To Ven. Sāriputta
Sāriputta Sutta (AN 3:33)
Then Ven. Sāriputta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, bowed down to him and sat to one side. As he was sitting there, the Blessed One said to him, “Sāriputta, I could teach the Dhamma in brief, I could teach the Dhamma in detail, I could teach the Dhamma in brief & in detail, but those who would understand the Dhamma are hard to find.”
“This is the time, Blessed One, this is the time, One Well Gone, that the Blessed One should teach the Dhamma in brief, should teach the Dhamma in detail, should teach the Dhamma in brief & in detail. There will be those who would understand.”
“Then, Sāriputta, you should train yourselves: ‘There will be no I-making or mine-making conceit-obsession with regard to this conscious body. There will be no I-making or mine-making conceit-obsession with regard to all external themes [topics of concentration]. We will enter & remain in the awareness-release & discernment-release where there is no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession for one entering & remaining in it.’ That’s how you should train yourselves. When there is in a monk no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession with regard to this conscious body, no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession with regard to all external themes, and when he enters & remains in the awareness-release & discernment-release where there is no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession for one entering & remaining in it, he is called a monk who has cut through craving, has ripped off the fetter, and—from rightly breaking through conceit—has put an end to suffering & stress.
“And it was in reference to this that I said, in Udaka’s Questions in the Pārāyana [Sn 5:13]:
“The abandoning
both of sensual desires,
& of unhappiness,
the dispelling of sloth,
the warding off of anxieties,
equanimity-&-mindfulness purified,
with inspection of mental qualities
swift in the forefront:
That I call the gnosis of emancipation,1
the breaking open
of ignorance.”
Note
1. The state of mind described here corresponds to the five-factored noble right concentration described in AN 5:28, and analyzed more fully in AN 9:36. For further discussion, see Section III/F in The Wings to Awakening and the essays, “Jhāna Not by the Numbers” and “Silence Isn’t Mandatory.”
