THE MADHYAMA ĀGAMA (MIDDLE-LENGTH DISCOURSES) VOLUME I

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BDK English Tripiṭaka Series

THE MADHYAMA ĀGAMA (MIDDLE-LENGTH DISCOURSES) VOLUME I

(Taishō Volume 1, Number 26)

Marcus Bingenheimer, Editor in Chief Bhikkhu Anālayo and

Roderick S. Bucknell, Co-Editors

Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai America, Inc.

2013

Copyright © 2013 by Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai and BDK America, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed in any form or by any means

—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise— without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Third Printing, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-886439-47-4

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2013943512

Published by BDK America, Inc. 1675 School Street

Moraga, California 94556 Printed in the United States of America

A Message on the Publication of the English Tripiṭaka

The Buddhist canon is said to contain eighty-four thousand different teachings. I believe that this is because the Buddha’s basic approach was to prescribe a different treatment for every spiritual ailment, much as a doctor prescribes a different medicine for every medical ailment. Thus his teachings were always appropriate for the particular suffering individual and for the time at which the teaching was given, and over the ages not one of his prescriptions has failed to relieve the suffering to which it was addressed.

Ever since the Buddha’s Great Demise over twenty-five hundred years ago, his message of wisdom and compassion has spread throughout the world. Yet no one has ever attempted to translate the entire Buddhist canon into English throughout the history of Japan. It is my greatest wish to see this done and to make the translations available to the many English-speaking people who have never had the opportunity to learn about the Buddha’s teachings.

Of course, it would be impossible to translate all of the Buddha’s eighty- four thousand teachings in a few years. I have, therefore, had one hundred thirty- nine of the scriptural texts in the prodigious Taishō edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon selected for inclusion in the First Series of this translation project.

It is in the nature of this undertaking that the results are bound to be criticized. Nonetheless, I am convinced that unless someone takes it upon himself or herself to initiate this project, it will never be done. At the same time, I hope that an improved, revised edition will appear in the future.

It is most gratifying that, thanks to the efforts of more than a hundred Buddhist scholars from the East and the West, this monumental project has finally gotten off the ground. May the rays of the Wisdom of the Compassionate One reach each and every person in the world.

NUMATA Yehan Founder of the English

August 7, 1991 Tripiṭaka Project

Editorial Foreword

In January 1982, Dr. NUMATA Yehan, the founder of Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism), decided to begin the monumental task of translating the complete Taishō edition of the Chinese Tripiṭaka (Buddhist canon) into the English language. Under his leadership, a special preparatory committee was organized in April 1982. By July of the same year, the Translation Committee of the English Tripiṭaka was officially convened.

The initial Committee consisted of the following members: (late) HANAYAMA Shōyū (Chairperson), (late) BANDŌ Shōjun, ISHIGAMI Zennō, (late) KAMATA Shigeo, (late) KANAOKA Shūyū, MAYEDA Sengaku, NARA Yasuaki, (late) SAYEKI Shinkō, (late) SHIOIRI Ryōtatsu, TAMARU Noriyoshi, (late) TAMURA Kwansei, URYŪZU Ryūshin, and YUYAMA Akira. Assistant members of the Committee were as follows: KANAZAWA Atsushi, WATANABE Shōgo, Rolf Giebel of New Zealand, and Rudy Smet of Belgium.

After holding planning meetings on a monthly basis, the Committee selected one hundred thirty-nine texts for the First Series of translations, an estimated one hundred printed volumes in all. The texts selected are not necessarily limited to those originally written in India but also include works written or composed in China and Japan. While the publication of the First Series proceeds, the texts for the Second Series will be selected from among the remaining works; this process will continue until all the texts, in Japanese as well as in Chinese, have been published.

Frankly speaking, it will take perhaps one hundred years or more to accom- plish the English translation of the complete Chinese and Japanese texts, for they consist of thousands of works. Nevertheless, as Dr. NUMATA wished, it is the sincere hope of the Committee that this project will continue unto completion, even after all its present members have passed away.

Dr. NUMATA passed away on May 5, 1994, at the age of ninety-seven, entrust- ing his son, Mr. NUMATA Toshihide, with the continuation and completion of the Translation Project. The Committee also lost its able and devoted Chairperson,

Professor HANAYAMA Shōyū, on June 16, 1995, at the age of sixty-three. After these severe blows, the Committee elected me, then Vice President of Musashino Women’s College, to be the Chair in October 1995. The Committee has renewed its determination to carry out the noble intention of Dr. NUMATA, under the lead- ership of Mr. NUMATA Toshihide.

The present members of the Committee are MAYEDA Sengaku (Chairperson), ICHISHIMA Shōshin, ISHIGAMI Zennō, KATSURA Shōryū, NAMAI Chishō, NARA Yasuaki, SAITŌ Akira, SHIMODA Masahiro, Kenneth K. Tanaka, WATANABE Shōgo, and YONEZAWA Yoshiyasu.

The Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research was established in November 1984, in Berkeley, California, U.S.A., to assist in the publication of the BDK English Tripiṭaka First Series. The Publication Committee was organized at the Numata Center in December 1991. In 2010, the Numata Center’s operations were merged into Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai America, Inc. (BDK America) and BDK America continues to oversee the English Tripiṭaka project in close coop- eration with the Editorial Committee in Tokyo.

MAYEDA Sengaku

Chairperson

Editorial Committee of

the BDK English Tripiṭaka

Publisher’s Foreword

On behalf of the members of the Publication Committee, I am happy to present this volume as the latest contribution to the BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. The Publication Committee members have worked to ensure that this volume, as all other volumes in the series, has gone through a rigorous process of editorial efforts.

The initial translation and editing of the Buddhist scriptures found in this and other BDK English Tripiṭaka volumes are performed under the direction of the Editorial Committee in Tokyo, Japan. Both the Editorial Committee in Tokyo and the Publication Committee, headquartered in Berkeley, California, are ded- icated to the production of accurate and readable English translations of the Buddhist canon. In doing so, the members of both committees and associated staff work to honor the deep faith, spirit, and concern of the late Reverend Dr. Yehan Numata, who founded the BDK English Tripiṭaka Series in order to dis- seminate the Buddhist teachings throughout the world.

The long-term goal of our project is the translation and publication of the texts in the one hundred-volume Taishō edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon, along with a number of influential extracanonical Japanese Buddhist texts. The list of texts selected for the First Series of this translation project may be found at the end of each volume in the series.

As Chair of the Publication Committee, I am deeply honored to serve as the fifth person in a post previously held by leading figures in the field of Buddhist studies, most recently by my predecessor, John R. McRae.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the members of the Publication Committee for their dedicated and expert work undertaken in the course of preparing this volume for publication: Senior Editor Marianne Dresser, Dr. Hudaya Kandahjaya, Dr. Carl Bielefeldt, Dr. Robert Sharf, and Rev. Brian Kensho Nagata, President of BDK America.

A. Charles Muller Chairperson Publication Committee

Contents

A Message on the Publication of the English Tripiṭaka

The Madhayama Āgama (Middle-length Discourses), Volume I Division 1. On Sets of Seven

Translated by Bhikkhu Anālayo

1. The Discourse on Wholesome Qualities 3
2. The Discourse on the Coral Tree 8
3. The Discourse with the Parable of the [Border] Town10
4. The Discourse with the Water Parable  17
5. The Discourse with the Parable of the Heap of Wood 23
6. The Discourse on the Destination of a Good Person 33
7. The Discourse on [Sources of] Worldly Merit    38
8. The Discourse on Seven Suns 41
9. The Discourse on Seven Chariots  47
   1. The Discourse on the Cessation of Taints  56

Division 2. On Karma Translated by Kin-Tung Yit

11. The Discourse with the Parable [of the Ounce] of Salt   63

1. The Discourse to Vappa 68
2. The Discourse on [Tenets to Be] Transcended 73
3. The Discourse to Rāhula78
4. The Discourse on Intention   84
5. The Discourse to the Kālāmas 89
6. The Discourse to Gāmaṇi 96
7. The Discourse to Sīha  101
8. The Discourse to the Nigaṇṭhas 108
9. The Discourse to Pāṭaliya    122

Division 3. Sāriputta Translated by William Chu

1. The Discourse on an Even Mind141
2. The Discourse on Perfecting the Precepts146
3. The Discourse on Wisdom  152
4. The Discourse on the “Lion’s Roar” of Sāriputta  160
5. The Discourse with Parables Relating to Water166
6. The Discourse to the Gulissāni  170
7. The Discourse to Dhānañjāni176
8. The Discourse on Teaching the Ill [Anāthapiṇḍika]188
9. The Discourse by Mahā Koṭṭhita 201
10. The Discourse with the Parable of the Elephant’s Footprint 218
11. The Discourse on Discerning the Noble Truths234

Division 4. On Extraordinary Qualities Translated by Teng Weijen

1. The Discourse on Extraordinary Qualities [of the Buddha]247
2. The Discourse on [How Ānanda Became] the Attendant    257
3. The Discourse by Bakkula  271
4. The Discourse to the Asura 275
5. The Discourse on Earthquakes   281
6. The Discourse at Campā286
7. The [First] Discourse to the Householder Ugga    292
8. The [Second] Discourse to the Householder Ugga300
9. The Discourse to the Householder Hatthaka   306
10. The Discourse on the Householder Hatthaka  316

Division 5. On Conditions Translated by Marcus Bingenheimer

1. The Discourse on “What is the Purpose?” 319
2. The Discourse on No [Need for] Thought 321
3. The Discourse on Mindfulness   322
4. The [First] Discourse on Shame and Scruples323

Contents

1. The [Second] Discourse on Shame and Scruples  324
2. The [First] Discourse on the Precepts 326
3. The [Second] Discourse on the Precepts 326
4. The [First] Discourse on Respect 327
5. The [Second] Discourse on Respect 328
6. The Discourse on the Beginning329
7. The [First] Discourse on Nutriments332
8. The [Second] Discourse on Nutriments   339
9. The Discourse on [Attaining the] Wisdom of Cessation

[of the Taints]  343

1. The Discourse on Nirvana   346
2. The Discourse to Meghiya  349
3. The Discourse Spoken for the Monks 354

Division 6. On Kings

Translated by Shi Chunyin (Fascicles 11–13) and Kuan Tse-fu (Fascicles 14–16)

Introduction

To translate is to explain.1

—Sengyou (445–518)

The Zhong ahan jing (Skt. Madhyamāgama, T. 26), which is translated here, is one of the four major canonical collections of early Buddhist sutras preserved in Chinese.2 The sutras grouped in this collection were deemed to be of “middle length” (Ch. zhong, Skt. madhyama: “middle”). The Chinese Ahan (Skt. Āgama) collections correspond to the better-known Nikāyas of the Pāli canon. While the latter texts (the Dīghanikāya, Majjhimanikāya, Saṃyuttanikāya, and Aṅguttara- nikāya) have long been available in English translation, none of the equally impor- tant Āgamas has so far been rendered into English, or indeed any Western lan- guage.3 The Āgamas and Nikāyas constitute the Sūtra-piṭaka4 for the northern and southern transmission5 of Buddhism respectively, and they are the primary sources for what we know about early Buddhist doctrine. They remain of immense importance for the study and practice of Buddhism in both academic and religious contexts. With this translation we aim to make accessible another important wit- ness, a view back onto the earliest period of the Buddhist tradition.

In the following I will outline the development of the text translated here, from its beginning in the oral tradition, through its Indian and Chinese “incarna- tions,” up to the present English translation. Our focus will be on the history of the text. For summaries and discussions of the content of individual sutras, the reader should refer to the works by Minh Chau and Bhikkhu Anālayo cited below.

Āgamas and Nikāyas

It is not yet possible to give a comprehensive account of how exactly the Āgamas relate to the Nikāya corpus; the general outline, however, is clear. The four Āgamas, all of which are now preserved intact only in Chinese, represent por- tions of the Sūtra-piṭakas of various northern schools of Buddhism, which were transmitted in various Indian dialects and then made their way to the Buddhist

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kingdoms of Central Asia and along the Silk Road into China. The Nikāyas contain the sutra texts of the southern tradition that were transmitted to Sri Lanka and preserved in the Pāli canon, whose formative period was from the first century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E.

Regarding the relationship between the Zhong ahan jing and the Majjhimanikāya, Minh Chau’s groundbreaking 1964 study, The Chinese Madhyama Āgama and the Pāli Majjhima Nikāya (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991, reprint), describes a number of differences in doctrinal and narrative content.6 Bhikkhu Anālayo’s A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya (Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing, 2011) discusses in great detail all Chinese parallels to the sutras of the Majjhimanikāya, many of which are represented in our translation. In the course of his research Bhikkhu Anālayo has also translated and discussed a large number of sutras from the Zhong ahan jing. In view of the extent of his contribution, the relevant citations are listed in an addendum to the bibliography.

As the translation work for this volume has shown again and again, com- parison with the Pāli versions is often essential for an understanding of difficult passages. Although most Āgama sutras preserved in Chinese do have counterparts in the Pāli canon and vice versa, they are frequently found in different collections. According to Akanuma Chizen’s catalogue, Kanpa shibu shiagon goshōroku—The Comparative Catalogue of Chinese Āgamas and Pāli Nikāyas (Nagoya: Hajinkakushobō, 1929), of the two hundred and twenty-two sutras of T. 26, only one hundred and three have their counterpart in the Majjhimanikāya; fourteen have their counterpart in the Dīghanikāya, seventeen in the Saṃyuttanikāya, and eighty-seven in the Aṅguttaranikāya.7 Fourteen of the two hundred and twenty-two sutras of T. 26 have no known parallel in the Pāli corpus.

Madhyamāgama(s)

After the death of the founder, Buddhist texts were transmitted orally in Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits). While the southern tradition eventually settled on one of these dialects, Pāli, as its canonical language, in India and Central Asia Buddhist texts were successively Sanskritized and/or translated into other languages such as Chinese, Tokharian, Khotanese, Sogdian, and Tibetan.8 Also, new Buddhist texts in India, from at least the third century

onward, were directly composed in standard Sanskrit. Manuscripts from the northern tradition, especially those of Central Asian provenance, are therefore often in Prakrit (especially Gāndhārī)9 or some nonstandard form of Sanskrit, sometimes called Buddhist Sanskrit, an intermediate stage between some Prakrit and standard Sanskrit.

Unfortunately, we do not have a complete Madhyamāgama in either Sanskrit or Prakrit. Only for the Dīrghāgama do we have a (largely) complete Indic manuscript;10 for the other three collections there are only numerous manuscript fragments containing sometimes one or more sutras but more commonly only a few lines of text. These fragments stem from different peri- ods and locations. As yet there is no combined edition of this material for any Āgama, nor is there general bibliographic overview. For the Mad- hyamāgama, however, Jin-il Chung and Takamichi Fukita have catalogued all available Sanskrit fragments in A Survey of the Sanskrit Fragments Cor- responding to the Chinese Madhyamagama, Including References to Sanskrit Parallels, Citations, Numerical Categories of Doctrinal Concepts, and Stock Phrases (Tokyo: Sankibo, 2011).11

As with most other long texts that have been transmitted orally, and since the first century B.C.E. with the support of writing, we have to assume that no two instances of a text were ever fully identical, even though the Indian oral tradition is known for preserving texts over long periods with very little variation.12 If nothing else, the fact that the Madhyamāgama and the Majjhimanikāya share only about one hundred sutras out of two hundred and twenty-two (MĀ) and one hundred and fifty-two (MN), shows that the Āgamas/ Nikāyas as collections were still in flux for a considerable time. In their current form the collections can be attested to the fourth to fifth centuries. Only for the period since the translation into Chinese in the north (fourth century C.E.) and Buddhaghosa’s commentaries in Sri Lanka (fifth century C.E.) can we be confident that the gestalt of the four major sutra collections has remained more or less unchanged. Generally, it is only after that time that it is possible to date further changes in either tradition.13

The Sanskritized texts circulating in Central Asia continued to evolve after the fifth century, as is evident from the differences between later Sanskrit remains and the Chinese versions, but owing to the fragmentary nature of the Sanskrit materials our knowledge about these changes is extremely limited.14

The picture that emerges when the Sanskrit fragments are compared with the Chinese and Pāli versions is that several versions of the texts collected in the Āgamas/Nikāyas did exist between the first century B.C.E. and the fourth century C.E. During this time, when the oral tradition began to be sup- ported by writing in both the northern and southern traditions, each document instance would have differed slightly, reflecting school affiliation, local tra- ditions, linguistic environment, nonstandardized scripts, or any combination of these factors. Moreover, the manuscript evidence shows that some sutras contained in the Āgamas/Nikāyas circulated independently as well, a fact that is also borne out by the many instances of individual translations of Āgama/Nikāya sutras available in Chinese.

To illustrate the situation with one example: the Shansheng jing (sutra 135 of T. 26) exists in a cluster with at least thirteen other instances of the text: the Siṅgālovāda-sutta of the Dīghanikāya (DN, no. 31), the Shansheng jing of the Chinese Dīrghāgama (T. 1, no.16), the various Sanskrit fragments of the Śikhālaka-sūtra, two other individual Chinese translations (T. 16 and

T. 17), and a quotation in the Mahākarma-vibhaṅga.15 There exist complex stemmatic relationships among these texts, which—as for most sutra clus- ters—have not yet been clarified and perhaps will never be.

We are therefore faced with the fact that the collection of sutras translated in this volume is but one witness that has survived and attained prominence, like a snapshot of the development of the text taken at a certain time at a certain place. The composition of the text is therefore to a degree arbitrary, in the sense that T. 26 would in all likelihood have looked rather different if the Chinese translation had been done earlier, or later, or from a version of another school. In this light, the statement “the Majjhimanikāya has one hun- dred and fifty-two sutras and the Madhyamāgama two hundred and twenty- two” loses some of its apodictic edge. It so happened that the Majjhima- nikāya found closure with one hundred and fifty-two sutras, while incidentally the only surviving Madhyamāgama (preserved in Chinese as T. 26) found closure with two hundred and twenty-two sutras.

This angle is emphasized here because all too often doctrinal statements are made on the basis of a single passage in a single instance of a text. To remember that some randomness is part of tradition does not amount to rel- ativism or to the belief that there is no message at all in these texts; it means,

rather, that there is no final authoritative foundation on which to build one’s argument beyond the multiplicity and careful navigation of the text-clusters.

Before I turn to the translation of the Madhyamāgama into Chinese and the history of the Chinese text, a few remarks regarding the language of the source text for T. 26 are in order. P. V. Bapat (“Chinese Madhyamāgama and the Language of its Basic Text,” in B. P. Sinha, ed., Dr. Satkari Mookerji Felicitation Volume, pp. 1–6 [Varanasi: Chowkhamba Publications, 1969]) compares certain passages of T. 26 with the Pāli and with a Sanskritized ver- sion of the verses of Upāli. He gives a number of examples showing that the source text for T. 26 was identical neither with the Pāli nor with the Sanskri- tized version. Regarding the original idiom, he concludes that it was “some form of Prakrit closer to Pāli, or some imperfect or corrupt form of a language using Sanskrit orthography but dominated by Prakrit grammar.”

Oskar von Hinüber (“Upāli’s Verses in the Majjhimanikāya and the Madhyamāgama,” in L.A. Hercus, ed., Indological and Buddhist Studies, Volume in Honour of Professor J. W. de Jong on his 60th Birthday, pp. 250f [Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies 1982]), while not citing Bapat, compares some of the same passages in their Pāli, Sanskrit, and Chinese versions. Independently, he too finds that the source text for T. 26 was in nonstandard Sanskrit. More precisely, he concludes that T. 26 was translated from a text that had passed through a Gāndhārī stage and was in the process of being Sanskritized.

On the basis of this and other research findings, Ernst Waldschmidt (“Central Asian Sūtra Fragments and their Relation to the Chinese Āgamas,” in H. Bechert, ed., The Language of the Earliest Buddhist Tradition [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980], p. 137) summarizes:

[T]he Ch’ang-a-han-ching (Chang ahan jing) as well as the Tseng-i- a-han-ching (Zengyi ahan jing) have been recognized as obviously not translated from the Sanskrit, but from some Middle Indic or mixed dialect of Prakrit with Sanskrit elements.

This conclusion has been corroborated by our own observations made during the process of translation into English. That the language of the original text was not standard Sanskrit is evident from many transcriptions of names. For instance, the name transcribed in T. 26 as A li tuo16 (Pāli Ariṭṭha) cannot

have already been fully Sanskritized to Ariṣṭa, since the Chinese transcription includes no character representing a sibilant. This is in contrast to the tran- scription A li se tuo17 used for the same name in the Chinese Saṃyuktāgama (T. 99).

From Madhyamāgama

to Zhong ahan jing

The Madhyamāgama was translated into Chinese twice. The earliest infor- mation concerning the history of these translations is preserved in the Chu sanzang jiji, a collection of records concerning early Buddhist texts in China by Sengyou (445–518). The Chu sanzang jiji preserves a preface (or possibly a postscript) to T. 26 written by the monk Daoci (fl. 398),18 who himself par- ticipated in the second translation.

The First Translation by Dharmanandin and Zhu Fonian

From the preface to the Ekottarikāgama written by Dao’an (314–385), we learn that the monk Dharmanandin arrived in Chang’an in 384, having traveled along the Silk Road from Tocharistan (Bactria), which is located between the Pamir Mountains and the Hindu Kush. Most travelers who took the land route from India to China had to pass through Bactria and it therefore played an important role in the transmission of Buddhism.19 Dharmanandin had memorized a Madhyamāgama and an Ekottarikāgama, two large col- lections that had never been translated. Chang’an was at that time both a center of political power and a stronghold of Buddhism. Supported by the ruler Fu Jian (337–385) and members of the gentry, for some years Buddhism found a safe haven there at a time when most of northern China was in con- stant upheaval.

The famous Dao’an, who organized many translation teams, and Zhu Fonian (fl. 365–410), who was one of the few fully bilingual Chinese monks in Buddhist translation history, were residing in Chang’an at the time Dharma- nandin arrived. Soon Dharmanandin was asked to recite both of the Āgamas he had memorized, and Zhu Fonian translated them into Chinese. The Chinese monk Huisong served as scribe and recorded what Zhu Fonian dictated. In this role Huisong probably exercised considerable influence on the final wording of the text. This collaboration lasted from the summer of 384 to the

spring of 385 and the task was probably completed, since a number of cat- alogue records speak of a Zhong ahan jing in fifty-nine fascicles.20 However, in the fall of 385, Fu Jian was killed in the aftermath of his defeat in the battle of Fei River and the Chang’an region descended into chaos. It became impos- sible for the monks to continue their work there. To make matters worse, Dao’an, the group’s mentor, had died in the spring of 385. Shortly before his death he had written a preface to the newly translated Zhong ahan jing, which unfortunately has not survived.21 After Dao’an’s death and in view of the deteriorating situation in the Chang’an region, the group of translators dis- persed. Dharmanandin returned to the “Western Regions” and we hear no more of him.

The translation produced by Dharmanandin, Zhu Fonian, and Huisong was eventually superseded by a new translation produced by Saṅghadeva and his team just thirteen years later. According to Kōgen Mizuno, twenty- four sutras of the first translation have survived and were preserved as indi- vidual texts, which were never recognized as one distinct group by the cat- alogue tradition.22 Dated 515, Sengyou’s Chu sanzang jiji lists twenty-three of these sutras under “translator unknown,” and in 597 the Lidai sanbao ji, as it so often does, provides spurious attributions for some of them. The fact is that until Mizuno’s research it was not noticed that the twenty-four sutras belonged together. With the help of computational stylistic analysis, it has recently been possible to corroborate Mizuno’s assumption that the twenty- four sutras do indeed belong to one distinct group and were therefore translated by the same person(s).23 The second part of Mizuno’s argument, however, that the group of twenty-four is a remainder of the first translation by Dhar- manandin and Zhu Fonian, remains a hypothesis.

As Mizuno has shown in “Kanyaku no Chūagonkyō to Zōichiagonkyō,” Bukkyōkenkyū, vol. 18, pp. 7–9, at least one of the five Madhyamāgama quo- tations in the Jinglü yixiang (T. 2121, completed in 516) was taken from the group of twenty-four individual sutras. This and the other four quotations not only fail to accord with the corresponding passages in T. 26; the juan references given for the passages are also clearly not those of T. 26. This means that the Zhong ahan jing referenced in the Jinglü yixiang was not T. 26, and Mizuno assumes that the other four quotations from a Zhong ahan jing

stem from the now lost part of the first translation of which he believes the group of twenty-four to be remnants.

However, there are reasons to doubt this.24 There remains the problem that Sengyou in 515 still lists both translations of T. 26 as extant,25 while the individual sutras of the group of twenty-four are listed in the chapter on “mis- cellaneous sutras by unknown translators” (T.55.2145:21b17). Moreover, in the case of the one passage that can be shown to stem from a sutra of the group of twenty-four (T. 79), the reference does not simply say “Zhong ahan jing” but mentions the text, Yingwujing, by name. This is similar to another Madhyamāgama reference in the Jinglü yixiang, where both a “Zhong ahan” and a single sutra are mentioned.26 There the Jinglü yixiang quotes or excerpts from a sutra cited as Pimoshi Mulianjing. In the group of twenty-four this corresponds to the Mo raoluan jing (T. 66), and if Mizuno’s thesis is correct and the Madhyamāgama references in the Jinglü yixiang are based on the group of twenty-four, it seems that this passage in the Jinglü yixiang too should be based on T. 66. However, none of the key terms of the Jinglü yixiang passage appear in the considerably longer T. 66. Considering that the narratives of the Yingwu jing and the Mo raoluan jing were rather popular and are attested in several versions, it seems very possible that the Jinglü yixiang drew on individual translations (e.g., T. 79 from the group of twenty- four) as well as referencing the first translation of the Madhyamāgama. It does not necessarily follow, therefore, that the group of twenty-four is a rem- nant of the first translation.

In any case, the Zhong ahan jing translated by Dharmanandin and Zhu Fonian was still available to Sengyou in 515 and to Baochang, the main author of the Jinglü yixiang, in 516. The first catalogue in which it is recorded as lost is Yanzong’s Zhongjing mulu of 602.27

The Second Translation by Saṅghadeva and His Team

After war and turmoil had dispersed the group of Buddhist translators working at Chang’an in 385, some of them regrouped in Nanjing. There they were sponsored by Wang Xun (350– 401), the eminent calligrapher and Mar- quis of Dongting, who had established a vihāra for the study and translation of Buddhist texts. It was here that the Madhyamāgama was turned into the Zhong ahan jing that we know today as T. 26.

Both the account given in the Gaoseng zhuan and the high level of con- sistency in T. 26 indicate that on this occasion the translation was done from a manuscript. According to Daoci’s preface, the project was again a team effort, with two Indian monks and three Chinese Buddhists working closely together. Saṅgharakṣa ascertained the Indian text from a manuscript and read it out; Saṅghadeva translated it orally into Chinese; Daoci set it down and probably decided on the final Chinese wording; and Li Bao and Tang Hua28 made final copies and took care of the resulting manuscript.29 The team worked on the task for only seven months, between December 15, 397 and July 24, 398, and the translation was nearly completed when their work was again interrupted by war. It was not until three years later, in 401, that a final version could be produced, containing the two hundred and twenty-two sutras in sixty fascicles. The swift pace of the translation work of these early masters puts us to shame; it has taken our team five years to complete only the first third of an English version of their translation, which was completed in less than a year’s time.

Why was it decided to retranslate the text? Saṅghadeva and most other members of the vihāra at Nanjing would have known Dharmanandin and Zhu Fonian personally. Saṅghadeva and Dharmanandin had worked together in Chang’an as part of a translation team led by Saṅghabhūti in the same year that Dharmanandin and Zhu Fonian translated the Madhyamāgama for the first time (384).30 It seems, however, that the translation by Dharmanandin and Zhu Fonian was not considered successful by the Nanjing team. According to Daoci, the first translation was “. . . not true to the original, losing its mean- ing. The names were not correctly realized, it was unclear and too lyrical, while the expressions lacked taste.”31 This was because “the Chinese of the translators was not yet good enough.” This is surprising, considering the involvement of Zhu Fonian, who was widely praised as an able translator.32

School Attribution of the Zhong ahan jing (T. 26)

Concerning the attribution of the Zhong ahan jing to one of the early Buddhist schools, there is a broad and long-standing consensus that the text is part of early Sarvāstivādin literature. The monk Hōdō (1740–1770) was the first commentator to analyze the Āgama citations found in the Abhi- dharmakośa and with their help attempt to attribute the Āgamas to the various

schools. In his commentary on the Kośa he writes: “The Zhong ahan jing and the Za ahan jing both belong to the Sarvāstivādin school.” (SAT/T.64.2252:440c). Hōdō was not always correct in his assessments,33 but in this case later scholars have generally concurred with this statement. Evidence discussed by Shōkū Bando (“Kanyakuzōagon-gyōkō,” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 30/2 [1982]: 856) and Fumio Enomoto (“On the Formation of the Original Texts of the Chinese Āgamas,” Buddhist Studies Review 3/1 [1986]: 21) indicates that the source text for T. 26 belonged to the Kashmiri Sarvāstivādin tradition. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that Saṅgharakṣa, who provided the Indic text used for the second trans- lation, was said to be from Kashmir.34 Mizuno (“Kanyaku no Chūagonkyō to Zōichiagonkyō,” p. 6) also considers both Chinese Madhyamāgama trans- lations to be Sarvāstivādin texts. In A Survey of Sanskrit Fragments Corre- sponding to the Chinese Madhyamāgama, Chung and Fukita discuss the attribution of T. 26 in great detail. They cautiously conclude that, however likely, the current consensus is not yet proven and in the absence of a clear understanding of the exact relationship between the various scriptures within the Sarvāstivādin corpus, much remains to be done.35

Textual History of the Zhong ahan jing (T. 26)

After the first translation went missing in the sixth century, the second translation became the Madhyamāgama translation that was included in the Chinese canonical editions. The transmission history of this textus receptus is comparatively uncomplicated. Unlike the longer Chinese Saṃyuktāgama (T. 99), the original order of which became confused soon after its translation,36 or the shorter Chinese Saṃyuktāgama (T. 100), of which two differently ordered versions exist (Roderick S. Bucknell, “The Two Versions of the Other Translation of Saṃyuktāgama,” Chung-Hwa Journal of Buddhist Studies 21 [2008]: 23–54), T. 26 retained its structure during the six hundred years of its transmission in manuscript form. The text is still in the form that Daoci describes in his foreword: sixty fascicles containing two hundred and twenty- two sutras grouped into eighteen divisions (Ch. pin, Pāli vagga), which again are grouped into five recitations.

