical conduct, and self-restraint, which cannot be stolen and follows a person even after death. This spiritual treasure is said to yield everything from good looks and leadership in this life to liberation itself, making merit
Page 13–14 Khuddakapāṭha 9: The Discourse on Love (Mettā Sutta) This closing piece of the Khuddakapāṭha teaches loving-kindness as both an ethical stance and a meditation practice, describing the character of one who wishes to attain peace: capable, honest, gentle, content, and free of resentment. It calls for extending goodwill to all living creatures without exception — weak or strong, seen or unseen, born or yet to be born — comparing this care to a mother's protective love for her only child. The meditator is instructed to radiate this boundless, unobstr
Page 14–17 Dhammapada 1: The Pairs This opening chapter states the famous teaching that the mind precedes and shapes all things: acting from a corrupted mind brings suffering as inevitably as a cart wheel follows the ox, while acting from a pure mind brings happiness like an inseparable shadow. The chapter examines opposed pairs of attitudes — holding grudges versus letting them go, hatred answered by hatred versus by love, moderation versus indulgence — showing how mental disposition determines outcome. It closes by contrasting
Page 17–19 Dhammapada 2: Diligence This chapter praises heedfulness as the foundation of the entire spiritual path, equating negligence with a kind of living death and vigilance with the deathless. It repeatedly urges building an island of diligence and self-control that floods of trouble cannot overwhelm, contrasting the fool who drifts into carelessness with the wise who guard diligence as their greatest treasure. Vivid images — a mendicant advancing like fire burning up fetters, a sage standing on a mountaintop surveying fools
Page 19–20 Dhammapada 3: The Mind This chapter focuses on the volatile, hard-to-control nature of the untrained mind, comparing it to a fish flopping out of water. It teaches that taming this restless mind is the decisive spiritual task, since a disciplined mind leads to happiness while an unrestrained one causes more harm than any enemy could. Using images like fortifying a citadel and attacking with the sword of wisdom, the verses frame inner mental discipline as both a battle and a source of protection, concluding that a well
Page 20–22 Dhammapada 4: Flowers Built around the image of a person gathering flowers, this chapter uses the flower and its fragrance as an extended metaphor for spiritual practice. Just as an expert arranges flowers skillfully, a trainee on the path arranges wholesome qualities; but just as a flood sweeps away a sleeping village, death can suddenly claim someone absorbed in sensual pleasure. The famous image of a fragrant lotus blooming from a rubbish heap illustrates how a wise disciple can arise even from an unpromising back
Page 22–24 Dhammapada 5: The Fool This chapter contrasts the fool — someone who claims ownership over things they cannot truly possess, delights in wrongdoing before it ripens into suffering, and craves status and recognition — with those who reflect honestly on their own conduct. It notes that even a fool who recognizes their own foolishness is wiser than one who mistakenly believes they are wise, and that prolonged contact with wisdom teaches nothing to a fool who does not absorb it, like a spoon that never tastes the soup it
Page 24–26 Dhammapada 6: The Astute Here the discerning person is described through their relationships and inner steadiness: seeking out those who point out one's faults as a guide to hidden treasure, avoiding bad company, and remaining unmoved by praise or blame like solid rock in the wind. The chapter compares self-discipline to the skilled work of irrigators, fletchers, and carpenters who bend and guide their materials, suggesting that wisdom is likewise cultivated through deliberate shaping of oneself. It closes by describing
Page 26–28 Dhammapada 7: The Perfected Ones This chapter portrays the arahant, one who has completed the path, as someone untraceable and untroubled — free from sorrow, unattached to any home, and as hard to track as a bird's path through the sky. Recurring imagery of birds, swans, and the earth conveys a being who moves through life without leaving grasping traces behind, having abandoned conceit and defilement the way a swan leaves a marsh. The chapter emphasizes that such perfected beings are content and at peace wherever they dwell, e
Page 28–30 Dhammapada 8: The Thousands This chapter argues, through a repeated formula, that quality of understanding vastly outweighs quantity: a single meaningful word that brings peace is worth more than a thousand meaningless ones, and conquering oneself is a greater victory than conquering a million men in battle. It extends this logic to religious practice, declaring that honoring a self-developed person for a single hour surpasses a hundred years of grand sacrifices, and that living one day with wisdom, ethics, or meditative i
Page 30–32 Dhammapada 9: Wickedness This chapter warns against underestimating small unwholesome acts, using the image of a pot slowly filling drop by drop to show how minor wrongdoing accumulates into serious harm over time, just as goodness likewise accumulates through repeated small good deeds. It counsels immediate correction of misdeeds rather than repetition, and reassures that harm done to a pure, blameless person rebounds on the wrongdoer like dust thrown against the wind. The chapter closes by stating plainly that there i
Page 32–34 Dhammapada 10: The Rod Taking corporal punishment and violence as its central image, this chapter appeals to a basic principle of empathy: since all beings tremble at violence and fear death just as oneself does, one should never harm or incite harm against another. It catalogs the concrete calamities — illness, loss of wealth, family breakdown, rebirth in hell — that befall someone who attacks the peaceful and innocent, while praising the person who is genuinely restrained in body, speech, and mind rather than merely
Page 34–35 Dhammapada 11: Old Age This chapter meditates on bodily decay and mortality, describing the body as a fancy puppet full of sores, a decrepit nest of disease that will eventually be discarded like a worthless log. Its most celebrated verses depict the Buddha's own moment of awakening, addressing craving personified as a house-builder whose rafters are broken and roof dismantled, meaning the mind will never again be compelled to construct a new existence. The chapter also laments those who fail to build either wealth or
Page 35–37 Dhammapada 12: The Self This chapter emphasizes personal responsibility, teaching that one must first master and steady oneself before presuming to guide or instruct others, since the self is famously difficult to tame. It states that one is one's own protector and refuge, since no one else could take that role, and that both corruption and purification are entirely self-generated, meaning no one else can purify another person on their behalf. The chapter closes with practical advice to prioritize one's own genuine spi
Page 37–39 Dhammapada 13: The World This chapter urges the reader to view worldly existence with clear-eyed detachment, likening it to a bubble, a mirage, or a showy royal chariot that dazzles fools while the wise remain unattached. It contrasts negligence with heedfulness through the image of someone once careless who turns toward diligence and shines like the moon freed from clouds, and notes that only a rare few — like a bird escaping a net — manage to rise above the world's blindness toward truth. It ends by ranking spiritual
Page 39–41 Dhammapada 14: The Buddhas This chapter celebrates the rarity and significance of a Buddha's awakening, describing the enlightened one as leaving no traceable track because he is free of the craving and clinging that bind ordinary beings to the cycle of rebirth. Its most iconic verses summarize the essence of the teaching in three lines — avoid all evil, cultivate the good, purify the mind — presented as the common instruction of all Buddhas across time. The chapter also contrasts false refuges, such as fearfully fleeing
Page 41–43 Dhammapada 15: Happiness Through a repeated refrain about living happily, this chapter describes how genuine contentment can be cultivated even amid hostility, illness, or greed by refusing to mirror those negative states in oneself. It contrasts the restless anxiety of victory and defeat with the ease of the peaceful person who has let go of both, and identifies health, contentment, and trustworthy relationships as the truest forms of wealth, with the cessation of craving as the highest happiness of all. The chapter al
Page 43–44 Dhammapada 16: The Beloved This chapter examines the suffering that comes from emotional attachment, teaching that sorrow and fear arise specifically from what we hold dear, from craving, and from clinging — and that freedom from these attachments removes the basis for sorrow and fear altogether. It advises against growing too close to people or things one likes or dislikes, since losing what is loved causes pain just as encountering what is disliked does. The chapter closes on a warmer note, comparing the joyful welcome
Page 44–46 Dhammapada 17: Anger This chapter offers practical counsel for handling anger and criticism, recommending that one meet anger with kindness, dishonesty with truth, and stinginess with generosity, likening a person who restrains surging anger to a skilled charioteer holding the reins. It offers the consoling observation that no one, however virtuous, escapes both praise and blame in this world, so criticism should not be taken as proof of failure. The chapter urges disciplined conduct in body, speech, and mind as the
Page 46–49 Dhammapada 18: Stains This chapter uses the metaphor of stains or impurities to describe faults that corrode different areas of life — neglect ruins a house, laziness ruins beauty, stinginess mars a giver — while declaring that ignorance is the worst stain of all, the one underlying and enabling the rest. It opens with a stark meditation on aging and death, urging the listener, imagined as withering like a dried leaf on the verge of death, to purify themselves before it is too late. The chapter also cautions against
Page 49–51 Dhammapada 19: The Just This chapter redefines several honorific titles — the just, the astute, the learned, the elder, the holy one, the ascetic, the mendicant, the sage, the noble one — not by outward markers like grey hair, shaved heads, or much recitation, but by genuine inner qualities such as impartial judgment, truthfulness, restraint, and the elimination of greed and vice. Each verse debunks a superficial marker of status before redefining the title in terms of authentic character and conduct. The chapter close
Page 51–53 Dhammapada 20: The Path This chapter presents the noble eightfold path as the singular, indispensable route to purification, declaring there is no other way to end suffering and that practitioners themselves must walk it, since Buddhas can only point the way. Its core teaching is the three marks of existence — that all conditioned things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self — which, when seen clearly with wisdom, produce the disillusionment that leads to liberation. The chapter also stresses that wisdom depend
Page 53–55 Dhammapada 21: Miscellaneous This chapter gathers varied teachings that don't fit neatly under one heading, including the principle that giving up a lesser happiness for a greater one is worthwhile, and that seeking one's own happiness by causing others suffering only entrenches hostility. Its most striking verses use paradoxical, provocative imagery — slaying mother, father, and other family members — as coded language for eradicating craving, conceit, and other mental fetters personified as relatives, after which the awak
Page 55 Dhammapada 22: Hell (opening) Only the opening two verses of this chapter appear before the excerpt breaks off: the statement that a liar and someone who denies their own misdeeds are equally headed for a bad rebirth, and a warning that many who wear the ochre robe of a renunciant are nonetheless unrestrained and will be reborn in hell for their bad deeds. Since the chapter is truncated at the end of this excerpt, only its opening theme is established here — that outward religious appearance offers no protection against the
Page 56–57 Dhammapada 22: Hell (continued) This closing portion of the Hell chapter warns that immorality and self-indulgence lead to terrible suffering, using the vivid image that it would be better to swallow a red-hot iron ball than to consume alms one hasn't earned through virtue. It condemns adultery as inviting scandal, sleeplessness, and rebirth in hell, and compares carelessly grasping the ascetic life to grasping sharp kusa grass, which cuts the hand of anyone insincere about it. The verses press the point that laxity in monasti
Page 57–59 Dhammapada 23: Elephants This chapter uses the disciplined war elephant as an extended metaphor for the trained mind and character. Just as a battle elephant endures arrows without breaking, the practitioner is urged to endure abuse and unkindness without retaliating, since a tamed being who bears hardship patiently is superior even to the finest thoroughbred or royal tusker. It praises solitude, warning that companionship with fools is worse than walking alone, and uses the runaway elephant Dhanapāla, restless in capti
Page 60–64 Dhammapada 24: Craving This chapter diagnoses craving as the root of ongoing suffering and rebirth, likening it to a creeping vine that strangles anyone who lives heedlessly, or to grass that regrows however many times it is cut unless its root is pulled out entirely. It describes people driven by thirst as trapped rabbits, unable to break free even when they think they have escaped, always running back to the very entanglements they fled. The verses call for cutting craving at its root with wisdom, noting that attach
Page 64–67 Dhammapada 25: Mendicants This chapter sets out an ideal of mendicant life built on sense-restraint, guarding eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, speech, and mind, as the foundation of freedom from suffering. It praises mendicants who delight in and reflect on the teaching, who remain content whether well-supported or poor in material offerings, and who feel no envy toward more fortunate companions. Several vivid images recur: bailing out a leaking boat to lighten it for the crossing, not heedlessly swallowing a red-hot iron b
Page 67–71 Dhammapada 26: Brahmins The final and longest chapter of the Dhammapada redefines what makes someone a true "brahmin": not birth, caste, matted hair, or ritual purity, but inner qualities. Through a long repeated refrain, "that's who I declare a brahmin," it credits the title instead to those who have cut off craving and fetters, given up violence and grasping, remain patient under abuse, speak only true and inoffensive words, and have reached the end of suffering through their own insight. It criticizes ascetics who c
Page 73–74 Udāna 1.1: Upon Awakening (1st) This opens the Udāna (Heartfelt Sayings) with the Buddha still seated at the root of the tree of awakening in Uruvelā, seven days after his enlightenment, absorbed in the bliss of liberation. In the first watch of the night he reflects forward through the chain of dependent origination, tracing how ignorance conditions choices, which condition consciousness, and so on down to the arising of the whole mass of suffering. His resulting heartfelt utterance praises how doubts dissolve for a meditatin
Page 74–75 Udāna 1.2: Upon Awakening (2nd) Continuing the same seven-day period after his awakening, the Buddha now reflects on dependent origination in reverse, in the second watch of the night, tracing how the cessation of ignorance leads step by step to the cessation of the entire mass of suffering. The formulaic passage mirrors the previous sutta but flips forward causation into a chain of ending. His heartfelt saying again praises the meditating brahmin whose doubts are dispelled, this time because he has directly known the ending o
Page 75–76 Udāna 1.3: Upon Awakening (3rd) In the last watch of the same awakening night, the Buddha contemplates dependent origination both forward and backward together, seeing clearly how suffering arises through causal conditions and how it ceases when those same conditions cease without residue. This synthesis of the previous two nights' reflections represents a complete grasp of causality in both directions. His heartfelt saying describes the result poetically: the meditating brahmin who understands this scatters Māra's army, shini
Page 76–77 Udāna 1.4: The Mystic Syllable Huṁ Still in the days following his awakening, now at the goatherd's banyan tree, the Buddha is approached by a brahmin who ritually murmurs the mystic syllable "huṁ, huṁ." The brahmin asks the Buddha directly how he defines a true brahmin and what qualities make one worthy of the name. The Buddha's heartfelt reply rejects the ritual utterance as meaningless, declaring that a real brahmin is one who has banished bad qualities, remains unstained and self-controlled, has mastered true knowledge, and c
Page 77–78 Udāna 1.5: The Brahmin A group of the Buddha's most senior monastic disciples, including Sāriputta, Mahāmoggallāna, and Mahākassapa, approach him at Jeta's Grove, and the Buddha announces to the assembly, "These are brahmins coming!" A monk who was born a brahmin asks what qualifies someone for that title. The Buddha's heartfelt saying answers that true brahmins are simply those who have banished bad qualities, live in constant mindfulness, and have brought an end to the fetters that bind beings to rebirth, reinforcin
Page 78 Udāna 1.6: With Mahākassapa After recovering from a serious illness, the elder monk Mahākassapa, known for his austere practice, declines an offer from five hundred eager deities to provide him alms, choosing instead to beg humbly among the poorest people of Rājagaha. The Buddha observes him doing this and is moved to praise him. His heartfelt saying honors the "stranger" who seeks nothing for himself, who is tamed and consolidated at the core, with defilements ended and flaws purged, holding up Mahākassapa's deliberate hu
Page 78–79 Udāna 1.7: At Ajakalāpaka Meditating alone outdoors at night in the rain near a shrine haunted by a local spirit, the Buddha is confronted by the spirit Ajakalāpaka, who tries to frighten him with sudden shouts, taunting him as a goblin. The Buddha remains completely unmoved by the attempted intimidation. His resulting heartfelt saying notes simply that a true brahmin who has mastered his own inner issues transcends such attempts at fear-mongering, whether from goblins or anything else, since fear has no hold on one who
Page 79–80 Udāna 1.8: With Saṅgāmaji The monk Saṅgāmaji is confronted by his former wife, who brings their young son and repeatedly begs him to take responsibility for raising the child, eventually laying the boy in front of him. Saṅgāmaji sits in complete silence, neither looking at nor speaking to the boy, prompting his former wife to conclude he doesn't want the child and to leave with him. The Buddha, observing this with clairvoyant insight, praises Saṅgāmaji's equanimity: unmoved by her arrival, ungrieved by her departure, he
Page 80–81 Udāna 1.9: Matted Hair Ascetics During a cold winter spell, the Buddha observes many ascetics with matted hair repeatedly plunging into the Gayā river and performing fire rituals, believing these practices purify them. His heartfelt saying gently corrects this assumption: purity does not come from washing in water, no matter how many people bathe there. Genuine purity, he says, belongs only to those who possess truth and moral integrity, since it is character, not ritual, that makes someone a true brahmin.
