“Why are you depressed, Daddy? For which man do you grieve? We—having bound him like a wilderness elephant with a snare of passion— will bring him to you. Under your power he’ll be.”
Māra:
“An arahant, well-gone in the world, isn’t easily brought in by passion. He’s gone beyond Māra’s sway: That’s why I’m so violently sad.”
‘An arahant, well-gone in the world, isn’t easily brought in by passion. He’s gone beyond Māra’s sway: That’s why I’m so violently sad.’
“Practicing jhāna in the forest— are you overcome with grief? Have you lost, or do you desire, wealth? Have you done something blameworthy in the village? Is it because you become intimate people, but intimacy doesn’t prosper for you with anyone at all?”
The Buddha:
“Having attained the goal—
peace of the heart—
having defeated the army
of forms endearing & alluring,
practicing jhāna alone,
I awakened to bliss.
That’s why I don’t become intimate
with people,
why intimacy doesn’t prosper with me
when made by anyone at all.”1
“How does a monk here often dwell,
who has crossed the five floods
and also the sixth?2
How, while cultivating jhāna,
does he keep perceptions of sensuality far away?”
The Buddha:
“Calmed in body, well released in mind, without fabrications, mindful, homeless, having known the Dhamma, practicing jhāna without directed thought, he’s not provoked, doesn’t flow, isn’t slothful: Like this a monk here often dwells, who has crossed the five floods and also the sixth. Cultivating jhāna like this, he keeps perceptions of sensuality far away.”
“Cutting off craving, practicing with a group: Yes, many & faithful they’ll fare. O, how this homeless one, having snatched them from the King of Death, will lead a great crowd away.”
The Buddha:
“The Tathāgatas, great heroes,
do lead
with the true Dhamma.
For those who know,
leading by Dhamma,
what’s the jealousy?”
“Fools! Cleave a mountain with a lily-stalk. Dig up a crag with your fingernails. Chew on iron with your teeth. Raising a rock above your head, go over a cliff, into a pit. Like striking your chest on a stump— you weary yourselves with Gotama.”
Blazing they came— Craving, Discontent, & Passion— but the Teacher blew them off, like the wind, a fallen tuft of cotton.
Notes
1. This phrase—sakkhī na sampajjati kenaci te/me—appears to admit two meanings. 1) One’s attempts at intimacy with others don’t succeed. 2) Others’ attempts at intimacy with one don’t succeed. Māra’s daughter—following their father in SN 4:24, mean it in the first sense. The Buddha here means it in the second.
2. The six floods are the defilements associated with each of the six senses.
Origin URL: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN4_25.html