At least since the eleventh century a character count was included in the colophon for each sutra.37 Sampling the figures and comparing them with character counts done on the Taishō text shows that the average discrepancy

is less than 0.001 percent. This indicates that the text has changed only min- imally through the last thousand years, as is to be expected given that the Taishō text is to a large degree identical with that of the second edition of the Tripiṭaka Koreana (carved 1236 to 1251).

For the Zhong ahan jing, the earliest manuscript witnesses are fragments preserved among the Dunhuang manuscripts stemming from the sixth to tenth centuries. These fragments, which are of varying length, rarely contain more than a few lines of text. The oldest complete witness of the Zhong ahan jing currently available is the Fangshan stone inscription.38 Carved from 1153 to 1155, it is more than a hundred years earlier than the first complete printed versions preserved in the second edition of the Tripiṭaka Koreana and the Qisha Edition (1216–1322).39 The Tripiṭaka Koreana became the basis for the Taishō edition (published 1924–1932), which added punctuation and a rudimentary apparatus that collates the text with later Chinese editions and, for some texts, with early manuscripts preserved in Japan.

The text translated here is the Zhong ahan jing of the Taishō edition, as presented in CBETA versions 2007 and 2009, where the Zhong ahan jing is shown with new punctuation provided by Yang Yuwen. The CBETA edition also transparently corrects printing mistakes in the Taishō and adds to the apparatus by referencing the form found in the second edition of the Tripiṭaka Koreana in cases where the Taishō editors have silently emended the text. Like the fourth-century Chinese translation of the Madhyamāgama, this English translation was produced by a team. I have elsewhere explained in detail the process and rationale of this translation project (“Problems and Prospects of Collaborative Edition and Translation Projects in the Era of Digital Text,” in Konrad Meisig, ed., Translating Buddhist Chinese: Problems and Prospects [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010], pp. 21–43). This is the first of three volumes projected for the translation of the entire text, and it contains the translation of divisions 1–6, sutras 1–71. The first draft translations were done by Bhikkhu Anālayo (division 1), Kin-Tung Yit (division 2), William Chu (division 3), Teng Weijen (division 4), Marcus Bingenheimer (division 5), Shi Chunyin (division 6, fascicles 11–13) and Kuan Tse-fu (division 6,

fascicles 14–16).

All of the translations, including the footnotes, were thoroughly revised and edited by Bhikkhu Anālayo, Roderick Bucknell, and myself. The wording

of the draft translations was often changed substantially and I accept respon- sibility for any remaining mistakes.

In our translation we have tried, in general, to follow the terminology and idiom that Bhikkhu Bodhi established in his translations of the Majjhima- nikāya, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha—A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995) and the Saṃyutta- nikāya, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha—A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000). The final volume of our translation will include a comprehensive glossary that documents our choices. Conformity with a limited glossary of the most frequent terms was ensured by using the TransHelp program written by Jen-jou Hung.40 This measure helped to achieve a degree of conformity at the level of terminology. There remain, however, differences in syntax and style, from division to divi- sion, a reminder of the collaborative nature of the project.

We follow Bhikkhu Bodhi in the belief that readers of the Āgamas will probably also be interested in the Nikāyas; we would like the texts to be easily comparable. For the same reason, we chose to give personal and place names in Pāli, not in Sanskrit. Considering that the Indian base text was written in a Prakrit, Sanskrit versions of these names too would have been somewhat different from the original. Most of the Indic terms included in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (e.g. Dharma, karma, or nirvana) have been used as English terms in the translation (without diacritics, in normal font, and taking the plural “s”).

Considering that this is the first translation of this text, we have faithfully reproduced all repetitions, i.e., no new elisions have been introduced. Elisions found in the Zhong ahan jing have, of course, been preserved as such. We have omitted the character counts at the end of each sutra. These were added at some point before 1029 C.E., when the first Tripiṭaka Koreana was printed, to help preserve the Chinese text and it would have been mean- ingless and potentially confusing to include them in the English translation. Apart from the occasional double vocative, we have tried to translate every single term, even where words could—and perhaps for stylistic reasons should—have been omitted. In general we favored literalness over style, in the belief that the task of a first translation is to model the wording and syn- tactic structures of the original as closely as possible. Obviously, there is

plenty of room for stylistic improvement in future English versions of these sutras. Interpolations to the text made by the translators generally appear in brackets. In the interest of minimizing endnotes, we have often abstained from making additional relevant comments that scholars might have appreciated. Work on this volume started in 2006, roughly sixteen hundred years after the translation of the Madhyamāgama into Chinese, and was completed in 2009. Work on Volume II (divisions 7–12) and Volume III (divisions 13– 18) has begun and will continue until the successful completion of the project. Venerable Anālayo has kindly agreed to take over as general editor for the successive volumes, freeing myself for a number of other projects that need

my attention.

I am grateful to all those who have helped to bring this project to this stage. Ken Tanaka, Brian Nagata, and Yoshiyasu Yonezawa from BDK kindly answered many questions, and Marianne Dresser took good care of the copy- editing and production. Venerable Huimin provided crucial support at several stages of the project. Jan Nattier and Jin-il Chung helped with bibliographic advice and made suggestions for the introduction. Yun-hee Oh provided me with information about the earliest print witness of the Zhong ahan jing. Jen- jou Hung wrote the TransHelp program that helped us ensure a degree of con- sistency. Hans-Ludwig Dürner read through parts of the final draft. I am espe- cially grateful to my fellow editors and friends Venerable Anālayo and Roderick Bucknell; without them “what was to be done, could not have been done.” On behalf of all the translators and editors, I express the hope that this translation may contribute to the continuation and growth of the Buddhist

tradition and the happiness of all sentient beings.

Abbreviations

AN Aṅguttaranikāya. R. Morris, A. K. Warder, E. Hardy, eds., with M. Hunt and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (index), The Aṅguttara Nikāya, 6 vols. (London: Luzac, 1885–1910). Various reprints.

Ch.   Chinese

DN Dīghanikāya. T. W. Rhys Davids and E. Carpenter, eds., The Dīgha Nikāya, 3 vols. (London: Pāli Text Society, 1890–1911). Various reprints.

HDC Hanyudacidian (Large Dictionary of Chinese), Luo Zhufeng, ed., 12 vols. (Shanghai: Hanyudacidianchubanshe, 1994).

MN Majjhimanikāya. V. Trenckner, ed., with C. A. F. Rhys Davids (index),

The Majjhima Nikāya (London: Luzac, 1888–1925). Various reprints. MW Monier Monier-Williams. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymolog- ically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate

Indo-European Languages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899).

PED Pāli-English Dictionary, T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede, eds., 4 vols. (Oxford: Pāli Text Society, 1921–1925).

Skt. Sanskrit

SnSuttanipāta. D. Andersen and H. Smith, eds., Sutta-Nipāta (London: Pali Text Society, 1913).

SNSaṃyuttanikāya. L. Feer, ed., with C. A. F. Rhys Davids (index), The Saṃyutta Nikāya (London: Luzac, 1884–1904). Various reprints.

1. Taishō Edition of the Chinese Canon and CBETA edition of the Taishō canon (CD Version 2009).

THE MADHYAMA ĀGAMA (MIDDLE-LENGTH DISCOURSES) VOLUME I

Division 1

On Sets of Seven

1.  The Discourse on Wholesome Qualities41

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time the World-honored One addressed the monks:

If a monk achieves seven qualities, then he will attain joy and happiness in [the path of] the noble ones and will progress rightly toward the ces- sation of the taints.

What are the seven? They are: a monk knows the Dharma, knows the meaning, knows the proper time, knows restraint, knows himself, knows assemblies, and knows persons according to their superiority. How does a monk know the Dharma? A monk knows the dis- courses, stanzas, expositions, verses, causes, inspired utterances, heroic tales, [what has been] “thus said,” birth stories, answers to questions, marvels, and explanations of meaning. This is a monk who knows the

Dharma.

If a monk does not know the Dharma—that is to say, does not know the discourses, stanzas, expositions, verses, causes, inspired utter- ances, heroic tales, [what has been] “thus said,” birth stories, answers to questions, marvels, and explanations of meaning—then such a monk is one who does not know the Dharma.

If, [however,] a monk knows the Dharma well—that is to say, knows the discourses, stanzas, expositions, verses, causes, inspired utterances, heroic tales, [what has been] “thus said,” birth stories, answers to questions, marvels, and explanations of meaning—then such a monk is one who knows the Dharma well.

How does a monk know the meaning? A monk knows the meaning of various explanations: “The meaning is this, the meaning is that.”

3

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421b

This is a monk who knows the meaning.

If a monk does not know the meaning—that is to say, does not know the meaning of various explanations: “The meaning is this, the meaning is that”—then such a monk is one who does not know the meaning.

If, [however,] a monk knows the meaning well—that is to say, knows the meaning of various explanations: “The meaning is this, the meaning is that”—then such a monk is one who knows the mean- ing well.

How does a monk know the proper time? A monk knows: “This is the time to develop the characteristic of settling,” “This is the time to develop the characteristic of arousing,” “This is the time to develop the characteristic of equanimity.” This is a monk who knows the proper time.

If a monk does not know the proper time—that is to say, he does not know: “This is the time to develop the characteristic of settling,” “This is the time to develop the characteristic of arousing,” “This is the time to develop the characteristic of equanimity”—then such a monk is one who does not know the proper time.

If, [however,] a monk knows well the proper time—that is to say, he knows: “This is the time to develop the characteristic of settling,” “This is the time to develop the characteristic of arousing,” “This is the time to develop the characteristic of equanimity”—then such a monk knows well the proper time.

How does a monk know restraint? A monk knows restraint who, having discarded sloth and torpor, practices right attentiveness when drinking, eating, going, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking, keeping silent, defecating, or urinating. This is a monk who knows restraint. If a monk does not know restraint—that is to say, he does not know [how] to discard sloth and torpor and practice right attentiveness when drinking, eating, going, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking, keeping silent, defecating, or urinating—then such a monk is one who

does not know restraint.

If, [however,] a monk knows restraint well—that is to say, he knows [how] to discard drowsiness and practice right attentiveness

when drinking, eating, going, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking, keeping silent, defecating, or urinating—then such a monk is one who knows restraint well.

How does a monk know himself? A monk knows of himself: “I have such faith, such virtue, such learning, such generosity, such wis- dom, such eloquence, such [knowledge of] the canonical texts, and such attainments.” This is a monk who knows himself.

If a monk does not know himself—that is to say, he does not know of himself: “I have such faith, such virtue, such learning, such gen- erosity, such wisdom, such eloquence, such [knowledge of] the canon- ical texts, and such attainments”—then such a monk is one who does not know himself.

If, [however,] a monk knows himself well—that is to say, he knows of himself: “I have such faith, such virtue, such learning, such gen- erosity, such wisdom, such eloquence, such [knowledge of] the canon- ical texts, and such attainments”—then such a monk is one who knows himself well.

How does a monk know assemblies? A monk knows: “This is an assembly of khattiyas,”42 “This is an assembly of brahmins,” “This is an assembly of householders,” “This is an assembly of renunciants”; “In that [type of] assembly I ought to walk like this, stand like this, sit like this, speak like this, keep silent like this.” This is a monk who knows assemblies.

If a monk does not know assemblies—that is to say, he does not know: “This is an assembly of khattiyas,” “This is an assembly of brah- mins,” “This is an assembly of householders,” “This is an assembly of renunciants”; “In that [type of] assembly I ought to walk like this, stand like this, sit like this, speak like this, keep silent like this”— then such a monk is one who does not know assemblies. If, [however,] a monk knows assemblies well—that is to say, he knows: “This is an assembly of khattiyas,” “This is an assembly of brahmins,” “This is an assembly of householders,” “This is an assembly of renunciants”; “In that [type of] assembly I ought to walk like this, stand like this, sit like this, speak like this, keep silent like this”—then such a monk is one who knows assemblies well.

421c

How does a monk know persons according to their superiority? A monk knows that there are two types of persons: those who have faith and those who do not have faith. Those who have faith are superior; those who do not have faith are inferior.

Of persons who have faith there are again two types: those who frequently go to see monks and those who do not frequently go to see monks.43 Those who frequently go to see monks are superior; those who do not frequently go to see monks are inferior.

Of persons who frequently go to see monks there are again two types: those who pay their respects to monks and those who do not pay their respects to monks. Those who pay their respects to monks are superior; those who do not pay their respects to monks are inferior. Of persons who pay their respects to monks there are again two types: those who ask about the discourses and those who do not ask about the discourses. Those who ask about the discourses are superior;

those who do not ask about the discourses are inferior.

Of persons who ask about the discourses there are again two types: those who listen with concentration to a discourse and those who do not listen with concentration to a discourse. Those who listen with con- centration to a discourse are superior; those who do not listen with concentration to a discourse are inferior.

Of persons who listen with concentration to a discourse there are again two types: those who retain the Dharma they have heard and those who do not retain the Dharma they have heard. Those who retain the Dharma they have heard are superior; those who do not retain the Dharma they have heard are inferior.

Of persons who retain the Dharma they have heard there are again two types: those who examine the meaning of the Dharma they have heard and those who do not examine the meaning of the Dharma they have heard. Those who examine the meaning of the Dharma they have heard are superior; those who do not examine the meaning of the Dharma they have heard are inferior.

Of persons who examine the meaning of the Dharma they have heard there are again two types: those who know the Dharma, know its meaning, progress in the Dharma, follow the Dharma, conform to

the Dharma, and practice in accordance with the Dharma; and those who do not know the Dharma, do not know its meaning, do not progress in the Dharma, do not follow the Dharma, do not conform to the Dharma, and do not practice in accordance with the Dharma. Those who know the Dharma, know its meaning, progress in the Dharma, follow the Dharma, conform to the Dharma, and practice in accordance with the Dharma are superior. Those who do not know the Dharma, do not know its meaning, do not progress in the Dharma, do not follow the Dharma, do not conform to the Dharma, and do not practice in accordance with the Dharma are inferior.

Of persons who know the Dharma, know its meaning, progress in the Dharma, follow the Dharma, conform to the Dharma, and practice in accordance with the Dharma, there are again two types: there are those who benefit themselves and benefit others, who benefit many people, who have compassion for the world, seek advantage and benefit for gods and human beings, and seek their peace and happiness; and there are those who do not benefit themselves and do not benefit others, who do not benefit many people, who do not have compassion for the world, do not seek advantage and benefit for gods and human beings, and do not seek their peace and happiness. Those who benefit them- selves and benefit others, who benefit many people, who have com- passion for the world, seek advantage and benefit for gods and human beings, and seek their peace and happiness—this [type of] person is supreme among the [types of] person [mentioned above], the greatest, the highest, the best, the superior one, the most excellent one, the most sublime.

It is just as from a cow comes milk, from milk comes cream, from cream comes butter, from butter comes ghee, and from ghee comes cream of ghee; and among these cream of ghee is supreme, the greatest, the highest, the best, the superior one, the most excellent one, the most sublime.

In the same way, if persons benefit themselves and benefit others, benefit many people, have compassion for the world, seek advantage and benefit for gods and human beings, and seek their peace and hap- piness, then of the two [types of] person spoken of above, distinguished

422a

422b

above, and designated above, this one is supreme, the greatest, the high- est, the best, the superior one, the most excellent, the most sublime. This is [how] a monk knows persons according to their superiority.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.44

2.  The Discourse on the Coral Tree45

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time the World-honored One addressed the monks:

When the leaves of the coral tree of the thirty-three gods become with- ered, the thirty-three gods are happy and rejoice, [saying]: “The leaves of the coral tree will soon fall!” Again, when the leaves of the coral tree of the thirty-three gods have fallen, the thirty-three gods are happy and rejoice: “The [new] leaves of the coral tree will soon appear!” Again, when the [new] leaves of the coral tree of the thirty-three gods have appeared, the thirty-three gods are happy and rejoice: “The coral tree will soon grow buds!”46 Again, when the coral tree of the thirty- three gods has grown buds, the thirty-three gods are happy and rejoice: “The [buds of the] coral tree will soon resemble a bird’s beak!” Again, when the [buds of the] coral tree of the thirty-three gods resemble a bird’s beak, the thirty-three gods are happy and rejoice: “The [buds of the] coral tree will soon open up and resemble bowls!” Again, [when the buds of] the coral tree of the thirty-three gods have opened up and resemble bowls, the thirty-three gods are happy

and rejoice: “The coral tree will soon be in full bloom!”

When the coral tree is in full bloom, the radiance it emits, the color it reflects, and the fragrance it emits spread a hundred leagues around. Then, for the four months of the summer season the thirty-three gods amuse themselves equipped with the five types of divine sense pleasure. This is [how] the thirty-three gods assemble and amuse themselves beneath their coral tree.

It is just the same with the noble disciple. When thinking of leaving the household life, the noble disciple is reckoned as having withered leaves, like the withered leaves of the coral tree of the thirty-three gods. Again, the noble disciple shaves off [his] hair and beard, dons the yellow robe, and, out of faith, leaves the household life, becomes home- less, and practices the path. At this time the noble disciple is reckoned as one whose leaves have fallen, like the falling of the leaves of the

coral tree of the thirty-three gods.

Again, the noble disciple, separated from desires, separated from evil and unwholesome states, with initial and sustained application of the mind, with joy and happiness born of separation, dwells having attained the first absorption. At this time the noble disciple is reckoned as one whose new leaves have appeared, like the appearing of the new leaves on the coral tree of the thirty-three gods.

Again, the noble disciple, through the calming of initial and sus- tained application of the mind, with inward stillness and mental one- pointedness, without initial and sustained application of the mind, with joy and happiness born of concentration, dwells having attained the second absorption. At this time the noble disciple is reckoned to have grown buds, like the growing of the buds on the coral tree of the thirty- three gods.

Again, the noble disciple, separated from joy and desire, dwelling in equanimity and not seeking anything, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness, experiencing pleasure with the body, dwells having attained the third absorption, which the noble ones speak of as noble equanimity and mindfulness, a happy abode.47 At this time the noble disciple is reckoned to have grown [buds] resembling a bird’s beak, like the [buds] resembling a bird’s beak on the coral tree of the thirty- three gods.

Again, the noble disciple, with the cessation of pleasure and pain, and with the earlier cessation of joy and displeasure, with neither-pain- nor-pleasure, equanimity, mindfulness, and purity, dwells having attained the fourth absorption. At this time the noble disciple is reckoned to have grown [buds] resembling bowls, like the [buds] resembling bowls on the coral tree of the thirty-three gods.

422c

Again, the noble disciple destroys the taints, [attains] liberation of the mind, and liberation through wisdom, and in this very life, per- sonally attains understanding and awakening, and dwells having per- sonally realized. He knows as it really is: “Birth is ended, the holy life has been established, what was to be done has been done. There will not be another existence.”

At this time the noble disciple is reckoned to be in full bloom, like the full blooming of the coral tree of the thirty-three gods. This monk is one whose taints are destroyed, an arahant. The thirty-three gods assemble in the Hall of the True Dharma and, sighing in admiration, praise him:

Venerable disciple So-and-so, from such-and-such a village or town, having shaved off [his] hair and beard, donned the yellow robe, and having left the household life out of faith to become a homeless one, having practiced the path, he has destroyed the taints.

He has [attained] liberation of the mind and liberation through wisdom, and in this very life [he has] personally attained under- standing and awakening, and dwells having personally realized. He knows as it really is: “Birth is ended, the holy life has been established, what was to be done has been done. There will not be another existence.”

This is [how] an arahant, with taints destroyed, joins the community [of liberated ones], like the assembling of the thirty-three gods beneath their coral tree.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

3.  The Discourse with the Parable of the [Border] Town48

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time the World-honored One addressed the monks:

If a king’s border town is equipped with seven things and obtains easily and without difficulty an abundance of four types of supplies, then this king’s [border] town will not be wiped out by outside enemies but only by internal self-destruction.

What are the seven things with which the king’s [border] town is equipped? In the king’s border town a watchtower has been constructed, built firmly in the earth, indestructible, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the first thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

Again, for the king’s border town a moat has been excavated, very deep and wide, well designed and reliable, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the second thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

Again, the king’s border town is surrounded by a road that is open and clear, level and wide, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the third thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

Again, the king’s border town has raised an army with the four divisions—elephant troops, cavalry, chariot troops, and infantry—to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the fourth thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

Again, the king’s border town has been provided with weapons— bows and arrows, swords and spears—to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the fifth thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

Again, in the king’s border town a general has been appointed as gatekeeper, one who is sharp-witted and wise in making decisions, brave and resolute, of excellent counsel, who allows entry to the good and keeps out the bad, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the sixth thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

Again, for the king’s border town a high rampart has been con- structed, extremely solid, plastered with mud and painted with white- wash, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the seventh thing with which the king’s [border] town is equipped.

423a

What are the four kinds of supplies that the king’s [border] town obtains in abundance, easily and without difficulty? The king’s border town has been provided with plentiful quantities of water, grass, and firewood, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the first kind of supplies that the king’s [border] town obtains in abundance, easily and without difficulty.

Again, the king’s border town has harvested plenty of rice and stored up plenty of wheat, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the second kind of supplies that the king’s [border] town obtains in abundance, easily and without difficulty.

Again, the king’s border town has amassed plenty of grain and beans of various sorts, to ensure peace within and control outside ene- mies. This is the third kind of supplies that the king’s [border] town obtains in abundance, easily and without difficulty.

Again, the king’s border town has stored up ghee, honey, sugarcane, sugar, fish, salt, and dried meat, is equipped with all of these, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies. This is the fourth kind of supplies that the king’s [border] town obtains in abundance, easily and without difficulty.

Such a king’s [border] town, equipped with [these] seven things and having obtained easily and without difficulty an abundance of [these] four kinds of supplies, will not be wiped out by outside enemies but only by internal self-destruction.

In the same way, if a noble disciple gains seven wholesome qual- ities and attains four higher states of mind easily and without difficulty, then for this reason the noble disciple will be beyond the reach of King Māra, will not be influenced by evil and unwholesome states, will not be defiled by defilements, and will not be born again.

How does a noble disciple gain seven wholesome qualities? A noble disciple gains firm faith that is deeply settled in the Tathāgata, faith with firm roots that cannot be influenced by non-Buddhist renunciants or brahmins, or by gods, Māras, Brahmās, or anyone else in the world. This is how the noble disciple gains the first wholesome quality.

Again, the noble disciple has at all times a sense of shame. What is shameful he knows as shameful, [namely,] evil and unwholesome

states, which pollute and defile, which have various evil consequences and create the root cause of birth and death. This is how the noble dis- ciple gains the second wholesome quality.

Again, the noble disciple continuously fears wrongdoing. What is wrong he knows as wrong, [namely,] evil and unwholesome states, which pollute and defile, which will have various evil consequences and create the root cause of birth and death. This is how the noble dis- ciple gains the third wholesome quality.

Again, the noble disciple continuously applies effort, cutting off what is evil and unwholesome and cultivating wholesome states. He constantly arouses his mind, is single-minded and steadfast regarding the roots of wholesomeness, without giving up his task. This is how the noble disciple gains the fourth wholesome quality.

Again, the noble disciple studies widely and learns much, retaining and not forgetting it, accumulating broad learning of what is called the Dharma, which is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, which has [proper] meaning and expression, is endowed with purity, and reveals the holy life. In this way he studies widely and learns much regarding all the teachings, familiarizing himself with them even a thousand times, considering and contemplating them with knowledge, vision, and profound penetration. This is how the noble disciple gains the fifth wholesome quality.

Again, the noble disciple continuously practices mindfulness, achieves right mindfulness, always recalling and not forgetting what was done or heard long ago. This is how the noble disciple gains the sixth wholesome quality.

Again, the noble disciple develops comprehension and wisdom, attains understanding concerning the rise and fall of phenomena, attains noble penetrative knowledge and discriminative understanding con- cerning the true cessation of suffering. This is how the noble disciple gains the seventh wholesome quality.

How does the noble disciple attain four higher states of mind, easily and without difficulty? Separated from desires, separated from evil and unwholesome states, with initial and sustained application of the mind, with joy and happiness born of separation, the noble disciple

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dwells having attained the first absorption. This is how the noble disciple attains the first higher state of mind, easily and without difficulty.

Again, through the calming of initial and sustained application of the mind, with inward stillness and mental one-pointedness, without initial and sustained application of the mind, with joy and happiness born of concentration, the noble disciple dwells having attained the second absorption. This is how the noble disciple attains the second higher state of mind, easily and without difficulty.

Again, separated from joy and desire, dwelling in equanimity and not seeking anything, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness, experiencing pleasure with the body, the noble disciple dwells having attained the third absorption, which the noble ones speak of as noble equanimity and mindfulness, a happy abode.49 This is how the noble disciple attains the third higher state of mind, easily and without dif- ficulty.

Again, with the cessation of pleasure and pain, and with the earlier cessation of joy and displeasure, with neither-pain-nor-pleasure, equa- nimity, mindfulness, and purity, the noble disciple dwells having attained the fourth absorption. This is how the noble disciple attains the fourth higher state of mind, easily and without difficulty.

In this way the noble disciple, who has gained seven wholesome qualities and attained four higher states of mind, easily and without difficulty, is beyond the reach of King Māra, and will not be influenced by evil and unwholesome states, will not be defiled by defilements and will not be born again.

Just as a watchtower is constructed in the king’s border town, built firmly in the earth, indestructible, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies—in the same way, the noble disciple gains firm faith that is deeply settled in the Tathāgata, faith with firm roots that cannot be influenced by non-Buddhist renunciants or brahmins, or by gods, Māras, Brahmās, or anyone else in the world. This is how the noble disciple gains the “watchtower” of faith, which removes what is evil and unwholesome and develops wholesome states.

Just as a moat is excavated [around] the king’s border town, very deep and wide, well designed and reliable, to ensure peace within and

to control outside enemies; in the same way, the noble disciple has at all times a sense of shame. What is shameful he knows as shameful, [namely] evil and unwholesome states, which pollute and defile, which have various evil consequences, and create the root cause of birth and death. This is how the noble disciple gains the “moat” of a sense of shame, which removes what is evil and unwholesome and develops wholesome states.

Just as a road surrounds the king’s border town, open and clear, level and wide, to ensure peace within and control outside enemies; in the same way, the noble disciple at all times fears wrongdoing. What is wrong he knows as wrong, [namely] evil and unwholesome states, which pollute and defile, which will have various evil consequences, which create the root cause of birth and death. This is how the noble disciple gains the “level road” of the fear of wrongdoing, which removes what is evil and unwholesome and develops wholesome states. Just as an army with four divisions is raised in the king’s border town, with elephant troops, cavalry, chariot troops, and infantry, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies; in the same way, the noble disciple continuously applies effort, abandoning what is evil and unwholesome and cultivating wholesome states. He constantly arouses his mind, is single-minded and steadfast regarding the roots of wholesomeness, without giving up his task. This is how the noble disciple gains the “army” of effort, which removes what is evil and

unwholesome and develops wholesome states.

Just as weapons are provided for the troops of the king’s border town—bows and arrows, swords and spears—to ensure peace within and control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple studies widely and learns much, retaining and not forgetting it, accumulating broad learning of what is called the Dharma, which is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, which has [proper] meaning and expression, is endowed with purity, and reveals the holy life. In this way he studies widely and learns much regarding all the teachings, familiarizing himself with them even a thousand times, men- tally considering and contemplating them with knowledge, vision, and profound penetration. This is how the noble disciple gains the “weapon”

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of much learning, which removes what is evil and unwholesome and develops wholesome states.

Just as a general is appointed as gatekeeper to the king’s border town, one who is sharp-witted and wise in making decisions, brave and resolute, of excellent counsel, who allows entry to the good and keeps out the bad, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple continuously practices mindfulness, achieves right mindfulness, always recalling and not forgetting what was done or heard long ago. This is how the noble disciple gains the “gatekeeping general” of mindfulness, which removes what is evil and unwholesome and develops wholesome states.