Page 81–85 Udāna 1.10: With Bāhiya This well-known story tells of Bāhiya, an ascetic who mistakenly believes he has already attained full spiritual perfection until a deity, a former relative, tells him he has not and directs him to seek out the Buddha in distant Sāvatthī. Bāhiya travels there in great urgency, catches the Buddha out on alms round, and after being turned away twice insists a third time, warning that either of their lives could end at any moment. The Buddha then gives him the famous brief teaching, "In the seen, l
Page 85–86 Udāna 2.1: With Mucalinda Still in the seven weeks following his awakening, the Buddha sits in meditation near the Mucalinda tree when an out-of-season storm rages for seven days. The serpent king Mucalinda emerges from his abode, coils protectively around the Buddha's body, and spreads his hood overhead to shield him from cold, insects, and weather, then respectfully withdraws once the skies clear. The Buddha's heartfelt saying reflects on true happiness: contentment in seclusion, kindness toward all living beings, free
Page 86–88 Udāna 2.2: Kings A group of mendicants at Jeta's Grove debate which of two kings, Bimbisāra of Magadha or Pasenadi of Kosala, possesses greater wealth and power, leaving the discussion unresolved. When the Buddha learns what they were discussing, he gently rebukes them, saying it is not fitting for those who have renounced lay life to occupy themselves with such worldly comparisons; they should instead either discuss the Dhamma or keep noble silence. His heartfelt saying then declares that not even heavenly plea
Page 88 Udāna 2.3: A Stick While walking for alms between Sāvatthī and Jeta's Grove, the Buddha comes across a group of boys tormenting a snake by hitting it with a stick. Observing this small act of cruelty, he is moved to comment on the universal wish for happiness shared by all creatures. His heartfelt saying warns that anyone who harms another being while seeking their own happiness will find no happiness after death, while those who refrain from such harm will find happiness, a simple, direct teaching on non-violence
Page 89–90 Udāna 2.4: Esteem At a time when the Buddha and his monastic community are receiving abundant honor and material support, wanderers of other religious traditions who are not similarly esteemed become resentful and begin to abuse and harass the Buddha's mendicants in both village and wilderness. When the monks report this mistreatment, the Buddha's heartfelt saying advises them not to take such pleasure and pain personally, whether experienced in village or wilderness, and not to regard it as self or other, since
Page 90 Udāna 2.5: A Lay Follower A lay follower from a distant village finally makes time, after a long absence, to visit the Buddha in Sāvatthī, explaining he had been prevented by the press of his many duties and responsibilities. The Buddha's heartfelt saying draws out the deeper point: those who have appraised the teaching and possess nothing are truly happy, while it is those bound tightly to people and possessions who remain troubled and burdened, contrasting the freedom of non-attachment with the busyness of household li
Page 91–92 Udāna 2.6: The Pregnant Woman A wanderer's pregnant wife repeatedly demands he bring oil for her delivery, and unable to find any elsewhere, he resorts to drinking his fill from a royal storehouse that gives oil away only to be consumed on the spot, planning to vomit it back up at home for her use. Once home, however, he cannot bring it up or pass it, and writhes in agonizing pain, which the Buddha observes as he passes by on alms round. The Buddha's heartfelt saying wryly observes how happy those with nothing truly are, rei
Page 92–93 Udāna 2.7: An Only Son A lay follower's only, dearly loved child has died, and he and several other grieving lay followers come to the Buddha in the middle of the day still wet from ritual bathing and mourning. The Buddha's heartfelt saying names the underlying human pattern: most gods and humans become bound to whatever seems dear, and fall under the sway of death when they lose it, gloomy and exhausted, while the diligent who let go of what seems pleasant, day and night, uproot the very source of that grief before i
Page 93–98 Udāna 2.8: Suppavāsā This extended story follows Suppavāsā, a Koliyan woman pregnant for seven years and in agonizing obstructed labor for seven days, who endures her suffering by contemplating the excellence of the Buddha, the Saṅgha, and the peace of full awakening. Her husband carries her message to the Buddha, who blesses her, and she immediately and safely gives birth to a healthy son. In gratitude she arranges to feed the entire monastic Saṅgha for seven days, requiring careful diplomacy from Mahāmoggallāna to
Page 99 Udāna 2.9: With Visākhā The prominent laywoman Visākhā comes to the Buddha visibly troubled after a piece of business with King Pasenadi did not go the way she had hoped. The Buddha's heartfelt saying generalizes her frustration into a broader truth: anything under another's control brings suffering, while what is under one's own authority is pleasing, and anything shared between two parties inevitably brings stress, since such mutual dependencies are hard to escape, a teaching on the cost of relying on others' decisio
Page 99–101 Udāna 2.10: With Bhaddiya The monk Bhaddiya, once a king, is repeatedly heard exclaiming "Oh, what bliss!" while meditating alone in the wilderness, which puzzles fellow monks into suspecting he secretly longs for his old royal luxuries. When the Buddha questions him directly, Bhaddiya explains the opposite is true: as king he was constantly guarded yet lived in fear and suspicion, whereas now, alone and materially poor, he lives relaxed and fearless, his heart as free as a wild deer. The Buddha's heartfelt saying praise
Page 101 Udāna 3.1: Born of the Fruits of Deeds A mendicant sits near the Buddha enduring severe physical pain that has arisen as the result of his own past deeds, bearing it with unwavering mindfulness and composure rather than complaint. Observing him, the Buddha's heartfelt saying honors the mendicant who has truly left all deeds behind, shaking off the dust of the past, unselfish and steady, with no need to complain about whatever arises, presenting equanimity toward the fruits of one's own kamma as a mark of spiritual maturity.
Page 103–107 Udāna 3.2: With Nanda The Buddha's own half-brother, the monk Nanda, confides to fellow mendicants that he is deeply dissatisfied with monastic life and plans to disrobe, having been unable to stop thinking about a beautiful woman he glimpsed as he left home. To free him from this infatuation, the Buddha takes Nanda by the arm and transports him to the heaven of the thirty-three gods, showing him five hundred nymphs far more beautiful than the woman he longs for, and promises them to Nanda if he stays in training, a
Page 108–112 Udāna 3.3: With Yasoja Five hundred visiting mendicants led by Yasoja arrive noisily at Sāvatthī, and the Buddha, likening the racket to fishermen hauling in a catch, dismisses them from his presence entirely as a corrective measure. Taking the rebuke to heart rather than resentfully, Yasoja leads the group to spend the rainy season retreat living diligently on the Vaggumudā riverbank, where they all attain deep realization. The Buddha later senses their spiritual progress from a distance and sends word inviting them
Page 112 Udāna 3.4: With Sāriputta The Buddha observes his chief disciple Sāriputta sitting nearby in deep meditation, body upright and mindfulness fully present. Moved by the sight, the Buddha's heartfelt saying compares Sāriputta to an unwavering, well-grounded rocky mountain: just as such a mountain does not shake, a monk in whom delusion has ended remains equally unmoved, embodying the stability that mature meditative practice produces.
Page 113 Udāna 3.5: With Mahāmoggallāna This brief episode shows Venerable Mahāmoggallāna meditating cross-legged near the Buddha with his body held straight and mindfulness of the body firmly established. The Buddha, perceiving this exemplary posture and inner state, is moved to speak an inspired verse. The verse praises the mendicant who has established mindfulness of the body, is restrained in the six sense fields, and remains constantly absorbed in meditative concentration (samādhi), declaring that such a person truly knows exting
Page 113–114 Udāna 3.6: With Pilindavaccha Venerable Pilindavaccha habitually addresses his fellow mendicants as "lowlifes," causing offense, and the Buddha summons him to investigate. Rather than condemning him, the Buddha explains that Pilindavaccha's habitual speech is not born of malice or contempt but is a residual habit carried over from five hundred consecutive past lives spent born into brahmin families, where such address was customary. The story teaches that outward speech habits can be karmic residue rather than a reflection o
Page 115–116 Udāna 3.7: Sakka's Alms for Mahākassapa After spending seven days in deep meditative absorption in the Pipphali cave, Mahākassapa emerges and, turning down the chance to receive alms from five hundred eager deities, chooses instead to walk for alms in ordinary human fashion through Rājagaha. Sakka, lord of the gods, disguises himself as a weaver and, with the titan maiden Sujā's help, contrives to offer Mahākassapa food himself, delighted at the rare chance to make merit with such a great ascetic. When Mahākassapa recognizes the ruse
Page 117–119 Udāna 3.8: One Who Eats Only Almsfood A group of mendicants, sitting together after their almsround, begin praising the practice of eating only almsfood, noting how it exposes ascetics to pleasant sights, sounds, and other experiences while alms-gathering, and wins them honor and esteem from the public. The Buddha interrupts this idle, status-oriented conversation and firmly redirects the mendicants, saying such talk is unsuitable for those who have gone forth in faith — proper gatherings should be spent discussing the teaching or k
Page 119–121 Udāna 3.9: Professions Mendicants gathered together fall into a debate about which worldly craft or profession is most excellent, naming things like elephant-handling, horsemanship, archery, accounting, and poetry. The Buddha again interrupts this unsuitable conversation, reminding them that such talk about worldly skills has no place among those who have renounced lay life, and that proper conduct is either discussing the Dhamma or keeping noble silence. His verse praises the ideal mendicant who lives without any wor
Page 121–122 Udāna 3.10: The World Shortly after his awakening, while still seated beneath the tree of awakening for seven days experiencing the bliss of freedom, the Buddha surveys the world with the eye of a Buddha and sees beings tormented and burning with the fevers of greed, hatred, and delusion. His extended reflective verse diagnoses the human predicament: the world clings to continued existence yet is inevitably disappointed by it, mistaking what it enjoys for security when that very enjoyment is the seed of fear and suff
Page 122–125 Udāna 4.1a: Meghiya's Distracting Thoughts Venerable Meghiya, the Buddha's attendant, is struck by the beauty of a mango grove during his almsround and repeatedly asks permission to go meditate there alone, initially being told by the Buddha to wait for a companion. After Meghiya insists a third time, the Buddha grants permission, but once alone in the grove, Meghiya finds himself overwhelmed by sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts rather than achieving the peaceful meditation he expected. Astonished and troubled that even after going
Page 126–129 Udāna 4.1b: Five Conditions That Ripen the Heart's Release Returning to the Buddha after his troubling experience alone in the mango grove, Meghiya receives a systematic teaching on five external conditions that help ripen an unripe heart's liberation: good spiritual friendship, ethical discipline, access to uplifting Dhamma conversation that fosters dispassion and insight, sustained energy in abandoning the unskillful and cultivating the skillful, and wisdom into the arising and passing of phenomena. The Buddha further explains that a mendicant grounde
Page 129 Udāna 4.2: Restless Mendicants The Buddha observes a group of mendicants staying nearby who are behaving in an undisciplined manner — haughty, insolent, fickle, loose-tongued, and lacking mindfulness or composure. In response he speaks a pointed verse warning that being unguarded in body and ruined by wrong view, overcome by dullness and drowsiness, leaves one vulnerable to falling under the sway of Māra. He counsels that one should instead guard the mind, keep right thought as one's dwelling and right view foremost, and thro
Page 129–131 Udāna 4.3: The Cowherd While traveling with his Saṅgha, the Buddha stops beneath a tree, where a cowherd approaches, listens to a Dhamma talk, and invites the Buddha and the monks to a meal the next day. The cowherd prepares milk-rice with fresh ghee, serves the assembly personally, and afterward receives further teaching from the Buddha — but shortly after the Buddha departs, the cowherd is killed by a man in the gap between village boundaries. When the mendicants report this tragic and seemingly senseless death, the
Page 131–133 Udāna 4.4: The Spirit's Blow to Sāriputta While Venerable Sāriputta sits meditating outdoors in the moonlight, two travelling native spirits pass by, and one impulsively strikes him on the head despite his companion's warnings, a blow powerful enough to fell a great elephant or split a mountain peak — the offending spirit instantly falls into hell for the offense. Venerable Moggallāna, witnessing the event with his clairvoyant power, checks on Sāriputta, who calmly reports only a slight headache despite the tremendous force of the blow,
Page 134–136 Udāna 4.5: The Bull Elephant of Pārileyyaka Weary of the crowds of monks, nuns, and lay followers pressing upon him at Kosambī, the Buddha quietly leaves without notifying anyone and withdraws alone to a forest at Pārileyyaka. There a bull elephant, similarly worn out by the crowding and disorder of its herd, also leaves and comes to attend on the Buddha, clearing the ground and fetching water with its trunk. The narrative draws a striking parallel between the Buddha's reflections on now living happily uncrowded and the elephant's identic
Page 136–137 Udāna 4.6: Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer The Buddha observes Venerable Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer meditating nearby, a mendicant known for living simply in the wilderness, eating only almsfood, wearing rag robes, owning just three robes, and being content, secluded, and devoted to higher meditative development. Moved by this exemplary austere life, the Buddha speaks a verse summarizing the essence of the instruction of all Buddhas: refraining from harsh speech and harm, maintaining restraint in the monastic code, moderation in eating
Page 137 Udāna 4.7: With Sāriputta Venerable Sāriputta is seen sitting in meditation, of few wishes, content, secluded, energetic, and dedicated to higher states of mind, embodying the same ascetic virtues just praised in the previous sutta about Bhāradvāja. The Buddha's resulting verse honors the sage of higher consciousness who trains diligently in the ways of wisdom, declaring that such an unaffected, calm, and ever-mindful person experiences no sorrows. The brief episode reinforces Sāriputta's standing as a foremost exemplar
Page 138–142 Udāna 4.8: The Slander of Sundarī When the Buddha's Saṅgha begins receiving greater honor and material support than rival wandering ascetics, the jealous wanderers conspire with a female wanderer named Sundarī to visit Jeta's Grove often so she will be seen there, then secretly murder her and dump her body nearby, framing the Buddhist mendicants for the crime. They parade her corpse through Sāvatthī accusing the monks of hypocrisy and violence, and for a time the public angrily abuses the mendicants in the streets. The Buddha ca
Page 142–143 Udāna 4.9: With Upasena Venerable Upasena, sitting in private reflection, contemplates his own good fortune at having the Buddha as teacher, a well-explained teaching and training, virtuous spiritual companions, fulfilled precepts, and a unified, serene mind as one who has ended all defilements — concluding that his life has been good and his death, whenever it comes, will likewise be good. Perceiving this train of thought, the Buddha speaks a verse affirming that one without guilt in life and without grief at facing d
Page 143 Udāna 4.10: The Peacefulness of Sāriputta Venerable Sāriputta is again observed meditating, this time specifically reviewing his own inner peacefulness. The Buddha responds with a verse celebrating the mendicant whose mind is fully at peace, who has cut the cord of craving and completed the cycle of rebirth, and who is thereby freed from the bonds of Māra. This short episode, paired with the earlier one on Sāriputta's diligence, further establishes him as the exemplar of settled, liberated peace of mind.
Page 144–145 Udāna 5.1: Who Is More Dear? King Pasenadi of Kosala and Queen Mallikā discuss together whether either of them holds anyone more dear than themselves, and both independently conclude that no one is dearer to them than their own self. When the king relays this exchange to the Buddha, he responds with a well-known verse observing that in searching every quarter with the mind, no one finds anything dearer than themselves, and since this holds true for everyone alike, a person who truly desires their own good should therefore r
Page 145 Udāna 5.2: Short-lived Mothers of Bodhisattas Venerable Ānanda remarks with wonder that the Buddha's own mother died just seven days after his birth, and the Buddha confirms this is a universal pattern: the mothers of all beings destined to become fully awakened Buddhas pass away seven days after giving birth and are reborn among the joyful gods. Reflecting on this striking fact, the Buddha delivers a verse on impermanence, noting that whether already born or yet to be born, all beings eventually depart, leaving the body behind, and that th
Page 146–149 Udāna 5.3: Suppabuddha the Leper Suppabuddha, a destitute leper, approaches a large crowd gathered to hear the Buddha teach, initially hoping only for food, but stays to listen and, recognized by the Buddha as ready to understand, receives a graduated teaching culminating in the Four Noble Truths; he immediately gains the pure vision of the Dhamma and becomes a stream-enterer who takes refuge as a lay follower. Tragically, shortly after leaving the Buddha he is killed by a charging cow, and when the mendicants ask about his fat
Page 149–150 Udāna 5.4: The Boys Tormenting Fish The Buddha comes across a group of boys tormenting fish between Sāvatthī and Jeta's Grove and asks them directly whether they themselves fear and dislike pain; when they affirm that they do, he uses this immediate, relatable admission as the springboard for a teaching on the ethics of harm. His verse draws the direct parallel: since you fear and dislike pain, you should not inflict bad deeds on others either openly or in secret, because doing so guarantees future suffering that cannot be escaped
Page 150–152 Udāna 5.5a: The Impure Assembly at the Sabbath On the sabbath night, Venerable Ānanda repeatedly urges the Buddha to recite the monastic code to the assembled monks, but the Buddha remains silent through two requests and, on the third, reveals that the assembly is not pure because an unethical, deceitful individual is sitting among them. Venerable Mahāmoggallāna, using his mind-reading power, identifies the offending monk, orders him to leave three times, and when he refuses to respond, physically ejects him from the hall and bars the door.
