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