Just as a high rampart is constructed for the king’s border town, extremely solid, plastered with mud and painted with whitewash, to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple develops comprehension and wisdom, attains under- standing concerning the rise and fall of phenomena, attains noble pen- etrative knowledge and discriminative understanding concerning the true cessation of suffering. This is how the noble disciple gains the “rampart” of wisdom, which removes what is evil and unwholesome and develops wholesome states.

Just as supplies of water, grass, and firewood are provided for the king’s border town to ensure peace within and control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple, separated from desires, separated from evil and unwholesome states, with initial and sustained application of the mind, with joy and happiness born of seclusion, dwells having attained the first absorption. He abides in a happiness that lacks nothing, a peaceful happiness that leads naturally to nirvana.

Just as plenty of rice is harvested and plenty of wheat is stored up in the king’s border town to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple, through the calming of initial and sustained application of the mind, with inward stillness and mental one-pointedness, without initial and sustained application of the mind, with joy and happiness born of concentration, dwells having attained the second absorption. He abides in a happiness that lacks noth- ing, a peaceful happiness that leads naturally to nirvana.

Just as large amounts of grain and beans of various sorts are amassed in the king’s border town to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple, separated from joy and desire, dwelling in equanimity and not seeking anything, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness, experiencing pleasure with the body, dwells having attained the third absorption, which the noble ones speak of as noble equanimity and mindfulness, a happy abode. He abides in a happiness that lacks nothing, a peaceful happiness that leads naturally to nirvana.

Just as ghee, honey, sugarcane, sugar, fish, salt, and dried meat are stored up in the king’s border town, being equipped with all of these to ensure peace within and to control outside enemies; in the same way the noble disciple, with the cessation of pleasure and pain, and with the earlier cessation of joy and displeasure, with neither-pain- nor-pleasure, equanimity, mindfulness, and purity, dwells having attained the fourth absorption, abiding in a happiness that lacks nothing, a peaceful happiness that leads naturally to nirvana.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

4.  The Discourse with the Water Parable50

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time the World-honored One addressed the monks: “I shall teach you about seven persons in the water. Listen closely, listen closely and pay careful attention!”

The monks listened to receive instruction. The Buddha said:

What are the seven?

Suppose there is a person who remains lying in the water [below the surface].

And suppose there is another person who surfaces but then sinks again.

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And suppose there is another person who surfaces and remains standing [in the water].

And suppose there is another person who surfaces and remains standing; and, having remained standing, observes. And suppose there is another person who surfaces and remains standing, and having remained standing, observes; and, having observed, crosses over [toward the farther bank].

And suppose there is another person who surfaces and remains standing; and, having remained standing, observes; and, having observed, crosses over; and, having crossed over, reaches the farther bank. And suppose there is another person who surfaces and remains standing; and, having remained standing, observes; and, having observed, crosses over; and, having crossed over, reaches the farther bank; and, having reached the farther bank, is called a “person dwelling

on the [farther] bank.”

In the same way, I shall repeat to you the parable of seven persons in the water. Listen closely, listen closely and pay careful attention!

The monks listened to receive instruction. The Buddha said:

What are the seven?

Suppose there is a person who remains lying [in the water].

And suppose there is another person who, having surfaced, sinks again.

And suppose there is another who, having surfaced, remains standing.

And suppose there is another who, having surfaced, remains stand- ing, and having remained standing, observes. And suppose there is another who, having surfaced, remains standing; and, having remained standing, observes; and, having observed, crosses over.

And suppose there is another who, having surfaced, remains stand- ing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; and having crossed over, reaches the farther bank.

And suppose there is another person who, having surfaced, remains standing, having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses

over; having crossed over, reaches the farther bank; and having reached the farther bank, is called a “brahmin dwelling on the [farther] bank.”

I have taught in brief this parable of seven people in the water. As it has been set out and described above, do you know what its meaning is, how to explain it, and what its moral is?

The monks said to the World-honored One:

The World-honored One is the source of the Dharma, the World-honored One is the master of the Dharma, the Dharma comes from the World- honored One. May he explain it! Having heard, we will come to know its meaning fully.

The Buddha said: “[Then] Listen closely, listen closely and pay careful attention! I shall explain its meaning to you.”

Then the monks listened to receive instruction. The Buddha said:

What is [the meaning of] the person that remains lying [in the water]? Here, a person is obstructed by unwholesome states, defiled by defile- ments, experiencing the consequences of evil states, which create the root cause for birth and death.

This is what is meant by the person that remains lying [in the water]. Like a person who, having sunk and drowned, remains lying in the water, just so, I say, is this [defiled] person. This is what is meant by the first person in the water parable. Such [people] are really to be found in the world.

What is the person who, having surfaced, sinks again? Here, a person has “surfaced” by gaining faith in the true Dharma, keeping the precepts, practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wis- dom, [thereby] practicing the true Dharma.

At a later time, [however,] he loses faith, which [then] becomes unstable, gives up keeping the precepts, practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom—[these practices] thus become unstable.

This is what is meant by the person who, having surfaced, sinks again. Like the person who, having [nearly] drowned in the water,

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surfaces but then sinks again—just so, I say, is this [backsliding] person. This is what is meant by the second person in the water parable. Such people are really to be found in the world.

What is the person who, having surfaced, remains standing? Here, a person has “surfaced” by gaining faith in the true Dharma, keeping the precepts, practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom, [thereby] practicing the true Dharma.

At a later time his faith [remains] firm and is not lost, and his keep- ing of the precepts, practice of generosity, learning much, and [devel- oping of] wisdom [remain] stable and firm and are not lost.

This is what is meant by the person who, having surfaced, remains standing. Like the person who, having [nearly] drowned in the water, surfaces and remains standing—just so, I say, is this [stable] person. This is what is meant by the third person in the water parable. Such people are really to be found in the world.

What is the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; and, having remained standing, observes? Here, a person has “surfaced” by gaining faith in the true Dharma, keeping the precepts, and practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom, [thereby] prac- ticing the true Dharma.

At a later time, his faith remains firm and is not lost, and his keep- ing of the precepts, practice of generosity, learning much, and [devel- oping] wisdom [remain] stable and firm and are not lost. Being estab- lished in the true Dharma, he knows suffering as it really is, knows the arising of suffering, knows the cessation of suffering, and knows the path to the cessation of suffering as it really is. Through such knowing and seeing, three fetters are eliminated: namely, personality view, clinging to precepts, and doubt; and through the cessation of these three fetters, he attains stream-entry.51 He is assured of progress toward full awakening within at most seven existences, without falling into evil states. Having passed through [at most] seven existences in heavenly or human realms, he will attain the ending of suffering. This is what is meant by the person who having surfaced, remains standing, and having remained standing, observes. Like the person who, having [nearly] drowned in the water and having surfaced remains

standing, and having remained standing observes—just so, I say, is this person [who attains stream-entry]. This is what is meant by the fourth person in the water parable. Such people are really to be found in the world.

What is the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; and having observed, crosses over? Here, a person has “surfaced” by gaining faith in the true Dharma, keeping the precepts, practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom, [thereby] practicing the true Dharma.

At a later time, his faith [remains] firm and is not lost, his keeping of the precepts, practice of generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom [remain] stable and firm and are not lost. Being established in the true Dharma, he knows suffering as it really is, knows the arising of suffering, knows the cessation of suffering, knows the path to the cessation of suffering, as it really is. Through such knowing and seeing, three fetters are eliminated: namely, personality view, clinging to pre- cepts, and doubt; and, having eliminated these three fetters, he [also] reduces sensual desire, anger, and ignorance, and attains once-returning. Having passed through one existence in a heavenly or human realm, he will attain the ending of suffering.

This is what is meant by the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; and having observed, crosses over. Like the person who, having [nearly] drowned in the water and having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; and having observed, crosses over—just so, I say, is this person [who attains once-returning]. This is what is meant by the fifth person in the water parable. Such people are really to be found in the world. What is the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; and having crossed over, reaches the farther bank? Here, a person has “surfaced” by gaining faith in the true Dharma, keeping the precepts, practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom, [thereby] prac-

ticing the true Dharma.

At a later time his faith [remains] firm and is not lost, his keeping of the precepts, practice of generosity, learning much, and [developing]

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wisdom [remain] stable and firm and are not lost. Being established in the true Dharma, he knows suffering as it really is, knows the arising of suffering, knows the cessation of suffering, knows the path to the cessation of suffering as it really is. Through such knowing and seeing, the five lower fetters are eliminated—namely, lustful desire, ill will, personality view, clinging to precepts, and doubt. With these five lower fetters eliminated, he will be born in another[, heavenly] realm and there attain final nirvana,52 having attained the condition of non-return- ing, not coming back to this world.

This is what is meant by the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; and having crossed over, reaches the farther bank. Like the person who, having [nearly] drowned in the water and having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; and having crossed over, reaches the farther bank—just so, I say, is this person [who attains non-returning]. This is what is meant by the sixth person in the water parable. Such people are really to be found in the world.

What is the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; having crossed over, reaches the farther bank; and having reached the farther bank, is called a “brahmin dwelling on the [farther] bank”? Here, a person has “surfaced” by gaining faith in the true Dharma, keeping the precepts, practicing generosity, learning much, and [developing] wisdom, [thereby] practicing the true Dharma.

At a later time, his faith [remains] firm and is not lost, his keeping of the precepts, practice of generosity, learning, and [developing] wis- dom are stable and firm and are not lost. Being established in the true Dharma, he knows suffering as it really is, knows the arising of suf- fering, knows the cessation of suffering, and knows the path [leading] to the cessation of suffering as it really is. Through such knowing and seeing, he attains liberation of the mind from the taint of desire, from the taint of becoming, and from the taint of ignorance. Being liberated, he knows he is liberated; he knows as it really is: “Birth is ended, the

holy life has been established, what was to be done has been done. There will not be another existence.”

This is what is meant by the person who, having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; having crossed over, reaches the farther bank; and having reached the farther bank, is called a “brahmin dwelling on the [farther] bank.” Like the person who, having [nearly] drowned in the water and having surfaced, remains standing; having remained standing, observes; having observed, crosses over; having crossed over, reaches the farther bank; and having reached the farther bank, is called a “person standing on the [farther] bank”—just so, I say, is this person [who has attained lib- eration]. This is what is meant by the seventh person in the water para- ble. Such people are really to be found in the world.

When I said earlier, “I shall teach you about seven persons in the water,” it was on account of this that I said it.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

5.  The Discourse with the Parable of the Heap of Wood53

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha, while dwelling among the people of Kosala, was traveling accompanied by a great gathering of monks.

At that time the World-honored One, while on the road, suddenly saw in a certain place a great heap of wood, all ablaze, intensely hot. On seeing it, the World-honored One went down from the side of the road, spread his sitting mat under a tree, and sat down cross-legged.

Having seated himself, the World-honored One addressed the monks: “Do you see that great heap of wood, all ablaze, intensely hot?”

The monks answered: “We see it, World-honored One.” The World-honored One said to the monks:

What do you think? To embrace, or to sit or lie [beside] that great heap of wood, all ablaze, intensely hot; or to embrace, or to sit or lie [beside] a woman from the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a

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woman who is in the full bloom of youth, who has bathed and perfumed herself, has put on bright, clean clothes, is wearing garlands, and has adorned her body with jeweled necklaces—which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, to embrace, or to sit or lie [beside] that great heap of wood, all ablaze, intensely hot—that would be very painful. World- honored One, to embrace, or to sit or lie [beside] a woman from the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], who is in the fullbloom of youth, who has bathed and perfumed herself, has put on bright clean clothes, is wearing flowers in her hair, and has adorned her body with jeweled necklaces—that, World-honored One, would be very pleasur- able.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you: while training as a renunciant, do not lose the path of the renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better to embrace that great heap of wood, all ablaze, intensely hot, or to sit or lie [beside it]. Although one would, because of that, experience suffering or even death, yet, one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though professing to practice it,54 not a renunciant though professing to be a renunciant, if he embraces or sits or lies [beside] a woman from the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], who is in the full bloom of youth, who has bathed and perfumed herself, has put on bright clean clothes, is wearing garlands, and has adorned her body with jew- eled necklaces—that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unbeneficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the ben- efit of others, and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding, and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

The World-honored One further said to the monks:

What do you think? If a strong man were to take a stout rope or a cord made of hair and pull it around one’s thighs so that it cut the skin, and having cut the skin it cut the flesh, and having cut the flesh it cut the tendons, and having cut the tendons it cut the bone, and having cut the bone it reached the marrow and remained there; or if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a massage of one’s body, limbs, hands, and feet, which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, if a strong man were to take a stout rope or a cord made of hair and pull it around one’s thighs so that it cut the skin, and having cut the skin it cut the flesh, and having cut the flesh it cut the tendons, and having cut the tendons it cut the bone, and having cut the bone it reached the marrow and remained there, that would be very painful. World-honored One, if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a massage of one’s body, limbs, hands, and feet, that, World-honored One, would be very pleasurable.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you, while training as a renunciant, do not lose the path of the renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better to have a strong man take a stout rope or a cord madeof hair and pull it around one’s thighs so that it cut the skin, and having cut the skin it

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cut the flesh, and having cut the flesh it cut the tendons, and having cut the tendons it cut the bone, and having cut the bone it reached the marrow and remained there. Although one would, because of that, experience suffering or even death, yet one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though pro- fessing to practice it, not a renunciant though professing to be a renun- ciant, if he receives, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a massage of his body, limbs, hands, and feet, then that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unbeneficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the ben- efit of others, and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding, and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

The World-honored One further said to the monks:

What do you think? If a strong man were to cut off one’s leg with a knife that had been sharpened on a whetstone; or if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], homage, respect, and greetings—which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, if a strong man were to cut off one’s leg with a knife that had been sharpened on a whetstone, that would be very

painful. World-honored One, if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], homage, respect, and greetings, that, World-honored One, would be very pleasurable.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you, do not lose the path of the renunciant while training as a renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better to have a strong man cut off one’s leg with a knife that had been sharpened on a whetstone. Although one would, because of that, experience suf- fering or even death, yet one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though professing to practice it, not a renunciant though professing to be a renunciant, if he receives, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], homage, respect, and greetings, then that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unbeneficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the ben- efit of others, and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding, and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

The World-honored One further said to the monks:

What do you think? If a strong man were to encase one’s body in iron or copper plates that were all ablaze, intensely hot; or if one were to

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receive robes, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khat- tiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes]—which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, if a strong man were to encase one’s body in iron or copper plates that were all ablaze, intensely hot, that would be very painful. World-honored One, if one were to receive robes, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], that, World-honored One, would be very pleasurable.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you, do not lose the path of the renunciant while training as a renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better to have a strong man encase one’s body in iron or copper plates that are all ablaze, intensely hot. Although one would, because of that, expe- rience suffering or even death, yet one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though professing to practice it, not a renunciant though professing to be a renunciant, if he receives robes, as an offering made in faith by [some- one from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], then that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unbeneficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the ben- efit of others, and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding, and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

The World-honored One further said to the monks:

What do you think? If a strong man were to open one’s mouth with a pair of hot iron tongs and then were to place inside one’s mouth an iron ball that was all ablaze, intensely hot; and that hot iron ball were to burn the lips; and having burned the lips, it were to burn the tongue; and having burned the tongue, it were to burn the gums; and having burned the gums, it were to burn the throat; and having burned the throat, it were to burn the heart; and having burned the heart, it were to burn the stomach and intestines; and having burned the stomach and intestines, it were to come out below; or if, [instead,] one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], food with a countless variety of tastes—which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, if a strong man were to open one’s mouth with a pair of hot iron tongs, and then were to place inside one’s mouth an iron ball that was all ablaze, intensely hot; and that hot iron ball were to burn the lips; and having burned the lips, it were to burn the tongue; and having burned the tongue, it were to burn the gums; and having burned the gums, it were to burn the throat; and having burned the throat, it were to burn the heart; and having burned the heart, it were to burn the stomach and intestines; and having burned the stomach and intestines, it were to come out below, that would be very painful. World- honored One, if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], food with a countless variety of tastes, that, World-honored One, would be very pleasurable.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you, while training as a renunciant, do not lose the path of the renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better if a strong man were to open one’s mouth with a pair of hot iron tongs,

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and then were to place inside one’s mouth an iron ball that was all ablaze, intensely hot; and that hot iron ball were to burn the lips; and having burned the lips, it were to burn the tongue; and having burned the tongue, it were to burn the gums; and having burned the gums, it were to burn the throat; and having burned the throat, it were to burn the heart; and having burned the heart, it were to burn the stomach and intestines; and having burned the stomach and intestines, it were to come out below. Although one would, because of that, experience suf- fering or even death, yet one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though professing to practice it, not a renunciant though professing to be a renunciant, if he receives, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], food with a countless variety of tastes, then that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unbeneficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell. For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the benefit of others, and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding, and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

The World-honored One further said to the monks:

What do you think? If a strong man were to take an iron or copper bed that was all ablaze, intensely hot, and then force and compel one to sit or lie on it; or if one were to receive bedding, as an offering made in

faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes]—which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, if a strong man were to take an iron or copper bed that was all ablaze, intensely hot, and then force and compel one to sit or lie on it, that would be very painful. World-honored One, if one were to receive bedding, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], that, World- honored One, would be very pleasurable.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you, while training as a renunciant do not lose the path of the renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better to have a strong man take an iron or copper bed that was all ablaze, intensely hot, and then force and compel one to sit or lie on it. Although one would, because of that, experience suffering or even death, yet one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though professing to practice it, not a renunciant though professing to be a renunciant, if he receives bedding, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], then that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unben- eficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the ben- efit of others, and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding,

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and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

The World-honored One further said to the monks:

What do you think? If a strong man were to take a great cauldron, of iron or copper, all ablaze, intensely hot, and having taken hold of and lifted up a person, were to turn him upside down and place him in that cauldron; or if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a dwelling place, plastered with mud and painted with whitewash, with windows and doors, tight and secure, with a fireplace, warm and cozy55—which [of these two] would be the more pleasurable?

The monks answered:

World-honored One, if a strong man were to take a great cauldron, of iron or copper, all ablaze, intensely hot, and having taken hold of and lifted up a person, were to turn him upside down and place him in that cauldron, that would be very painful. World-honored One, if one were to receive, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a dwelling place, plastered with mud and painted with whitewash, with windows and doors, tight and secure, with a fireplace, warm and cozy, that, World-honored One, would be very pleasurable.

The World-honored One said:

I tell you, while training as a renunciant do not lose the path of the renunciant. If you wish to perfect the holy life, it would be better if a strong man were to take a great cauldron, of iron or copper, all ablaze, intensely hot, and having taken hold of and lifted up a person, were to turn him upside down and place him in that cauldron. Although one would, because of that, experience suffering or even death, yet one would not, when the body breaks up and life ends, go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

If an ignorant person violates the precepts and is lax, giving rise to evil and unwholesome states, not practicing the holy life though professing to practice it, not a renunciant though professing to be a renunciant, if he receives, as an offering made in faith by [someone from] the khattiya, brahmin, merchant, or worker [castes], a dwelling place, plastered with mud and painted with whitewash, with windows and doors, tight and secure, with a fireplace, warm and cozy, then that ignorant person will, because of this unwholesome and unbeneficial [conduct], experience the fruits of his evil states for a long time. When the body breaks up and life ends, he will go to a bad realm of existence and be born in hell.

For this reason you should contemplate your own benefit, the ben- efit of others and the benefit of both, reflecting thus:

My leaving the household life to train is not in vain, not empty. It has results and fruits that are very agreeable, leading to a long life and to rebirth in good realms of existence. I accept from people, as offerings made in faith, robes, food and drink, bed and bedding, and medicine. May all those donors obtain great merit, great reward, great splendor!

You should train like this.

As this teaching was being given, sixty monks were liberated from the fetters through cessation of the taints, [while another] sixty monks gave up the precepts and returned to household life. Why is that? The World-honored One’s teaching and admonishment was profound and very difficult, and train- ing in the path is also profound and very difficult.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

6.  The Discourse on the Destination of a Good Person56

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time the World-honored One addressed the monks:

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I shall teach you about the seven destinations of good persons and about nirvana without remainder. Listen closely, listen closely and pay careful attention!

The monks listened to receive instruction. The Buddha said:

What are the seven? A monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained; [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace57 through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?

It is just like a burning wheat husk which, having caught fire, quickly exhausts itself. You should know that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he attains final nirvana [immediately after entering] the intermediate state of existence. This is the first destination of good persons, who are indeed to be found in the world.

Again, a monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?

It is just as when [a slab of] iron that is all ablaze, intensely hot, is hit with a hammer, a burning splinter flies up into the air, but on moving upward, becomes extinguished immediately. You should know

that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he attains final nirvana [after a short while spent in] the intermediate state of existence. This is the second destination of good persons, really to be found in the world.

Again, a monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?

It is just as when [a slab of] iron that is all ablaze, intensely hot, is hit with a hammer, a burning splinter flies up into the air, which, having moved upward comes back down, but becomes extinguished before hitting the ground. You should know that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he attains final nirvana [after spending some time in] the intermediate state of existence. This is the third destination of good persons, really to be found in the world.

Again, a monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?

It is just as when [a slab of] iron that is all ablaze, intensely hot, is hit with a hammer, a burning splinter flies up into the air, and becomes

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extinguished on hitting the ground. You should know that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he attains final nirvana in his next exis- tence. This is the fourth destination of good persons, really to be found in the world.

Again, a monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?It is just as when [a slab of] iron that is all ablaze, intensely hot, is hit with a hammer, a burning splinter flies up into the air and then falls on a small amount of sticks and grass, causing it to smoke and burn, and becomes extinguished after that has burned out. You should know that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he attains final nirvana with effort. This is the fifth destination of good persons, really to be found in the world.

Again, a monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?It is just as when [a slab of] iron that is all ablaze, intensely hot, is hit with a hammer, a burning splinter flies up into the air and then falls on a large amount of sticks and grass, causing it to smoke and burn, and becomes extinguished

after that has burned out. You should know that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he attains final nirvana without effort. This is the sixth destination of good persons. Such people are really to be found in the world.

Again, a monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom, but has not yet attained [final] realization. Practicing thus, to which destination will such a monk go?

It is just as when [a slab of] iron that is all ablaze, intensely hot, is hit with a hammer, a burning splinter flies up into the air and falls on to a large amount of sticks and grass, causing it to smoke and burn; and after that has burned, the fire spreads to villages, towns, mountain forests, and wilderness; and having burned out the villages, towns, mountain forests, and wilderness, it reaches a road, or reaches water, or reaches level ground, and becomes extinguished. You should know that this monk is like that. Having cut off the five lower fetters, but with a remnant of conceit not yet extinguished, he [first] goes upstream [all the way] to the Akaniṭṭha realm where he attains final nirvana. This is the seventh destination of good persons, really to be found in the world.

What is nirvana without remainder? A monk practices thus:

There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; and when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained. [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses].

Such a practitioner sees the unsurpassable state of peace through his wisdom. Having attained [final] realization, I say, that monk will not

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go to the east, nor to the west, nor to the south, nor to the north, nor to [any of] the four intermediate directions, nor above, nor below, but will attain the state of peace, final nirvana, right here and now.When I said earlier, “I shall teach you about the seven destinations of good persons and about nirvana without remainder,” it was on account of this that I said it.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

7.  The Discourse on [Sources of] Worldly Merit

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Kosambī, in Ghosita’s park.

At that time, in the late afternoon, Venerable Mahā Cunda rose from sit- ting in meditation and approached the Buddha. On arriving, he paid his respects and, sitting to one side, said: “World-honored One, is it possible to describe [the nature of] worldly merit?”

The World-honored One answered:

It is possible, Cunda. There are seven [sources of] worldly merit that lead to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit. What are the seven? Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family offers a dwelling place or an assembly hall to the community of monks. This, Cunda, is the first [source] of worldly merit that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit. Again, Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family offers [to those] in that dwelling place beds, seats, woolen blankets, felt mattresses, or bedding. This, Cunda, is the second [source] of worldly merit that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit. Again, Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family offers to all [those] in that dwelling- place new, clean robes of superior quality. This, Cunda, is the third [source] of worldly merit that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit. Again, Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family constantly offers to the community in that dwelling place morning rice gruel and the midday meal . . . provides monastic park

attendants to serve them . . . personally approaches the monastic park to make still more offerings, regardless of wind or rain, cold or snow

. . . [ensures that after] the monks have eaten, their robes do not get soaked58 by wind or rain, cold or snow, [so that they can] enjoy med- itation and quiet reflection by day and by night. This, Cunda, is the seventh [source] of worldly merit that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit.

Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family who has attained these seven [sources] of worldly merit, whether going or coming, whether standing or sitting, whether sleeping or awake, whether by day or by night, their merit will continuously grow, increase, and become more extensive. Cunda, just as, from its emergence at its source to its entry into the great ocean, the river Ganges becomes increasingly deep and increasingly wide, in the same way, Cunda, the merit of a faithful son or daughter of good family who has attained these seven [sources] of worldly merit, whether going or coming, whether standing or sitting, whether sleeping or awake, whether by day or by night, will continuously grow, increase, and become more extensive.

Thereupon, Venerable Mahā Cunda rose from his seat and, having bared his right shoulder, knelt with his right knee on the ground and, placing his palms together [in respect], said: “World-honored One, is it possible to describe [the nature of] merit that transcends the world?”

The World-honored One answered:

It is possible, Cunda. There are also seven [sources of] merit tran- scending the world that lead to great merit, great reward, great repu- tation, and great benefit. What are the seven? Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family hears that the Tathāgata or a disciple of the Tathāgata is staying in a certain place. Having heard this, they are delighted and supremely inspired. This, Cunda, is the first [source] of merit transcending the world that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit. Again, Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family hears that the Tathāgata or a disciple of the Tathāgata intends to come from there to here. Having heard this, they are delighted and supremely inspired. This, Cunda, is the second

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[source] of merit transcending the world that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great benefit. Again, Cunda, a faithful son or daughter of good family hears that the Tathāgata or a disciple of the Tathāgata has come from there to here. Having heard this, they are delighted and supremely inspired . . . they personally go to see them and pay their respects with a pure mind . . . they present offerings to them . . . having paid their respects and presented offerings, they perform the threefold taking of refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks (Sangha) . . . they take the precepts. This, Cunda, is the seventh [source] of merit transcending the world that leads to great merit, great reward, great reputation, and great ben- efit. Cunda, if a faithful son or daughter of good family attains these seven [sources] of worldly merit and also these seven [sources] of merit transcending the world, their merit cannot be measured [in terms of] “so much merit,” “so much fruit of merit,” “so much result of merit”; it just cannot be encompassed, cannot be measured. This great merit cannot be calculated. Cunda, it is just as in [this land of] Jam- budīpa there are five rivers, the Ganges being reckoned the first, the Yamunā the second, the Sarabhū the third, the Aciravatī the fourth, and the Mahī the fifth; and upon flowing into the great ocean, once within it, their water cannot be measured as “so many gallons”; it just cannot be encompassed, cannot be measured. This great water cannot be calculated. In the same way, Cunda, if a faithful son or daughter of good family attains these seven [sources of] worldly merit and again these seven [sources of] merit transcending the world, that merit cannot be measured as “so much merit,” “so much fruit of merit,” “so much result of merit”; it just cannot be encompassed, cannot be meas- ured. This great merit cannot be calculated.

Then the World-honored One spoke these verses:

The river Ganges is pure and easily crossed,

The ocean, with its many treasures, is king of all waters.

Like the river’s water is the honor and respect of people in the world. [Just as] all rivers reach and enter the great ocean,

So it is with people who offer robes, food and drink,

Beds, couches, bedding, and seats,

Measureless is the fruit of their merit, leading them to a sublime realm,

Just like the rivers’ water entering the great ocean.

This is what the Buddha said. Venerable Mahā Cunda and the [other] monks heard the Buddha’s words, were delighted, and remembered them well.

8.  The Discourse on Seven Suns59

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Vesālī, in Ambapālī’s Grove.

At that time the World-honored One addressed the monks:

All formations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly chang- ing by nature, unreliable by nature.60 Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them. Why is that? There will be a time when it will not rain. At that time when it does not rain, all the trees, the hundreds of grains, and all medicinal shrubs will wither entirely, come to destruction and extinction, unable to continue existing. This is why [I say that] all for- mations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them. Again, there will be a time when a second sun will appear in the world. When the second sun appears, the flow of all the streams and rivulets will become exhausted, unable to continue existing. This is why [I say that] all formations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them. Again, there will be a time when a third sun appears in the world. When the third sun appears, all the great rivers will become exhausted, unable to continue existing. This is why [I say that] all formations are imper- manent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable

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by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them.

Again, there will be a time when a fourth sun appears in the world. When the fourth sun appears, the great springs from which the five rivers of Jambudīpa emerge—the Ganges being the first, the Yamunā the second, the Sarabhū the third, the Aciravatī the fourth, and the Mahī the fifth—those great springs will all become exhausted, unable to con- tinue existing.

This is why [I say that] all formations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them.