Page 152–155 Udāna 5.5b: The Eight Wonders of the Ocean Continuing from the account of purging an unworthy monk, the Buddha lists eight remarkable qualities that make the titans (asuras) love the ocean: it deepens gradually without a sudden drop-off, it stays reliably within its boundaries, it refuses to hold onto any corpse and casts it ashore, all the great rivers that flow into it lose their separate names and become simply "the ocean," it neither empties nor overflows despite the streams and rain that feed it, it has a single uniform taste of sal
Page 155–159 Udāna 5.5c: The Eight Wonders of the Teaching and Training The Buddha systematically maps each of the ocean's eight wonders onto his teaching and monastic training: awakening comes through gradual practice rather than sudden shortcuts, disciples keep the training rules even at the cost of their lives just as the ocean keeps its shores, the Saṅgha quickly expels any unworthy member just as the ocean casts out a corpse, and people of all four social classes lose their former names and clan identities upon ordination just as rivers lose their names in the
Page 160–162 Udāna 5.6a: Soṇa's Long Path to Ordination The lay devotee Soṇa, attendant to Venerable Mahākaccāna in the remote Avanti region, repeatedly feels drawn to leave household life and be ordained, but each time Mahākaccāna gently dissuades him, noting how difficult the monastic life of eating once a day and sleeping alone truly is, and urging him instead to practice devotedly as a layperson. Only after asking a third time is Soṇa finally ordained, but because the southern Avanti region is so short of monks it takes Mahākaccāna three arduous
Page 165–166 Udāna 5.6b: Soṇa Recites the Chapter of Eights On arriving to meet the Buddha, Soṇa delivers his mentor Mahākaccāna's respectful greeting, and the Buddha arranges for them to share the same lodging for the night, correctly inferred by Ānanda to be a mark of special regard. At the Buddha's invitation the next morning, Soṇa recites all sixteen discourses of the Chapter of the Eights (a section of the Suttanipāta) from memory with such clarity and polish that the Buddha praises his eloquence and diligence, then asks how long he has been ordaine
Page 166 Udāna 5.7: With Revata the Doubter Venerable Revata, known by the epithet "the Doubter," is observed meditating while reviewing his own attainment of purification through having traversed and overcome doubt. The Buddha's resulting verse teaches that one who meditates diligently gives up all doubts entirely — whether about this life or the next, or about one's own spiritual experiences versus those reported by others — through the keen and sustained practice of the spiritual life. The brief episode presents settled certainty, won
Page 167–168 Udāna 5.8: The Schism Threatened by Devadatta While Venerable Ānanda is out for alms in Rājagaha, Devadatta approaches him and announces his intention to break away from the Buddha's Saṅgha and conduct his own separate sabbath observances and formal monastic proceedings — an act that would constitute a serious schism in the monastic community. When Ānanda reports this alarming news to the Buddha, the Buddha responds not with alarm but with a calm verse observing that it is easy for good people to do good and hard for them to do evil, wherea
Page 168 Udāna 5.9: Teasing Students As the Buddha travels with his Saṅgha through the land of the Kosalans, a group of young students passes by nearby, teasing and mocking in manner. Observing this, the Buddha speaks a short, pointed verse about foolish people who pretend to be wise, chattering carelessly with words that overstep proper bounds, blabbering at will with no evident purpose or self-awareness guiding what they say. The brief episode offers a wry critique of empty, undisciplined speech contrasted with the Buddha's own d
Page 168–169 Udāna 5.10: With Cūḷapanthaka Venerable Cūḷapanthaka — a monk traditionally remembered for his early struggles with memorization and later renowned for his mastery of mindfulness — is seen sitting in meditation with his body held straight and his mindfulness firmly grounded in the present moment. The Buddha's verse praises the mendicant who is steady in both body and mind across all postures — standing, sitting, or lying down — noting that one who focuses on this kind of embodied mindfulness attains an ever higher level of s
Page 169–171 Udāna 6.1: The Buddha Surrenders the Life Force (Beginning) At Vesālī, the Buddha invites Ānanda to accompany him to the Cāpāla Shrine for the day's meditation, where he remarks on the loveliness of Vesālī and its various shrines, then explains that anyone who has fully developed and mastered the four bases of psychic power could, if they wished, choose to extend their life for a full lifespan or beyond — and that he himself, the Realized One, possesses this very capacity, dropping a broad hint that he could prolong his life if asked to do so. Despite th
Page 172–176 Udāna 6.1 The Cāpāla Shrine At the Cāpāla Shrine near Vesālī, the Buddha hints strongly to Ānanda that a Buddha who has mastered the four bases of psychic power could extend his life for an eon, but Ānanda, his mind clouded by Māra, fails to ask him to remain. Left alone, the Buddha is confronted by Māra, who urges him to now pass into final extinguishment since his mission of establishing a mature, self-sufficient monastic and lay community has succeeded. The Buddha agrees and consciously relinquishes his will to live, de
Page 176–179 Udāna 6.2 Seven Matted-Hair Ascetics King Pasenadi of Kosala sees a procession of ascetics from several different traditions and, impressed by their austere appearance, tells the Buddha he believes they must be enlightened or close to it. The Buddha corrects him, explaining that outward appearance is no guide to inner attainment: a person's true ethics, purity, resilience, and wisdom can only be judged through long, attentive, and wise observation of how they actually live. Pasenadi then reveals the irony of his own remark: these v
Page 179 Udāna 6.3 The Buddha's Reviewing In this brief episode the Buddha simply sits in quiet review of his own spiritual accomplishment, surveying the many unskillful qualities he has abandoned and the many skillful qualities he has fully developed. Moved by this reflection, he utters a short heartfelt verse about the transformation of his own mind: what was once present in him is now gone, and what was once absent has come to be. It is a compact statement on the completeness of awakening as a total change of character, not merely a
Page 179–185 Udāna 6.4 Followers of Various Other Religions (1st) Various ascetics and brahmins in Sāvatthī are shown holding rigid, contradictory metaphysical views about whether the cosmos and self are eternal, finite, or continue after death, and violently quarreling over whose position is correct. The Buddha declares these debaters "blind and sightless" because they grasp only one facet of reality and mistake it for the whole. He illustrates this with the famous parable of the king who has blind men each touch a different part of an elephant, so each descr
Page 185 Udāna 6.5 Followers of Various Other Religions (2nd) This companion piece to the previous discourse catalogues an even longer list of speculative views held by rival ascetics and brahmins about the eternality and origin of the self, the cosmos, and pleasure and pain, whether these are self-made, other-made, both, or arisen spontaneously. As before, the holders of these views end up fighting and trading barbed accusations of falsehood. The Buddha's heartfelt verse observes that such thinkers "founder in mid-stream," clinging to fragments of doctrin
Page 185–193 Udāna 6.6 Followers of Various Other Religions (3rd) A near-identical repetition of the same catalogue of metaphysical positions about self, cosmos, and the origin of pleasure and pain, again ending in disputants viciously attacking each other's views as false. The Buddha's response points to a deeper root cause: people are "fixated on the I-maker," the sense of self that manufactures both self and other, and few see the underlying "dart" of this conceit. Those who do see it stop assigning agency to self or other, while everyone else stays shackle
Page 193 Udāna 6.7 With Subhūti The Buddha observes Venerable Subhūti sitting in deep meditative stillness, having attained an unusually pure and non-discursive state of concentration free from any mental "placing" of the mind. Moved by the sight, the Buddha praises the inner condition it represents: a mind cleared of vibration, gone beyond form and the fetters that bind beings to renewed existence. The verse celebrates non-return, the state of one who will never again be reborn into the cycle.
Page 193–195 Udāna 6.8 The Courtesan Two rival gangs of men, infatuated with the same courtesan in Rājagaha, come to violent blows and even kill each other over her. When the monks report this tragedy to the Buddha, he uses it to diagnose two extreme responses to desire: rigid austerity that treats ritual observance as the essence of the path, and unrestrained indulgence that denies anything is wrong with sensual pleasure, both of which "swell the charnel grounds" and perpetuate wrong view. His verse points to a middle way beyond b
Page 195 Udāna 6.9 Hastening By While meditating at night by lamplight, the Buddha watches moths repeatedly fly into the flames and perish. He uses this small, vivid image as a metaphor for people who rush toward sense objects and cling to what is seen or heard, thereby generating ever more new bonds for themselves just as the moths generate their own destruction. It is a compact, memorable teaching on how craving for immediate sensory gratification blinds beings to the harm it causes.
Page 195–197 Udāna 6.10 Arising Ānanda observes to the Buddha that before a Buddha arises in the world, other religious teachers receive great honor and material support, but once a Buddha does arise, that support and reverence shifts almost entirely to the Buddha and his Saṅgha. The Buddha confirms this is true. He then compares rival ascetics and philosophers to a glow-worm's dim light, which shines only in darkness and is instantly outshone once the brilliant sun, representing a fully awakened Buddha, rises; without the Bud
Page 197–198 Udāna 7.1 Bhaddiya the Dwarf (1st) Venerable Sāriputta has been earnestly teaching and encouraging the diminutive monk Bhaddiya, not realizing that Bhaddiya has in fact already become fully liberated through his instruction. The Buddha perceives that Bhaddiya's mind has been freed from all defilements by non-grasping. His heartfelt verse describes the totally unbound freedom of full awakening, no longer identifying with any state "above, below, or everywhere," having crossed a flood never before crossed, beyond further rebirth.
Page 198–199 Udāna 7.2 Bhaddiya the Dwarf (2nd) In a companion episode, Sāriputta continues teaching Bhaddiya even more intensively, still under the mistaken impression that Bhaddiya remains merely a trainee rather than a fully liberated one. The Buddha again observes what is actually happening and responds with a verse celebrating the completeness of Bhaddiya's release: the round of rebirth has been cut, craving's streams have dried up, and suffering has definitively ended. The pairing of these two short episodes emphasizes how easy it is to
Page 199–200 Udāna 7.3 Clinging (1st) The Buddha notes that most people in Sāvatthī are deeply and helplessly attached to sensual pleasure, lustful, greedy, and completely absorbed in gratification. His heartfelt verse warns that such people, blind to the real dangers of the fetters that bind them to sensuality, will never manage to cross the vast flood of suffering. It is a stark diagnosis of ordinary worldly life as a form of addiction that obstructs spiritual freedom.
Page 200 Udāna 7.4 Clinging (2nd) Walking for alms through Sāvatthī, the Buddha personally witnesses the extent to which the townspeople are captivated by sensual pleasure, bound, blinded, and smothered by craving like fish trapped in a funnel net. His verse extends the earlier teaching with vivid imagery: people chase after old age and death the way a suckling calf blindly follows its mother, unaware of where that pursuit inevitably leads.
Page 200–201 Udāna 7.5 Another Discourse with Bhaddiya the Dwarf The physically unimpressive Venerable Bhaddiya, scorned by many of his fellow monks for his ugly and deformed appearance, approaches the Buddha, who publicly points him out and reveals the truth: despite his looks, Bhaddiya is extraordinarily accomplished, having attained the very highest goal of the spiritual life. The Buddha's verse likens the liberated Bhaddiya to a flawless one-spoked chariot rolling untroubled with its stream already cut, a striking image of unbound freedom. The episode is
Page 201–202 Udāna 7.6 The Ending of Craving The Buddha observes Venerable Koṇḍañña, known as "Who Understood," the very first disciple to grasp the Dhamma, sitting in meditation reviewing his own complete freedom through the total ending of craving. In his heartfelt verse the Buddha describes such a liberated person as having no root, ground, or leaves left from which new craving could ever sprout again, making them beyond all criticism and praised even by the gods and by Brahmā.
Page 202 Udāna 7.7 The Ending of Proliferation Reflecting privately on his own complete abandonment of the mental proliferation that drives biased judgments and reactive views, the Buddha expresses a verse stating that one who has gone beyond such proliferation, beyond the constricting "halter and cross-bar" of conceptual elaboration, lives free from the world's scorn, since craving no longer has any hold on them.
Page 202–203 Udāna 7.8 Kaccāna The Buddha observes Venerable Mahākaccāna deeply absorbed in mindfulness of the body, his awareness firmly grounded in the present moment. In response, the Buddha offers a verse recommending a similarly steady body-mindfulness practice built around directly contemplating impermanence and not-self, noting that meditating on this progressively frees a practitioner from clinging altogether.
Page 203–205 Udāna 7.9 The Well When the Buddha and his monks arrive at the Malla town of Thūṇa, hostile brahmins and householders stuff the local well with grass and hay to prevent the "shavelings" from drinking. Despite this, when Ānanda approaches at the Buddha's repeated request, the obstruction miraculously clears itself and the water turns pure and overflowing, astonishing Ānanda at the Buddha's psychic power. The Buddha's closing verse turns the miracle into a teaching: for one who has cut craving off at its root, there
Page 205–206 Udāna 7.10 King Udena A fire destroys King Udena's royal compound, killing five hundred women including Queen Sāmāvatī. When monks ask the Buddha where these women have been reborn, he reassures them that many had already become stream-enterers, once-returners, or non-returners, so none died without spiritual benefit from their practice. His heartfelt verse contrasts the deluded, dark view of ordinary people who see the world as making sense and lasting forever with the clear-eyed perception of one who truly sees, fo
Page 206–207 Udāna 8.1 About Extinguishment (1st) While teaching the mendicants a Dhamma talk on extinguishment, the Buddha describes nibbāna in famously paradoxical, negative terms: a dimension beyond earth, water, fire, wind, and even the highest meditative states, beyond this world and the next, beyond coming, going, or persisting. This radical description defines nibbāna entirely by negation, refusing any positive description that could turn it into just another conditioned thing, and concludes simply that this unconditioned state is the en
Page 207 Udāna 8.2 About Extinguishment (2nd) Continuing the theme of extinguishment, the Buddha teaches that the "uninclined" is genuinely hard to see because deep truth is never easy to perceive. For the person who has fully penetrated and uprooted craving, who truly knows and sees reality as it is, there remains nothing left to grasp or identify with.
Page 207–208 Udāna 8.3 About Extinguishment (3rd) The Buddha offers a logical argument for the reality of liberation: because there is such a thing as freedom from rebirth and from all that is produced, made, and conditioned, an actual escape from conditioned existence can be found. Were no such unconditioned freedom to exist, he explains, there would be no possible escape at all from the endless round of birth and conditioning.
Page 208 Udāna 8.4 About Extinguishment (4th) In a final teaching on nibbāna in this set, the Buddha traces a causal chain from dependency to full peace: dependence produces inner "quivering," while independence removes it; without quivering comes tranquility, without tranquility comes freedom from inclination, and from there follows the cessation of all coming, going, and rebirth in this life, the next, or between, culminating simply in the end of suffering.
