“In what is the world shrouded?”
said the venerable Ajita.
“Why is it not clear?
What do you say is its tarnishing?
What is its great fear?”
“The world is shrouded in ignorance, Ajita,”
said the Auspicious One.
“Due to avarice and intoxication it is not clear.
I say prayer is its tarnishing,
suffering its great fear.”
“Streams flow everywhere,”
said the venerable Ajita.
“What is the obstructing of the streams?
Tell the restraint of the streams,
how are they closed off?”
“Whatever streams are in the world, Ajita,”
said the Auspicious One,
“recollectedness is their obstructing.
The restraint of the streams I tell:
by understanding these are closed off.”
“Understanding, and recollectedness too,”
said the venerable Ajita.
“And name-and-form, good sir,
tell me, this I ask:
where does this cease?”
“This question which you have asked, Ajita,
I will answer —
where name-and-form,
ceases without remainder.
With the cessation of consciousness,
here this ceases.”
“Those who have fathomed the teaching,
and the diverse kinds of trainee here,
I ask the astute one their way of living.
Tell me, good sir.”
“One should not covet among desirable things;
the mind should not be turbid.
Skilled in all phenomena,
recollected, a bhikkhu should wander.”
Notes
In the translators’ booklet this is Snp 5.2, following SuttaCentral’s numbering.