Again, there will be a time when a fifth sun appears in the world. When the fifth sun appears, the water of the great ocean will recede by one hundred leagues, and continue receding gradually until it is [only] seven hundred leagues [in extent]. When the fifth sun appears, and the remaining water in the ocean is [only] seven hundred leagues [in extent], it will continue receding gradually until it is [only] one hundred leagues [in extent]. When the fifth sun appears, the water of the great ocean will decrease [by the height of] one palm tree, and con- tinue decreasing gradually until it has [a depth of only] seven palm trees. When the fifth sun appears and the remaining water in the ocean has [a depth of only] seven palm trees, it will continue decreasing grad- ually until it has [a depth of only] a single palm tree. When the fifth sun appears, the water of the great ocean will decrease [by the height of] a person, and continue decreasing gradually until it has [a depth of only] seven persons. When the fifth sun appears and the remaining water in the ocean has [a depth of only] seven persons, it will again decrease gradually until it has [a depth of only] one person. When the fifth sun appears, the water in the ocean will decrease to the level of a person’s neck, to the level of the shoulders, of the waist, of the hips, of the knees, to the level of the ankles, and [eventually] there will be

a time when the water of the ocean will be completely exhausted, being not sufficient to submerge [even] one finger.

This is why [I say that] all formations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations; one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them.

Again, there will be a time when a sixth sun appears in the world. When the sixth sun appears, the whole great earth, together with Meru, king of mountains, will be totally submerged in smoke, a single mass of smoke. Just as a potter’s kiln, at the time of being ignited, is totally sub- merged in smoke, a single mass of smoke—in the same way, when the sixth sun appears, the whole great earth, together with Meru, king of mountains, will be totally submerged in smoke, a single mass of smoke.

This is why [I say that] all formations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them.

Again, there will be a time when a seventh sun appears in the world. When the seventh sun appears, the whole great earth, together with Meru, king of mountains, will be all ablaze, intensely hot, a single mass of flame. In this way, when the seventh sun appears and the whole great earth, together with Meru, king of mountains, is all ablaze, intensely hot, a single mass of flame, [then] the wind will carry the flames even up to the Brahmā world. Then the gods of radiance, who have just been born as gods and have never experienced, seen, or known the world’s [cyclic] creation and destruction, on seeing that great fire will all be terrified, with their hair standing on end, and will think: “The fire will not reach up to here, will it? The fire will not reach up to here, will it?” Those who were born as gods at an earlier time and have experienced, seen, and known the world’s [cyclic] creation and destruction will, on seeing that great fire, calm the distress of those gods, telling them, “Don’t be afraid! That fire is of such a nature that it will not reach up to here.”

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When the seventh sun appears, Meru, king of mountains, will col- lapse, will be completely destroyed and cease to be, [decreasing in height by] one hundred leagues, two hundred leagues, three hundred leagues, and so on until [decreasing in height by] seven hundred leagues, it will be completely destroyed and cease to be.

When the seventh sun appears, Meru, king of mountains, together with this great earth, will be burned to destruction and extinction, with not even ash remaining.61 Just as hot ghee or oil that is cooked or fried until it is completely exhausted and not even smoke or soot remains, in the same way, when the seventh sun appears, Meru, king of moun- tains, together with the great earth, will be [exhausted] with not even ash remaining.

This is why [I say that] all formations are impermanent, of a nature not to last, quickly changing by nature, unreliable by nature. Thus, one should not delight in or be attached to formations, one should loathe them as troublesome, one should seek to abandon them, one should seek to be free from them.

I have now told you that Meru, king of mountains, will collapse and be completely destroyed. Who can believe this? Only those who have seen the truth.

I have now told you that the water of the great ocean will be exhausted and eliminated. Who can believe this? Only those who have seen the truth.

I have now told you that the whole great earth will be burnt up and eliminated. Who can believe this? Only those who have seen the truth. Why is that?

Monks, in ancient times there was a great teacher called Sunetta. He was the teacher of a school of non-Buddhist seers. Abandoning sensual desire, he had attained the bases of supernormal powers. The great teacher Sunetta had countless hundreds of thousands of disciples. The great teacher Sunetta gave his disciples teachings about [the way to] the Brahmā world. When the great teacher Sunetta gave teachings about the [way to] the Brahmā world, some of his disciples did not adequately put his teaching into practice.

At the end of life, some of them were reborn among the four great kings, some were reborn among the thirty-three gods, some were reborn among the Yama gods, some were reborn among the Tusita gods, some were reborn among the gods who delight in creating, and some were reborn among the gods who delight in the creations of others. If, when the great teacher Sunetta gave teachings about the [way to] the Brahmā world, all the disciples had remembered them well, they would have practiced the four divine abodes and, overcoming sensual desire, would, at the end of life, have attained rebirth in the Brahmā world.

At that time the great teacher Sunetta had this thought, “In my next life I should not be reborn in the same place as my disciples. I would now rather develop and cultivate loving-kindness.” Having developed and cultivated loving-kindness, at the end of life he attained rebirth among the gods of radiance.

At that time, the great teacher Sunetta developed and cultivated loving-kindness, and, having developed and cultivated loving-kindness, at the end of life I attained rebirth among the gods of radiance. The practice of the path by the great teacher Sunetta and his disciples was not in vain; they obtained great reward.

Monks, what do you think? The great teacher in ancient times called Sunetta, who was the teacher of a school of non-Buddhist seers and who, overcoming sensual desire, attained the bases of supernormal powers, do you think this was someone else? Do not think that. Know that it was me.

At that time I was called Sunetta, a great teacher, the leader of a school of non-Buddhist seers. Overcoming sensual desire, I attained supernormal powers. I had countless hundreds of thousands of disciples. I gave my disciples teachings about [the way to] the Brahmā world. When I gave teachings about the [way to] the Brahmā world, not all of my disciples adequately put my teaching into practice. At the end of life, some were reborn among the four great kings, some were reborn among the thirty-three gods, some were reborn among the Yama gods, some were reborn among the Tusita gods, some were reborn among the gods who delight in creating, and some were reborn among the

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gods who delight in the creations of others. When I gave teachings about the [way to] the Brahmā world, if all of my disciples had put my teaching into practice, they would have developed the four divine abodes and, overcoming sensual desire, at the end of life they would have attained rebirth in the Brahmā world.

At that time I had this thought, “It is not proper for me to be reborn in the next world in the same realm as my disciples. I would now rather develop and cultivate loving-kindness.” Having developed and culti- vated loving-kindness, at the end of life, I attained rebirth among the gods of radiance. Later, I developed and cultivated loving-kindness and, having developed and cultivated loving-kindness, at the end of life attained rebirth among the gods of radiance. The practice of the path by me and my disciples was not in vain; we obtained great reward.

At that time I personally practiced that path, which was of benefit to myself and of benefit to others, benefiting many people, out of com- passion for the world, seeking the advantage and benefit of gods and human beings, seeking their peace and happiness. The teaching I gave at that time did not lead to the ultimate, was not the ultimate purity, not the ultimate holy life, not the ultimate completion of the holy life. At that time I was not able to abandon birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, and distress. I was not able to attain complete liberation from suffering.

But now, monks, I have appeared in the world as a Tathāgata, free from attachment,62 fully awakened, endowed with knowledge and [good] conduct, well gone, a knower of the world, an unsurpassable being, incomparable leader of persons to be tamed,63 teacher of gods and human beings, called Buddha, protector of the world. I now benefit myself and benefit others, benefit many people. Out of compassion for the world I seek the advantage and benefit of gods and human beings, seek [their] peace and happiness. The teaching I now give leads to the ultimate, is the ultimate purity, the ultimate completion of the holy life. I have now abandoned birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, and distress. I have now attained complete liberation from suffering.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

9.  The Discourse on Seven Chariots64

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Rājagaha, in the Bamboo Grove, together with a great assembly of monks who were spending the rains retreat there. [At the same time] Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta was spending the rains retreat in the [Buddha’s] native region.

Then, a number of monks who had concluded the rains retreat in the [Buddha’s] native region, the three months being over, having mended their robes, they put on their robes, took their bowls, and left the [Buddha’s] native region for Rājagaha. Traveling by stages, they reached Rājagaha, where they went to stay in the Bamboo Grove. Then those monks from the [Buddha’s] native region approached the Buddha, paid their respects by bowing down their heads, and sat to one side.

The World-honored One asked them: “Monks, where have you come from, and in what place did you spend the rains retreat?”

The monks from the [Buddha’s] native region replied: “World-honored One, we have come from the [World-honored One’s] native region, having spent the rains retreat there.”

The World-honored One asked them:

Among the monks living in [my] native region, which monk is praised by the other monks [thus]: Having few wishes and being contented himself, he speaks [to others] in praise of having few wishes and being contented; living in seclusion himself, he speaks in praise of living in seclusion; being energetic himself, he speaks in praise of being ener- getic; having right mindfulness himself, he speaks in praise of right mindfulness; having mental one-pointedness himself, he speaks in praise of mental one-pointedness; having wisdom himself, he speaks in praise of wisdom; having himself destroyed the taints, he speaks in praise of destroying the taints; having himself exhorted, inspired, and fully delighted [others], he speaks in praise of exhorting, inspiring, and fully delighting [others].

The monks from the [Buddha’s] native region replied:

World-honored One, the monks living in [the World-honored One’s]

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native region praise Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta [thus]: Having few wishes and being contented himself, he speaks [to others] in praise of having few wishes and being contented; living in seclusion himself, he speaks in praise of living in seclusion; being energetic himself, he speaks in praise of being energetic; having right mindfulness himself, he speaks in praise of right mindfulness; having mental one-pointedness himself, he speaks in praise of mental one-pointedness; having wisdom himself, he speaks in praise of wisdom; having himself destroyed the taints, he speaks in praise of destroying the taints; having himself exhorted, inspired, and fully delighted [others], he speaks in praise of exhorting, inspiring, and fully delighting [others].

At that time, Venerable Sāriputta was seated among the assembly. Then Venerable Sāriputta thought:

The World-honored One has questioned those monks from [his] native region about this matter and the monks from [his] native region have given the greatest praise to Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta [thus]: Hav- ing few wishes and being contented himself, he speaks [to others] in praise of having few wishes and being contented; living in seclusion himself, he speaks in praise of living in seclusion; being energetic him- self, he speaks in praise of being energetic; having right mindfulness himself, he speaks in praise of right mindfulness; having mental one- pointedness himself, he speaks in praise of mental one-pointedness; having wisdom himself, he speaks in praise of wisdom; having himself destroyed the taints, he speaks in praise of destroying the taints; having himself exhorted, inspired, and fully delighted [others], he speaks in praise of exhorting, inspiring, and fully delighting [others].

Venerable Sāriputta thought further: “When I get to meet Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta, I will ask him a few things. He would probably be com- petent in understanding [and replying to] my questions.”

At that time the World-honored One, who had concluded the rains retreat at Rājagaha, the three months being over, having mended his robes, put on his robes and took his bowl, left Rājagaha for Sāvatthī. Traveling by stages, he reached Sāvatthī, where he went to stay in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

[Meanwhile,] after staying for a few days at Rājagaha, Venerable Sāriputta and the monks [who had come] from the [Buddha’s] native region put on their robes, took their bowls, and left Rājagaha for Sāvatthī. Traveling by stages, they reached Sāvatthī, where they went to stay in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta, who had concluded the rains retreat in the [Buddha’s] native region, the three months being over, having mended his robes, put on his robes, took his bowl, and left the [Buddha’s] native region for Sāvatthī. Traveling by stages, he reached Sāvatthī, where he went to stay in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta approached the Buddha and paid his respects by bowing down his head. Then he spread his sitting mat [at some distance] in front of the Buddha and sat down cross-legged.

Then Venerable Sāriputta asked some other monks: “Venerable friends, is that Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta?”

The monks answered Venerable Sāriputta: “That is so. The venerable one who is seated in front of the Tathāgata, with fair skin and a prominent nose resembling a parrot’s beak, that is he.”

Then Venerable Sāriputta, having taken note of Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta’s facial appearance, retained a clear memory of it.

When the night was over, at dawn, Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta put on his robes, took his bowl, and entered Sāvatthī to beg for food. After having taken his midday meal, he put away his robes and bowl, washed his hands and feet, put his sitting mat over his shoulder, and went to a place for walking meditation in the Blind Men’s Grove. Venerable Sāriputta also, when the night was over, at dawn, put on his robes, took his bowl and entered Sāvatthī to beg for food. After having taken his midday meal, he put away his robes and bowl, washed his hands and feet, put his sitting mat over his shoulder, and went to a place for walking meditation in the Blind Men’s Grove.

Then, when Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta had reached Blind Men’s Grove, he spread his sitting mat beneath a tree and sat down cross-legged. Venerable Sāriputta also, on reaching Blind Men’s Grove, spread his sitting mat beneath a tree not far from Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta, and sat down cross- legged.

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In the late afternoon, after rising from sitting in meditation, Venerable Sāriputta approached Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta, exchanged friendly greetings, and, sitting down to one side, asked Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta: “Is the venerable one practicing the holy life under the renunciant Gotama?”65

[Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied: “That is so.”

[Sāriputta asked]: “How is it, venerable friend, are you practicing the holy life under the renunciant Gotama for the sake of purification of virtue?”

[Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied: “Not so.” [Sāriputta asked further]:

Are you practicing the holy life under the renunciant Gotama for the sake of purification of mind. . . , for the sake of purification of view. . . , for the sake of purification [from] the hindrance of doubt. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of the way. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge of the way to abandoning?

[To each question Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied: “Not so.” [Sāriputta] asked further:

Just before, I asked the venerable one if he is practicing the holy life under the renunciant Gotama, and he said that this is so. Now I have asked the venerable one if he is practicing the holy life under the renun- ciant Gotama for the sake of purification of virtue, and he has said “Not so.” [I have also asked the venerable one if] he is practicing the holy life under the renunciant Gotama for the sake of purification of mind. . . , for the sake of purification of view. . . , for the sake of purification [from] the hindrance of doubt. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of the way. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge of the way to abandoning; and [to each question] he has said, “Not so.” In that case, for the sake of what are you practicing the holy life under the renunciant Gotama?

[Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied: “Venerable friend, for the sake of nirvana without remainder.”

[Sāriputta] asked further: “How is it, then, venerable friend? Is it for the sake of purification of virtue that the renunciant Gotama designates nirvana without remainder?”

[Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied: “Not so.” [Sāriputta asked further]:

Is it for the sake of purification of mind. . . , for the sake of purification of view. . . , for the sake of purification [from] the hindrance of doubt. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path. . . , for the sake of purifi- cation by knowledge and vision of the way. . . , for the sake of purifi- cation by knowledge of the way to abandoning that the renunciant Gotama designates nirvana without remainder?

[And to each question Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied: “Not so.” [Sāriputta] asked again:

Just now, I asked the venerable one if it is for the sake of purification of virtue that the renunciant Gotama designates nirvana without remain- der, and he replied “Not so.” [And I asked] is it for the sake of purifi- cation of mind. . . , for the sake of purification of view. . . , for the sake of purification [from] the hindrance of doubt. . . , for the sake of purifi- cation by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of the way [of practice]. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge of the way to abandoning, that the renunciant Gotama designates nirvana without remainder; and [to each question] the venerable one has replied “Not so.” What is the meaning of what the venerable one has said? How can one come to understand it?

[Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta] replied:

Venerable friend, if the World-honored One, the renunciant Gotama, were to designate nirvana without remainder for the sake of purification of virtue, then that would be to praise what is with a remainder [of clinging] as being without a remainder [of clinging]. If the World-hon- ored One, the renunciant Gotama, were to designate nirvana without

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remainder for the sake of purification of mind. . . , for the sake of purifi- cation of view. . . , for the sake of purification [from] the hindrance of doubt. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge and vision of the way. . . , for the sake of purification by knowledge of the way to abandoning, then that would be to praise what is with a remainder [of clinging] as being without a remainder [of clinging].

[On the other hand,] venerable friend, if the World-honored One were to designate nirvana without remainder apart from these things, then a worldling should also [be able to attain] nirvana without remain- der, because a worldling is also apart from these things.

Rather, venerable friend, [it is] through purification of virtue, [that] one attains purification of mind; through purification of mind, one attains purification of view; through purification of view, one attains purification [from] the hindrance of doubt; through purification [from] the hindrance of doubt, one attains purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path; through purifi- cation by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path, one attains purification by knowledge and vision of the way; through purification by knowledge and vision of the way, one attains purification by knowledge of the way to abandoning; through purifi- cation by knowledge of the way of abandoning, the World-honored One, the renunciant Gotama, designates nirvana without remainder.

Venerable friend, listen further. Once King Pasenadi of Kosala was in Sāvatthī and had some matter [to attend to] in Sāketa. He thought, “Using what expedient means can I reach Sāketa from Sāvatthī in a single day’s journey?” He further thought, “I shall now have seven chariots arranged [along the road] from Sāvatthī to Sāketa.” So, he had seven chariots arranged [along the road] from Sāvatthī to Sāketa. Having arranged the seven chariots, he set out from Sāvatthī in the first chariot. Riding in the first chariot, he reached the second chariot; leaving behind the first chariot and riding in the second66 chariot, he reached the third chariot; leaving behind the second chariot and riding in the third chariot, he reached the fourth chariot; leaving behind the

third chariot and riding in the fourth chariot, he reached the fifth chariot; leaving behind the fourth chariot and riding in the fifth chariot, he reached the sixth chariot; leaving behind the fifth chariot and riding in the sixth chariot, he reached the seventh chariot; leaving behind the sixth chariot and riding in the seventh chariot, he reached Sāketa within a single day.

When the king had dealt with the matter in Sāketa, the great courtiers gathered and surrounded the king, who was seated in the main hall, and respectfully said: “Great King, did you come in a single day from Sāvatthī to Sāketa?”

The king replied: “That is so.”

[The courtiers asked]: “Did the Great King come in a single day from Sāvatthī to Sāketa by riding in the first chariot?”

The king replied: “Not so.”

[The courtiers asked further]: “Did you come from Sāvatthī to Sāketa by riding in the second chariot. . . , by riding in the third chariot.

. . , (and so on up to) by riding in the seventh chariot?” [And to each question] the king replied: “Not so.”

What do you say, venerable friend: in what way should King Pase- nadi of Kosala answer on being asked this by the gathering of courtiers?

[Sāriputta answered:]

The king [should] answer the gathering of courtiers: “I was in Sāvatthī and I had some matter [to attend to] in Sāketa. Then I thought, ‘Using what expedient means can I reach Sāketa from Sāvatthī in a single day’s journey?’ I further thought, ‘I shall now have seven chariots arranged [along the road] from Sāvatthī to Sāketa.’ So, I had seven chariots arranged [along the road] from Sāvatthī to Sāketa. Having arranged the seven chariots, I set out from Sāvatthī in the first chariot. Riding in the first chariot, I reached the second chariot; leaving behind the first chariot and riding in the second chariot, I reached the third chariot; leaving behind the second chariot and riding in the third chariot, I reached the fourth chariot; leaving behind the third chariot and riding in the fourth chariot, I reached the fifth chariot; leaving behind the fourth chariot and riding in the fifth chariot, I reached the sixth chariot;

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leaving behind the fifth chariot and riding in the sixth chariot, I reached the seventh chariot; leaving behind the sixth chariot and riding in the seventh chariot, I reached Sāketa within a single day.”

Thus, venerable friend, [should] King Pasenadi of Kosala reply to the questions put in this way by the gathering of courtiers.

[Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta said:]

In the same way, venerable friend, through purification of virtue, one attains purification of mind; through purification of mind, one attains purification of view; through purification of view, one attains purification [from] the hindrance of doubt; through purification [from] the hindrance of doubt, one attains purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path; through purification by knowledge and vision of [what is] the path and [what is] not the path, one attains purification by knowledge and vision of the way; through purification by knowledge and vision of the way, one attains purification by knowl- edge of the way to abandoning; through purification by knowledge of the way to abandoning, the World-honored One designates nirvana without remainder.

Then Venerable Sāriputta asked Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta: “What is the venerable one’s name? How do his companions in the holy life call the venerable one?”

Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta replied: “Venerable friend, I am called Puṇṇa and my mother’s name is Mantāṇī;67 therefore, my companions in the holy life call me Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta.”

Venerable Sāriputta expressed his praise:

Excellent, excellent, Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta! As befits a disciple of the Tathāgata, [the venerable one] has explained wisely, with intel- ligence and determination, calm and without wavering, being an accom- plished trainer who has achieved great eloquence, has attained the ban- ner of the deathless, and dwells having himself realized the element of deathlessness—for the venerable one has been able, on being ques- tioned, to respond fully on a profound issue. Venerable Puṇṇa Man- tāṇiputta’s companions in the holy life will obtain great benefit if they

get to meet Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta, to visit and pay homage to him on a suitable occasion. Now I too have obtained great benefit on visiting and paying homage to him on [this] suitable occasion. Great benefit would be obtained by his companions in the holy life if they were to roll up their robes and put them on their heads to carry Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta [around on their heads]. Now I too have obtained great benefit on visiting and paying homage to him on [this] suitable occasion.

Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta asked Venerable Sāriputta: “What is the venerable one’s name? How do his companions in the holy life call the ven- erable one?”

Venerable Sāriputta replied: “Venerable friend, my name is Upatissa and my mother’s name is Sārī; therefore my companions in the holy life call me Sāriputta.”

Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta expressed his praise:

Today, unwittingly, I have discussed with a disciple of the World-hon- ored One, unwittingly I have discussed with the second most respected one, unwittingly I have discussed with the general of the Dharma, unwittingly I have discussed with the disciple who keeps the wheel of Dharma turning. If I had known that this was Venerable Sāriputta, I would not have been able to answer with even one sentence, let alone discuss so deeply. Excellent, excellent, Venerable Sāriputta! As befits a disciple of the Tathāgata, [the venerable one] has explained wisely, with intelligence and determination, calm and without wavering, being an accomplished trainer who has achieved great eloquence, has attained the banner of the deathless, and dwells having himself realized the ele- ment of deathlessness—for the venerable one has posed very profound questions. Venerable Sāriputta’s companions in the holy life will obtain great benefit if they get to meet Venerable Sāriputta, to visit and pay homage to him on a suitable occasion. Now I too have obtained great benefit on visiting and paying homage to him on this suitable occasion. Great benefit would be obtained by his companions in the holy life if they were to roll up their robes and put them on their heads to carry Venerable Sāriputta [around on their heads]. Now I too have obtained

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great benefit on visiting and paying homage to him on [this] suitable occasion.

In this way these two venerable ones praised each other. Having com- mended each other, they were delighted and remembered [the exchange] well. Each rose from his seat and returned to his dwelling place.

10.  The Discourse on the Cessation of the Taints68

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying among the Kurus, at a Kuru town called Kammāsadhamma.

At that time, the World-honored One addressed the monks:

Through knowing and seeing, one attains the cessation of the taints, not without knowing and seeing. How does one attain the cessation of the taints through knowing and seeing?

There is right attention and there is wrong attention. If one engages in wrong attention, then the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will arise and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will increase; the not yet arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will arise and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will increase. If, [however,] one engages in right attention, then the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will not arise and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will cease; the not yet arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will not arise and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will cease.

The foolish worldling, who has not got to hear the right Dharma, has not met genuine good friends, does not know the noble Dharma, has not been trained in the noble Dharma, and does not know the Dharma as it really is—[if such a person] engages in wrong attention, then the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will arise, and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will increase; the not yet arisen taints of exis- tence and of ignorance will arise, and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will increase. [If, however, this person] engages in right attention, then the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will not arise, and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will cease; the not yet

arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will not arise, and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will cease.

Through not knowing the Dharma as it really is, [the foolish worldling] thinks thoughts that should not be thought, and does not think thoughts that should be thought. Through his thinking thoughts that should not be thought, and not thinking thoughts that should be thought, the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will arise, and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will increase; the not yet arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will arise, and the arisen [taints of exis- tence and of ignorance] will increase.

The learned noble disciple who has got to hear the right Dharma, has met genuine good friends, has been trained in the noble Dharma, and knows the Dharma as it really is—[if such a person nevertheless] engages in wrong attention, then the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will arise, and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will increase; the not yet arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will arise, and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will increase.

[If, however, such a person] engages in right attention, then the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will not arise, and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will cease; the not yet arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will not arise, and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will cease.

Through knowing the Dharma as it really is, [the learned noble disciple] does not think thoughts that should not be thought, and thinks thoughts that should be thought. Through his not thinking thoughts that should not be thought, and thinking thoughts that should be thought, the not yet arisen taint of sensual desire will not arise, and the arisen [taint of sensual desire] will cease; the not yet arisen taints of existence and of ignorance will not arise, and the arisen [taints of existence and of ignorance] will cease.

There are seven [ways] of abandoning the taints, which [cause] distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow. What are the seven? There are taints that are to be abandoned through seeing, there are taints to be abandoned through guarding, there are taints to be abandoned through

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avoiding, there are taints to be abandoned through using, there are taints to be abandoned through enduring, there are taints to be aban- doned through removing, and there are taints to be abandoned through attending.

How are taints abandoned through seeing? The foolish worldling, who has not got to hear the right Dharma, has not met genuine good friends, does not know the noble Dharma, and has not been trained in the noble Dharma—he does not know the Dharma as it really is. [Such a person,] through not practicing right attention, has the following thoughts: “I was in the past! I was not in the past! From what cause was I in the past? How was I in the past? I will be in the future! I will not be in the future! From what cause will I be in the future? How will I be in the future?” He wonders about himself [in the present]: “What is this so-called self? How did it come to be? This present sentient being, from where has it come? Where will it go? Rooted in what cause does it exist? From what future cause will it exist?”

As he engages in wrong attention in this way, there arises [one or another of] six views. The view arises that there truly is a self; or the view arises that there truly is no self; or the view arises that the self perceives the self; or the view arises that the self perceives the not- self; or the view arises that the not-self perceives the self; or the view arises that this is the self, namely that which is able to talk, able to know, able to act and to teach, and which acts and teaches, which is born in this or that realm and experiences the fruits of good and evil [actions], which certainly has come from nowhere, certainly does not exist, and certainly will not exist.

This is called the deception of views, the agitation of views, the bondage of views, because of which the foolish worldling undergoes the suffering of birth, old age, disease, and death.

[On the other hand,] the learned noble disciple, who has got to hear the right Dharma, has met genuine good friends, and has been trained in the noble Dharma—he knows the Dharma as it really is, knows suffering as it really is, knows the arising of suffering, knows the cessation of suffering, and knows the path [leading] to the cessation of suffering as it really is. Through his having come to know this as it

really is, three fetters cease: personality view, clinging to precepts, and doubt. Through the cessation of these three fetters, he attains stream- entry. He will not fall into evil conditions and is assured of progress towards right awakening within at most seven existences. Having gone through [at most] seven existences in the heavens or among human beings, he will attain the ending of suffering.

If one does not know and see, then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does know and see, then distress, vex- ation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This is called abandoning the taints through seeing.

How are taints abandoned through guarding? A monk, on seeing a form with the eye, guards the eye faculty and, with right attention, con- templates impurity. He is not guarding the eye faculty if, without right attention, he is contemplating purity. If one does not guard [the eye fac- ulty], then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does guard it, distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. Similarly for the ear, nose, tongue, body On knowing a mind-object

with the mind, [a monk] guards the mind faculty and, with right attention, contemplates impurity. He is not guarding the mind faculty if, without right attention, he is contemplating purity. If one does not guard [the mind faculty], distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does guard it, distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This is called abandoning taints through guarding.

How are taints abandoned through avoiding? A monk, on seeing a vicious elephant, should avoid it; and similarly a vicious horse,

a vicious ox, a vicious dog, a poisonous snake, a dangerous path, a ditch or pit, a cesspool, a river, a deep spring, a mountain precipice, a bad companion, a bad friend, an evil heretic, an evil neighbor, a bad abode, [or] anything that would cause doubt to arise in his [previously] undoubting companions in the holy life. A monk should completely avoid a bad companion, a bad friend, an evil heretic, an evil neighbor, a bad abode, [or] anything that would cause doubt to arise in his [pre- viously] undoubting companions in the holy life.

If one does not avoid these, then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does avoid them, then distress, vexation,

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dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This is called abandoning taints through avoiding.

How are taints abandoned through using? A monk does not use his robes for the sake of gain, nor out of pride, nor for the sake of adorn- ment, but for [protection against] mosquitoes, gadflies, wind, rain, cold, and heat, and out of shame [to conceal the private parts].

He does not use food and drink for the sake of gain, nor out of pride, nor for the pleasure of growing stout, but to maintain the body and remove distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow; for the sake of living the holy life, out of a wish to overcome former discomfort and prevent the arising of new discomfort; for the sake of living peacefully and without disease.

He does not use abodes and dwelling places, beds and bedding, for the sake of gain, nor out of pride, nor for the sake of adornment, but to allay fatigue and be able to meditate.

He does not use decoctions and medicines for the sake of gain, nor out of pride, nor for the pleasure of growing stout, but to remove sickness and vexation, to preserve the life faculty and [remain] safe from disease.

If one does not use [these requisites properly], then distress, vex- ation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does use [them prop- erly], then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This is called abandoning taints through using.

How are taints abandoned through enduring? To energetically abandon evil and unwholesome [states] and develop wholesome states, a monk continuously arouses the mind to wholehearted diligent effort, [thinking]: “Even if the body, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, blood, and marrow should all dry up, I will not stop striving. Not until the goal has been attained will I stop striving.”

A monk should also endure hunger and thirst; cold and heat; mos- quitoes, gadflies, flies, fleas, and lice; being assailed by wind and sun; being verbally abused and being beaten with sticks—he is able to endure it [all]. [Even if] the body suffers disease causing such extreme pain that his life seems to come to an end—whatever is unpleasant, he is able to endure it all.