Page 208–215 Udāna 8.5 With Cunda This is the well-known account of the Buddha's last meal, offered by the smith Cunda in his mango grove, including a special dish of "pork on the turn" that the Buddha instructs be served to him alone, with any leftovers buried, since only he could safely digest it. After the meal the Buddha is struck by severe bloody dysentery and near-fatal pain but endures it with unshaken mindfulness, then sets out for Kusinārā; along the way he twice miraculously purifies muddied water for himself to drink,
Page 215–222 Udāna 8.6 The Layfolk of Pāṭali Village Staying at Pāṭali Village, the Buddha teaches the local lay community the five practical drawbacks of unethical conduct, such as lost wealth, bad reputation, social unease, an anxious death, and rebirth in a bad place, and the five corresponding benefits of ethical conduct. That same night, with clairvoyant vision, the Buddha perceives powerful deities taking possession of building sites where the Magadhan ministers Sunidha and Vassakāra are constructing a fortified city to guard against the Vaj
Page 222–223 Udāna 8.7 A Fork in the Road When the monk Nāgasamāla insists on taking one road at a fork and the Buddha insists on another, Nāgasamāla petulantly puts down the Buddha's bowl and robe and storms off alone, only to be beaten and robbed by bandits on his chosen road. The Buddha's verse draws the lesson that even a "knowledge master" can be led astray by mixing with foolish behavior, and that the wise give up such wickedness the way a heron avoids muddying its own water, underscoring the practical value of heeding wise guidan
Page 223–226 Udāna 8.8 With Visākhā The devoted laywoman Visākhā comes to the Buddha grieving and disheveled after the death of her beloved granddaughter. Rather than offering simple comfort, the Buddha leads her through a pointed dialogue: since so many people die every single day in a city the size of Sāvatthī, having as many descendants as that city's population would mean her clothes and hair would rarely ever be dry from mourning. He generalizes the point, that more loved ones simply means more potential grief, so ultimate fr
Page 226–227 Udāna 8.9 With Dabba (1st) The elder monk Dabba the Mallian, having attained full liberation, formally announces to the Buddha that it is time for his final passing and is given the Buddha's blessing to proceed as he sees fit. Rising into the air and sitting cross-legged in midair, Dabba enters the fire meditative element and is fully extinguished there, his body burning away completely without leaving any ash or soot, like blazing ghee or oil. The Buddha's verse describes this total cessation in terms of the aggregates d
Page 227–228 Udāna 8.10 Dabba (2nd) The Buddha retells Dabba the Mallian's extraordinary midair self-cremation to the assembled mendicants, again emphasizing that his body left no ashes or soot behind, just like burning ghee or oil. In his closing verse the Buddha compares this to the way the glow of hammered iron in a smith's fire gradually fades until its destiny becomes untraceable: those who are rightly released and have crossed the flood of sensual bonds simply have no continued destination to point to, only "unshakable happi
Page 228–233 Itivuttaka, Book of the Ones, Chapter One This opening chapter of the Itivuttaka's "Book of the Ones" presents a series of very short, formulaic teachings in which the Buddha names a single mental quality, greed, hatred, delusion, anger, disdain, or conceit, and states that abandoning that one thing alone guarantees non-return, freedom from ever being reborn in this world, each followed by a short confirming verse. The chapter then pivots to teachings on "complete understanding": without directly knowing, becoming dispassionate toward,
Page 233–236 Itivuttaka, Book of the Ones, Chapter Two This second chapter continues the same one-item formula, addressing complete understanding and abandonment of delusion, anger, and disdain, before turning to two especially vivid images: ignorance described as the single greatest "shroud" that keeps beings wandering in transmigration night and day, and craving described as the one binding "fetter" and constant travelling companion that carries a being from one state of existence to the next without escape. The chapter's teachings continue into a
Page 237 Itivuttaka 16: A Trainee (1st) Teaches that among internal qualities, nothing helps a trainee mendicant reach the supreme sanctuary from the cycle of rebirth more than rationally and wisely directing the mind. Such careful reflection allows a practitioner to abandon unskillful states and cultivate skillful ones. The verse reinforces that striving with rational attention leads directly to the end of suffering. It highlights inner mental discipline as the decisive factor for spiritual progress before full awakening.
Page 237 Itivuttaka 17: A Trainee (2nd) Complementing the previous teaching on inner factors, this discourse identifies good friendship as the single most helpful external condition for a trainee mendicant still striving toward liberation. A mendicant blessed with virtuous friends listens with reverence and respect, remains mindful and aware, and thereby gradually wears away all the fetters that bind one to rebirth. Together with rational attention, good companionship forms the two pillars, internal and external, that support a traine
Page 238 Itivuttaka 18: Schism in the Saṅgha The Buddha warns that causing division within the monastic community is a uniquely destructive act, bringing harm and suffering to both gods and humans. When the Saṅgha splits, members argue, insult, and abandon one another, shaking the confidence of the faithful and driving away those who might otherwise trust the teaching. The verse states starkly that one who instigates schism in a harmonious community suffers in hell for an eon, underscoring how seriously the Buddha regarded communal unity.
Page 238 Itivuttaka 19: Harmony in the Saṅgha As a direct counterpart to the teaching on schism, this discourse praises harmony within the monastic community as a supreme source of welfare for gods and humans alike. When the Saṅgha lives in concord, its members refrain from quarreling, insulting, or abandoning each other, which inspires confidence in outsiders and deepens the faith of existing followers. The verse promises that one who fosters harmony in the Saṅgha is reborn in heaven for an eon, showing unity to be as spiritually fruitful
Page 239 Itivuttaka 20: A Corrupted Mind The Buddha describes his direct knowledge that a person's state of mind at any given moment reveals their likely destination after death. If someone with a corrupted mind, one full of greed, hatred, or delusion, were to die at that moment, they would be reborn in hell as surely as if carried and deposited there. The teaching emphasizes that mental corruption, not external circumstance, is the decisive cause of unfortunate rebirth, making the quality of one's mind a matter of urgent spiritual con
Page 240 Itivuttaka 21: A Pure Mind Mirroring the previous teaching, the Buddha explains that a person with a pure, undefiled mind at the moment of death is reborn in heaven as certainly as if placed there directly. Purity of mind, free from greed, hatred, and delusion, is identified as the true cause of a fortunate rebirth in a heavenly realm. This pairing of the corrupted and pure mind teachings drives home that inner mental quality, more than any ritual or external deed, determines one's destiny after death.
Page 241 Itivuttaka 22: The Benefits of Love The Buddha urges his followers not to shy away from good deeds, recounting his own past experience of cultivating a mind of loving-kindness for seven years, which resulted in eons spent as a great divinity, as Sakka lord of the gods thirty-six times, and as a wheel-turning monarch many times over. Reflecting on the cause of such power and fortune, he concludes it was the fruit of giving, self-control, and restraint. The teaching illustrates through his own biography that generosity, ethical cond
Page 242 Itivuttaka 23: Both Kinds of Benefit The Buddha identifies diligence in cultivating skillful qualities as the single quality that secures benefit both in this present life and in lives to come. Being diligent in making merit is praised as the mark of a truly wise person, one who is attentive and grasps the meaning of the teaching. The short verse frames diligence as a kind of dual investment, paying off both immediately and over the long span of future rebirths.
Page 242–243 Itivuttaka 24: A Heap of Bones Using a striking image, the Buddha teaches that the bones accumulated by a single being over just one eon of wandering through rebirth would form a pile as large as Mount Vepulla, taller than the nearby Vulture's Peak. This vivid illustration conveys the immense scale of suffering endured through countless rounds of birth and death. The discourse then pivots to hope: by rightly understanding the four noble truths, a person can end this endless wandering within at most seven more lives, achieving
Page 243 Itivuttaka 25: Lying The Buddha singles out deliberate lying as uniquely dangerous among moral failings, declaring that a person willing to tell a conscious falsehood, having thereby dismissed concern for consequences beyond this life, is capable of committing any other evil deed. The brief verse reinforces that abandoning truthfulness removes the last restraint on wrongdoing. This teaching positions honesty as a foundational safeguard of moral character.
Page 244 Itivuttaka 26: Giving The Buddha laments that if beings truly understood the great fruit of generosity as he does, they would never eat without first sharing, even down to their very last mouthful, and stinginess would never take hold of their minds. Because they lack this knowledge, however, selfishness persists. The accompanying verse promises that those who overcome stinginess and give generously to worthy recipients are reborn in heaven and enjoy abundant pleasures there, illustrating giving as a direct cause of
Page 244–246 Itivuttaka 27: The Meditation on Love The Buddha extols the meditative cultivation of universal loving-kindness as vastly superior to all other forms of worldly merit-making, using a cascade of similes, starlight compared to moonlight, the sun dispelling darkness, the brilliance of the morning star, to convey how the heart's release by love outshines everything else. He contrasts this inner cultivation of love with the elaborate royal sacrifices of conquering kings, including horse and human sacrifice, declaring none of these worth
Page 247 Itivuttaka 28: Living in Suffering The Buddha names two specific failings, not guarding the sense doors and eating without moderation, that cause a mendicant to live in distress and anguish in this very life and to expect a bad rebirth afterward. The verse elaborates that unrestrained senses and immoderate eating lead to both physical and mental suffering, keeping such a person burning day and night. This teaching links basic sensory and dietary discipline directly to psychological well-being, not just moral purity.
Page 248 Itivuttaka 29: Living in Happiness As the positive counterpart to the previous teaching, the Buddha explains that guarding the sense doors and practicing moderation in eating allow a mendicant to live happily, free of distress, and to expect a good rebirth. The verse describes such a well-restrained practitioner as free from the burning of unrestrained desire, living at ease by day and night. Together with its counterpart, this pair of teachings shows sense-restraint and dietary moderation as simple but powerful determinants of p
Page 248–249 Itivuttaka 30: Mortifying The Buddha describes two sources of inner torment: regret over not having done good, safety-securing deeds, and regret over having committed harmful, violent, or sinful acts. Both forms of self-reproach are called mortifying, a gnawing awareness of one's own moral failure. The verse concludes that a person who neglects good conduct while committing much wrong is, upon death, reborn in hell as a natural consequence of an unexamined and corrupt life.
Page 249 Itivuttaka 31: Not Mortifying In contrast to the previous teaching, the Buddha describes the freedom from self-reproach enjoyed by someone who has done good deeds and refrained from wrongdoing, such a person can reflect with a clear conscience rather than regret. This inner ease is called not mortifying. The verse concludes that abandoning bad conduct in body, speech, and mind while cultivating good leads a wise person to a heavenly rebirth, reinforcing the link between clean conscience and good moral outcome.
Page 250 Itivuttaka 32: Ethics (1st) The Buddha identifies bad conduct combined with wrong view as the two qualities that guarantee an individual's rebirth in hell, as certainly as if they had been personally delivered there. This short teaching underscores that ethical failure and distorted understanding reinforce each other, compounding one's negative karmic trajectory. The verse simply restates that possessing both qualities condemns a witless person to a hellish rebirth upon death.
Page 250 Itivuttaka 33: Ethics (2nd) Mirroring the prior teaching, the Buddha explains that excellent conduct paired with right view guarantees rebirth in heaven, as surely as if the person had been placed there directly. This pairing shows that ethical behavior and correct understanding work together as a positive complement to the corrupting combination of bad conduct and wrong view. The verse reaffirms that a wise person possessing both good qualities is reborn in a heavenly state after death.
Page 250–251 Itivuttaka 34: Keen The Buddha teaches that diligence and prudent judgment are indispensable prerequisites for reaching awakening and final liberation; without them a mendicant simply cannot succeed. The verse contrasts the lazy, dull, and heedless mendicant, incapable of the highest awakening, with the mindful, alert, and diligent one who, having cut the fetters of birth and old age, can experience supreme awakening in this very life. It frames energetic effort and careful attention as necessary, not optional, qua
Page 251–252 Itivuttaka 35: Fawning and Flattery (1st) The Buddha clarifies the true purpose of the monastic spiritual life: it is not undertaken to win people's favor, to gain material possessions, honor, or popularity, or to become well known, but purely for the sake of restraint and letting go. The verse states this path was taught by the Buddha not to build a following or legend, but because its ultimate goal is extinguishment. Practitioners who follow it as taught, doing the Teacher's bidding, thereby bring suffering to an end.
Page 252 Itivuttaka 36: Fawning and Flattery (2nd) This companion teaching repeats the same opening rejection of fawning, flattery, and desire for recognition as motives for spiritual practice, but specifies the goal differently: the spiritual life is lived for the sake of direct knowledge and complete understanding. The verse again emphasizes that the path culminates in extinguishment, and that those who practice as taught make an end of suffering. Paired with its predecessor, this teaching rounds out the picture of right motivation, restraint
Page 252–253 Itivuttaka 37: Happiness The Buddha describes two conditions that fill a mendicant with joy and lay the groundwork for ending the mind's defilements: being inspired at truly inspiring occasions or places, and then making a fitting, sustained effort once inspired. The verse advises examining such moments with wisdom, and describes the resulting mendicant as peaceful rather than restless, devoted to inner serenity, and ultimately reaching the end of suffering. It highlights how spiritual inspiration, properly acted upon,
Page 253–255 Itivuttaka 38: Thoughts The Buddha reveals that two thoughts recur frequently in his own mind: the thought of sanctuary, rooted in loving-kindness and resolving not to harm any creature, and the thought of seclusion, delighting in what has been renounced and examining what remains to be given up. He instructs the mendicants to cultivate these same two thoughts themselves. The accompanying verses praise the Buddha as one who has crossed over all darkness and now, from the heights of realized truth, looks with compassion
Page 255 Itivuttaka 39: Teaching The Buddha summarizes his method of teaching in two simple steps: first, showing what is genuinely evil or harmful as it truly is, and second, guiding students to become disillusioned with and dispassionate toward that evil once it is seen clearly. This structure, diagnosis followed by disengagement, is presented as the core pedagogical approach of a fully awakened teacher. The verse notes that seeing evil for what it is and growing dispassionate toward it, with a mind free of desire, leads dire
Page 255–256 Itivuttaka 40: Knowledge The Buddha contrasts ignorance and knowledge as root causes leading in opposite directions: ignorance breeds unskillful qualities along with a lack of conscience and moral prudence, while knowledge fosters skillful qualities accompanied by conscience and prudence. The verse traces all bad destinies back to ignorance compounded with greed and desire, warning that a person of corrupt wishes accumulates wickedness that leads to a place of loss. It concludes that dispelling desire, greed, and ignora
Page 256–257 Itivuttaka 41: Bereft of Wisdom The Buddha describes beings who lack noble wisdom as truly impoverished, living with distress and anguish now and facing a bad rebirth later, while those endowed with wisdom live happily and can expect a good rebirth. The verse observes that the world, including its gods, is largely bereft of wisdom and mistakes superficial appearances for ultimate truth. It declares wisdom the highest quality in the world, since it alone leads to the penetrating insight that ends the cycle of rebirth, a quality
Page 257 Itivuttaka 42: Bright Things The Buddha identifies conscience, moral shame, and prudence, fear of wrongdoing, as the two bright things that safeguard civilized order in the world, preserving basic social distinctions such as respect for mothers, aunts, and the partners of teachers and elders. Without these restraining qualities, he warns, society would collapse into the promiscuous disorder of animals like goats, chickens, and jackals. The verse contrasts those who lack conscience and prudence, doomed to endless birth and d
Page 257–258 Itivuttaka 43: Free of Rebirth The Buddha affirms the existence of an unconditioned reality, freedom from rebirth and from everything produced, made, or conditioned, arguing that without such an escape, there would be no way out of the endless cycle of conditioned existence. Because this unconditioned freedom does exist, escape is genuinely possible. The verses contrast conditioned existence, described as impermanent, aging, diseased, and bound to the need for food, with the peaceful, timeless, sorrowless state beyond logic w
Page 258–259 Itivuttaka 44: Elements of Extinguishment The Buddha distinguishes two aspects of nibbāna: extinguishment with residue, experienced by an awakened person who has ended greed, hatred, and delusion but still has a living body and functioning senses that register pleasant and unpleasant experience, and extinguishment with no residue, which occurs when that same person's body eventually dies and everything felt becomes permanently cool, ending all further existence. This distinction clarifies that full liberation is attained during life, wh
Page 259–260 Itivuttaka 45: Retreat The Buddha encourages mendicants to genuinely enjoy solitary retreat, commit to inner serenity, maintain meditative absorption, cultivate discernment, and frequent quiet, empty dwellings. A mendicant who takes up this practice wholeheartedly can expect one of two outcomes: full enlightenment in this very life, or, if some residue of craving remains, the state of non-return. The verse praises the peaceful, mindful, and diligent practitioner who, seeing danger in negligence, steadily draws near to
Page 260–261 Itivuttaka 46: The Benefits of Training The Buddha offers a compact formula for spiritual life: treat training itself as the benefit sought, let wisdom oversee one's conduct, make freedom the core commitment, and let mindfulness rule over all activities. Living this way leads to one of two results, full enlightenment now, or non-return if some attachment remains. The verses praise the mendicant whose training is complete and who, having overcome Māra and his armies, goes beyond both birth and death.
