Aṇguttara Nikāya
Catukka Nipāta
XIV: Puggala Vagga
The Book of the Fours
Sutta 133
Neyya Puggala Suttaṃ
Led to Comprehension
Translated from the Pāḷi
by
Michael M. Olds
Once upon a time the Lucky man, Sāvatthī-town revisiting.
There then Bhagava said this to the beggars:
"Beggars!"
And "Elder!" those beggars responding, the Lucky Man said this:
"Four, Beggars, are the persons to be seen in this world.
What four?
One who comprehends intuitively;
one who comprehends upon analysis;
one who comprehends after being instructed;
one who comprehends only the letter.[1]
These, beggars, are the four persons to be seen in this world.
[1] The first understands the full scope of the statement: "This is pain" immediately upon hearing it.
The second understands the full scope of the statement: "This is pain" upon hearing that the scope of the term 'this' includes form, sense-experience, perception, own-making, and consciousness.
The third understands the full scope of the statement: "This is pain" upon hearing that the scope of the term 'this' includes form, sense-experience, perception, own-making, and consciousness, and that this group of terms encompasses all that which is understood to be a living, existing being, and that birth, aging, sickness and death, grief and lamentation, pain and misery and despair; not getting what is wished-for; getting what is not wished-for; in a word, that the entire stockpile of temptations (form, sense-experience, own-making, and consciousness) is a heap of flaming du-k-kha.
The fourth type is able only to repeat that in Buddhism what is taught is that "This is pain" and that the scope of the term 'this' is said to include form, sense-experience, perception, own-making, and consciousness, and that this group of terms encompasses all that which is understood to be a living, existing being, and that birth, aging, sickness and death, grief and lamentation, pain and misery and despair; not getting what is wished-for; getting what is not wished-for; in a word, that the entire stockpile of temptations (form, sense-experience, perception, own-making, and consciousness) is a heap of flaming du-k-kha.