If one does not endure [such things], then distress, vexation, dejec- tion, and sorrow will arise; but if one does endure them, then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This is called abandoning taints through enduring.

How are taints abandoned through removing? When thoughts of sensual desire arise, a monk removes, discards, abandons, and gets rid of them.69 When thoughts of ill will or harming arise, he removes, dis- cards, abandons, and gets rid of them. If one does not remove [such thoughts], then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does remove them, then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This is called abandoning taints through removing. How are taints abandoned through attending? A monk attends to mindfulness, the first factor of awakening, based on seclusion, dispas- sion, and cessation, and leading to emancipation. [He attends to inves- tigation of] phenomena . . . energy . . . joy . . . tranquility . . . concen- tration. . . ; he attends to equanimity, the seventh factor of awakening, based on seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, and leading to emanci- pation. If one does not attend to [the factors of awakening], then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will arise; but if one does attend to them, then distress, vexation, dejection, and sorrow will not arise. This

is called abandoning taints through attending.

If a monk, through seeing, abandons the taints that are to be aban- doned through seeing; through guarding, abandons the taints that are to be abandoned through guarding; through avoiding, abandons the taints that are to be abandoned through avoiding; through using, aban- dons the taints that are to be abandoned through using; through enduring, abandons the taints that are to be abandoned through enduring; through removing, abandons the taints that are to be abandoned through remov- ing; through attending, abandons the taints that are to be abandoned through attending—then he is called a monk who has abandoned all taints and has been liberated from all bondage, who has, through right knowledge, been able to make an end of suffering.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

Division 2

On Karma

11. The Discourse with the Parable [of the Ounce] of Salt70

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time the World-honored One said to the monks:

[If one were to say]: “According to the actions a person does, he will experience the [exactly corresponding] result of those actions,” then in that case there could be no practice of the holy life and no attainment of the end of suffering. If [however,] one says: “According to the actions a person does, he will experience the result of those actions,”71 then in that case there can be the practice of the holy life and attainment of the end of suffering.

Why so? Consider the case of a person who has done an unwhole- some action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result?

This is the case when a person has not cultivated the body, has not cultivated virtue, has not cultivated the mind, has not cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very short. This is the case of a person who, having done unwholesome actions, must experience suffering as their fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result.

It is just as if a person were to drop an ounce of salt into a small amount of water, intending to make the water salty and undrinkable. What do you think? Could this ounce of salt make that small amount of water salty and undrinkable?”

[The monks] replied:

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Yes indeed, World-honored One. And why so? Because there is much salt but little water, therefore the salt can make the water salty and undrinkable.

[The Buddha continued:]

It is the same with a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action expe- rience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result? This is the case when a person has not cultivated the body, has not cultivated virtue, has not cultivated the mind, has not cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very short. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by

[being reborn in] hell as a result.

Again, there is a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life? This is the case when a person has cultivated the body, has cultivated virtue, has cultivated the mind, has cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very long. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [expe- riencing] the result in this life.

Suppose a person were to drop an ounce of salt into the waters of the Ganges, intending to make the water salty and undrinkable. What do you think? Could this ounce of salt cause the water of the Ganges to become salty and undrinkable?

[The monks] replied:

No, World-honored One. And why not? Because, the water of the Ganges is much while an ounce of salt is little, therefore the salt cannot make the water salty and undrinkable.

[The Buddha continued:]

It is the same with a person who has done an unwholesome action and

must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life? This is the case when a person has cultivated the body, has cultivated virtue, has cultivated the mind, has cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very long; this is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [expe- riencing] the result in this life.

Again, there is a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result? This is the case when a person has not cultivated the body, has not cul- tivated virtue, has not cultivated the mind, has not cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very short. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result.

It is just as when a person takes a goat belonging to another person. What is the case of a person who has taken away another person’s goat? The one who took the goat is perhaps a king or a king’s minister, someone possessing much power. The owner of the goat is poor and powerless. Because of his lack of power, he can only hope against hope and, with his palms placed together, implore the other: “Sire! Please return the goat to me, or give me the price of the goat!” This is the case of a person who takes away another person’s goat.

In the same way, when a person has done an unwholesome action, he must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result. Why is it that a person who has done an unwholesome action must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result? This is the case when a person has not cultivated the body, has not cultivated virtue, has not cultivated the mind, has not cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very short. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result.

Again, there is a person who has done an unwholesome action

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and must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life? This is the case when a person has cultivated the body, has cultivated virtue, has cultivated the mind, has cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very long. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [expe- riencing] the result in this life.

It is just as when a person steals another’s goat and the owner of the goat takes it back by force. What is the case of a person who has stolen another’s goat, and the owner of the goat takes it back by force? [Here] the person who steals the goat is poor and powerless, while the owner of the goat is perhaps a king or a king’s minister, someone pos- sessing much power. Because of their power they can detain and arrest the thief, and take the goat back by force. This is the case of a person who has stolen another’s goat, and the owner of the goat takes it back by force.

It is the same with a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. Why is it that a person who has done an unwholesome action must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life? This is the case when a person has cultivated the body, has cultivated virtue, has cultivated the mind, has cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very long. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome deed, must experience suffering as its fruit by [expe- riencing] the result in this life.

Again, there is a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result? This is the case when a person has not cultivated the body, has not cul- tivated virtue, has not cultivated the mind, has not cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very short. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result.

It is just as when a person owes another person five coins and is arrested by the creditor, or is arrested by him even for owing just one coin. Why would a person who owes another person five coins be arrested by the creditor, or even be arrested by him for owing just one coin? This is the case when the debtor is poor and powerless. Because he is poor and powerless, when he owes another person five coins, he will be arrested by the creditor, or will even be arrested by him for owing just one coin. This is the case of a person who owes another person five coins and is arrested by the creditor, or even is arrested by him for owing just one coin.

It is the same with a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result? This is the case when a person has not cultivated the body, has not cul- tivated virtue, has not cultivated the mind, has not cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very short. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [being reborn in] hell as a result

Again, there is a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. Why must a person who has done an unwholesome action experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life? This is the case when a person has cultivated the body, has cultivated virtue, has cultivated the mind, has cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very long. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwholesome action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [expe- riencing] the result in this life.

It is just as when a person owes another person a hundred coins, yet is not arrested by the creditor, and would not be arrested by him even for owing a thousand or ten thousand coins. Why is it that a person who owes another person a hundred coins is not arrested by the creditor, and would not be arrested by him even for owing a thousand or ten thousand coins? This is the case when the debtor has property beyond measure and is extremely powerful, and because of that, despite owing

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another person a hundred coins, is not arrested by the creditor, and would not be arrested by him even for owing a thousand or ten thousand coins. This is the case of a person who owes another person a hundred coins, yet is not arrested by the creditor, and would not be arrested by him even for owing a thousand or ten thousand coins.

It is the same with a person who has done an unwholesome action, he must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. Why is it that a person who has done an unwholesome action must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life? This is the case when a person has cultivated the body, has cultivated virtue, has cultivated the mind, has cultivated wisdom, and his life span is very long. This is the case of a person who, having done an unwhole- some action, must experience suffering as its fruit by [experiencing] the result in this life. He experiences the result for wholesome and unwholesome actions in this life, and only to a moderate degree.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

12.  The Discourse to Vappa72

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying among the Sakyans at Kapilavatthu, in the Nigrodha Park.

At that time, after the midday meal, Venerable Mahā Moggallāna was sitting in the assembly hall together with a company of monks for some pur- pose. Then a Sakyan by the name of Vappa, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas, wan- dering around after noon, approached Venerable Mahā Moggallāna and, after exchanging greetings, sat down to one side.

Then Venerable Mahā Moggallāna asked [the visitor] about this matter:

What do you think, Vappa? If a monk is restrained in body, speech, and mind,73 do you see any possible cause owing to which unwholesome taints might arise, leading to future existence?

Vappa replied:

Mahā Moggallāna, if a monk is restrained in body, speech, and mind, I do see a possible cause owing to which unwholesome taints might

arise, leading to future existence. Mahā Moggallāna, if someone has done unwholesome actions in a previous existence, then owing to that, unwholesome taints will arise, leading to future existence.

[Soon] after this the World-honored One, who was meditating in a solitary place, heard with the purified divine ear, which surpasses that of [ordinary] human beings, the conversation between Venerable Mahā Moggallāna and Vappa the Sakyan, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas. Hearing it, the World-honored One rose from his afternoon meditation, went toward the assembly hall, and sat down on a prepared seat in front of the assembly of monks.

Having sat down, the World-honored One asked:

Moggallāna, what matter were you discussing with Vappa the Sakyan, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas? For what matter were you sitting together in the assembly hall?

Venerable Mahā Moggallāna replied:

World-honored One, today after the midday meal I was sitting in the assembly hall together with a company of monks for some purpose. Then Vappa the Sakyan, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas, wandering around after noon, approached me and, after exchanging greetings, sat down to one side. I asked him this: “What do you think, Vappa? If a monk is restrained in body, speech, and mind, do you see a possible cause owing to which unwholesome taints might arise, leading to future exis- tence?” Then Vappa the Sakyan, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas, replied: “If a monk is restrained in body, speech, and mind, I do see a possible cause owing to which unwholesome taints might arise, leading to future existence. Mahā Moggallāna, if someone has done unwholesome actions in a previous existence, then, owing to that, unwholesome taints will arise, leading to future existence.”

World-honored One, that was the discussion I was having with Vappa the Sakyan, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas. Because of this matter, we were sitting together in the assembly hall.

Then the World-honored One said to Vappa the Sakyan, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas:

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434c

If you agree with what I say, you should say “yes”; if you disagree, you should say “no”; and if you have any uncertainty, you should ask me further thus: “Renunciant Gotama, how is this? What is the meaning of this?” If you can accept what I have just proposed, I could discuss this matter with you.

Vappa replied:

Renunciant Gotama, if I agree with what you say, I will say “yes”; if I disagree, I will say “no”; and if I have any uncertainty, I will ask you further thus: “Renunciant Gotama, how is this? What is the meaning of this?” As the renunciant Gotama has just proposed, I accept it. May the renunciant Gotama discuss this matter with me!

The World-honored One asked:

What do you think, Vappa? Suppose that a monk has [in the past] given rise to unwholesome bodily activities, [resulting in the arising of] taints, vexation, and worry, [but] that at a later time he ceases unwholesome bodily activities. Creating no new karma, and having abandoned old karma, he, in this very life, attains the goal and, free from vexation, remains permanently and unchangingly [in this condition], which is spoken of as “something to be seen by noble wisdom and to be known by noble wisdom.”

[In the past] he gave rise to unwholesome verbal activities. . . , unwholesome mental activities. . . , unwholesome activities based on ignorance, [but] that at a later time he ceases unwholesome activities based on ignorance. Creating no new karma, and having abandoned old karma, he in this very life attains the goal and, free from vexation, remains permanently and unchangingly [in this condition], which is spoken of as “something to be seen by noble wisdom and to be known by noble wisdom.”

What do you think, Vappa? For a monk who is restrained in body, speech, and mind in this way, do you see a possible cause owing to which unwholesome taints might arise, leading to future existence?

Vappa replied:

Gotama, if a monk is restrained in body, speech, and mind in this way, I see no possible cause owing to which unwholesome taints might arise, leading to future existence.

The World-honored One praised him, saying:

Very good, Vappa! Why is that, Vappa? If in a monk ignorance has been extinguished and knowledge has arisen, then with ignorance extin- guished and knowledge arisen, when there arises the feeling of the body nearing its end, he knows that there has arisen the feeling of the body nearing its end. When there arises the feeling of life nearing its end, he knows that there has arisen the feeling of life nearing its end. And when the body breaks up and life ends, the life span having expired, then all that is felt in this life will be exhausted and come to an end. It should be understood that it will end and become cold.

Vappa, it is just like a shadow that exists in dependence on a tree. Suppose that someone comes with a sharp axe and chops down the tree at its root, cuts it into pieces; then breaks [each piece] into ten or a hundred fragments, burns them in a fire so that they become ash, which is then blown away by a strong wind, or carried away by water. What do you think, Vappa? That shadow existed in dependence on the tree, so once the cause of the shadow has been cut off, will the shadow disappear and not arise again?

Vappa replied: “Indeed, Gotama.” [The Buddha continued:]

Vappa, it should be understood in the same way in the case of a monk in whom ignorance has been extinguished and knowledge has arisen. With ignorance extinguished and knowledge arisen, when there arises the feeling of the body nearing its end, he knows that there has arisen the feeling of the body nearing its end. When there arises the feeling of life nearing its end, he knows that there has arisen the feeling of life nearing its end. And when the body breaks up and life ends, the life span having expired, then all that is felt in this life will be exhausted and come to an end. It should be understood that it will end and become cold.

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Vappa, a monk whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains six wholesome abodes. What are the six?

Vappa, on seeing a form with the eye, [such] a monk is neither pleased nor displeased; he remains equanimous and unaffected, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness. Vappa, a monk whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains the first wholesome abode. Similarly, [on hearing a sound with] the ear . . . [on smelling an odor with] the nose . . . [on tasting a flavor with] the tongue . . . [on experiencing a touch with] the body . . . on cognizing a mental phenomenon with the mind, he is neither pleased nor displeased; he remains equanimous and

unaffected, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness.

Vappa, a monk whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains the sixth wholesome abode. Vappa, a monk whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains these six wholesome abodes.

Vappa replied:

Indeed, Gotama. A learned noble disciple whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains six wholesome abodes. What are the six? Gotama, a learned noble disciple, on seeing a form with the eye,

is neither pleased nor displeased; he remains equanimous and unaf- fected, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness.

Gotama, this is the first wholesome abode for a noble disciple who has learned much and whose mind has been rightly liberated.

Similarly, [on hearing a sound with] the ear . . . [on smelling an odor with] the nose . . . [on tasting a flavor with] the tongue . . . [on experiencing a touch with] the body . . . on cognizing a mental phenomenon with the mind, he is neither pleased nor displeased; he remains equanimous and unaffected, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness.

Indeed, Gotama, a learned noble disciple whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains the sixth wholesome abode. Indeed, Gotama, a learned noble disciple whose mind has been rightly liberated like this attains these six wholesome abodes.

Thereupon, Vappa [continued and] said to the World-honored One: Gotama, I have known it! Well-gone One, I have understood it! Gotama,

it is just as when someone with clear vision uncovers what was covered, exposes what was covered, or shows the way to one who was lost, or offers a light in the darkness, so that those with eyes can see forms. In the same way, the renunciant Gotama has taught me the Dharma using countless skillful means to reveal its meaning in various ways.

World-honored One, I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks (Sangha). May the World-hon- ored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

World-honored One, just as a person who raises a bad horse, expecting to get benefit from it, only tires himself and gets no bene- fit—World-honored One, I was like this. Those foolish Nigaṇṭhas lack right knowledge; they are unable to understand and know. Not recog- nizing the fertile field [of the Buddha’s teaching], and not examining for myself, [I] revered them for a long time, made offerings, and paid them homage, expecting to get benefit from it; but I only suffered in vain. World-honored One, for a second time I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World- honored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

World-honored One, formerly I was ignorant. Whatever faith and respect I had for those foolish Nigaṇṭhas has today been cut off. Why? Because I was deceived. World-honored One, for a third time, I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World-honored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the Sakyan Vappa and the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

13.  The Discourse on [Tenets to Be] Transcended74

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time, the World-honored One said to the monks:

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There are three tenets to be transcended, [tenets held by those] of different affiliation, different appellation, different school, and different doctrine that, despite being well accepted, firmly held, and declared to others by so-called wise men, are not beneficial. What are these three?

There are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is caused by what was done in previous lives.” Again, there are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is caused and created by a supreme divine being.” Again, there are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is without any cause or condition.”

Herein, if there are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is caused by what was done in pre- vious lives,” then I approach them and, having approached them, I ask:

Venerable friends, is it true that you hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is caused by what was done in previous lives?”

They reply: “Yes.” Then I say to them:

If that is so, venerable friends, then you all endorse75 killing living beings. Why is that? Because all is caused by what was done in previous lives[, therefore people cannot have moral responsibility for their actions]. In the same way, venerable friends, you endorse taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech . . . (and so on up to) wrong views. Why is that? Because all of that is caused by what was done in previous lives. Venerable friends, if the view that all is caused by what was done in previous lives were true, then it would follow logically76 that all that one does or does not, takes place without desire, without effort. Venerable friends, if in doing a deed or not doing it, a person lacks true understanding, then he has lost right mindfulness and lacks right attentiveness, and hence is unteachable.

If renunciants [and brahmins] proclaim such a teaching, then those renunciants and brahmins can be refuted by such reasoning.

Herein, if there are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is caused and created by a supreme divine being,” then I approach them and, having approached, I ask:

Venerable friends, is it true that you hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is caused and created by a supreme divine being?”

They reply: “Yes.” Then I say to them:

If that is so, venerable friends, then you all endorse killing living beings. Why is that? Because all is caused and created by a supreme divine being. In the same way, venerable friends, you endorse tak- ing what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech . . . (and so on up to) wrong views. Why? Because all of that is caused and created by a supreme divine being. Venerable friends, if the view that all is caused and created by a supreme divine being were true, then it would follow logically that all that one does or does not, takes place without desire, without effort. Venerable friends, if in doing a deed or not doing it, a person lacks true understanding, then he has lost right mindfulness and lacks right attentiveness, and hence is unteachable.

If renunciants [and brahmins] proclaim this teaching, then those renun- ciants and brahmins can be refuted by such reasoning.

Herein, if there are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is without any cause or condition,” then I approach them and, having approached, I ask:

Venerable friends, is it true that you hold this view and declare: “All that a person does is without any cause or condition?”

They reply: “Yes.” Then I say to them:

If that is so, venerable friends, then you all endorse killing living beings. Why is that? Because all is without any cause or condition. In the same way, venerable friends, you endorse taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech . . . (and so on up to) wrong views. Why? Because all of that is without any cause or

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condition. Venerable friends, if the view that all is without any cause or condition were true, then it would follow logically that all that one does or does not, takes place without desire, without effort. Venerable friends, if in doing a deed or not doing it, a person lacks true understanding, then he has lost right mindfulness and lacks right attentiveness, and hence is unteachable.

If renunciants [and brahmins] proclaim such a teaching, then those renunciants and brahmins can be refuted by such reasoning.

The Dharma I teach to you, which I have known and realized by myself, cannot be refuted, cannot be defiled, and cannot be prevailed over by any renunciant, brahmin, gods, Māras, Brahmās, or anyone else in the world. Why can the Dharma I teach to you, which I have known and realized by myself, not be refuted, defiled, or prevailed over by any renunciant, brahmin, gods, Māras, Brahmās, or anyone else in the world?

There is the teaching on the six sense bases, which, having known and realized it by myself, I have taught to you; it cannot be refuted, cannot be defiled, and cannot be prevailed over by any renunciant, brahmin, gods, Māras, Brahmās, or anyone else in the world. Again, there is the teaching on the six elements, which, having known and realized it by myself, I have taught to you; it cannot be refuted, cannot be defiled, and cannot be prevailed over by any renunciant, brahmin, gods, Māras, Brahmās, or anyone else in the world.

What is the teaching on the six sense bases, which, having known and realized it by myself, I have taught to you? [The six] are the eye sense base, the ear . . . nose . . . tongue . . . body . . . [and] the mind sense base. This is the teaching on the six sense bases which, having known and realized it by myself, I have taught to you. What is the teaching on the six elements which, having known and realized it by myself, I have taught to you? [The six] are the elements of earth . . . water . . . fire . . . air . . . space . . . and the element of consciousness. This is the teaching on the six elements which, having known and real- ized it by myself, I have taught to you.

Because of the combination of the six elements, there is rebirth from a mother’s womb; because of the six elements, there are the six sense bases; because of the six sense bases, there is contact; and because

of contact there is feeling. Monks, one who has feeling will [be able to] know suffering as it really is, know the arising of suffering, know the cessation of suffering, and know the path to the cessation of the suffering as it really is.

What is knowing suffering as it really is? It is this: birth is suffering, old age is suffering, disease is suffering, death is suffering, association with what is disliked is suffering, dissociation from what is liked is suffering, not getting what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates of clinging are suffering—this is called knowing suffering as it really is.

What is knowing the arising of suffering as it really is? It is craving for and clinging to future existence, with delight and desire, seeking after this and that [state of] existence—this is called knowing the arising of suffering as it really is.

What is knowing the cessation of suffering as it really is? It is the cutting off without remainder, abandoning, disgorging, fading away, cessation, stopping, and disappearance of this craving for and clinging to future existence, with delight and desire, seeking after this and that [state of] existence—this is called knowing the cessation of suffering as it really is.

What is knowing the path to the cessation of suffering as it really is? It is the noble eightfold path: right view . . . (and so on up to) right concentration, these eight—this is called knowing the path to the ces- sation of suffering as it really is.

Monks, you should know suffering as it really is, you should cut off the arising of suffering, you should realize the cessation of suffering, and you should cultivate the path to the cessation of suffering. If a monk knows suffering as it really is, cuts off the arising of suffering, realizes the cessation of suffering, and cultivates the path to the cessation of suffering, then that monk, having abandoning all taints, having loos- ened all fetters, is able through right attentiveness to attain the end of suffering.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

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14.  The Discourse to Rāhula77

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Rājagaha, in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels’ Sanctuary.

At that time, Venerable Rāhula was also staying at Rājagaha, in the Hot Spring Grove. Then the World-honored One, when the night was over, at dawn, having put on his robes and taken his almsbowl, went into Rājagaha to beg for food. Having finished begging for food, he went to the Hot Spring Grove, the place where the venerable Rāhula was staying. When Venerable Rāhula saw the Buddha coming in the distance, he forthwith went to greet him, took the Buddha’s [outer] robe and bowl, made a seat ready, and set out water for washing feet. The Buddha, having washed his feet, sat down on the seat prepared by Rāhula.

Then the World-honored One took the water vessel and, having poured out the water until only a little was left, asked: “Rāhula, did you see me taking this water vessel and pouring out the water until only a little was left?”

Rāhula replied: “Yes, I saw it, World-honored One.” The Buddha told Rāhula:

In the same way, the practice of those who knowingly speak falsehood without embarrassment or regret, without shame or scruple, is of little [worth], I say. Rāhula, there is no evil they would not do. Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself like this: “Even in jest I shall not speak falsehood.”

The World-honored One again took the water vessel containing a little water and, having completely discarded the water, asked: “Rāhula, now again, did you see me take this water vessel containing a little water, and completely discard the water?”

Rāhula replied: “Yes, I saw it, World-honored One.” The Buddha told Rāhula:

In the same way, the practice of those who knowingly speak falsehood without embarrassment or regret, without shame or scruple, is com- pletely discarded, I say. Rāhula, there is no evil they would not do. Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself like this: “Even in jest I shall not speak falsehood.”

The World-honored One again took the empty water vessel, tipped it over on the ground, and asked: “Rāhula, now again, did you see me take the empty water vessel, and tip it over on the ground?”

Rāhula replied: “Yes, I saw it, World-honored One.” The Buddha told Rāhula:

In the same way, the practice of those who knowingly speak falsehood without embarrassment or regret, without shame or scruple, is tipped over, I say. Rāhula, there is no evil they would not do. Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself like this: “Even in jest I shall not speak falsehood.”

The World-honored One again took the tipped water vessel and, having turned it bottom up, asked: “Rāhula, did you see me again take the toppled water vessel and turn it bottom up?”

Rāhula replied: “Yes, I saw it, World-honored One.” The Buddha told Rāhula:

In the same way, the practice of those who knowingly speak falsehood without embarrassment or regret, without shame or scruple, is turned bottom up, I say. Rāhula, there is no evil they would not do. Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself like this: “Even in jest I shall not speak falsehood.”

Rāhula, it is just as if a king had a great elephant who, when going into battle, uses his forefeet, his hindfeet, his tail, shoulders, back, flanks, neck, head, ears, and tusks— everything except his trunk, which he keeps protected. Seeing this, the elephant trainer would think in this way:

The king’s great elephant still cherishes his life. Why so? Because when going into battle, the king’s great elephant uses his forefeet, his hindfeet, his tail, shoulders, back, flanks, neck, head, ears, and tusks—everything except his trunk, which he keeps protected.

Rāhula, if when going into battle, the king’s great elephant uses his forefeet, his hindfeet, his tail, shoulders, back, flanks, neck, head, ears, tusks, and also his trunk—if he uses everything—then on seeing this the elephant trainer would think in this way:

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The king’s elephant no longer cherishes his life. Why so? Because when going into battle, the king’s great elephant uses his forefeet, his hindfeet, his tail, shoulders, back, flanks, neck, head, ears, tusks, and also his trunk; he uses everything.

Rāhula, if the king’s great elephant, when going into battle, uses his forefeet, his hindfeet, his tail, shoulders, back, flanks, neck, head, ears, tusks, and also his trunk—if he uses everything—then Rāhula, I say that when going into battle, there is no evil that the king’s great elephant would not do. So too, Rāhula, those who knowingly speak falsehood without embarrassment or regret, without shame or scruple, Rāhula, I say that there is no evil they would not do. Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself like this: “Even in jest I shall not speak falsehood.”

Then, the World-honored One uttered the following verses:

He who transgresses this one law Against speaking falsehood:

Not fearing the next world, There is no evil he would not do.

Better to swallow an iron ball, Burning hot like fire,

Than to transgress the precepts

While accepting the offerings of the faithful.

If you fear suffering,

Not even wishing to think of it, Whether secretly or openly, Perform no evil deed.

An unwholesome deed, Already done or being done, Can never be escaped;

One cannot hide from [its result].

Having uttered these verses, the Buddha asked Rāhula further: “What do you think, Rāhula? For what purpose do people use a mirror?”

Venerable Rāhula replied: “World-honored One, they wish to examine their face, to see if it is clean or not.”

[The Buddha continued:]

Similarly, Rāhula, if you are about to perform a bodily action, then examine that bodily action: “I am about to perform a bodily action. Is this bodily action pure or impure? Am I doing it for myself or for another?”

Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “I am about to perform a bodily action, and that bodily action is impure, either for myself or for another;78 it is unwholesome, has suffering as its fruit, and will result in the experience of suffering”—then, Rāhula, you should abandon that bodily action that you are about to perform. [But,] Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “I am about to perform a bodily action, and that bodily action is pure, either for myself or for another;79 it is whole- some, has happiness as its fruit, and will result in the experience of happiness”—then, Rāhula, you should approve of that bodily action that you are about to perform.

Rāhula, if you are performing a bodily action, then examine that bodily action: “I am performing a bodily action. Is this bodily action pure or impure? Am I doing it for myself or for another?”

Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “I am performing a bodily action, and this bodily action is impure, either for myself or for another; it is unwholesome, has suffering as its fruit, and will result in the expe- rience of suffering”—then, Rāhula, you should abandon that bodily action that you are performing. [But,] Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “I am performing a bodily action, and this bodily action is pure, either for myself or for another; it is wholesome, has happiness as its fruit, and will result in the experience of happiness”—then, Rāhula, you should approve of [and remember] that bodily action that you are performing.

Rāhula, if you have performed a bodily action, then examine that bodily action: “I have performed a bodily action. That bodily action, which is already past, having ceased completely or changed, was it pure or impure? Did I do it for myself or for another?”

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Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “I have performed a bodily action, which is already past, having ceased completely or changed. That bodily action was impure, either for myself or for another; it was unwholesome, has suffering as its fruit, and will result in the experience of suffering”—then, Rāhula, you should approach a good friend, a companion in the holy life, and wholeheartedly reveal that bodily action that you have done. You should confess and declare it, being careful not to hide it, and you should exercise greater restraint [in the future]. [But,] Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “I have performed a bodily action, which is already past, having ceased completely or changed. That bodily action was pure, either for myself or for another; it was wholesome, has happiness as its fruit, and will result in the experience of happiness”—then, Rāhula, you should dwell happily day and night, with right mindfulness and right attentiveness.

(It is the same for verbal actions.)

Rāhula, if with a past deed as its condition a mental action arises, then examine that mental action: “With a past deed as its condition, a mental action arose. Was that mental action pure or impure? Did I do it for myself or for another?”

Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “With a past deed as its con- dition, a mental action arose. That mental action, which is already past, having ceased completely or changed, was impure, either for myself or for another; it was unwholesome, has suffering as its fruit, and will result in the experience of suffering”—then, Rāhula, you should aban- don that past mental action. [But,] Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “With a past deed as its condition, a mental action arose. That mental action, which is already past, having ceased completely or changed, was pure, either for myself or for another; it was wholesome, has hap- piness as its fruit, and will result in the experience of happiness”— then, Rāhula, you should approve of that past mental action.

Rāhula, if with a future deed as its condition a mental action will arise, then examine that mental action: “With a future deed as its con- dition, a mental action will arise. Will that mental action be pure or impure? Will I do it for myself or for another?” Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “With a future deed as its condition, a mental action will

arise. That mental action will be impure, either for myself or for another; it will be unwholesome, will have suffering as its fruit, and will result in the experience of suffering”—then, Rāhula, you should abandon that future mental action. [But,] Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “With a future deed as its condition a mental action will arise. That mental action will be pure, either for myself or for another; it will be wholesome, will have happiness as its fruit, and will result in the expe- rience of happiness”—then, Rāhula, you should approve of that future mental action.