Page 261–262 Itivuttaka 47: Wake Up The Buddha instructs mendicants to meditate in a state of genuine wakefulness, mindful, alert, joyful, and periodically reviewing which skillful qualities are present, promising that such practice leads either to enlightenment in this life or to non-return. The verses call out directly to the wakeful and urge the sleeping, spiritually complacent, to rouse themselves, declaring that wakefulness surpasses sleep and that the truly wakeful have nothing to fear. This teaching frames alertness and act
Page 262–263 Itivuttaka 48: Bound for Loss The Buddha singles out two particularly grave offenses that lead to a bad rebirth if not abandoned: falsely claiming to be chaste while actually being unchaste, and making a baseless accusation of unchastity against someone who is genuinely pure. Both the liar and the false accuser share an equally severe fate in the hereafter. The verse adds that it would be better for a wicked, unrestrained monastic to swallow a scorching iron ball than to accept and consume alms from the faithful while living
Page 263–264 Itivuttaka 49: Misconceptions The Buddha analyzes two opposite errors that trap gods and humans: getting stuck, in which beings cling to and delight in continued existence and cannot accept teachings about its cessation, and overreaching, in which beings become so disgusted with existence that they delight in the idea of total annihilation at death. Those with vision, by contrast, simply see what has arisen as it truly is and practice toward disillusionment, dispassion, and cessation regarding it, avoiding both extremes. The
Page 264 Itivuttaka 50: Roots This opening discourse of the Book of the Threes identifies greed, hatred, and delusion as the three fundamental unskillful roots from which all unwholesome states grow. The verse likens these arisen qualities to a destructive force that harms a person of wicked heart from within, comparing it to a bamboo plant destroyed by its own fruit, a self-inflicted, almost inevitable harm. This teaching establishes the three root defilements as the basic diagnostic framework used throughout much of Buddhi
Page 264–265 Itivuttaka 51: Elements The Buddha names three levels or elements of existence: the realm of luminous form, the formless realm, and cessation, which surpasses both. The verse praises those who fully comprehend the realm of form, are not caught in the formless, and are released in cessation, calling them conquerors of death. It links this liberating understanding to the Buddha's own direct realization of the deathless element, free from all attachment, which he teaches as the sorrowless, stainless state.
Page 265 Itivuttaka 52: Feelings (1st) The Buddha introduces the threefold classification of feeling, pleasant, painful, and neutral, as a basic building block of experience to be understood. The verse describes a mindful disciple who comes to understand feelings, their origin, their cessation, and the path leading to that cessation, and who, through this understanding, becomes free of craving and fully at peace. This teaching sets up feeling as a key object of meditative investigation on the path to liberation.
Page 265–266 Itivuttaka 53: Feelings (2nd) Building on the previous teaching, the Buddha gives a specific instruction for how to regard each type of feeling: pleasant feeling should be seen as suffering because of its impermanence, painful feeling should be seen as a dart, and neutral feeling should be seen as impermanent. A mendicant who sees feelings this way is called one who sees rightly, has cut off craving, and made a complete end of suffering. This reframing technique turns ordinary emotional experience into a direct tool for insi
Page 266–267 Itivuttaka 54: Searches (1st) The Buddha names three fundamental searches or drives that motivate human striving: the search for sensual pleasures, the search for continued existence, and the search for a spiritual path, understood here as attachment even to religious views and practices. The verse describes a mindful disciple who comes to understand these searches, their cause, their cessation, and the path to that cessation, thereby becoming free of craving and fully at peace. This threefold scheme of searches offers anoth
Page 267 Itivuttaka 55: Searches (2nd) This companion teaching repeats the same three searches, for sensual pleasure, for continued existence, and for a spiritual path, while adding the related tendency to grasp dogmatically at views and to build up a mass of speculative positions. The verse describes one who is detached from all forms of lust as having relinquished these searches entirely and eradicated the underlying grounds for views, becoming free of hope and indecision. It shows that letting go of searching is not just abandonin
Page 267–268 Itivuttaka 56: Defilements (1st) The Buddha identifies three defilements that corrupt the mind: sensuality, the desire to be reborn, and ignorance. The verse describes a mindful disciple who investigates these defilements, their origin, their cessation, and the path leading to their end, thereby becoming free of craving and fully at peace. This teaching parallels the earlier ones on feelings and searches, applying the same diagnostic structure to a third category of inner corruption.
Page 268 Itivuttaka 57: Defilements (2nd) Continuing directly from the previous teaching on the same three defilements, sensuality, desire for rebirth, and ignorance, this verse describes the liberated state of one who has fully ended them: such a person is free of attachments, bears their final body, and has vanquished Māra and his forces. It presents the successful resolution of the previous discourse's diagnostic framework, showing what complete freedom from these three defilements looks like in practice.
Page 268–269 Itivuttaka 58: Craving The Buddha names three forms of craving, for sensual pleasures, for continued existence, and for nonexistence, the desire for self-annihilation, as the forces that bind beings within Māra's dominion and keep them transmigrating endlessly through birth and death. The verse contrasts those still bound by such craving, who find no true sanctuary, with those who have given it up entirely and thereby genuinely cross over to the ending of all defilements. This teaching frames craving in its three guis
Page 269 Itivuttaka 59: Māra's Dominion The Buddha describes the mendicant who has fully developed the three trainings, ethical conduct, meditative concentration, and wisdom, as one who has escaped Māra's dominion entirely and shines like the sun. The brief verse restates this directly: whoever has well developed these three qualities is beyond Māra's reach and radiant. This short teaching offers the classic threefold training as the complete formula for liberation from the forces that keep beings trapped.
Page 269–270 Itivuttaka 60: Grounds for Making Merit The Buddha lists giving, ethical conduct, and meditation, specifically the cultivation of loving-kindness, as the three grounds on which meritorious action rests. The verse, reused from an earlier discourse on the benefits of love, promises that developing these three qualities together yields happiness and leads to rebirth in a pleasant, happy world. This teaching offers a simple, practical framework for lay and monastic merit-making alike.
Page 270–271 Itivuttaka 61: The Eye The Buddha distinguishes three kinds of eye or vision: the physical eye of ordinary sight, the eye of clairvoyance, and the eye of wisdom, which is supreme. The verse explains that ordinary physical sight is what first sets a person on the path that eventually leads to clairvoyant vision, and ultimately to the arising of wisdom, the highest of the three, which releases one from all suffering. This progression frames spiritual development as a gradual refinement of perception, from the mundane to
Page 271 Itivuttaka 62: Faculties The Buddha describes three progressive faculties of spiritual understanding: the faculty of one who knows enlightenment is imminent, the faculty of the moment of enlightenment itself, and the faculty of one who is already enlightened. The verse traces the trainee's path from first recognizing the approach of the end of craving, through the moment of enlightenment, to the settled knowledge that freedom is unshakable, culminating in a peaceful being who has vanquished Māra and bears their final bo
Page 271–272 Itivuttaka 63: Periods The Buddha names the three periods of time, past, future, and present, and the verse warns that sentient beings who perceive and cling to the communicable, that which can be conceptualized and expressed in language, become trapped by that very perception and fall under the power of death. Those who fully understand the communicable, by contrast, no longer conceive of a communicator or self behind it, and thereby touch liberation and supreme peace. The teaching suggests that even our basic concep
Page 272 Itivuttaka 64: Bad Conduct The Buddha names the three channels through which misconduct occurs, body, speech, and mind, establishing a basic ethical taxonomy. The verse, repeated from an earlier discourse, states that a person who commits much bad conduct through these three channels while neglecting good deeds is, upon death, reborn in hell. This teaching sets up ethical practice as something to be examined and refined across all three dimensions of action, not just outward behavior.
Page 272–273 Itivuttaka 65: Good Conduct As the positive counterpart to the previous teaching, the Buddha names good conduct of body, speech, and mind as the threefold basis of ethical life. The verse promises that a wise person who abandons bad conduct in these three areas and instead performs much good is, upon death, reborn in heaven. Together with its counterpart, this teaching completes the picture of how conduct across body, speech, and mind determines one's karmic destination.
Page 273 Itivuttaka 66: Purity The Buddha describes purity of body, speech, and undefiled purity of heart as the threefold basis of a truly pure life. The verse states that one who is blessed with purity in all three respects is said to have given up everything, that is, to have relinquished all defilement completely. This short teaching offers purity as a positive framing of the same threefold body-speech-mind structure used throughout this section of the collection.
Page 273 Itivuttaka 67: Sagacity Similarly, the Buddha describes sagacity or wise conduct of body, speech, and mind as the threefold mark of a true sage. The verse states that such a sage, blessed with sagacity in all three respects, is said to have washed off all bad things. Paired with the preceding teaching on purity, this discourse rounds out a small cluster of teachings framing ethical completeness through the body-speech-mind template.
Page 273–274 Itivuttaka 68: Greed (1st) The Buddha describes anyone who has not abandoned greed, hatred, and delusion as remaining trapped, caught in Māra's snare and subject to the Wicked One's control, while one who has given up these three roots is fully free and beyond Māra's reach. The verse celebrates those in whom greed, hatred, and ignorance have faded as having become like manifestations of divinity, realized, awakened, and free from enmity and fear. This teaching reiterates the three root defilements as the decisive factor s
Page 274–275 Itivuttaka 69: Greed (2nd) Extending the same theme with a vivid nautical metaphor, the Buddha describes the ocean, full of waves, whirlpools, and dangerous sea creatures, as a symbol for saṃsāra: those who have not abandoned greed, hatred, and delusion have not crossed this perilous ocean, while those who have abandoned them have crossed to the far shore and stand on solid ground. The verses describe such liberated beings as having slipped every chain, given up the fear of death, and become undefinable, having, in effect
Page 275–276 Itivuttaka 70: Having Wrong View The Buddha states, based on his own direct knowledge rather than hearsay, that he has personally observed beings who engaged in misconduct, denounced the noble ones, and held wrong views being reborn after death in states of loss and suffering. The verse reinforces that when the mind is misdirected, speech wrongly spoken, and deeds wrongly done, an unlearned wrongdoer is reborn in hell regardless of how short their life was. This teaching emphasizes the Buddha's claim of direct, experiential aut
Page 276–277 Itivuttaka 71: Having Right View As the direct counterpart to the previous teaching, the Buddha states that he has likewise personally seen beings who practiced good conduct, did not denounce the noble ones, and held right view being reborn in good, heavenly destinations after death. The verse affirms that when the mind is rightly directed, speech rightly spoken, and deeds rightly done, a learned and virtuous person is reborn in heaven, however short their life. Again the Buddha stresses that this knowledge comes from his own r
Page 277–278 Itivuttaka 72: Elements of Escape The Buddha describes three progressive escapes: renunciation as the escape from sensual pleasures, formlessness as the escape from attachment to form, and cessation as the escape from everything created, conditioned, and dependently arisen. The verse describes a keen practitioner who, understanding these escapes, touches the stilling of all mental and physical activity and thereby sees rightly, slipping free of the yoke that binds beings to continued existence. This teaching maps out a hierarchy
Page 278 Itivuttaka 73: More Peaceful The Buddha ranks three levels of peace: states of subtle form, the formless states beyond them, and cessation, which surpasses both. The verse contrasts beings who remain caught in the realm of form or stuck in the formless realm, who have not understood cessation and therefore keep returning to future lives, with those who fully understand form, are not attached to the formless, and are released in cessation, becoming conquerors of death. This teaching, closely related to the earlier discourse
Page 278–280 Itivuttaka 74: A Child The Buddha categorizes children into three types based on their moral and spiritual conduct relative to their parents: one who surpasses their birth, one who equals their birth, and one who fails their birth, worse than devoted parents despite good upbringing. Each category is illustrated through the presence or absence of taking refuge in the Buddha, the teaching, and the Saṅgha, and adherence to the five ethical precepts. The verse concludes that the wise hope for children who better or at lea
Page 280–281 Itivuttaka 75: A Rainless Cloud Using the image of rain clouds, the Buddha categorizes givers into three types: one who gives to no one at all, like a rainless cloud; one who gives selectively to some but not others, raining only locally; and one who gives generously to everyone regardless of status, raining everywhere. This vivid natural metaphor makes the abstract virtue of generosity easy to visualize and self-assess. It contrasts withholding, partial, and universal giving as escalating degrees of a generous character.
