Sutta Nipāta
4
Sutta 7. Tissa Metteyya Sutta
Tissa Metteyya
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.
"Tell the danger, dear sir,
for one given over
to sexual intercourse.
Having heard your teaching,
we'll train in seclusion."
The Buddha:
"In one given over
to sexual intercourse,
the teaching's confused
and he practices wrongly:
this is ignoble
in him.
Whoever once went alone,
but then resorts
to sexual intercourse
-- like a carriage out of control --
is called vile in the world,
a person run-of-the-mill.
His earlier honor and dignity:
lost.
Seeing this,
he should train himself
to abandon sexual intercourse.
Overcome by resolves,
he broods
like a miserable wretch.
Hearing the scorn of others,
he's chagrined.
He makes weapons,
attacked by the words of others.
This, for him, is a great entanglement.
He
sinks
into lies.
They thought him wise
when he committed himself
to the life alone,
but now that he's given
to sexual intercourse
they declare him a fool.
Seeing these drawbacks, the sage
here -- before and after --
stays firm in the life alone;
doesn't resort to sexual intercourse;
would train himself
in seclusion --
this, for the noble ones, is
supreme.
He wouldn't, because of that,
think himself
better than others:
He's on the verge
of Unbinding.
People enmeshed
in sensual pleasures,
envy him: free,
a sage
leading his life
unsense of compunctioned for sensual pleasures
-- one who's crossed over the flood."
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