Rāhula, if with a present deed as its condition a mental action arises, then examine that mental action: “With a present deed as its condition, a mental action is arising. Is this mental action pure or impure? Am I doing it for myself or for another?”

Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “With a present deed as its condition, a mental action is arising. This mental action is impure, either for myself or for another; it is unwholesome, has suffering as its fruit, and will result in the experience of suffering”—then, Rāhula, you should abandon that present mental action. [But,] Rāhula, if on examining it you know: “With a present deed as its condition a mental action is arising. This mental action is pure, either for myself or for another; it is wholesome, has happiness as its fruit, and will result in the experience of happiness”—then, Rāhula, you should approve that present mental action.

Rāhula, whatever renunciants and brahmins in the past have repeat- edly examined and repeatedly purified their bodily, verbal, and mental actions, all of them have repeatedly examined and repeatedly purified their bodily, verbal, and mental actions in this very way.

Rāhula, whatever renunciants and brahmins in the future will repeatedly examine and repeatedly purify their bodily, verbal, and men- tal actions, all of them will repeatedly examine and repeatedly purify their bodily, verbal, and mental actions in this very way.

Whatever renunciants and brahmins in the present repeatedly exam- ine and repeatedly purify their bodily, verbal, and mental actions, all of them repeatedly examine and repeatedly purify their bodily, verbal, and mental actions in this very way. Rāhula, you should train yourself

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like this: “I too repeatedly examine and repeatedly purify my bodily, verbal, and mental actions in this very way.”

Then the World-honored One uttered further verses, saying:

Bodily action, verbal action, And mental action, Rāhula,

Whether wholesome or unwholesome by nature, You should constantly examine them.

Knowingly to speak falsehood, Do not do it, Rāhula.

Shaven-headed, you live off others,

How could you speak falsehood? Overturning the law of renunciants, Empty, without truthfulness,

Such is speaking falsehood, With an unrestrained mouth.

Therefore, not to speak falsehood, O son of the rightly Awakened One, This is the law of renunciants, [Thus] you should train, O Rāhula.

Prosperity and happiness all around, Safety and fearlessness,

Rāhula, to attain that, Do not harm others.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, Ven- erable Rāhula and the [other] monks were delighted and remembered them well.

15.  The Discourse on Intention80

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time, the World-honored One told the monks:

If a person does an action intentionally, then he will have to experience its result, either in this life or in the next life, I say. If a person does an action unintentionally, then he will not have to experience the result, I say. In this connection, there are three intentionally done bodily actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering. There are four [intentionally done] verbal actions and three [intentionally done] mental actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering.

What are the three intentionally done bodily actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering? The first is killing living beings: someone is extremely evil and bloodthirsty, has the desire to harm, and has no compassion toward [any kind of] living being, including insects.

The second is taking what is not given: someone has attachment to another’s property and, with thieving intent, takes it.

The third is sexual misconduct: someone has sexual relations with a woman who is under the protection of her father, or under the protection of her mother, or under the protection of both father and mother, or under the protection of her sisters, or under the protection of her brothers, or under the protection of her parents-in-law, or under the protection of her relatives, or under the protection of her clan; or with a woman who is married to another man, [in spite of] the fear of being punished, or with [a woman] who has been garlanded as a sign of betrothal.

These are the three intentionally done bodily actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering. What are the four intentionally done verbal actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the expe- rience of suffering?

The first is false speech: someone, perhaps in an assembly, or among one’s retainers, or in the king’s palace, on being told “Say what you know!”, claims to know what he does not know, or claims not to know what he does know; claims to have seen what he has not seen,

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or claims not to have seen what he did see; be it for his own sake, or for the sake of others, or for the sake of profit, he knowingly speaks falsehood.

The second is divisive speech: someone wishes to divide others; hearing something from this person he tells it to that person, in order to harm this person; hearing something from that person he tells it to this person, in order to harm that person. He desires to divide those who are united, and to further split those who are already divided; he creates factions, delights in factions, and praises factions.

The third is harsh speech: someone utters speech that is rough and rude in tone, offensive words that grate on the ear, that people neither enjoy nor desire; he utters such speech as causes others suffering and vexation, that is not conductive to concentration.

The fourth is frivolous speech: someone makes talk that is untimely, untrue talk, meaningless talk, talk that is contrary to the Dharma, that is not calming; furthermore he praises what is not conductive to calming, and teaches and admonishes others in an untimely and unwholesome way.

These are the four intentionally done verbal actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering.

What are the three intentionally done mental actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering?

The first is covetousness: someone views another’s wealth and lifestyle, constantly longing for them and wishing: “If only I could get that!”

The second is ill will: someone’s mind is filled with ill will and he thinks: “Those beings should be killed, bound, arrested, removed, or banished.” His wish is for them to experience immeasurable suffering.

The third is wrong view: someone holds distorted views. Views such as these, tenets such as these:

There is no offering, no sacrifice, there are no incantations; no wholesome or unwholesome actions, no results of wholesome or unwholesome actions; there is neither this world nor another world,

there are no father and mother; there are no True Persons in the world who are headed for a supreme attainment, who are well gone and well directed, who have known and realized for themselves this world and the other world, and who dwell having personally realized.

These are the three intentionally done mental actions that are unwholesome, have suffering as their fruit, and result in the experience of suffering.

A learned noble disciple abandons unwholesome bodily actions and practices wholesome bodily actions; he abandons unwholesome verbal and mental actions and practices wholesome verbal and mental actions. That learned noble disciple, endowed with diligence and virtue in this way, achieves pure bodily actions, pure verbal actions, and pure mental actions. He abandons ill will and quarrel, discards sloth and torpor, is without restlessness and conceit, he cuts off doubt; he tran- scends arrogance, has right mindfulness and right attentiveness, and is without confusion.

With a mind imbued with loving-kindness, he dwells pervading one direction, likewise the second, the third, and the fourth direction, and also the four intermediate directions, above, and below, all around, everywhere. With a mind imbued with loving-kindness, free from fetters or resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells pervading the entire world [with a mind] that is boundless, exalted, immeasurable and well cultivated. He thinks: “Formerly my mind was narrow and not well cul- tivated; now my mind is immeasurable and well cultivated.”

If the learned noble disciple, whose mind is [now] thus immeas- urable and well cultivated, had earlier neglected his practice because of bad friends and done unwholesome actions, then he will no longer be led along by them. They cannot corrupt him and will not accompany him further.

Suppose there were a young boy or a young girl who, since birth, had been able to practice liberation of the mind through loving-kindness. Would he or she later perform unwholesome bodily, verbal, or mental actions?

The monks replied: “No, World-honored One. And why not? Since he or she has never done an evil deed, how could evil deeds arise?”

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[The Buddha continued:]

Therefore, a man or woman, whether layperson or renunciant, should always diligently practice liberation of the mind through loving-kind- ness. If that man or woman, whether layperson or renunciant, practices liberation of the mind through loving-kindness, [since] when going toward the other world [he or she] will not take this body along, [he or she] will proceed [just] in accordance with [the developed quality of his or her] mind.

Monks, you should think like this: “Formerly, I was negligent, and did unwholesome deeds. Let all their results be experienced now, not in the next life!”

One who practices liberation of the mind through loving-kindness in this way, immeasurable and well cultivated, will definitely attain the fruit of non-returning, or else attain that which is still higher. [It is the same] with compassion, with empathic joy, and with equanimity. Free from fetters or resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells pervading the entire world [with a mind] boundless, exalted,

immeasurable and well cultivated.

He thinks: “Formerly, my mind was narrow and not well cultivated; now my mind is immeasurable and well cultivated.”

If the learned noble disciple, whose mind is [now] thus immeas- urable and well cultivated, had earlier neglected his practice because of bad friends and done unwholesome actions, then he will no longer be led along by them. They cannot corrupt him and will not accompany him further.

Suppose there were a young boy or a young girl who, since birth, had been able to practice liberation of the mind through equanimity. Would he or she later perform unwholesome bodily, verbal, or mental actions?

The monks replied: “No, World-honored One. And why not? Since he or she has never done an evil deed, how could evil deeds arise?”

[The Buddha continued:]

Therefore, a man or woman, whether layperson or renunciant, should always diligently practice liberation of the mind through equanimity.

If that man or woman, whether layperson or renunciant, practices lib- eration of the mind through equanimity, [since] when going toward the other world [he or she] will not take this body along, [he or she] will proceed [just] in accordance with [the developed quality of their] mind. Monks, you should think like this: “Formerly, I was negligent and did unwholesome deeds. Let all their results be experienced now, not in the next life!” One who practices liberation of the mind through equanimity in this way, immeasurable and well cultivated, will defi- nitely attain the fruit of non-returning, or else attain that which is still higher.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

16.  The Discourse to the Kālāmas81

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha, who was wandering in the territory of the Kālāmas together with a great company of monks, having arrived at Kesaputta, was staying in a rosewood grove north of Kesaputta.

At that time, the Kālāmas of Kesaputta heard that the renunciant Gotama, a son of the Sakyans, who had gone forth from the Sakya clan to train in the path, was wandering in the territory of the Kālāmas together with a great company of monks and, having arrived at Kesaputta, was staying in a rose- wood grove north of Kesaputta.

[They also heard that] the renunciant Gotama had a great reputation, which had spread in all the ten directions:

The renunciant Gotama is a Tathāgata, free from attachment, fully awakened, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, a Well-gone One, a knower of the world, an unsurpassed one, a trainer of those to be tamed, a teacher of gods and human beings, and known as the Buddha, the Fortunate One.

In this world, with its gods, Māras, Brahmās, renunciants, and brah- mins, from human beings to gods, he has [attained] understanding and awakening by himself, and dwells having personally realized it. The Dharma he teaches is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and

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good in the end, with the right meaning and phrasing, revealing a holy life endowed with purity.

If one visits such a Tathāgata, who is free from attachment and fully awakened, [if one] pays homage to him respectfully and serves him, then one will quickly get good rewards.

[They thought:] “We should go together to see the renunciant Gotama and pay homage to him.”

Having learned [of the Buddha], the Kālāmas of Kesaputta left Kesaputta, relatives walking in groups together. They went north toward the rosewood grove to visit the World-honored One and pay homage to him. Having approached the Buddha, some of the Kālāmas paid respect with their heads at the Buddha’s feet and sat to one side; some exchanged courteous greetings with the Buddha and sat to one side; some saluted the Buddha with their palms placed together and sat to one side; and some, having seen the Buddha from a distance, sat down silently.

When each of the Kālāmas was seated and settled, the Buddha taught them Dharma, exhorting, encouraging, and delighting them. Having, by countless skillful means, taught them Dharma, having exhorted, encouraged, and delighted them, he remained silent.

Then the Kālāmas, having been taught Dharma by the Buddha, having been exhorted, encouraged and delighted, rose from their seats, arranged their clothes so as to bare one shoulder, saluted the Buddha by placing their palms together, and said to the World-honored One:

Gotama, some renunciant or brahmin approaches [us] Kālāmas and just praises what he himself has come to know and see, while denounc- ing and disparaging what others have come to know and see. And then, Gotama, another renunciant or brahmin approaches [us] Kālāmas and also praises what he himself has come to know and see, while denounc- ing and disparaging what others have come to know and see. Gotama, having heard these, we have come to doubt: Which of these renunciants or brahmins is right, and which is wrong?

The World-honored One told them:

Kālāmas, do not doubt! Why? When there is doubt, hesitation arises. Kālāmas, you yourselves do not have clear knowledge about whether there is a next life or whether there is no next life. Kālāmas, you your- selves also do not have clear knowledge about what action is an offense and what action is not an offense. Kālāmas, you should know that all actions have three causes, sources, roots, causal conditions. What are the three?

Kālāmas, desire is a cause, a source, a root, a causal condition of actions. Kālāmas, hatred and ignorance are causes, sources, roots, causal conditions of actions.

Kālāmas, someone who has desire becomes overwhelmed by desire; their mind is never satisfied. Such a one may kill living beings, or take what is not given, or engage in sexual misconduct, or knowingly speak falsehood, or drink intoxicating liquor.

Kālāmas, someone who has hatred becomes overwhelmed by hatred; their mind is never satisfied. Such a one may kill living beings, or take what is not given, or engage in sexual misconduct, or knowingly speak falsehood, or drink intoxicating liquor.

Kālāmas, someone who is ignorant becomes overwhelmed by ignorance; their mind is never satisfied. Such a one may kill living beings, or take what is not given, or engage in sexual misconduct, or knowingly speak falsehood, or drink intoxicating liquor.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from killing, gives up killing, discards blade and cudgel. He has shame and scruple, and a mind [full of] loving-kindness and compassion, [wishing to] benefit all [beings], including insects. He purifies his mind with regard to killing living beings.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from taking what is not given, gives up taking what is not given. He takes [only] what was given and delights in taking [only] what was given. He is always fond of generosity, rejoicing in it, without stinginess, and not expecting a reward. He purifies his mind with regard to taking what is not given. Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from sexual activity, has given up sexual activity. He diligently practices celibacy, is energetic in

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this good conduct, pure, without blemish, having abandoned sensual desires, having given up sexual desires. He purifies his mind of sexual activity.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from false speech, has given up false speech. He speaks the truth, delights in the truth, is unshakably established in the truth, is completely trustworthy, and would not deceive [anyone in] the world. He purifies his mind with regard to false speech.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from divisive speech and abandons divisive speech. He does not engage in divisive speech and does not harm [the relationships of] others. Hearing something from this person he does not tell it to that person, in order to harm this person; hearing something from that person he does not tell it to this person, in order to harm that person. He has the wish to unite those that are divided, delighting in unity. He does not belong to any faction and does not delight in or praise factions. He has purified his mind with regard to divisive speech.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from harsh speech, has given up harsh speech. He has given up the type of speech that consists of words that are rough and rude in tone, offensive words that grate on the ear, that people neither enjoy nor desire, that cause others suffering and vexation, and that are not conducive to concen- tration. He speaks the type of speech that consists of words that are pure, peaceful, gentle, and beneficial, that are pleasant to the ear and enter the mind, that are enjoyable and desirable, that give others hap- piness, words endowed with meaning, that do not make others afraid and that help others to attain concentration. He purifies his mind with regard to harsh speech.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from frivolous speech and abandons frivolous speech. He speaks at the [proper] time, speak- ing what is true, what is Dharma, what is meaningful, what is calming, delighting in speaking what is calming. [In regard to any] matter he teaches well and admonishes well, in accordance with the [proper] time and in a proper way. He purifies his mind with regard to frivolous speech.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from covetousness and abandons covetousness; his mind is not full of envy on seeing another’s wealth and lifestyle, he does not long for them, wishing: “If only I could get that!” He purifies his mind with regard to covetousness. Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from hatred and aban- dons hatred; he has shame and scruple; his mind is full of loving-kind- ness and compassion for the welfare of all beings, including insects.

He purifies his mind with regard to hatred.

Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple abstains from wrong view and abandons wrong view. He holds right view, view that is not distorted. He has these views and makes these declarations:

There is offering, there is sacrifice, there are incantations; there are wholesome and unwholesome deeds, there are results of whole- some or unwholesome deeds; there is this world and the other world, there are father and mother; there are True Persons in the world who are headed for a supreme attainment, who are well gone and well directed, who in this world and another world have [attained] understanding and awakening by themselves, and dwell having personally realized it.

He purifies his mind with regard to wrong view.

In this manner, Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple achieves purity of bodily actions, achieves purity of verbal and mental actions. He aban- dons ill will and quarrel, discards sloth and torpor, is without restlessness or conceit, and cuts off doubt; he transcends arrogance, has right mind- fulness and right attentiveness, and is without confusion.

With a mind imbued with loving-kindness, he dwells pervading one direction, likewise the second, the third, and the fourth direction, and also the four intermediate directions, above, and below, all around, everywhere. With a mind imbued with loving-kindness, free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells pervading the entire world [with a mind] boundless, exalted, immeasurable and well cultivated.

It is the same with compassion, empathic joy, and equanimity; free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells

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pervading the entire world [with a mind] boundless, exalted, immeas- urable and well cultivated.

In this way, Kālāmas, the mind of a learned noble disciple is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, and he obtains four assurances. What are the four?

[He thinks:]

[If] there is this world and another world, [if] there are results of wholesome and unwholesome actions, then upholding and being endowed with this right view and action in conformity with it, at the breaking up of the body, after my death, I will certainly go to a good realm of existence, be reborn in a heavenly realm.

Thus, Kālāmas, this is the first assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. Again, Kālāmas, [he thinks:]

[If] there is neither this world nor another world, [if] there are no results of wholesome and unwholesome actions, then in this case, in this lifetime I am not censured by others for this belief, but am praised for having right attentiveness, as one who is diligent and one who is said to have right view.

Thus, Kālāmas, this is the second assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. Again, Kālāmas, [he thinks:]

Whatever I have done, I have certainly done no evil, and I recollect no evil. Why? Since I have done no evil, whence could suffering arise?

Thus, Kālāmas, this is the third assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. Again, Kālāmas, [he thinks:]

Whatever I may have done, I have certainly done no evil, and I have not violated the [customs of the] world, either out of fear or without fear; I have always had compassion and empathy for the

entire world. My mind has been free of contention with beings, untainted, and delighted.

Thus, Kālāmas, this is the fourth assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. These, Kālāmas, are the four assurances obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel.

The Kālāmas[, repeating the teaching,] said to the World-honored One:

Indeed, Gotama, the mind of a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel obtains four assurances. What are the four?

[If] there is this world and another world, [if] there are results of wholesome and unwholesome actions, then upholding and being endowed with this right view and with action in conformity with it, at the breaking up of the body, after my death, I will certainly go to a good realm of existence, and be reborn in a heavenly realm.

Thus, Gotama, this is the first assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. Again, Gotama,

[If] there is neither this world nor another world, [if] there are no results of wholesome and unwholesome actions, then in this case, in this lifetime, I am not censured by others for this belief, but am praised for having right attentiveness, as one who is diligent and is said to have right view.

Thus, Gotama, this is the second assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. Again, Gotama,

Whatever I may have done, I have certainly done no evil, and I recollect no evil. Why? Since I have done no evil, whence could suffering arise?

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Thus, Gotama, this is the third assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. Again, Gotama,

Whatever I may have done, I have certainly done no evil, and I have not violated the [customs of the] world, either out of fear or without fear. I have always had compassion and empathy for the entire world. My mind has been free of contention with beings, untainted, and delighted.

Thus, Gotama, this is the fourth assurance obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel. These, Gotama, are the four assurances obtained by a learned noble disciple whose mind is free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel.

Gotama, we have come to know it! Well-gone One, we have under- stood it! World-honored One, we go for lifelong refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World-honored One accept us as lay followers! From this day forth until life ends we go [to him] for refuge.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, all the people of Kālāma and the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

17.  The Discourse to Gāmaṇi82

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Nālandā, in Pāvārika’s mango grove.

At that time, [the seer] Asita Devala had a son named Gāmaṇi, who was of majestic complexion and build, radiant and bright. Just before dawn [Gāmaṇi] approached the place where the Buddha was, paid homage at the Buddha’s feet, and stood to one side.

Gāmaṇi, the son of Asita Devala, said:

World-honored One, brahmins arrogantly claim that they serve various gods, and that they can, at will, cause beings to reach a good realm of existence after death, to be reborn in a heavenly realm. The World-honored

One is the King of Dharma. May the World-honored One cause people to reach a good realm of existence after death, to be reborn in a heavenly realm!

The World-honored One said:

Now, Gāmaṇi, I shall ask you something. Answer according to your understanding. What do you think, Gāmaṇi? If in a village there are men and women who are lazy and indolent and who behave in evil ways, undertaking the ten unwholesome courses of action—killing living beings, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech, . . . (and so on up to) wrong view—and at the time of their death crowds of people come, placing their palms together, praising and imploring, saying:

You men and women, who have been lazy and indolent and have behaved in evil ways, undertaking the ten unwholesome courses of action—killing living beings, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech . . . (and so on up to) wrong view— because of this, conditioned by this, after the breaking up of the body, at death, you shall83 reach a good realm of existence, and be reborn in a heavenly realm.

Gāmaṇi, those men and women, who have been lazy and indolent and have behaved in evil ways, undertaking the ten unwholesome courses of action—killing living beings, taking what is not given, sexual mis- conduct, false speech . . . (and so on up to) wrong view—on being urged [when near death] by those crowds of people who come, placing their palms together, praising and imploring them, will they because of this, conditioned by this, after the breaking up of the body, at death, reach a good realm of existence, and be reborn in a heavenly realm?

Gāmaṇi replied: “No, World-honored One.” The World-honored One praised him saying:

Very good, Gāmaṇi! Why so? That those men and women who have been lazy and indolent and who behaved in evil ways, undertaking the ten unwholesome courses of action—killing living beings, taking what

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is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech, . . . (and so on up to) wrong view—on being approached [when near death] by crowds of people, placing their palms together, praising and imploring them; that because of this, conditioned by this, after the breaking up of the body, at death, they should reach a good realm of existence, and be reborn in a heavenly realm, this is not possible.

Suppose, Gāmaṇi, there was a deep lake full of water located not far from a village, and a man was to throw a large heavy rock into it. If a crowd of people came along and, placing their palms together, praising and imploring, said: “Rock! May you float up and come out!”—what do you think, Gāmaṇi? On being urged by that crowd of people who have come, placing their palms together, praising and imploring, because of this, conditioned by this, would that large heavy rock come out?

Gāmaṇi replied: “No, World-honored One.” [The Buddha continued:]

So it is, Gāmaṇi. Those men and women who have been lazy and indo- lent and have behaved in evil ways, having undertaken the ten unwhole- some courses of action—killing living beings, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech, . . . (and so on up to) wrong view— on being approached [when near death] by crowds of people, placing their palms together, praising and imploring them; that because of this, conditioned by this, after the breaking up of the body, at death, they should reach a good realm of existence, and be reborn in a heavenly realm, this is not possible.

And why not? These ten unwholesome courses of action are black and have black results; by nature they incline downward, certainly leading to a bad realm of existence.

What do you think, Gāmaṇi? If in a village there are men and women who are diligent and energetic and practice the sublime Dharma, undertaking the ten wholesome courses of action—they refrain from killing and have abandoned killing, . . . taking what is not given, . . . sexual misconduct, . . . false speech, . . . (and so on up to) they abstain from wrong view and have abandoned wrong view, they have acquired

right view—and at the time of their death crowds of people come, plac- ing their palms together, praising and imploring them, saying:

You men and women have been diligent and energetic and have practiced the sublime Dharma, undertaking the ten wholesome courses of action—you refrained from killing and had abandoned killing, . . . taking what is not given, . . . sexual misconduct, . . . false speech, . . . (and so on up to) you abstained from wrong view and had abandoned wrong view, had acquired right view—and because of this, conditioned by this, after the breaking up of the body, at death, you shall reach a bad realm of existence, be reborn in hell.

What do you think, Gāmaṇi? Those men and women who have been diligent and energetic and have practiced the sublime Dharma, under- taking the ten wholesome courses of action—[who] refrained from killing and had abandoned killing, . . . taking what is not given, . . . sexual misconduct, . . . false speech, . . . (and so on up to) [who] abstained from wrong view and had abandoned wrong view, had acquired right view—on being urged by the crowds of people who come, placing their palms together, praising and imploring, will they because of this, conditioned by this, after the breaking up of the body, at death, reach a bad realm of existence, and be reborn in hell?

Gāmaṇi replied: “No, World-honored One.” The World-honored One praised him saying:

Very good, Gāmaṇi. Why? Gāmaṇi, those men and women who have been diligent and energetic and practiced the sublime Dharma, under- taking the ten wholesome courses of action—they refrained from killing and had abandoned killing, . . . taking what is not given, . . . sexual misconduct, . . . false speech, . . . (and so on up to) they abstained from wrong view and abandoned wrong view, had acquired right view—on being urged by crowds of people, placing their palms together, praising and imploring; that because of this, conditioned by this, after the break- ing up of the body, at death, they should reach a bad realm of existence, and be reborn in hell; this is not possible.

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Why so? Gāmaṇi, these ten wholesome courses of action are white and have white results, by nature they ascend, certainly reaching a good realm of existence.

Gāmaṇi, suppose there were a deep lake full of water located not far from a village, and a man were to throw into the water a jar full of ghee and oil and then break it, so that fragments of the jar sank down- ward, while the ghee and oil floated upward.

Gāmaṇi, it is the same with those men and women who have been diligent and energetic and have practiced the sublime Dharma, under- taking the ten wholesome courses of action— they refrained from killing and had abandoned killing, . . . taking what is not given, . . . sexual mis- conduct, . . . false speech, . . . (and so on up to) they abstained from wrong view and abandoned wrong view, had acquired right view— At the time of their death, the body, which is gross matter, com- posed of the four elements, was born of father and mother, nourished and raised in dependence on food, and [in old age] endured being sat down or laid down to be massaged and bathed, is of a nature to break up, of a nature to cease, of a nature to be dispersed. After death, it will be pecked at by ravens, or eaten by tigers and wolves, or burned, or buried, and finally become ashes and dust. [However,] their mind, their mental faculty, their consciousness, having been constantly pervaded by faith, diligence, much learning, generosity, and wisdom, because of this, conditioned by this, by nature they will ascend, to be reborn

in a good realm of existence.

Gāmaṇi, those who kill living beings, if they refrain from killing and abandon killing, then they are on the path of uplift, the path of ascent and progress, the path to a good realm of existence. Gāmaṇi, those who take what is not given . . . [who engage in] sexual misconduct

. . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) those who have wrong view, if they abstain from wrong view and acquire right view, then they are on the path of uplift, the path of ascent and progress, the path to a good realm of existence.

Moreover, Gāmaṇi, there is another path of uplift, [another] path of ascent and progress, [another] path to a good realm of existence. What, Gāmaṇi, is this other path of uplift, the path of ascent and

progress, the path to a good realm of existence? It is the eightfold noble path: right view . . . (and so on up to) right concentration—these eight. Gāmaṇi, this too is a path of uplift, a path of ascent and progress, a path to a good realm of existence.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, Gāmaṇi and the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

18.  The Discourse to Sīha84

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying at Vesālī, in the Gabled Hall near the Monkey Lake.

At that time, many Licchavis from Vesālī had come together in the assem- bly hall, frequently speaking in praise of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. At that time, Senior Minister Sīha, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas, was also in the assembly.

Then Senior Minister Sīha had the wish to visit the Buddha and pay homage to him. Senior Minister Sīha went first to the place of the Nigaṇṭhas, and told the Nigaṇṭhas: “Venerable sirs, I wish to go and visit the renunciant Gotama.”

Then, the Nigaṇṭhas reprimanded Sīha, saying:

You should not wish to visit the renunciant Gotama! Why? The renun- ciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on inaction, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction. Sīha, to visit [someone who asserts] a doctrine of inaction is inauspicious, and it is also inauspicious to pay homage [to him].

Those many Licchavis from Vesālī came together again in the assembly hall a second and a third time, frequently speaking in praise of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks; and a second and a third time Senior Minister Sīha, a disciple of the Nigaṇṭhas, was in the assembly. Then, a second and a third time, Senior Minister Sīha had the wish to visit the Buddha and pay homage to him.

[On the third occasion] Senior Minister Sīha, without asking leave of the Nigaṇṭhas, approached the Buddha. Having exchanged greetings, he sat down to one side and said:

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I have heard thus: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on inac- tion, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction.” Gotama, if someone speaks thus: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on inaction, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction,” is that person not misrepresenting the renunciant Gotama? Does he speak what is true? Does he speak what is Dharma? Does he speak the Dharma according to the Dharma? Does he not fall into error and incur censure according to the Dharma?

The World-honored One replied:

Sīha, if someone speaks thus: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on inaction, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction,” he does not misrepresent the renunciant Gotama, he speaks what is true, he speaks what is Dharma, he speaks the Dharma according to the Dharma, and he does not fall into error or incur censure according to the Dharma.

Why is that? Sīha, there is a way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on inaction, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on action, and he proclaims to people a doctrine of action.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on annihilation, and he proclaims to people a teaching of annihilation.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on abhorrence, and he proclaims to people a teaching of abhorrence.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on Dharma and Vinaya, and he proclaims to people a teaching of Dharma and Vinaya.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying] “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on asceticism, and he proclaims to people a teaching of asceticism.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying] “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on not entering a womb [to be reborn], and he proclaims to people a teaching of not entering a womb.”

Again, Sīha, there is another way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on attaining peace, and he proclaims to people a teaching of attaining peace.”

Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on inaction, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction”? Sīha, I proclaim that evil bodily actions are not to be done, that evil verbal and mental actions are not to be done.

Sīha, the countless unwholesome and defiled states of this kind, which are the basis of future existence, which result in suffering and vexation and are the cause of birth, old age, sickness, and death—I proclaim that all of these are not to be done. This, Sīha, is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on inaction, and he proclaims to people a teaching of inaction.”

Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on action, and he proclaims to people a teaching of action”? Sīha, I proclaim that good bodily actions are to be done, that good verbal and mental actions are to be done. Sīha, the countless wholesome states of this kind, whose results are experienced as hap- piness, as rebirth in a good realm of existence, endowed with a long life span—I proclaim that all of these are to be done. This, Sīha, is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on action, and he proclaims to people a teaching of action.”