Page 281–283 Itivuttaka 76: Wishing for Happiness The discourse continues the image of the rain cloud, praising the universally generous giver who shares abundantly, likened to a great rain cloud that soaks both uplands and valleys after honest, hard-won wealth. It then shifts to identify three things a wise person should wish for, being praised, becoming prosperous, and being reborn in heaven after death, all of which depend on carefully guarding one's ethical conduct. The extended verses warn that even blameless people become suspected of wro
Page 283–284 Itivuttaka 77: Fragile The Buddha offers a concise meditation on impermanence, describing the body as fragile, consciousness as prone to fading, and all objects of attachment as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and perishable. The verse describes how one who truly understands this fragility and sees the danger inherent in attachment goes beyond birth and death, attaining ultimate peace and simply awaiting the natural end of life with equanimity. This brief teaching distills the core insight of impermanence into a single,
Page 284–285 Itivuttaka 78: Converging Elements The Buddha observes a natural principle governing social bonds: beings with inferior convictions gravitate toward and associate with others of similarly inferior convictions, while those with good convictions likewise converge with their moral peers, a pattern true across past, present, and future. The verses use the image of someone lost at sea clinging to a small log that cannot support them, warning that relying on a lazy, energyless companion causes even a well-living person to sink. The tea
Page 285–286 Itivuttaka 79: Decline The Buddha identifies delighting in work, idle talk, and excessive sleep as three habits that cause a mendicant trainee to decline in their practice, while avoiding these same three habits prevents such decline. The verse contrasts the restless mendicant absorbed in busyness, chatter, and sleep, who is incapable of reaching the highest awakening, with the mendicant who keeps duties few and stays wakeful rather than restless, who remains capable of that attainment. This teaching offers a practica
Page 286 Itivuttaka 80: Thoughts The Buddha names three unskillful patterns of thought that distract a practitioner: concern for status or being esteemed, desire for material possessions, honor, and popularity, and attachment to fondness or affection for others. The verse states that anyone preoccupied with being looked up to, with possessions and respect, or with sharing worldly joys with friends remains far from ending the mental fetters, whereas the mendicant who gives up family ties, property, and worldly acquisitions becom
Page 286–287 Itivuttaka 81: Esteem Drawing again on his own direct observation, the Buddha describes how being overwhelmed by receiving honor, by not receiving honor, or by both in turn can each lead a being to a bad rebirth, showing that both praise and its absence can destabilize an unprepared mind. The verse praises the practitioner whose meditative composure does not waver whether honored or dishonored or both, who persistently practices absorption with subtle insight, and who, rejoicing in the ending of grasping, is called a
Page 287–289 Itivuttaka 82: The Cry of the Gods The Buddha describes three moments when the gods cry out in acknowledgment of a noble disciple's spiritual battle against Māra: when the disciple first goes forth from lay life into homelessness, when the disciple meditates on the qualities leading to awakening, and when the disciple finally realizes complete liberation of heart and mind through the ending of defilements. The gods honor such a person as a triumphant warrior who has defeated the army of death and achieved unhindered liberation. T
Page 289–291 Itivuttaka 83: Five Harbingers The Buddha describes five signs that appear when a god is about to die and fall from a heavenly realm, withering garlands, soiled clothes, sweating armpits, deteriorating appearance, and loss of delight in their heavenly throne, and explains that other gods respond by wishing the dying god a threefold blessing: going to a good place, gaining good fortune there, and becoming well grounded. Questioned by a mendicant, the Buddha clarifies that these blessings actually refer to being reborn as a hum
Page 291–292 Itivuttaka 84: For the Welfare of the People The Buddha names three types of individuals who arise in the world for the welfare and happiness of gods and humans out of compassion: a fully awakened Buddha who discovers and teaches the path anew, an already perfected disciple who likewise teaches the complete and pure spiritual life, and a trainee disciple of good conduct who also teaches faithfully within that lineage. Each of these three is said to reveal a teaching that is good in the beginning, middle, and end, both meaningful and well-e
Page 293 Ugliness, Breathing, and Impermanence (concluding verses) This closing passage teaches three complementary meditation objects for uprooting unwholesome states: contemplating the body's ugliness to overcome bodily desire, grounding mindfulness of breathing in the present to quiet distracting external thoughts, and observing the impermanence of all conditioned things to dispel ignorance and give rise to knowledge. The accompanying verse describes the mendicant who practices these three as one who sees the stilling of all formations and thereby slips free
Page 293 Practicing in Line with the Teaching This short teaching defines what it truly means for a mendicant to practice in line with the teaching: aligning one's speech and thought with the Dhamma rather than contradicting it, and ultimately going further by staying equanimous, mindful, and aware without clinging even to correct views. The verse praises the mendicant who delights in and recollects the teaching in every posture, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, as one who never strays from the true path and so attains inn
Page 293–295 Destroyers of Sight This teaching identifies three unskillful thoughts—sensuality, malice, and cruelty—as "destroyers of sight, vision, and knowledge" because they block wisdom and lead toward distress rather than freedom. It contrasts these with three skillful thoughts—renunciation, goodwill, and harmlessness—which instead grow wisdom and lead toward extinguishment. The closing verse compares quelling unskillful thoughts to rain settling dust, describing how a heart calmed of harmful deliberation touches peace rig
Page 295–296 Inner Stains Greed, hatred, and delusion are named as the true "inner stains, foes, and killers"—more dangerous than any external enemy because they blind a person to their own peril and prevent them from knowing what is good and true. The verses use vivid similes to describe overcoming each: greed falling away like a drop from a lotus leaf, hatred dropping off like a ripe palmyra fruit from its stem, and delusion dispelled like the rising sun banishing darkness. The teaching frames freedom from these three
Page 296–297 About Devadatta Using the Buddha's rival and betrayer Devadatta as a cautionary example, this teaching explains that corrupt ambition, bad companionship, and complacent satisfaction with a minor spiritual attainment led him to a hellish rebirth for an entire eon. The verses affirm that slander against a truly virtuous person cannot actually harm them, comparing the attempt to poisoning the vast ocean with a single pot of venom, and close by urging association with the wise as the path to the ending of suffering
Page 297–299 The Best Kinds of Confidence This teaching holds that placing confidence in the three best things in the world—the Buddha as the best of beings, the Dhamma of fading away and cessation as the best of all things, and the Saṅgha as the best of communities—yields the best possible results, since the quality of what one reveres shapes the quality of the merit gained. The verses promise that generosity directed toward these three "best" objects brings the best rewards: long life, beauty, fame, happiness, and eventual rejoicing a
Page 299–300 Lifestyle This teaching warns that the mendicant life of alms-begging is only worthwhile when undertaken to escape the suffering of birth, aging, and death—not as an escape from debt, punishment, or hardship. It condemns the corrupt renunciate who remains full of sensual craving, ill will, and heedlessness, comparing them to a funeral-pyre firebrand burning at both ends and smeared with dung, useless for any purpose, wasting both lay pleasures and the ascetic goal. The closing verse bluntly states it woul
Page 300–301 The Corner of the Cloak This teaching says that physical closeness to the Buddha means nothing without inner alignment with the Dhamma: a mendicant who literally clings to the hem of the Buddha's robe but remains full of craving and ill will is spiritually distant, while one who lives a hundred leagues away but has abandoned desire and aversion is truly close, because seeing the teaching is what it means to see the Buddha. The verses compare the calm, desireless mind to a windless lake, emphasizing inner stillness over
Page 301–302 Fire This teaching identifies greed, hatred, and delusion as three fires that burn beings and drive them into hellish, animal, or ghostly rebirths, still bound by Māra. It gives the specific antidote for each fire: perceiving ugliness extinguishes greed, love and goodwill extinguish hatred, and penetrating wisdom extinguishes delusion. Those who put out all three fires attain full liberation and directly know that they will never be reborn again.
Page 302 Examination This brief teaching instructs mendicants on right introspection: examining experience so that consciousness is neither scattered outward toward external objects nor collapsed inward with grasping, since this balanced, unanxious awareness prevents the arising of future suffering, rebirth, and old age. The verse notes that cutting off the underlying chains ends the cycle of transmigration for such a mendicant.
Page 302–303 Provided with Pleasure This teaching categorizes sensual pleasure into three kinds—pleasures that are simply present, pleasures enjoyed by those who love to create them, and pleasures enjoyed by controlling what others create—and observes that beings caught in any of these forms merely shift from one state to another without escaping transmigration. It urges recognizing the danger in all sensual indulgence, whether human or heavenly, and describes full liberation as cutting the powerful stream of craving that binds be
Page 303 Yoked to Sensual Pleasures This teaching classifies practitioners into three types based on their bondage to sensual desire and to future rebirth: one yoked to both is a "returner" who comes back to this world, one freed from sensual desire but still yoked to rebirth is a "non-returner," and one freed from both is a fully liberated arahant. The verses affirm that only those who have cut off doubt and conceit and ended craving for future life have truly crossed over to the ending of defilements.
Page 303–305 Good Morals This teaching describes the three qualities that make a mendicant "consummate" and a "supreme person": good moral conduct (careful ethical restraint, seeing danger in even minor faults), good practice (cultivating the seven factors of awakening), and good wisdom (realizing liberation of heart and mind through insight into the ending of defilements). The verses restate each quality poetically, praising the mendicant who does no wrong by body, speech, or mind, who has developed the awakening facto
Page 305 Giving This teaching compares material and spiritual generosity—gifts, sharing, and support "of things of the flesh" versus gifts, sharing, and support "of the teaching"—and declares the latter always superior, since teaching the Dhamma benefits others more deeply and lastingly than any physical offering. The verses praise this gift of the teaching as the supreme offering praised by the Buddha, one that purifies both giver and listener toward the highest goal.
Page 305–307 The Three Knowledges This teaching redefines what makes someone a true "brahmin"—not birth or ritual recitation, but mastery of three knowledges gained through meditation: recollection of one's own countless past lives in vivid detail, clairvoyant vision of how other beings are reborn according to their good or bad deeds, and the direct realization of liberation through the ending of defilements. Attaining all three transforms ignorance into knowledge and darkness into light, marking the practitioner as a true sage
Page 307–309 The Brahmin's Offering of the Teaching Opening the Book of Fours, the Buddha here describes himself as a spiritual "brahmin" and healer whose true children are those born of his teaching rather than of flesh, calling his disciples his bosom sons born from his mouth. It restates the recurring theme that gifts, sharing, support, and offerings of the Dhamma surpass their material counterparts in value. The closing verse honors the Buddha as the compassionate teacher revered above all gods and humans for having gone beyond rebirth.
Page 309 Easy to Find This teaching praises contentment with the four traditional supports of the ascetic life—rag-robes, almsfood, lodging at the root of a tree, and fermented urine as medicine—noting that these are blameless and easy to obtain. A mendicant satisfied with such trifles is never distressed by lack of possessions and is thereby freed to focus wholly on practice, a quality the Buddha calls integral to the ascetic life.
Page 309–310 The Ending of Defilements This teaching states that liberation from defilements comes only through direct knowledge and vision of the four noble truths—suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path—not through ignorance or mere belief. Understanding these truths as a trainee leads progressively to full enlightenment and the supreme knowledge of freedom, a realization the verses say is unattainable by the lazy or the foolish who do not understand.
Page 310–311 Ascetics and Brahmins This teaching declares that only those who truly understand the four noble truths deserve to be called genuine ascetics or brahmins, regardless of outward title or appearance, since real spiritual attainment requires personally realizing the end of suffering. Those who lack this understanding remain bound to endless rebirth and aging, while those who possess it gain both liberation of heart and liberation by wisdom, able to make a final end of suffering.
Page 311–313 Accomplished in Ethics This teaching praises mendicants who are fully accomplished in ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and the knowledge of freedom, explaining that even simply seeing, hearing, or serving such teachers is deeply beneficial, since associating with them helps complete one's own incomplete development in these same qualities. Such advanced practitioners are honored with titles like "caravan leaders," "dispellers of darkness," "lamps," and "beacons," reflecting their role in guiding others out of ignor
Page 313 The Arising of Craving This teaching identifies four practical sources through which craving typically arises for a mendicant: desire for robes, almsfood, lodging, or rebirth in a particular future state. It teaches that craving is a person's constant companion on the long journey of transmigration, and that recognizing craving as the cause of suffering allows a mendicant to wander mindfully, free of grasping.
Page 313–314 With Divinity This teaching holds that parents deserve to be honored as if they were divinities, elder gods, first teachers, and worthy recipients of religious offerings, because of the immense debt owed to them for raising, nurturing, and introducing their children to the world. It instructs that children should repay this care with food, clothing, bedding, and physical service such as washing their parents' feet, promising that devoted children will be praised in this life and reborn happily in heaven.
Page 314–315 Very Helpful This teaching describes the reciprocal relationship between laypeople and mendicants: householders sustain mendicants materially with robes, food, lodging, and medicine, while mendicants repay this support spiritually by teaching the Dhamma in its full and pure form. It frames the spiritual path as a cooperative effort in which home-dwellers and the homeless support each other in order to cross the flood of suffering and reach its complete end.
Page 315 Deceivers This teaching contrasts two types of mendicants: those who are deceptive, flattering, pompous, and unstable, whom the Buddha disowns as failing to grow, improve, or mature in the training, versus those who are genuine, sincere, attentive, and calm, who are recognized as true followers who flourish within the teaching.
Page 315–317 A River This teaching uses an extended simile of a person being swept along a pleasant-seeming river current toward a dangerous, monster-filled lake downstream to depict the peril of craving and sensual pleasure. The Buddha explains each element of the image: the current is craving, the pleasant seeming is the six senses, the downstream lake is the five lower fetters, the whirlpool is sensual stimulation, and paddling against the current with hands and feet is the effort of renunciation and rousing ener
Page 317–319 Walking This teaching insists that spiritual diligence must be maintained in every posture—walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. A mendicant who tolerates sensual, malicious, or cruel thoughts in any posture without abandoning them is called lazy and lacking energy, while one who actively gives up such thoughts in every posture is called keen, energetic, and capable of reaching the highest awakening. The structure repeats across all four postures to stress that vigilance must be continuous rather
Page 319–321 Accomplishment in Ethics Building on ethical restraint, this teaching describes the fuller cultivation that follows it: abandoning desire, ill will, dullness, restlessness, and doubt in every posture, with energy roused, mindfulness established, the body tranquil, and the mind unified in concentration. The verses portray a mendicant who moves and acts carefully in all things—walking, standing, sitting, lying, even bending and extending their limbs—while scrutinizing the rise and fall of the aggregates, earning the title
Page 321–323 The World This final sutta of the Itivuttaka explains why the Buddha is called "Tathāgata" (the Realized One): because he has fully understood the world, its origin, its cessation, and the path to its cessation, and remains detached from it despite comprehending everything within it that is seen, heard, thought, or known; because everything he says matches what he does and vice versa; and because he is the unvanquished universal seer whom gods and humans alike come to revere. The extended closing verses f
Page 323–327 The Serpent (Uragasutta) Opening the Sutta Nipāta's Chapter of Serpents, this poem compares the liberated mendicant to a snake shedding its old skin, repeating the refrain "such a mendicant sheds the near shore and the far, as a serpent its old worn-out skin" after each verse. Each verse names a different defilement cut away—anger, greed, craving, conceit, underlying tendencies, attachment to future existence—showing that true freedom means letting go of every remnant of clinging, on both the "near shore" of ordinary ex
Page 327–331 The Wealthy Rancher (Dhaniyasutta) This poetic dialogue stages an exchange between the complacent rancher Dhaniya, who boasts of his secure home, obedient wife, healthy children, and abundant cattle while daring the rain to fall, and the Buddha, who answers each boast with a spiritual counterpart—his mind rather than his wife is tamed, his energy rather than an ox carries his burden, his equanimity rather than a hut shelters him. When rain actually falls at the story's climax, Dhaniya and his wife are struck with awe and go for r
Page 331–339 The Horned Rhinoceros (Khaggavisāṇasutta) This long, unified poem is built around the recurring refrain "live alone like a horned rhinoceros," using it to catalog the dangers of attachment to friends, family, children, wealth, and sensual pleasure as sources of entanglement, grief, and distraction from the spiritual goal. Vivid images—bamboo shoots tangled together, two gold bracelets clashing on one arm, a lone elephant leaving its herd—illustrate why solitary, independent practice is praised, while a few verses acknowledge that a genu
Page 339–343 With Bhāradvāja the Farmer (Kasibhāradvājasutta) This narrative sutta recounts how the brahmin farmer Bhāradvāja, busy sowing with five hundred plows, challenges the Buddha to justify begging for alms instead of farming like everyone else. The Buddha responds with an extended agricultural metaphor recasting spiritual practice itself as farming—faith is the seed, wisdom the plough, mindfulness the plowshare and goad, energy the harnessed draft animal—yielding freedom from death as its harvest. Deeply moved, and after witnessing the Buddha refus
Page 343–345 With Cunda (Cundasutta) The smith Cunda asks the Buddha how many kinds of genuine ascetics exist in the world, and the Buddha answers that there are four: the "path-victor" who has fully realized the path, the "path-teacher" who explains it clearly, the "path-liver" who lives it faithfully and restrained, and the "path-wrecker" who merely imitates its outward form while remaining corrupt, devious, and a corrupter of families. The teaching closes by urging a discerning lay follower not to lose faith in genuine practitio
Page 345–348 Downfalls (Parābhavasutta) In this dialogue, a radiant deity approaches the Buddha at night and asks what causes a person's downfall in life, and the Buddha answers with a list of twelve concrete causes recited in a repeating question-and-answer pattern: hating the true teaching, keeping bad company, laziness paired with anger, neglecting aged parents, deceiving holy people, hoarding wealth for oneself alone, family pride and contempt for one's own relatives, squandering wealth on women, drink, and gambling, chronic infid
Page 349–353 The Lowlife (Bhāradvāja the Fire-Worshiper) The Buddha, seeking alms, is insulted as a 'lowlife' by the brahmin Bhāradvāja, who tends a sacred fire. Asked to explain, the Buddha defines a true lowlife not by caste or birth but by conduct: cruelty, theft, deceit, disrespecting one's parents, hypocrisy, and slandering the honest. He illustrates that birth is no barrier to nobility with the example of Mātaṅga, a corpse-worker's son who through virtue was reborn among the gods, while brahmins by blood alone can still fall into wickedness. The
Page 353–355 The Discourse on Love (Metta Sutta) One of the most beloved suttas, this poem lays out the ethical foundation and practice of lovingkindness meditation. It first describes the character needed for peace — capable, honest, gentle, content, and unburdensome — then instructs the meditator to extend a boundless, protective love to all beings, comparing it to a mother's love for her only child. This goodwill is to be radiated in all directions, unconstricted and free of enmity, and sustained in every posture of daily life. Combined wit
Page 355–359 With Hemavata Two native spirits, Sātāgira and Hemavata, discuss whether the Buddha truly possesses the moral perfection ascribed to him, running through a checklist of ethical and meditative qualities — honesty, non-harming, freedom from lust and delusion, purity of mind. Convinced, they seek him out, and Hemavata questions him on the root of the world's suffering, which the Buddha locates in the six sense fields and the craving they generate. He explains that abandoning desire for these six is the way out o
Page 359–361 With Āḷavaka A hostile native spirit named Āḷavaka harasses the Buddha, ordering him in and out of his territory and threatening violence if he cannot answer his questions. The Buddha calmly submits to the test, and Āḷavaka asks what constitutes a person's best wealth, greatest happiness, sweetest taste, and best way of living, which the Buddha answers as faith, the teaching, truth, and wisdom respectively. Further questions on crossing the flood of suffering and dying without regret are answered with faith,
Page 362–363 Victory Over Desire for the Body A stark meditation on the body's true nature, cataloging in unflinching detail its bones, organs, and the nine streams of filth constantly oozing from its orifices, only for it to end as a bloated corpse torn apart by dogs, crows, and worms in a charnel ground. The poem contrasts the fool who, blinded by ignorance, still finds this body lovely with the wise mendicant who sees it as it truly is and thereby loses desire for it, inside and out. This clear seeing is said to lead to peace and the dea
Page 363–366 The Sage An extended verse portrait of the ideal sage (muni), who finds peril in intimacy and attachment and so lives free of both, never replanting the craving he has cut down, and having seen through all realms of rebirth. Such a sage remains unshaken by praise and blame — like a lion undisturbed by noise, wind uncaught in a net, or water that does not cling to a lotus leaf — and treats every kind of alms offering with the same equanimity. He is celibate even in youth, protects rather than exploits oth
Page 366–371 Gems (Ratana Sutta) A protective chant addressed to all gathered beings, celebrating the 'gems' found respectively in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha, with nearly every verse closing on the refrain 'by this truth, may you be well!' It praises the Buddha's unequaled attainment, the Dhamma's power to end craving and bring the deathless, and the incorruptibility of noble disciples who have seen the truth and can no longer conceal wrongdoing or fall to a bad rebirth. The sutta functions as an invocation of bless
Page 372–375 Putrefaction (Āmagandha Sutta) The Buddha, in the guise of a past Buddha named Kassapa, debates a brahmin ascetic who insists that eating meat is spiritually impure ('putrefaction'). The Buddha redefines true putrefaction as moral corruption rather than diet, listing at length the real defilements: killing, theft, adultery, lying, fraud, cruelty, greed, betrayal of friends, and dishonest dealing. He declares that no amount of fasting, nudity, ritual bathing, or fire-worship can purify someone still bound by doubt and bad cond
Page 375–376 Conscientious Companionship A brief teaching distinguishing false friends, who speak warmly but never follow through, from true friends, who can be relied upon the way an infant rests securely on its mother's breast. It cautions against companions who are quick to suspect betrayal or find fault, and instead praises those who willingly share the burden of service, which brings joy, happiness, and a good reputation. The poem closes by praising whoever has tasted the 'nectar' of seclusion and peace found through the Dhamma, f
Page 376–377 Blessings (Maṅgala Sutta) A radiant deity asks the Buddha to declare the highest blessing for those seeking well-being, and he answers with a long, cumulative list spanning ordinary and spiritual life: avoiding fools and honoring the wise, caring for parents and family, honest livelihood and generosity, patience and gratitude, and ultimately fervor, insight into the noble truths, and realization of extinguishment. Each stage of the list builds toward the claim that a person who embodies all of these remains undefeated an
Page 378–379 With Spiky Two native spirits, Shaggy and Spiky, argue over whether the Buddha is a genuine ascetic or a fraud, and Spiky decides to test him by leaning menacingly against his body and threatening violence if his questions go unanswered. The Buddha remains unmoved, and Spiky asks where greed, hatred, discontent, and restless thoughts come from. The Buddha explains that they arise from self-centered affection, spreading through a person like the aerial roots of a banyan tree or a creeping vine through a for
Page 379–380 A Righteous Life This teaching warns that going forth into monastic life is no guarantee of virtue: a corrupt, quarrelsome, and deluded monk only grows worse, like poison spreading inside him, and is likened to a sewer clogged with years of filth. Such a person is ignorant of the Dhamma, harasses those who are genuinely developed, and heads toward suffering after death. The Buddha instructs the Saṅgha to formally and harmoniously expel members of confirmed bad character, using the vivid imagery of sweeping out t
Page 381–385 Brahmanical Principles (Brāhmaṇadhammika Sutta) A group of elderly brahmins ask the Buddha whether the ancient principles of their tradition are still upheld, and he responds that they are not, then describes how the ancient seers lived austerely, owning no wealth, practicing celibacy for decades, and above all revering cows as sacred providers of food and medicine, never slaughtering them. He narrates a decline: brahmins, envious of royal wealth and luxury, composed hymns urging King Okkāka to perform ever-grander sacrifices, which escalated
Page 386–387 The Boat This teaching stresses the importance of learning the Dhamma from a genuinely wise and reliable teacher rather than a petty, unlearned one. It compares following an unreliable guide to being swept helplessly downstream in a river in flood, unable to save oneself or anyone else, while a skilled teacher is like a sturdy boat equipped with rudder and oar that can safely carry many people across. The conclusion urges seeking out and honoring an intelligent, learned person, and putting the meaning of
Page 387–389 What Morality? Asked what conduct lays the right foundation for reaching the highest goal, the Buddha describes the qualities of an ideal student: honoring elders without jealousy, seeking teachers out at the right time, treasuring the chance to hear the Dhamma, and calling its meaning to mind for actual practice rather than mere discussion. Such a person gives up frivolity, flattery, deceit, conceit, and negligence, valuing calm and genuine understanding over hasty, superficial learning. The teaching closes b
Page 389 Get Up! A short, urgent exhortation against spiritual complacency, comparing sleep and negligence to lying still while pierced by an arrow. It warns that the King of Death has already caught the heedless off guard, and that anyone who lets the moment for practice slip by will grieve bitterly when reborn in hell. The verse closes by urging diligence and clear knowledge as the means to pluck the dart of affliction out of oneself.
