Khuddaka Nikaya


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Sutta Nipāta
5
Sutta 11. Jatukanni-manava-puccha Sutta

[pali] [faus]

Jatukannin's Question

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

For free distribution only.

 


 

Jatukannin:

Hearing that there was a hero --
    desiring no sensuality,
    having crossed over the flood --
I've come with a question:
    Tell me the state of peace,
    O One with quick eyes. O Blessed One,
        tell me
        as it has come to be.
For the Blessed One lives
    having surpassed sensuality,
    as the radiant sun, in its radiance,
        the earth.
Limited my discernment,
    O One whose discernment's profound.
Teach me to know the Dhamma,
    the abandoning here
        of birth
        and aging.

The Buddha:

Subdue greed for sensual pleasures,
    and see renunciation as rest.
Let there be nothing grasped
    or rejected by you.
Burn up what's before,
and have nothing for after.
If you don't grasp
at what's in between,[1]
    you will go about, calm.
One completely devoid of greed
for name and form, brahman,
has
no effluents
    by which he would go
    under Mara's sway.

 


[1] According to Nd.II, "before" stands for defilements related to the past, "after" for defilements related to the future, and "in between" for the five aggregates -- form, feeling, perception, thought-fabrications, sensory consciousness -- in the present.

 


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