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Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on annihilation, and he proclaims to people a teaching of annihilation”? Sīha, I proclaim that evil bodily actions are to be annihilated, that evil verbal and mental actions are to be annihilated. Sīha, the countless unwholesome and defiled states of this kind, which are the basis of future existence, which result in suffering and vexation and are the cause of birth, old age, sickness, and death—I proclaim that all of these are to be annihilated. This, Sīha, is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in say- ing] “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on annihilation, and he proclaims to people a teaching of annihilation.”

Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on abhorrence, and he proclaims to people a teaching of abhorrence”? Sīha, I proclaim that evil bodily actions are to be loathed and abhorred, that evil verbal and mental actions are to be loathed and abhorred. Sīha, the countless unwholesome and defiled states of this kind, which are the basis of future existence, which result in suffering and vexation and are the cause of birth, old age, sickness, and death—I proclaim that all of these are to be loathed and abhorred. This, Sīha, is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on abhorrence, and he proclaims to people a teaching of abhorrence.”

Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on Dharma and Vinaya, and he proclaims to people a teaching of Dharma and Vinaya”? Sīha, I teach the Dharma and Vinaya for the sake of abandoning sensual desire, I declare the Dharma and Vinaya for the sake of abandoning hatred and ignorance. Sīha, the countless unwholesome and defiled states of this kind, which are the basis of future existence, which result in suffering and vexation and are the cause of birth, old age, sickness, and death—I teach the Dharma and Vinaya for the sake of abandoning these. This, Sīha, is the way in

which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on Dharma and Vinaya, and he proclaims to people a teaching of Dharma and Vinaya.”

Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on asceticism, and he proclaims to people a teaching of asceticism”?

Sīha, there are renunciants and brahmins, who go naked and unclothed, who use their hands as clothes [to cover their private parts], or use leaves as clothes, or use beads as clothes; who will not use a pot to get water, or will not use a ladle to get water; who will not eat food [obtained by others] by robbery with blade and cudgel; who will not eat food obtained by deception, or by personally approaching [a donor], or by sending a faithful follower [to get it], or [when called thus:] “Come, venerable sir!”, or “Very well, venerable sir!”, or “Stay, venerable sir!”

Or [there are those] who, when two are eating together, will not eat with them; or who will not eat food from a house where there is a pregnant woman, or from a house where there is a pet dog; or who will not take food from a house where flies are buzzing around excrement; or who do not eat fish, do not eat meat, do not drink alcohol, do not drink water [considered as] evil, or do not drink at all but train in the practice of not drinking; or who eat one mouthful and are content with one mouthful, or eat two mouthfuls, or three, four . . . or at most seven mouthfuls and are content with seven mouthfuls.

Or [there are those] who eat [only the alms] they obtain at a single [house] and are content with what they obtain at a single [house], or at two [houses], or three, four . . . or at most seven [houses] and are content with what they obtain at seven [houses]; or who have one meal a day and are content with one meal, or one meal in two days, or in three, four, five, six, or in seven days, or in a fortnight, or who have one meal in a month and are content with one meal [in a month]. Or [there are those] who eat edible roots, or wild rice, or millet,

or rice bran, or rice scum, or coarse food; who go to secluded places

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and live off [what they find] in seclusion, or eat roots or eat fruits, or eat fallen fruits.

Or [there are those] who clothe themselves in patchwork robes, or in robes made of hair, or in robes made of coarse fabric, or in robes made of hair and coarse fabric; or who wear complete hides, or wear pierced hides, or wear complete pierced hides; who keep their hair disheveled, or keep their hair in braids, or keep their hair disheveled and in braids, or shave their hair, or shave their beard, or shave their hair and beard, or tear out their hair, or tear out their beard, or tear out their hair and beard. Or [there are those] who stand continuously, abstaining from sitting;

or move about in a squatting position; or lie down on thorns, using a bed of thorns; or lie down on fruits, using a bed of fruits; or who worship water day and night, pouring it out with their hands; or who worship fire, keeping it burning continuously.

Or [there are those] who worship the sun and moon, revering them as spirits of great might, and saluting them with palms together. In these ways they experience untold suffering in the practice of self- mortification. Sīha, there is such asceticism; I do not deny it.

But, Sīha, such asceticism is lowly action, leading to suffering, leading to distress, a practice of worldlings; it is not the noble path. [On the other hand,] Sīha, if there are renunciants and brahmins whose method of “asceticism” consists in knowing [defilements], abandoning them, [causing them] to cease completely, rooting them out and cutting them off, so that they will never arise again, then I proclaim this “asceti- cism.”

Sīha, for the Tathāgata, free from attachment and fully awakened, the method of “asceticism” consisted in knowing [defilements], aban- doning them, [causing them] to cease completely, rooting them out and cutting them off, so that they would never arise again. For this rea- son I practiced “asceticism.” Sīha, this is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on asceticism, and he proclaims to people a teaching of asceticism.”

Again, Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant

Gotama’s doctrine is based on not entering a womb [to be reborn], and he proclaims to people a teaching of not entering a womb”?

Sīha, if there are renunciants and brahmins who [through] higher knowledge abandon future rebirth in a womb, [causing future rebirth] to cease completely, rooting it out and cutting it off, so that it will not arise again, I proclaim that they will [indeed] not enter a womb. Sīha, the Tathāgata, free from attachment and fully awakened, [through] higher knowledge abandoned future rebirth in a womb, [caused future rebirth] to cease completely, rooted it out, and cut it off, so that it will not arise again. For this reason, I will not again enter a womb. Sīha, this is a way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on not entering a womb [to be reborn], and he proclaims

to people a teaching of not entering a womb.”

Again, Sīha, what is the way in which, according to the true Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doctrine is based on attaining peace, and he proclaims to people a teaching of attaining peace”?

Sīha, [I] attained fully the summit of the holy life, for the sake of which a clansman85 shaves off hair and beard, dons the yellow robe, leaves home out of faith, and goes forth to practice the path.

In this very life I have personally attained understanding and awak- ening, and I dwell having personally realized. I know as it really is: “Birth is ended, the holy life has been established, what was to be done has been done. There will not be another existence.”

Having attained peace myself, I bring peace to other monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. Having brought peace to them, I bring liberation from birth to other living beings who are subject to birth, . . . subject to old age . . . subject to disease . . . subject to death . . . I bring liberation from sorrow, sadness, and defilements to other beings who are subject to sorrow, sadness, and defilements.

Sīha, this is the way in which, according to the True Dharma, one would not misrepresent [me in saying]: “The renunciant Gotama’s doc- trine is based on attaining peace, and he proclaims to people a teaching of peace.”

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Senior Minister Sīha said to the World-honored One:

Gotama, I have known it! Well-gone One, I have understood it! Gotama, it is as when someone with clear vision uncovers what was covered, exposes what was covered, or shows the way to one who was lost, or offers a light in the darkness, so that those with eyes can see forms. In the same way, the renunciant Gotama has taught me the Dharma using countless skillful means to reveal its meaning in various ways.

World-honored One, I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World-honored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

World-honored One, just as a person who raises a bad horse, expecting to get benefit from it, only tires himself and gets no bene- fit—World-honored One, I was like this. Those foolish Nigaṇṭhas lack right knowledge; they do not know for themselves. Not recognizing the fertile field [of the Buddha’s teaching], and not examining for myself, [I] long revered them, made offerings, and paid them homage, expecting to get benefit from it; but I only suffered in vain.

World-honored One, for a second time I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World- honored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

World-honored One, I was formerly ignorant. Whatever faith and respect I had for those foolish Nigaṇṭhas has today been cut off. Why? Because I was deceived. World-honored One, for a third time, I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World-honored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, Senior Minister Sīha and the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

19.  The Discourse to the Nigaṇṭhas86

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was staying among the Sakyans, in Devadaha.

There the World-honored One told the monks:

The Nigaṇṭhas hold this view and declare:

Whatever one experiences is caused by what was done in the past. If past karma is eradicated through asceticism, and no new [karma] is created, then all karma comes to cease; all karma having ceased, the cessation of suffering is attained; the cessation of suffering being attained, the end of suffering is attained.

I therefore approached them, and on arriving, I asked:

Nigaṇṭhas, do you hold this view and declare: “Whatever one experiences is caused by what was done in the past. If past karma is eradicated through asceticism, and no new [karma] is created, then all karma comes to cease; all karma having ceased, the ces- sation of suffering is attained; the cessation of suffering being attained, the end of suffering is attained”?

They replied: “That is so, Gotama.” I also asked those Nigaṇṭhas:

Do you personally have clear knowledge that “I existed in the past,” or “I did not exist in the past”; “I did evil in the past,” or “I did not do evil in the past”; “This much of the suffering that I cre- ated has already been exhausted,” or “This much of the suffering that I created has not yet been exhausted,” or “When this has been exhausted, when its exhaustion is attained, then, by practicing, I will realize in this lifetime the eradication of all unwholesome states and the attainment of manifold wholesome states”?

They replied: “No, Gotama.” I also said to those Nigaṇṭhas:

[You have affirmed that] you do not personally have clear knowl- edge that “I existed in the past,” or “I did not exist in the past”; “I did evil in the past,” or “I did not do evil in the past”; “This much of the suffering that I created has already been exhausted,” or “This much of the suffering that I created has not been exhausted,” or “When this has been exhausted, when its exhaustion is attained, then, by practicing, I will realize in this lifetime the eradication

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of all unwholesome states and the attainment of manifold whole- some states.” How, then, can you claim: “Whatever one experiences is caused by what was done in the past. If past karma is eradicated through asceticism, and no new [karma] is created, then all karma comes to cease; all karma having ceased, the cessation of suffering is attained; the cessation of suffering being attained, the end of suffering is attained”?

Nigaṇṭhas, if you personally had clear knowledge that: “I existed in the past,” or “I did not exist in the past”; “I did evil in the past,” or “I did not do evil in the past”; “This much of the suf- fering that I created has already been exhausted,” or “This much of the suffering that I created has not been exhausted”; or “When this has been exhausted, when its exhaustion is attained, then, by practicing, I will realize in this lifetime the eradication of all unwholesome states and the attainment of manifold wholesome states,” then, Nigaṇṭhas, you could claim: “Whatever one expe- riences is caused by what was done in the past. If past karma is eradicated through asceticism, and no new [karma] is created, all karma comes to cease; all karma having ceased, the cessation of suffering is attained; the cessation of suffering being attained, the end of suffering is attained.”

Nigaṇṭhas, suppose that a man’s body has been wounded by a poisoned arrow and, because of being wounded by this poisoned arrow, extreme pain arises. Then, out of sympathy and concern about the wound, his kinsmen and relatives call a surgeon to pull out the arrow, for his benefit and well-being. The surgeon comes, and with a sharp knife cuts the wound open; and while the wound is being cut open, extreme pain arises again. Having cut the wound open, the surgeon probes for the metal arrowhead; and while he is probing for the arrowhead, extreme pain arises again. Having probed and found the arrowhead, he pulls it out; and while he is pulling it out, extreme pain arises again. Having pulled out the arrowhead, he dresses and bandages the wound; and while he is bandaging it, extreme pain arises again. After the arrowhead has been pulled out,

that man regains his vigor and feels well. Without any damage to his faculties, he recovers and is just as he was before.

Nigaṇṭhas, that man, personally having clear knowledge, thinks: “Formerly I was wounded by a poisoned arrow, and because of that extreme pain arose. Then, out of sympathy and concern about the wound, my kinsmen and relatives called a surgeon to pull out the arrow, for the sake of my benefit and well-being. The surgeon came, and with a sharp knife cut the wound open; and while the wound was being cut open, extreme pain arose again. Having cut the wound open, the surgeon probed for the metal arrowhead; and while he was probing for the arrowhead, extreme pain arose again. Having probed and found the arrowhead, he pulled it out; and while he was pulling it out, extreme pain arose again. Having pulled out the arrowhead, he dressed and bandaged the wound; and while he was bandaging it, extreme pain arose again. After the arrowhead had been pulled out, I regained my vigor and felt well. Without any damage to my faculties, I recovered and was just as I had been before.”

In the same way, Nigaṇṭhas, if you personally had clear knowl- edge that “I existed in the past,” or “I did not exist in the past”; “I did evil in the past,” or “I did not do evil in the past”; “This much of the suffering that I created has already been exhausted,” or “This much of the suffering that I created has not been exhausted”; or “When this has been exhausted, when its exhaustion is attained, then, by practicing, I will realize in this lifetime the eradication of all unwholesome states and the attainment of manifold whole- some states,” then, Nigaṇṭhas, you could claim: “Whatever one experiences is caused by what was done in the past. If past karma is eradicated through asceticism, and no new [karma] is created, all karma comes to cease; all karma having ceased, the cessation of suffering is attained; the cessation of suffering being attained, the end of suffering is attained.” I asked them in this way, but I did not see any of the Nigaṇṭhas able to answer me, saying: “Gotama, it is so,” or “It is not so.”

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Again, I asked the Nigaṇṭhas: “If the Nigaṇṭhas [engage in] strong striving and strong asceticism, will at that time strong pain arise in the Nigaṇṭhas?”

They replied: “Yes, Gotama.”

[The Buddha said:] “If the Nigaṇṭhas [engage in] middling striving and middling asceticism, will at that time middling pain arise in the Nigaṇṭhas?”

They replied: “Yes, Gotama.”

[The Buddha said:] “If the Nigaṇṭhas [engage in] weak striving and weak asceticism, will at that time weak pain arise in the Nigaṇṭhas?”

They replied: “Yes, Gotama.” [The Buddha said:]

That is to say, [when] the Nigaṇṭhas [engage in] strong striving and strong asceticism, at that time strong pain arises in the Nigaṇṭhas; [when] they [engage in] middling striving and middling asceticism, at that time middling pain arises in the Nigaṇṭhas; [when] they [engage in] weak striving and weak asceticism, at that time weak pain arises in the Nigaṇṭhas.

When the Nigaṇṭhas [engage in] strong striving and strong asceticism, at that time strong pain is calmed by the Nigaṇṭhas; [when] they [engage in] middling striving and middling asceticism, at that time middling pain is calmed by the Nigaṇṭhas; [when] they [engage in] weak striving and weak asceticism, at that time weak pain is calmed by the Nigaṇṭhas.

Whether they act like this or do not act like this to calm that extreme pain, that great and heavy pain, it should be known that the Nigaṇṭhas are [simply] producing [their own] pain in the pres- ent life.

But the Nigaṇṭhas are enveloped by ignorance, possessed by ignorance, saying: “Whatever one experiences is caused by what was done in the past. If past karma is eradicated through asceticism, and no new [karma] is created, all karma comes to cease; all karma having ceased, the cessation of suffering is attained; the cessation of suffering being attained, the end of suffering is attained.”

I asked them in this way, but I did not find any Nigaṇṭha able to answer me, saying: “Gotama, it is so,” or “It is not so.”

I also asked the Nigaṇṭhas: “Nigaṇṭhas, if there is an action whose result is to be experienced as happiness, can that action, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having suffering as its result?”

They replied: “No, Gotama.”

[I asked them further] “Nigaṇṭhas, if there is an action whose result is to be experienced as suffering, can that action, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having happiness as its result?”

They replied: “No, Gotama.”

“Nigaṇṭhas, if there is an action whose result is to be experienced in this lifetime, can that action, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having its result in a later life?”

They replied: “No, Gotama.”

“Nigaṇṭhas, if there is an action whose result is to be experienced in a later life, can that action, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having its result in this lifetime?”

They replied: “No, Gotama.”

“Nigaṇṭhas, if there is an action whose result has not yet matured, can that action, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having its result matured?”

They replied: “No, Gotama.”

“Nigaṇṭhas, if there is an action whose result has matured, can that action, through striving and through asceticism, be made otherwise?”

They replied: “No, Gotama.” [The Buddha said:]

That is to say, Nigaṇṭhas, an action whose result is to be experi- enced as happiness, that action cannot, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having suffering as its result.

Nigaṇṭhas, an action whose result is to be experienced as suf- fering, that action cannot, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having happiness as its result.

Nigaṇṭhas, an action whose result is to be experienced in this lifetime, that action cannot, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having its result in a later life.

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Nigaṇṭhas, an action whose result is to be experienced in a later life, that action cannot, through striving and through asceti- cism, be turned into having its result in this lifetime.

Nigaṇṭhas, an action whose result has not yet matured, that action cannot, through striving and through asceticism, be turned into having its result matured.

Nigaṇṭhas, an action whose result has matured, that action can- not, through striving and through asceticism, be made otherwise.

Therefore, Nigaṇṭhas, your effort is in vain, your striving is empty and futile.

Then those Nigaṇṭhas told me: “Gotama, we have a venerable teacher, named Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, who proclaims thus:”

Nigaṇṭhas, if you created evil karma in the past, then that karma can be completely extinguished by means of this asceticism. [And] if you now restrain your body, speech, and mind, then through this [restraint] you will not create any further evil karma.

Again, I asked those Nigaṇṭhas: “Do you believe in [your] venerable teacher, the Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, without having any doubts?”

They replied: “Gotama, we believe in [our] venerable teacher, the Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, without having any doubts.”

Again, I said to those Nigaṇṭhas:

There are five things, which may have a twofold result in the pres- ent life. They are: belief, liking, oral tradition, memory, and well- considered view. Nigaṇṭhas, a person who himself says what is untrue, could [he regard that untrue statement] as believable, as likable, as traditional, as memorable, as a well-considered view?

They replied: “Yes, Gotama.”

Then I said further to those Nigaṇṭhas:

[But given that] it is an untrue statement, how could it be believable, how could it be likable, how could it be traditional, how could it be memorable, how could it be well contemplated? [Yet] the person who himself says what is untrue has belief [in it], has liking [for

it], has heard [it as tradition], has memory [of it], has considered [it] well.

[Monks,] if the Nigaṇṭhas speak thus, then they incur a fivefold censure according to the Dharma and can be reproached.87 What are the five? If all the pleasure and pain that these beings now experience is caused by actions done [in the past, then the Nigaṇṭhas [must] have done evil in the past. Why? Because that would be the reason why the Nigaṇṭhas now experience extreme pain. This is the first [ground] on

which the Nigaṇṭhas can be reproached.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused by the company they kept, then the Nigaṇṭhas [must] have kept evil company in the past. Why? Because that would be why the Nigaṇṭhas now experience extreme pain. This is the second [ground] on which the Nigaṇṭhas can be reproached.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused by destiny, then the Nigaṇṭhas [must] have had an evil destiny in the past. Why? Because that would be why the Nigaṇṭhas now experience extreme pain. This is the third [ground] on which the Nigaṇṭhas can be reproached.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused by views, then the Nigaṇṭhas [must] have held evil views in the past. Why? Because that would be why the Nigaṇṭhas now experience extreme pain. This is the fourth [ground] on which the Nigaṇṭhas can be reproached.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused and created by a supreme god, then in the past the Nigaṇṭhas [must] have been created by an evil supreme god. Why? Because that would be why the Nigaṇṭhas now experience extreme pain. This is the fifth [ground] on which the Nigaṇṭhas can be reproached.

If in the past the Nigaṇṭhas did evil, . . . kept evil company, . . . had an evil destiny, . . . held evil views, [if there was] an evil supreme god and they were created by this evil supreme god; and if because of this the Nigaṇṭhas now experience extreme pain—then for these reasons, on these grounds, the Nigaṇṭhas can be reproached.

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The Dharma, which I came to know by myself and realized by myself, and which I have proclaimed to you, cannot be refuted, cannot be defiled, cannot be prevailed over by any renunciant, brahmin, god, Māra, Brahmā or anyone else in the world. Why is it that the Dharma, which I came to know by myself and realized by myself, and which I have proclaimed to you, cannot be refuted, cannot be defiled, cannot be prevailed over by any renunciant, brahmin, god, Māra, Brahmā or anyone else in the world?

If a monk abandons unwholesome bodily actions and practices wholesome bodily actions, [if he] abandons unwholesome verbal and mental actions and practices wholesome verbal and mental actions, then in regard to future suffering [due to present unwholesome actions] he personally knows: “there will be no [such] future suffering for me.” In accordance with the Dharma he attains happiness and will not dis- card it.

Aspiring to eliminate a [particular] cause of suffering, he may prac- tice with [that] aspiration; or, aspiring to eliminate a [particular] cause of suffering, he may practice equanimity [in regard to that] aspiration. If, aspiring to eliminate a [particular] cause of suffering, he practices with [that] aspiration; and if he then develops his practice with [that] aspiration and eliminates that [particular cause of suffering], then the

[corresponding] suffering comes to be extinguished.

If, aspiring to eliminate a [particular] cause of suffering, he practices equanimity [in regard to that] aspiration; and if he then develops his practice with equanimity and eliminates that [particular cause of suf- fering], then the [corresponding] suffering comes to be extinguished.

Then, the monk has this thought:

According to one’s behavior, according to one’s deeds, unwhole- some states arise and wholesome states cease. If I eliminate my suffering for myself,88 then unwholesome states will cease and wholesome states will arise. Now, I would better eliminate my suffering for myself.

Then he eliminates the suffering and, once the suffering has been elim- inated, unwholesome states cease and wholesome states arise, and he

no longer needs to eliminate suffering. Why? Because, monks, his orig- inal purpose has been achieved, it is not the case that he might need to eliminate suffering again.

Monks, it is just as a fletcher may use a template to straighten an arrow, but once the arrow has been straightened, he has no further use for the template. Why? Because that person’s original purpose has been achieved, it is not the case that he might need to use the template again.

In the same way, a monk has this thought:

According to one’s behavior, according to one’s deeds unwhole- some states arise and wholesome states cease. If I eliminate my suffering for myself, then unwholesome states will cease and wholesome states will arise. Now, I would better eliminate my suffering for myself.

Then he eliminates the suffering and, once the suffering has been elim- inated, unwholesome states cease and wholesome states arise, and he no longer needs to eliminate the suffering. Why? Because his original purpose has been achieved, it is not the case that he might need to elim- inate this suffering again.

Monks, suppose that a [certain] man loves a woman, is attached to her, and has high regard for her; but the woman instead gets talking with someone else, exchanges greetings with him, and they go off and spend the night together. Would, because of this, physical and mental suffering, vexation, and extreme grief and sorrow arise in that man?

The monks replied:

Yes indeed, World-honored One. And why? That man loves the woman, is attached to her and has high regard for her; but then that woman instead gets talking with someone else, exchanges greetings with him, and they go off to spend the night together. How could, because of this, physical and mental suffering, vexation, and extreme grief and sorrow not arise in that man?89

[The Buddha:]

Monks, suppose that man thinks like this:

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I love that woman, and have high regard for her; but that woman instead got talking with another man, exchanged greetings with him, and they went off to spend the night together. Because of my suffering and sadness, shouldn’t I now rather cut off my love and attachment for that woman?

Then that man, because of his own suffering and sadness, cuts off his love and attachment for that woman. If that woman, as before, gets talk- ing with someone else, exchanges greetings with him, and they go off to spend the night together, would again, because of that, physical and mental suffering, vexation, and extreme grief and sorrow arise in him?

The monks replied:

No, World-honored One. And why not? Because that man no longer has a feeling of love and attachment for that woman. If that woman, as before, gets talking with someone else, exchanges greetings with him, and they go off to spend the night together, it is not the case that, because of that, physical and mental suffering, vexation, and extreme grief and sorrow will arise in him.

[The Buddha:]

In the same way, a monk has this thought:

According to one’s actions, according to one’s deeds, unwholesome states arise and wholesome states cease. If I eliminate the suffering, then the unwholesome states will cease and wholesome states will arise. Now, I would better eliminate my suffering.

Then he eliminates the suffering and, once the suffering has been elim- inated, unwholesome states cease and wholesome states arise, and he no longer needs to eliminate the suffering. Why? Because his original purpose has been achieved, he need not again eliminate the suffering.

Then he has this further thought:

Whatever the cause of [this] suffering that was to be eliminated, I have eliminated it; yet with regard to desire [itself] it is as before— it is not eliminated. Now, I would better seek to eliminate desire!

So he seeks to eliminate desire [itself]. In order to eliminate that desire, he dwells alone, in seclusion, resorting to a secluded place—to the base of a tree, to an empty and quiet place, a mountain top, a cave, [a place] in the open air, a heap of straw; or he goes into a forest, or to a cemetery.

Having resorted to a secluded place—to the base of a tree, to an empty and quiet place—he spreads his sitting mat, sits down cross- legged, with upright body and upright intention, and sets up mindfulness before him.

He abandons covetousness, his mind is free from envy. Seeing another’s wealth and lifestyle, he does not give rise to thoughts of cov- etousness: “If only I could get that!”

He purifies his mind of covetousness; and similarly of hatred, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry.

He abandons doubt and overcomes confusion; without hesitation in regard to wholesome states, he purifies his mind of doubt and confusion.

Having abandoned these five hindrances, which are imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom, having abandoned desire, abandoned evil and unwholesome states, . . . (and so on up to) he dwells having attained the fourth absorption. When he has attained concentration in this way, his mind being purified, without blemish, free of vexations, malleable, well established, having attained imperturbability, he directs his mind to the realization of the higher knowledge of the destruction of the taints.

He knows as it really is: “this is suffering”; he knows: “this is the origin of suffering”; he knows: “this is the cessation of suffering”; he knows as it really is: “this is the path to the cessation of suffering.” Again, he knows as it really is: “these are the taints”; he knows: “this is the origin of the taints”; he knows: “this is the cessation of the taints”; he knows as it really is: “this is the path to the cessation of the taints.” Knowing thus, seeing thus, his mind is liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of existence, and from the taint of igno- rance. Being liberated, he knows he is liberated. He understands as it really is: “Birth is ended, the holy life has been established, what was

to be done has been done; there will not be another existence.”

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The Tathāgata who has, in this way, rightly liberated the mind, gains five kinds of praise, [praise that is] according to the Dharma, undisputed, desirable, and highly regarded. What are the five?

If all the pleasure and pain that beings now experience is caused by deeds in the past, then the Tathāgata [must] have done sublime actions in the past; and because of that, the Tathāgata now experiences a noble happiness that is free of taints. Quiescent and calm, he has attained happiness and awakening. This is the first praise gained by the Tathāgata.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused by the company they have kept, then the Tathāgata [must have] kept good company in the past; and because of that, the Tathāgata now expe- riences a noble happiness free of taints. Quiescent and calm, he has attained happiness and awakening. This is the second praise gained by the Tathāgata.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused by destiny, then the Tathāgata [must have] had a good destiny in the past; and because of that, the Tathāgata now experiences a noble hap- piness free of taints. Quiescent and calm, he has attained happiness and awakening. This is the third praise gained by the Tathāgata.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused by holding views, then the Tathāgata [must have] held good views in the past; and because of that, the Tathāgata now experiences a noble happiness free of taints. Quiescent and calm, he has attained happiness and awakening. This is the fourth praise gained by the Tathāgata.

Again, if all the pleasure and pain that beings experience is caused and created by a supreme god, then the Tathāgata [must have been cre- ated by] a good supreme god in the past; and because of that, the Tathā- gata now experiences a noble happiness free of taints. Quiescent and calm, he has attained happiness and awakening. This is the fifth praise gained by the Tathāgata.

Thus, because of the Tathāgata’s former good actions, good com- pany, good destiny, good view, and the existence of a good supreme god, the good supreme god by which the Tathāgata was created— because of these the Tathāgata now experiences a noble happiness free

from taints, is quiescent and calm, having attained happiness and awak- ening. For these reasons, the Tathāgata now gains five kinds of praise.

There are five causes and conditions owing to which sorrow and suffering arise in the mind. What are the five?

[The first is] entanglement in sexual desire; because of entangle- ment in sexual desire, sorrow and suffering arise in the mind. Similarly entanglement in hatred, . . . sloth and torpor, . . . restlessness and worry, entanglement in doubt; because of entanglement in doubt, sorrow and suffering arise in the mind. These are the five causes and conditions owing to which sorrow and suffering arise in the mind.

There are five causes and conditions owing to which sorrow and suffering disappear from the mind. What are the five? If one is entangled in sexual desire, and because of entanglement in sexual desire, sorrow and suffering have arisen in the mind, then on abandoning entanglement in sexual desire, the sorrow and suffering will cease. Owing to entan- glement in sexual desire, sorrow and suffering have arisen in the mind; but on attaining the goal in this lifetime, there is freedom from vexation and affliction, constantly present and unchanging, as is known to the noble ones and seen by the noble ones.

In the same way, if one is entangled in hatred . . . sloth and torpor

. . . restlessness and worry . . . if one is entangled in doubt, and because of entanglement in doubt, sorrow and suffering have arisen in the mind, then on abandoning entanglement in doubt, the sorrow and suffering will cease. Owing to entanglement in doubt, sorrow and suffering have arisen in the mind; but on attaining the goal in this lifetime, there is freedom from vexation and affliction, constantly present and unchang- ing, as is known to the noble ones and seen by the noble ones. These are the five causes and conditions owing to which sorrow and suffering disappear from the mind.