Page 390 With Rāhula In a verse exchange, the Buddha asks his son Rāhula whether familiarity has bred contempt for him, and Rāhula affirms his constant honor for the one who holds up the torch of wisdom for humanity. The Buddha then gives Rāhula a compact set of practical monastic instructions: keep company with spiritual friends, live in quiet seclusion, eat moderately, avoid craving robes and requisites, guard the senses, meditate on the body's unattractiveness to counter lust, and contemplate the signless to over
Page 391–394 Vaṅgīsa and His Mentor Nigrodhakappa The monk Vaṅgīsa, troubled by uncertainty over whether his recently deceased mentor Nigrodhakappa achieved full liberation, approaches the Buddha and, in an elaborate poem comparing the Buddha's voice to a goose's cry and likening his own longing to a man craving water in the summer heat, begs to be told his teacher's fate. The Buddha confirms that Nigrodhakappa cut off craving for name and form and has entirely crossed over birth and death. Vaṅgīsa responds with profound relief and confidence,
Page 395–398 The Right Way to Wander (Tuvaṭaka Sutta) A questioner asks how a mendicant who has renounced sensual life ought to conduct himself, and the Buddha answers with a long, structured litany of qualities defining the rightly wandering monk — abandoning superstition about omens and dreams, discarding backbiting, anger, and stinginess, remaining unmoved by both the loved and unloved, and cutting off all underlying tendencies and hope. Each stanza closes on the refrain 'they'd rightly wander the world,' building a cumulative picture of total i
Page 399–404 With Dhammika The lay follower Dhammika, together with five hundred companions, asks the Buddha to teach both monastics and householders what makes a good disciple, opening with extended praise of the Buddha's unmatched wisdom, sought out even by serpent and spirit kings and outclassing rival ascetics and brahmin debaters. The Buddha first details proper conduct for mendicants — correct timing for almsround, restrained speech focused on the Dhamma, and non-attachment to alms, lodging, and requisites — then tu
Page 405–407 Going Forth (Pabbajjā Sutta) This poem recounts the Buddha's early life and the moment he chose to leave home, seeing lay life as cramped and confining compared to the openness of homelessness. After going forth he travels to Rājagaha, where King Bimbisāra notices his composed, radiant bearing while begging for alms and sends messengers to track where he is staying on Mount Paṇḍava. The king then visits him in person, offers him wealth, pleasures, and status if he will stay, and asks about his origins. The Buddha explains h
Page 408–410 Striving (Padhāna Sutta) The Buddha recalls his confrontation with Māra during his intense ascetic effort on the bank of the Nerañjara River. Māra, feigning kindness, urges him to abandon the difficult path of striving, warning that he is near death and could instead live to accumulate merit through ritual and the sacred flame. The Buddha refuses, declaring he needs no merit and is sustained by faith, energy, and wisdom even as his body wastes away. He then names Māra's ten armies - sensual desire, discontent, hunger an
Page 411–412 Well-Spoken Words (Subhāsita Sutta) The Buddha teaches that speech is truly well spoken only when it meets four criteria: it is spoken well, principled, pleasant, and truthful, making it blameless and beyond criticism. He stresses that speech which does not harm oneself or others, and which is gladly welcomed by its hearers, is the mark of good communication. Venerable Vaṅgīsa then rises and praises the Buddha in verse, affirming that truth is the foundation of both teaching and meaning, and that the Buddha's own words - aimed at
Page 412–415 With Bhāradvāja of Sundarikā on the Sacrificial Cake (Part 1) The brahmin Bhāradvāja of Sundarikā is performing a fire sacrifice when he notices the meditating Buddha and offers him the ritual leftovers, then questions his caste since he appears shaven like some ascetics. The Buddha replies that he stands entirely outside caste categories, wandering the world unattached to any clan identity. When the brahmin proposes to test him with a formal Vedic recitation, the Buddha instead redirects the conversation to what actually makes an offering profitable, and
Page 416–420 With Bhāradvāja of Sundarikā on the Sacrificial Cake (Part 2) In an extended refrain, the Buddha describes exactly who deserves a sacrificial offering: not someone of a particular birth, but one who has abandoned greed, hatred, delusion, craving, and self-view, and who has crossed the flood of transmigration to become cool and quenched like the moon freed from eclipse. Moved, Bhāradvāja tries to offer the cake directly to the Buddha, but the Buddha declines food obtained through chanted verses, instructing him instead to give it to one who is truly free of
Page 420–425 With Māgha (Māgha Sutta) The generous donor Māgha asks the Buddha whether his large-scale charitable giving to many people generates abundant merit, and the Buddha confirms that it does. Māgha then presses further, asking who truly deserves such gifts, and the Buddha answers with a repeated refrain naming those who are unattached, free of fetters, and rid of greed, hatred, and delusion as the worthy field for offerings. The teaching culminates in instruction on cultivating a boundless heart of loving-kindness spread in
Page 426–428 With Sabhiya (Sabhiya Sutta, Part 1: Seeking a Teacher) A deity who was once Sabhiya's relative gives him a set of difficult questions and tells him to adopt whichever ascetic or brahmin teacher can answer them. Sabhiya brings the questions to the six most famous religious founders of the day, including Pūraṇa Kassapa and the Jain teacher, but none can answer, and they react with anger and hostility instead. Disheartened and tempted to abandon spiritual life altogether, Sabhiya reconsiders and decides to approach the Buddha despite his relative youth
Page 429–433 With Sabhiya (Sabhiya Sutta, Part 2: The Questions Answered) Overjoyed that the Buddha has taken his questions seriously where others failed, Sabhiya asks him to define a long series of honorific terms - mendicant, gentle, tamed, awakened, brahmin, ascetic, bathed initiate, giant, field-victor, skillful, astute scholar, sage, knowledge master, studied, and hero. In each case the Buddha redefines the term away from external status or ritual and toward inner attainment: overcoming doubt, ending craving for existence, and uprooting the root causes of sufferi
Page 434–437 With Sabhiya (Sabhiya Sutta, Part 3: Praise and Ordination) The Buddha finishes answering Sabhiya's questions by defining scholar, noble, well-conducted, and wanderer, again locating true meaning in inner freedom rather than external achievement. Overwhelmed, Sabhiya rises and offers an extended, rapturous eulogy, praising the Buddha for dispelling all his uncertainty and crossing beyond the sixty-three speculative views current among ascetics of the day. He then requests ordination, and because he formerly belonged to another sect he willingly accepts a
Page 438–442 With Sela (Sela Sutta, Part 1: An Invitation and a Rumor) The ascetic Keṇiya hears of the Buddha's arrival at Āpaṇa and, after being turned down twice, finally secures the Buddha's consent to host a meal for the entire Saṅgha of 1,250 mendicants, triggering elaborate preparations. The learned brahmin Sela, teacher of three hundred students, notices the activity and learns the meal is for someone called "the awakened one" - a title he recognizes from ancient lore as belonging to a being who becomes either a world-ruling monarch or a fully awakened Buddh
Page 443–447 With Sela (Sela Sutta, Part 2: Recognition and Ordination) The Buddha uses his psychic power to reveal the two remaining hidden bodily marks, resolving Sela's last doubts, and Sela responds with extended verses praising his radiant appearance. Sela then asks why someone so magnificent chooses asceticism over kingship, prompting the Buddha's famous reply that he is himself a king - the "supreme king of the teaching" - who rolls forth an unstoppable wheel of Dhamma, with Sāriputta as the general who keeps it turning. Convinced, Sela and his three hundred
Page 447–449 The Dart (Salla Sutta) This poem meditates directly on mortality and grief, observing that death is unpredictable and universal, striking young and old, wise and foolish, without regard for status or preparation. It stresses that weeping and self-harm cannot undo a death or help the departed, and that unchecked lamentation only compounds one's own suffering and physical distress. Instead, the wise person is urged to "pluck out the dart" of sorrow by recognizing the shared, inescapable nature of separation and death, t
Page 450–453 With Vāseṭṭha (Vāseṭṭha Sutta, Part 1: The Debate) Two brahmin students, Vāseṭṭha and Bhāradvāja, argue over whether one becomes a brahmin through pure hereditary birth or through ethical conduct, and unable to settle it themselves, they bring the dispute to the Buddha. He begins his answer by noting that among plants and animals, distinct species really are determined by birth, each with its own defining bodily features. He then argues that no comparable physical markers - hair, features, build, or voice - distinguish one human being from anoth
Page 454–458 With Vāseṭṭha (Vāseṭṭha Sutta, Part 2: Deeds Define the Brahmin) The Buddha completes his argument by showing that occupations like farmer, trader, bandit, warrior, priest, and ruler are all defined by what people do, not by their birth. He then delivers a long, cumulative refrain declaring that true brahminhood belongs only to one who has cut off fetters, given up greed and hatred, endures abuse with patience, and has reached the end of suffering - culminating in the famous line that one is "not a brahmin by birth... you're a brahmin by your deeds." The teac
Page 458–459 With Kokālika (Kokālika Sutta, opening) The mendicant Kokālika approaches the Buddha and accuses the chief disciples Sāriputta and Moggallāna of harboring corrupt intentions and having fallen under the sway of bad wishes. The Buddha firmly rebukes him, defending the two as trustworthy, good monks and urging Kokālika to have confidence in them. Kokālika repeats the accusation a second and third time despite the rebuke, and the Buddha responds identically each time; the text breaks off here as the chunk ends, with the confrontation stil
Page 460–466 Kokālika's Death and Rebirth in the Pink Lotus Hell After slandering the chief disciples Sāriputta and Moggallāna, the monk Kokālika's body erupts in horrific boils and he dies, reborn in the Pink Lotus hell, one of the most severe hell realms, as the karmic consequence of his hatred toward noble ones. The god Sahampati reports his fate to the Buddha, who then explains to the monks just how inconceivably long a lifetime in that hell lasts, using the image of slowly emptying an enormous store of sesame seed one grain every hundred years, nested tw
Page 466–470 Nālaka: Asita's Prophecy of the Buddha's Birth The aged seer Asita, seeing the gods of heaven celebrating with unprecedented joy, learns that a being destined for awakening has just been born as a prince in Lumbinī. He travels to the Sakyan palace, examines the infant's marks, and joyfully declares the boy will become supreme among beings and turn the wheel of the teaching, but then weeps because he himself will die before he can hear that teaching. Before leaving, Asita instructs his nephew Nālaka, who has accumulated great merit, to watch
Page 470–473 Nālaka: The Buddha's Teaching on Sagely Practice Nālaka asks the Buddha to explain "sagacity," the ultimate state of a homeless mendicant living on alms, and the Buddha warns him the practice is as difficult and exacting as "licking a razor's edge." He instructs Nālaka to remain even-minded under praise or blame, to renounce sensual allure including the seductions of women, to treat all beings as he treats himself and so never kill or incite killing, and to be content with whatever alms come, neither elated nor upset. The Buddha praises solitu
Page 473–477 Contemplating Pairs I: Suffering, Attachment, Ignorance, Choices, and Consciousness On a full-moon sabbath at the Eastern Monastery, the Buddha teaches the assembled monks a meditation method called "contemplating pairs": pairing an understanding of suffering with an understanding of its cause, promising that a mendicant who diligently contemplates such a pair can expect full awakening in this life or non-return. He then offers alternative formulations of the same basic pair, showing suffering arising in dependence on attachment, then on ignorance, then on karmic choices, and t
Page 478–483 Contemplating Pairs II: Contact, Craving, Grasping, and the World's Inverted Values The Buddha continues the "contemplating pairs" method through further causal factors: craving, grasping, instigating karmic activity, sustenance, and mental perturbation, each time showing suffering ceasing when its specific cause ceases and the liberated mendicant becoming independent and unshaken. He adds two subtler pairs, that formless meditative states are more peaceful than states involving form, and that cessation surpasses even the formless, before delivering the discourse's most strikin
Page 483–484 Sensual Pleasures (Kāmasutta) This short poem contrasts the fleeting elation of getting what one desires with the painful withdrawal that follows when sensual pleasures inevitably fade, likened to being struck by an arrow. It catalogs the many objects people crave, such as land, gold, cattle, servants, women, and relatives, and warns that pursuing them leaves a person vulnerable to being overpowered and crushed by circumstance, with suffering seeping in like water through a leaky boat. The remedy offered is mindful avoidance
Page 484–486 Eight on the Cave (Guhaṭṭhakasutta) This poem depicts ordinary people as trapped in a metaphorical "cave" of delusion and bodily existence, bound by chains of desire that are hard to escape because liberation cannot be handed to one person by another. It portrays greedy, pleasure-obsessed people lamenting their fate as death approaches, still unable to release their craving for future lives, and compares humanity's scramble over possessions to fish flailing in the shrinking puddles of a drying streambed. The teaching urges the lis
Page 486–488 Eight on Malice (Duṭṭhaṭṭhakasutta) This poem examines why people get drawn into disputes: some speak from dogmatic attachment to their own views and precepts, boasting of them and looking down on others, which the text calls an "ignoble nature." The genuinely peaceful mendicant, by contrast, never boasts about their own virtue or declares "thus am I," and is praised as having a "noble nature" precisely because they hold no pretensions about anything in the world. It concludes that anyone who formulates and clings to a fixed doctr
Page 488–490 Eight on the Pure (Suddhaṭṭhakasutta) This poem critiques the common belief that purity can be attained simply by holding a correct view or through what is seen, heard, thought, or through moral precepts and vows adopted from a teacher. It argues that anyone who claims purification depends on another still carries the very attachments that need to be let go, and compares such a person's grasping and releasing of doctrines and teachers to a monkey grabbing and letting go of branches. True freedom, the text says, means "stepping over
Page 490–492 Eight on the Ultimate (Paramaṭṭhakasutta) This poem continues the critique of dogmatism, focusing on the person who declares their own doctrine "ultimate" and thereby implicitly demotes every other view and person as inferior, guaranteeing endless dispute. It teaches that a truly free person does not rank themselves as equal, worse, or better than anyone based on their views, precepts, or experiences, and does not even cling to bare notions or ideas as a subtler form of attachment. The ideal figure described has "set down" whatever was
Page 492–493 Old Age (Jarāsutta) This poem meditates on impermanence and mortality, observing that human life is brief and that even loved ones and possessions vanish at death the way a dream vanishes upon waking, leaving behind only a name to be remembered by. It contrasts those who are greedy for possessions and consequently cannot let go of grief, lamentation, and stinginess with the sages who renounced ownership and wander freely, likening their equanimity to water sliding effortlessly off a lotus leaf. The teaching's core
Page 493–494 With Tissametteyya (Tissametteyyasutta) Answering the monk Tissametteyya's question about the dangers of sexual activity for one pursuing seclusion, the Buddha explains that a previously solitary practitioner who resorts to sex forgets their training and derails like a chariot running off the road, losing the respect and reputation they once had. Such a person becomes tormented by anxious, brooding thoughts, grows defensive and even dishonest when challenged about their conduct, and is envied rather than pitied by people still tied to
Page 494–497 With Pasūra (Pasūrasutta) This poem satirizes competitive religious debaters who each insist their own teaching alone is pure, plunge eagerly into public disputes seeking praise and profit, and become anxious, embarrassed, or vindictive when their doctrine is challenged or declared the loser. It compares such a debater to a warrior gorged on royal food who roars looking for a fight, and points out the absurdity of disputing when there is, among those who cling to nothing as the "highest," truly no opponent to be found. A
Page 497–500 With Māgaṇḍiya (Māgaṇḍiyasutta) When the brahmin Māgaṇḍiya offers his beautiful daughter in marriage, the Buddha replies that he felt no desire even for the divine temptresses Craving, Malignancy, and Lust, dismissing the body itself as merely "full of piss and shit." Pressed on what view or practice he holds instead, the Buddha explains that true purity comes neither from adopting a view nor from deliberately rejecting all views, neither from learning nor from its absence, but from relinquishing dependence on any of these; Mā
Page 500–501 Before the Breakup (Purābhedasutta) In response to a question about what makes a person truly "at peace" or an "ultimate person," the Buddha describes someone free of craving regardless of past, present, or future, unmoved by anger, fear, boastfulness, or regret, and unshaken by any view. This peaceful person shows no favoritism or grudges, is not driven by profit or loss, and holds no self-comparison as equal, superior, or inferior to others, having let go of any craving either to continue existing or to end existence. The poem c
Page 501–505 Quarrels and Disputes (Kalahavivādasutta) Structured as a chain of questions and answers, this poem traces disputes and suffering back through a sequence of causes: quarrels arise from what people hold dear, which arises from desire, which arises from evaluating pleasant and painful experience, which arises from contact, which arises from name-and-form, down to the role of perception in generating conceptual proliferation. Each link in the chain is probed in turn, covering pleasure and pain, contact, possessiveness, and the "manifesting
Page 505–509 The Shorter Discourse on Arrayed for Battle (Cūḷaviyūhasutta) This poem dissects the logic of sectarian dispute, in which rival teachers each dismiss those who disagree as "fools" while claiming their own view makes them "expert," showing the reasoning is self-defeating: if rejecting another's teaching makes someone foolish, then everyone is foolish, since everyone rejects someone else's teaching. It insists there is only one truth, not many, and that different ascetics teach differing "truths" only because each has built up his own view through selective
Page 509–513 The Longer Discourse on Arrayed for Battle (Mahāviyūhasutta) Extending the previous poem's theme, this discourse examines those who ground their sense of purity in strict ethical observance and vows, showing that they live in constant anxiety, trembling at any lapse and desperately praying to regain "purity" like a merchant who has lost his caravan, because their peace depends on maintaining an external standard. It contrasts this with someone who has let go of grasping at precepts and vows altogether, along with judgments about praiseworthy or blameworth
Page 513–514 Speedy (Tuvaṭakasutta), opening This poem opens with a request that the Buddha, addressed as "Kinsman of the Sun," teach about seclusion and inner peace, and how a mendicant becomes fully liberated without grasping at anything in the world. The Buddha's opening instruction is to uproot the very notion "I am the thinker," which he identifies as the root of all the mental proliferation and judgments that entangle the mind, urging constant mindfulness to remove inner cravings. He adds that even correct knowledge, whether of inter
Page 515–517 Closing Verses on a Mendicant's Conduct These verses close out a discourse on the right conduct of a wandering mendicant, describing the ethical and meditative discipline expected of someone who has left the household life. The teaching lists behaviors to avoid — craving for flavors, village gossip, self-pity when struck by hardship, too much sleep, sloth, and frivolous play — as part of a life stripped of worldly entanglement. It also forbids practices like casting spells, interpreting dreams and omens, astrology, and working as a do
Page 517–519 Taking Up Arms (Attadaṇḍa Sutta) The Buddha describes being moved to a sense of urgency after seeing how conflict and fear pervade the world, comparing frightened, quarrelling people to fish flailing in a shrinking puddle. He identifies craving as a "dart" hidden deep in the heart that drives people to run anxiously in every direction, and teaches that only by plucking out this dart of desire does one find stillness. The verses list habits to abandon — deceit, anger, sloth, arrogance, and clinging to both old attachments and ne
Page 519–523 With Sāriputta (Sāriputta Sutta) Sāriputta praises the Buddha's unprecedented and unmatched teaching, then asks on behalf of mendicants how one who withdraws to remote wilderness lodgings — the root of a tree, a charnel ground, a cave — should conduct themselves and what dangers they must be ready to face. The Buddha answers with practical guidance on enduring physical hardship (insects, wild animals, hunger, heat and cold), overcoming fear of rival ascetics, and dispelling the "four lamentations" of worrying over food and shel
Page 523–530 Introductory Verses — The Story of Bāvari This narrative prologue to the Pārāyanavagga tells how the elderly brahmin Bāvari, living by the Godāvarī River, is cursed with a "head-splitting" death by another brahmin he could not pay. Distraught, he is comforted by a goddess who tells him that only the Buddha possesses true knowledge of "heads and head-splitting," and reveals that the Buddha has now arisen in the world. Overjoyed, Bāvari sends sixteen brahmin students — including Ajita, Tissametteyya, Puṇṇaka, and Mettagū — to seek out the
Page 530–531 The Questions of Ajita Ajita asks what shrouds the world and keeps it from "shining," and the Buddha answers that it is ignorance, compounded by greed and negligence, with suffering as the world's greatest fear. He explains that mindfulness blocks the "streams" of craving that flow through the senses, while wisdom is what ultimately locks them out for good. Asked where name and form finally cease, the Buddha replies that it happens with the cessation of consciousness, leaving no residue behind. The exchange closes wit
Page 531–532 The Questions of Tissametteyya Tissametteyya asks who in the world is genuinely content and free of turmoil, someone who knows "both ends" without becoming stuck between them. The Buddha replies that it is the mendicant who leads the spiritual life amid sensual temptations without being seduced by them, remaining mindful and free of craving after careful reflection. Such a person, having escaped the pull of attachment (likened to a seamstress's needle and thread), is called a truly great person. The short exchange defines spi
Page 532–533 The Questions of Puṇṇaka Puṇṇaka questions why seers, kings, and brahmins across the ages have performed so many sacrifices to the gods, and the Buddha answers that all such rituals are driven by fear of old age and a longing to secure a better rebirth. He clarifies that hopeful, profit-seeking sacrifice does not free anyone from the cycle of rebirth and aging, no matter how devoted the practitioner. Pressed on who actually does escape, the Buddha describes the one who has fully surveyed the world, high and low, and rem
Page 533–536 The Questions of Mettagū Mettagū asks the ultimate source of the world's countless forms of suffering, and the Buddha names attachment as their root, explaining that an ignorant person who keeps building up attachments returns to suffering again and again. Asked how the wise cross the flood of rebirth, old age, sorrow, and lamenting, the Buddha teaches a method "apparent in the present" rather than based on hearsay: giving up relishing and fixed views about whatever is experienced in any direction, without clinging to c
Page 536–537 The Questions of Dhotaka Dhotaka begs the Buddha directly for a teaching that will let him train himself toward extinguishment, admitting he cannot on his own break free of indecision. The Buddha responds that he cannot simply release someone from doubt by wishing it, but that understanding the best of teachings will itself let Dhotaka cross the flood. Asked for a principle of seclusion, the Buddha offers a teaching "apparent in the present," urging him to see everything experienced in every direction as a binding chain
Page 537–539 The Questions of Upasīva Upasīva, describing himself as unable alone to cross the great flood, asks for a "support" to depend on, and the Buddha directs him to contemplate the perception of nothingness while giving up sensual desire and idle chatter. Upasīva then probes what happens to someone who remains fixed in that formless attainment for eons — whether their consciousness persists or simply vanishes. The Buddha answers with the image of a flame blown out by a gust of wind, which cannot be said to have gone anywhere
Page 539–542 The Questions of Nanda Nanda asks what makes someone a true sage — knowledge, or simply a way of life — and the Buddha replies that sages are recognized not by holding views, learning, or particular knowledge, but by living apart from the crowd, untroubled and free of expectation. Pressed on whether ascetics and brahmins who ground their claims to purity in what is seen, heard, or in precepts and rituals have thereby crossed over rebirth and old age, the Buddha firmly denies it — mere adherence to observances does not
Page 542 The Questions of Hemaka Hemaka tells the Buddha that everything he had previously heard from other teachers was mere hearsay and speculation that gave him no real satisfaction, and asks for the teaching that actually destroys craving. The Buddha's brief answer identifies the removal of desire and lust for anything seen, heard, thought, or cognized as extinguishment itself — a state that does not pass away. Those who fully understand this and live mindfully are said to be quenched in this very life, always at peace and
Page 542–543 The Questions of Todeyya Todeyya asks about the nature of liberation for someone in whom sensual desire and craving no longer dwell, and the Buddha states that there is no "further" liberation beyond that state — it is already complete. Pressed further, he explains that such a person is entirely free of hope, having nothing left to hope for, while simultaneously possessing wisdom that needs no further development. This distinguishes the fully accomplished sage, who owns nothing and is unattached to sensual life, from on
Page 543–544 The Questions of Kappa Kappa, likening the terror of old age and death to a flood sweeping people away mid-stream, asks the Buddha for an "island" of refuge that will stop the danger for good. The Buddha answers that the only true island is having and taking nothing at all — a state he calls extinguishment, the very ending of old age and death. Those who fully understand and realize this, he says, are beyond Māra's reach and no longer serve as his footmen.
Page 544–545 The Questions of Jatukaṇṇī Jatukaṇṇī, having heard of the Buddha's freedom from desire for sensual pleasures, asks him to describe the state of peace so he can understand how to give up rebirth and old age. The Buddha's answer counsels seeing renunciation as one's sanctuary, neither taking up nor discarding anything, letting the past wither away and refusing to grasp at the present middle ground. Someone freed of greed for the whole domain of name and form has no vulnerable point through which death could ever take hold.
Page 545–546 The Questions of Bhadrāvudha Bhadrāvudha addresses the Buddha with a string of honorific titles — the one who has left worldly bastions behind, cut off craving, and become unshakeable — and, speaking for a large gathered crowd eager to hear him before they depart, asks for a clear teaching on his behalf. The Buddha answers that craving for anything grasped in any direction gives Māra his opening, so a mindful mendicant should hold onto nothing at all in the world. He observes that it is precisely through clinging to attachm
Page 546–547 The Questions of Udaya Udaya, addressing a meditator who has completed the task and gone beyond all things, asks about liberation through enlightenment and the destruction of ignorance. The Buddha describes it as giving up both desire and displeasure, casting off mental dullness and remorse, supported by pure equanimity, mindfulness, and investigation of principles. He further explains that delight is what fetters the world and thought is how it "travels about," so giving up craving ends the cycle, and consciousness i
Page 547–548 The Question of Posāla Posāla asks about someone who has attained the perception that even form has vanished and who sees nothing at all inside or outside themselves — how should such a person's remaining knowledge be understood? The Buddha replies that as the Realized One he directly knows every plane of consciousness, including this refined formless attainment, and clarifies that even desire for rebirth in the "dimension of nothingness" is itself still a subtle fetter. True knowledge, he says, comes only from seeing
Page 548–549 The Questions of Mogharāja Having asked twice before without receiving an answer, since tradition holds the Buddha waits for a third asking, Mogharāja finally poses his question about how to view the world so that the King of Death cannot see him. The Buddha's concise reply — to look upon the world as empty, having uprooted the very notion of a self — became one of the most celebrated lines in the early texts, offering a direct method for transcending mortality through insight into not-self.
Page 549–550 The Questions of Piṅgiya The aged and physically failing Piṅgiya, his eyesight and hearing fading, pleads with the Buddha to teach him before he dies still confused about the path. The Buddha responds in two stages: first noting how people are harmed through their attachment to visible forms and urging Piṅgiya to give up form so as not to be reborn, then observing that humanity is sunk in and tormented by craving, and that giving up craving itself is what ends rebirth.
Page 550–551 Homage to the Way to the Far Shore This closing narration explains that the Buddha delivered all sixteen preceding question-and-answer dialogues while staying at the Pāsāṇaka Shrine in the land of the Magadhans, answering each of Bāvari's sixteen student-brahmins in turn. It states that anyone who understands and practices in line with these teachings can go all the way from the near shore to the far shore, beyond old age and death. The passage recaps the names of all sixteen questioners and notes that the satisfied brahmins went
Page 551–554 Preserving the Way to the Far Shore In this final section the elderly student Piṅgiya reflects that he keeps the Way to the Far Shore alive by continually reciting it, praising the Buddha in glowing terms as unmatched, undeceptive, and beyond compare to the earlier teachers who offered him only hearsay and speculation. Questioned about whether he ever leaves the Buddha's side, Piṅgiya insists he is never apart from him even for an hour, since he holds the Buddha continuously in mind and bows mentally toward him day and night, even