Again, there is another attaining of the goal in this lifetime, which is free from vexation and affliction, constantly present and unchanging, as is known to the noble ones and seen by the noble ones. What is that other attaining of the goal in this lifetime, which is free from vexation and affliction, constantly present and unchanging, as is known to the noble ones and seen by the noble ones? It is the noble eightfold path:

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right view . . . (and so on up to) right concentration—these eight. This is another attaining of the goal in this lifetime, which is free from vex- ation and affliction, constantly present and unchanging, as is known to the noble ones and seen by the noble ones.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

20.  The Discourse to Pāṭaliya90

Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha, who was wandering among the Koliyans together with a great company of monks, arrived at the village of Uttara and stayed in a rosewood grove north of Uttara.

At that time Pāṭaliya, the village headman, heard that the renunciant Gotama, a son of the Sākya clan, who had abandoned his clan and family, and had gone forth to train in the path, was wandering among the Koliyans together with a great company of monks, and that he had arrived at the village of Uttara and was staying in a rosewood grove north of Uttara. [He also heard that] the renunciant Gotama had a great reputation, which had spread in all the ten directions:

The renunciant Gotama is a Tathāgata, free from attachment, fully awakened, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, a Well-gone One, a knower of the world, an unsurpassed one, a trainer of those to be tamed, a teacher of gods and human beings, known as the Buddha, the Fortunate One.

In this world, with its gods, Māras, Brahmās, renunciants, and brahmins, from human beings to gods, he has [attained] understanding and awakening by himself, and dwells having personally realized it. The Dharma he teaches is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, with the right meaning and phrasing, revealing a holy life endowed with purity.

If one visits such a Tathāgata, who is free from attachment and fully awakened, [if one] pays homage to him respectfully and serves him, then one will quickly get good rewards.

[Pāṭaliya] thought: “I should go to visit the renunciant Gotama and pay homage to him.”

Having learned this, Pāṭaliya the village headman left Uttara and went north toward the rosewood grove, wishing to visit the World-honored One and pay homage to him. From afar Pāṭaliya the village headman saw the World-honored One among the trees of the grove, dignified and beautiful, like the moon amidst the stars, with radiant aura, shining like a golden moun- tain, endowed with handsome appearance and majestic dignity, with sense faculties calm, free of obstruction, accomplished and disciplined, with his mind calm and quiet.

Having seen the Buddha from afar, Pāṭaliya the village headman approached the Buddha, exchanged greetings, sat down to one side, and said to the World-honored One:

I have heard this: “The renunciant Gotama knows magic, he is a magi- cian.”

Gotama, those who say: “The renunciant Gotama knows magic, he is a magician,” are they not misrepresenting the renunciant Gotama? Do they speak what is true? Do they speak what is Dharma? Do they speak the Dharma according to the Dharma? Do they not fall into error and incur censure according to the Dharma?

The World-honored One replied:

Headman, those who say: “The renunciant Gotama knows magic, he is a magician,”91 they are not misrepresenting the renunciant Gotama. They speak what is true. They speak what is Dharma. They speak the Dharma according to the Dharma. They do not fall into error or incur censure according to the Dharma. Why? Because, headman, I know the magic of others, though I myself am not a magician.

Pāṭaliya said:

Although what those renunciants and brahmins were saying is true, yet I did not believe them when they said: “The renunciant Gotama knows magic, he is a magician.”

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The World-honored One said: “Headman, if one knows magic, does one thereby become a magician?”

Pāṭaliya replied: “Indeed, World-honored One. Indeed, Well-gone One.” The World-honored One said:

Headman, do not make a mistake and misrepresent me. If you misrep- resent me, then you harm yourself, you will be criticized, you commit an offense, and you will be condemned by the noble ones for having perpetrated a major fault. Why? Because the truth is not in accordance with what you say. Headman, have you heard that the Koliyans have soldiers?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “Yes, I have heard that.”

[The Buddha:] “What do you think, headman? Why do the Koliyans employ soldiers?”

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “To kill bandits, Gotama. For this reason the Koliyans employ soldiers.”

[The Buddha:] “What do you think, headman? Are the Koliyan soldiers virtuous or without virtue?”

[Pāṭaliya] replied:

Gotama, if in the world there are those who lack virtue, the Koliyan soldiers are certainly among them. Why? The Koliyan soldiers break all the precepts and behave in evil ways.

[The Buddha] asked further:

Headman, you see it thus and know it thus, and I do not question it. [But] suppose that someone else were to ask you: “Headman Pāṭaliya, you know that the Koliyan soldiers break all the precepts and do only evil; therefore, headman Pāṭaliya, you too break all the precepts and do only evil.” If someone were to speak like this, would he be speaking the truth?

[Pāṭaliya] replied:

No, Gotama. And why? The views of the Koliyan soldiers are different [from mine], their desires are different, their aspirations are different.

The Koliyan soldiers break all the precepts and do only evil, but I keep all the precepts and do no evil.

[The Buddha] asked further:

Headman, you know that the Koliyan soldiers break all the precepts and do only evil, but you do not for this reason become one who breaks the precepts and does only evil.

Why, then, should it not be the case that the Tathāgata knows magic but is not himself a magician? How is that? I know magic, I know magicians, I know the results of doing magic, and I know the elimination of magic.

Headman, I also know killing of living beings, I know killers of living beings, I know the results of killing living beings, and I know the elimination of killing living beings. Headman, I know taking what is not given, I know those who take what is not given, I know the results of taking what is not given, and I know the elimination of taking what is not given. Headman, I know speaking falsehood, I know those who speak falsehood, I know the results of speaking falsehood, and I know the elimination of speaking falsehood.

Headman, I know this and see this. If someone says, “The renun- ciant Gotama knows magic, he is a magician,” and if he does not give up saying that but makes known that state of mind, that desire, that aspiration, that report, that memory, and that reflection, then, when his life ends he shall, as quickly as one might bend or stretch out one’s arm, be reborn in hell.

On hearing this, Pāṭaliya the village headman was greatly afraid, trem- bling, with his body hair standing on end. He immediately got up from his seat, paid homage at the [Buddha’s] feet with his head and, kneeling down with his palms placed together [in respect], said to the World-honored One:

I repent, Gotama. I confess, Well-gone One. I was like a fool, like an ignorant person, like an unstable person, like an unwholesome person. And why? I was wrong in saying that the renunciant Gotama is a magi- cian. May Gotama accept my repentance! I have seen my fault and dis- closed it. Having repented, I shall exercise restraint and not do it again.

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The World-honored One told him:

So it is, headman. You truly were like a fool, ignorant, unstable and unwholesome. And why? You were wrong in saying that the Tathāgata, who is free from attachment and fully awakened, is a magician. How- ever, you have been able to repent. You have seen your fault and dis- closed it. Exercising restraint, you will not do it again.

In this way, headman, those who are able to repent, who see their faults and disclose them, and who exercise restraint so as not to do it again, will grow in the noble Dharma and be free from fault.

Thereupon Pāṭaliya the village headman, his palms placed together [in respect] toward the Buddha, said to the World-honored One:

Gotama, there is one [type of] renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and declare: “If someone kills living beings, they will get the entire result in this lifetime; and because of that, sorrow and suf- fering will arise. If someone takes what is not given, or speaks false- hood, they will get the entire result in this lifetime; and because of that, sorrow and suffering will arise.” Renunciant Gotama, what do you think [of this]?

The World-honored One said:

Headman, I shall now ask you something; answer according to your understanding. What do you think, headman? In a village there may be a man who has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertain- ment; and he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king. Then someone asks: “What has this man done, that he now has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; that singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and that he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king?” Someone replies: “This man killed an enemy of the king, and the king, being delighted, bestowed rewards on him. For this reason this man has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and

he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king.”

Headman, have you ever seen something like this, or heard of something like this?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “Yes, Gotama, I have seen it, I have heard of it, and I [expect I] will hear of it [again].”

[The Buddha continued:]

Headman, one may also see that a criminal is arrested by the king, his hands are bound behind him and, with a drum being beaten and the [sentence] proclaimed, he is taken out through the southern gate of the town, seated beneath a tall signpost, beheaded, and his head is put on display.

Then someone asks: “What crime has this man committed that he is executed by the king?” Someone replies: “This man wrongly killed an innocent person from the king’s household. For this reason the king ordered this punishment.” Headman, have you ever seen something like this, or heard of something like this?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “Yes, Gotama, I have seen it, I have heard of it, and I [expect I] will hear of it [again].”

[The Buddha said:]

Headman, if a renunciant or brahmin holds this view and makes this proclamation: “If someone kills living beings, they will get the entire result in this lifetime; and because of that, sorrow and suffering will arise,” are they saying what is true or are they saying what is false?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “It is falsely said, Gotama.”

[The Buddha:] “If they say what is false, would you have faith in them?” [Pāṭaliya] replied: “No, I would not have faith, Gotama.”

The World-honored One praised him, saying: “Very good, headman!

Very good!”

[The Buddha] asked further:

What do you think, headman? In a village there may be a man who has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king.

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Then someone asks: “What has this man done, that he now has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; that singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and that he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king?” Someone replies: “In another country this man took what was not given [and the king, being pleased with him, bestowed rewards on him.] For this reason this man has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and he is presented with courtesans to enjoy

himself like a king.”

Headman, have you ever seen something like this, or heard of something like this?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “Yes, Gotama, I have seen it, I have heard of it, and I [expect I] will hear of it [again].”

[The Buddha continued:]

Again, headman, one may also see that a criminal is arrested by the king, his hands are bound behind him and, with a drum being beaten and [the sentence] proclaimed, he is taken out through the southern gate of the town, seated beneath a tall signpost, beheaded, and his head is put on display.

Then someone asks: “What crime has this man committed that he is executed by the king?” Someone replies: “Within the king’s country this man took what was not given. For this reason the king ordered this punishment.” Headman, have you ever seen something like this, or heard of something like this?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “Yes, Gotama, I have seen it, I have heard of it, and I [expect I] will hear of it [again].”

[The Buddha:]

Headman, if a renunciant or brahmin holds this view and makes this proclamation: “If someone takes what is not given, they will get the entire result in this lifetime; and because of that, sorrow and suffering will arise,” are they saying what is true or are they saying what is false?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “It is falsely said, Gotama.”

[The Buddha:] “If they say what is false, would you have faith in them?” [Pāṭaliya] replied: “No, I would not have faith, Gotama.”

The World-honored One praised him saying:

Very good, headman! Very good! What do you think, headman? In a village there may be a man who has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king.

Then someone asks: “What has this man done, that he now has garlands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; that singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and that he is presented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king?” Someone replies: “This man is a singer,92 able to entertain and amuse. He delighted the king with false speech and the king, being delighted, bestowed rewards on him. For this reason this man has gar- lands on his head and various perfumes applied to his body; singing, music, and dancing are performed for his entertainment; and he is pre-

sented with courtesans to enjoy himself like a king.”

Headman, have you ever seen something like this, or heard of something like this?

[Pāṭaliya] replied: “Yes, Gotama, I have seen it, I have heard of it, and I [expect I] will hear of it [again].”

[The Buddha:]

Again, headman, one may also see that a criminal is arrested by the king, his hands are bound behind him and, with a drum being beaten and [the sentence] proclaimed, he is taken out through the southern gate of the town, seated beneath a tall signpost, beheaded, and his head is put on display. Then someone asks: “What crime has this man com- mitted that he is executed by the king?” Someone replies: “This man lied in testimony before the king. With lies he tried to deceive the king. For this reason the king ordered this punishment.”

Headman, have you ever seen something like this, or heard of something like this?

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He replied: “Yes, Gotama, I have seen it, I have heard of it, and I [expect I] will hear of it [again].”

[The Buddha:]

Headman, what do you think—if a renunciant or brahmin holds this view and makes this proclamation: “If someone kills living beings, they will get the entire result in this lifetime; and because of that, sorrow and suffering will arise,” are they saying what is true or are they saying what is false?

He replied: “It is falsely said, Gotama.”

“If they say what is false, would you have faith in them?” He replied: “No, I would not have faith, Gotama.”

The World-honored One praised him, saying: “Very good, headman!

Very good!”

Then Pāṭaliya, the village headman, rose from his seat, arranged his clothes so as to bare one shoulder and, placing his palms together [in respect] towards the Buddha, said to the World-honored One:

Marvelous! What Gotama has said is wonderful, with good analogies and good proof. Gotama, I built a high-roofed hall in the village of Uttara, provided it with seats and beds, and set up water pots and big bright lamps. If diligent renunciants or brahmins come to stay in this high- roofed hall, I provide what they need in accordance with my ability. [Once] four teachers, holding different and opposing views were gathered in the high-roofed hall. Among them was one teacher who

held this view and made this proclamation:

There is no offering, no sacrifice,93 there are no incantations; no wholesome or unwholesome actions, no results of wholesome or unwholesome actions; there is neither this world nor another world, there are no father and mother; there are no True Persons in the world who are headed for a supreme attainment, who are well gone and well directed, who have themselves known and realized this world and the other world, who have themselves directly real- ized and accomplished it and dwell therein.

The second teacher had right view. Opposing the view and knowledge of the first teacher, he held this view and made this proclamation:

There is offering, there is sacrifice, and there are incantations; there are wholesome and unwholesome actions, and results of wholesome and unwholesome actions; there is this world and the other world, there are father and mother; there are True Persons in the world who are headed for a supreme attainment, who are well gone and well directed, who have themselves known and realized this world and the other world, who have themselves directly realized and accomplished it and dwell therein.

The third teacher held this view and made this proclamation:

One who acts or instructs another to act; one who destroys or instructs another to destroy; one who tortures or instructs another to torture, [causing] distress, vexation, sadness, beating of breasts, despair, weeping, and bewilderment; one who kills living beings, takes what is not given, engages in sexual misconduct, speaks falsehood, drinks intoxicating liquor, breaks through walls to open storehouses, intrudes into others’ territory, destroys villages and towns, wipes out cities and countries—one who acts in these ways is not doing any evil.

Again, if by using an iron wheel as sharp as a razor, one were, in a single day, to cut into parts and kill all the living beings on this earth, slicing them into pieces and turning them all into a single heap of flesh; this does not amout to “evil actions,” and the evil actions will not have results. If one were to go along the south- ern bank of the Ganges killing, destroying, and torturing, and to come back along the northern bank of the Ganges making offerings, undertaking sacrifices, and chanting incantations; then there is no offense and no merit because of this, there are no results of offense or merit because of this.

Making offerings, taming [oneself], guarding [oneself], restraining [oneself], by esteeming, benefiting, generosity, speaking pleasantly, doing good, and sharing profit, one does not [earn] merit because of this, there is no result of merit because of this.

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The fourth teacher had right view. Opposing the understanding and view of the third teacher, he held this view and made this proclamation:

One who acts or instructs another to act; one who destroys or instructs another to destroy; one who tortures or instructs another to torture, [causing] distress, vexation, and sadness, beating of breasts, despair, weeping, and bewilderment; one who kills living beings, takes what is not given, engages in sexual misconduct, speaks falsehood, drinks intoxicating liquor, breaks through walls to open storehouses, intrudes into others’ territory, destroys villages and towns, wipes out cities and countries—one who acts in these ways is doing evil.

Again, if by using an iron wheel as sharp as a razor, one were, in a single day, to cut into parts and kill all the living beings on this earth, slicing them into pieces and turning them all into a single heap of flesh, this does amount to “evil actions,” and these evil actions will have results. If one were to go along the southern bank of the Ganges killing, destroying, and torturing, and to come back along the northern bank of the Ganges making offerings, undertaking sacrifices, and chanting incantations; then there is offense or merit because of this, there are results of offense or merit because of this.

Making offerings, taming [oneself], guarding [oneself], restraining [oneself], by esteeming, benefiting, generosity, speaking pleasantly, doing good and sharing profit, there is merit because of this, there is result of merit because of this.

Gotama, having heard this, I have come to doubt. Of these renunciants and brahmins, who is speaking the truth, and who is speaking falsehood?

The World-honored One told him:

Headman, do not let doubt arise in you. Why not? Owing to doubt, hes- itation arises. Headman, you yourself do not have pure knowledge about whether there is a next life or no next life. Also, headman, you do not have pure knowledge regarding which way of acting is evil and which way of acting is wholesome. Headman, there is a Dharma meditation

called abandoning. Through this meditation you may attain right mind- fulness, you may attain one-pointedness of mind. In this way you may cut off your doubt in this lifetime and achieve progress.

Thereupon, Pāṭaliya the village headman rose again from his seat, arranged his clothes so as to bare one shoulder and, placing his palms together [in respect] towards the Buddha, said to the World-honored One:

Gotama, what is the Dharma meditation called abandoning, through which I may attain right mindfulness and may attain one-pointedness of mind, and in that way may cut off my doubt in this lifetime and achieve progress?

The World-honored One told him:

Headman, a learned noble disciple refrains from killing and abandons killing, abandons taking what is not given . . . sexual misconduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandons wrong view and attains right view. During the daytime he instructs people to farm and cultivate the fields, and when evening comes, he rests from this and goes indoors to meditate. When the night is over, at dawn, he thinks:

I have refrained from killing and have abandoned killing, I have abandoned taking what is not given . . . sexual misconduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandoned wrong view and attained right view.

Then he examines himself: “I have abandoned the ten unwholesome courses of action, and have been mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action.” When he sees these ten unwholesome courses of action abandoned within himself and is mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action, joy arises in him; joy having arisen, rapture arises; rapture having arisen, the body becomes calm; the body having become calm, he experiences happiness with the body; the body having experienced happiness, he attains one-pointedness of mind.

Headman, a learned noble disciple who has attained one-pointed- ness of mind, imbues his mind with loving-kindness and dwells [men- tally] pervading one direction, likewise the second, the third, and the

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fourth direction, also the four intermediate directions, above, and below, all around, everywhere. With a mind imbued with loving-kindness, free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells pervading the entire world [with a mind that is] boundless, exalted, immeasurable, and well cultivated.

Then he reflects thus: “There are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and make this proclamation:”

There is no offering, no sacrifice, there are no incantations; no wholesome or unwholesome actions, no results of wholesome or unwholesome actions; there is neither this world nor another world, there are no father and mother; there are no True Persons in the world who are headed for a supreme attainment, who are well gone and well directed, who have known and realized for them- selves this world and the other world, who have themselves directly realized and accomplished it and dwell therein.

If those renunciants and brahmins are speaking the truth, then I have offended against neither the fearful nor the fearless in the world. I have always had compassion and empathy for the entire world. Toward [all] beings my mind has been free of contention, untainted, and delighted.

Now I have attained the Dharma of the unsurpassable person (i.e., the Buddha),94 attained progress and a happy abiding; this is called the Dharma meditation of abandoning. What these renun- ciants and brahmins say may be correct or incorrect; but [whether] it is correct or incorrect, I have attained inner tranquility of mind.

Headman, this is the Dharma meditation called abandoning. Through this meditation you may attain right mindfulness, you may attain one- pointedness of mind. In this way you may cut off your doubt in this lifetime and achieve progress.

Again, headman, a learned noble disciple refrains from killing and abandons killing, abandons taking what is not given . . . sexual mis- conduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandons wrong view and attains right view. During the daytime he instructs people to farm and cultivate the fields, and when evening comes, he rests from this

and goes indoors to meditate. When the night is over, at dawn, he thinks:

I have refrained from killing and have abandoned killing, I have abandoned taking what is not given . . . sexual misconduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandoned wrong view and attained right view.

Then he examines himself: “I have abandoned the ten unwholesome courses of action and have been mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action.” When he sees these ten unwholesome courses of action abandoned within himself and is mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action, joy arises in him; joy having arisen, rapture arises; rapture having arisen, the body becomes calm; the body having become calm, he experiences happiness with the body; the body having experienced happiness, he attains one-pointedness of mind.

Headman, a learned noble disciple who has attained one-pointed- ness of mind imbues his mind with compassion, and dwells [mentally] pervading one direction, likewise the second, the third, and the fourth direction, and also the four intermediate directions, above, and below, all around, everywhere. With a mind imbued with compassion, free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells per- vading the entire world [with a mind] boundless, exalted, immeasurable and well cultivated.

Then he reflects thus:

There are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and make this proclamation: There is offering, there is sacrifice, there are incantations; there are wholesome or unwholesome actions, and results of wholesome or unwholesome actions; there is both this world and the other world, there are father and mother; there are True Persons in the world who are headed for a supreme attainment, who are well gone and well directed, who have known and realized for themselves this world and the other world, who have themselves directly realized and accomplished it and dwell therein.

If those renunciants and brahmins are speaking the truth, then I have offended against neither the fearful nor the fearless in the

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world. I have always had compassion and empathy for the entire world. Toward [all] beings my mind has been free of contention, untainted, and delighted. Now I have attained the Dharma of the unsurpassable person, attained progress and a happy abiding; this is called the Dharma meditation of abandoning. What these renun- ciants and brahmins say may be correct or incorrect; but [whether] it is correct or incorrect, I have attained inner tranquility of mind.

Headman, this is the Dharma meditation called abandoning. Through this meditation you may attain right mindfulness, you may attain one- pointedness of mind. In this way you may cut off your doubt in this lifetime and achieve progress.

Again, headman, a learned noble disciple refrains from killing and abandons killing, abandons taking what is not given . . . sexual miscon- duct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandons wrong view and attains right view. During the daytime he instructs people to farm and cultivate the fields and, when evening comes, he rests from this and goes indoors to meditate. When the night is over, at dawn, he thinks:

I refrained from killing and have abandoned killing, I have aban- doned taking what is not given . . . sexual misconduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandoned wrong view and attained right view.

Then he examines himself: “I have abandoned the ten unwholesome courses of action, and have been mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action.” When he sees these ten unwholesome courses of action abandoned within himself and is mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action, joy arises in him; joy having arisen, rapture arises; rapture having arisen, the body becomes calm; the body having become calm, he experiences happiness with the body; the body having experienced happiness, he attains one-pointedness of mind.

Headman, a learned noble disciple who has attained one-pointed- ness of mind, imbues his mind with empathic joy and dwells [mentally] pervading one direction, likewise the second, the third, and the fourth direction, also the four intermediate directions, above, and below, all

around, everywhere. With a mind imbued with empathic joy, free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells pervading the entire world [with a mind that is] boundless, exalted, immeasurable and well cultivated.

Then he reflects thus:

There are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and make this proclamation: One who acts or instructs another to act; one who destroys or instructs another to destroy; one who tortures or instructs another to torture, [causing] distress, vexation, sadness, beating of breasts, despair, weeping, and bewilderment; one who kills living beings, takes what is not given, engages in sexual mis- conduct, speaks falsehood, drinks intoxicating liquor, breaks through walls to open storehouses, intrudes into others’ territory, destroys villages and towns, wipes out cities and countries—one who acts in these ways is not doing any evil.

Again, if by using an iron wheel as sharp as a razor, one were, in a single day, to cut into parts and kill all the living beings on this earth, slicing them into pieces and turning them all into a single heap of flesh; there is no evil karma because of this, there is no result of evil karma because of this. If one were to go along the southern bank of the Ganges killing, destroying, and torturing, and to come back along the northern bank of the Ganges making offerings, undertaking sacrifices, and chanting incantations; then there is no offense and no merit because of this, there are no results of offense or merit because of this. Making offerings, taming [one- self], guarding [oneself], restraining [oneself], by esteeming, ben- efiting, generosity, speaking pleasantly, doing good, and sharing profit, there is no merit because of this, there is no result of merit because of this.

If those renunciants and brahmins are speaking the truth, then I have offended against neither the fearful nor the fearless in the world. I have always had compassion and empathy for the entire world. Toward [all] beings my mind has been free of contention, untainted, and delighted. Now I have attained the Dharma of the

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unsurpassable person, attained progress and a happy abiding; this is called the Dharma meditation of abandoning. What these renun- ciants and brahmins say may be correct or incorrect; but [whether] it is correct or incorrect, I have attained inner tranquility of mind.

Headman, this is the Dharma meditation called abandoning. Through this meditation you may attain right mindfulness, you may attain one- pointedness of mind. In this way you may cut off your doubt in this lifetime and achieve progress.

Again, headman, a learned noble disciple refrains from killing and abandons killing, abandons taking what is not given . . . sexual mis- conduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandons wrong view and attains right view. During the daytime he instructs people to farm and cultivate the fields, and when evening comes, he rests from this and goes indoors to meditate. When the night is over, at dawn, he thinks:

I have refrained from killing and have abandoned killing, I have abandoned taking what is not given . . . sexual misconduct . . . false speech . . . (and so on up to) abandoned wrong view and attained right view.

Then he examines himself: “I have abandoned the ten unwholesome courses of action, and have been mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action.” When he sees these ten unwholesome courses of action abandoned within himself, and is mindful of the ten wholesome courses of action, joy arises in him; joy having arisen, rapture arises; rapture having arisen, the body becomes calm; the body having become calm, he experiences happiness with the body; the body having experienced happiness, he attains one-pointedness of mind.

Headman, a learned noble disciple who has attained one-pointed- ness of mind, imbues his mind with equanimity and dwells [mentally] pervading one direction, likewise the second, the third, and the fourth direction, also the four intermediate directions, above, and below, all around, everywhere. With a mind imbued with equanimity, free from fetters and resentment, without ill will or quarrel, he dwells pervading

the entire world [with a mind that is] boundless, exalted, immeasurable and well cultivated.

Then he reflects thus:

There are renunciants and brahmins who hold this view and make this proclamation: One who acts or instructs another to act; one who destroys or instructs another to destroy; one who tortures or instructs another to torture, [causing] distress, vexation, and sad- ness, beating of breasts, despair, weeping, and bewilderment; one who kills living beings, takes what is not given, engages in sexual misconduct, speaks falsehood, drinks intoxicating liquor, breaks through walls to open storehouses, intrudes into others’ territory, destroys villages and towns, wipes out cities and countries—one who acts in these ways is doing evil.

Again, if by using an iron wheel as sharp as a razor, one were, in a single day, to cut into parts and kill all the living beings on this earth, slicing them into pieces and turning them all into a single heap of flesh, there is evil karma because of this, there is result of evil karma because of this. If one were to go along the southern bank of the Ganges killing, destroying, and torturing, and to come back along the northern bank of the Ganges making offerings, undertaking sacrifices, and chanting incantations; then there is offense or merit because of this, there are results of offense or merit because of this. Making offerings, taming [oneself], guard- ing [oneself], restraining [oneself], by esteeming, benefiting, gen- erosity, speaking pleasantly, doing good, and sharing profit, there is merit because of this, there is result of merit because of this. If those renunciants and brahmins are speaking the truth, then I have offended against neither the fearful nor the fearless in the world. I have always had compassion and empathy for the entire world. Toward [all] beings my mind has been free of con- tention, untainted, and delighted. Now I have attained the Dharma of the unsurpassable person, attained progress and a happy abiding; this is called the Dharma meditation of abandoning. What these renunciants and brahmins say may be correct or incorrect; but

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[whether] it is correct or incorrect, I have attained inner tranquility of mind.

Headman, this is the Dharma meditation called abandoning. Through this meditation you may attain right mindfulness, you may attain one- pointedness of mind. In this way you may cut off your doubt in this lifetime and achieve progress.

As this Dharma was being taught, the spotless and immaculate Dharma- eye in regard to all phenomena arose in Pāṭaliya the village headman. Pāṭaliya the village headman saw the Dharma, attained the Dharma, realized the bright and pure Dharma; he cut off doubt and went beyond perplexity; he became independent of other teachers; he would never again follow others; and he became free of hesitation. Having been established in the attainment of the fruit, he had attained fearlessness in the Dharma taught by the World-honored One. He rose from his seat, paid homage with his head at the feet of the Buddha, and said:

World-honored one, I now go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the community of monks. May the World-honored One accept me as a lay follower! From this day forth until life ends I go [to him] for refuge.

This is what the Buddha said. Having heard the Buddha’s words, the village headman Pāṭaliya and the monks were delighted and remembered them well.

Division 3

Sāriputta

21.  The Discourse on an Even Mind95

Thus have I heard: At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.

At that time, Venerable Sāriputta had gathered, one night, with an assem- bly of monks at the assembly hall, and was explaining to them the distinction between internal fetters and external fetters:

Venerable friends, there truly are two categories of people to be found in the world. Which two?

There are those non-returners who have [only] internal fetters and who will not be reborn into this [human] realm; and there are those who are not [yet] non-returners, who have external fetters, and who will be reborn into this [human] realm.

What, venerable friends, are the non-returners, who have [only] inter- nal fetters, and who will not be reborn into this [human] realm? Suppose there is someone who observes the training in the precepts without trans- gression or compromise, without blemish or defect. He practices in this way abundantly, overcomes impediments, and is praised by the worthy ones for being well cultivated and well endowed [in the training]. Through having observed the training in the precepts without trans- gression or compromise, without blemish or defect, having practiced in this way abundantly, having overcome impediments, and having been praised by the worthy ones for being well cultivated and well endowed [in the training], he further trains in disenchantment regarding sensual desires, in dispassion, and in abandoning sensual desires. Through having trained in disenchantment regarding sensual desires, in dispassion, and in abandoning sensual desires, he attains a

peaceful liberation of the mind.

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Having attained it, he delights in it and enjoys it constantly, [but] does not attain final knowledge in that lifetime. With the breaking up of the body at death, he passes beyond the gods that feed on gross food and is reborn among the mind-made gods.

Once reborn there, he thinks:

Formerly, when I was a human being, I observed the training in the precepts without transgression or compromise, without blemish or defect. I practiced in this way abundantly and overcame imped- iments, and I was praised by the worthy ones for being well cul- tivated and well endowed [in the training].