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Sutta Nipata IV.7

Tissa Metteyya Sutta

Tissa Metteyya


"Tell the danger, dear sir,
for one given over
to sexual intercourse.
Having heard your teaching,
we'll train in seclusion."

The Buddha:

"In one given over
to sexual intercourse,
the teaching's confused
and he practices wrongly:
    this is ignoble
    in him.
Whoever once went alone,
but then resorts
to sexual intercourse
    -- like a carriage out of control --
is called vile in the world,
a person run-of-the-mill.
His earlier honor & dignity:
        lost.
Seeing this,
he should train himself
to abandon sexual intercourse.

Overcome by resolves,
    he broods
like a miserable wretch.
Hearing the scorn of others,
    he's chagrined.
He makes weapons,
attacked by the words of others.
This, for him, is a great entanglement.
    He
    sinks
    into lies.

    They thought him wise
when he committed himself
to the life alone,
but now that he's given
to sexual intercourse
    they declare him a fool.

Seeing these drawbacks, the sage
    here -- before & after --
stays firm in the life alone;
doesn't resort to sexual intercourse;
would train himself
in seclusion --
        this, for the noble ones, is
        supreme.
He wouldn't, because of that,
think himself
better than others:
    He's on the verge
    of Unbinding.

People enmeshed
in sensual pleasures,
envy him:     free,
        a sage
leading his life
unconcerned for sensual pleasures
    -- one who's crossed over the flood."


See also: AN IV.159; AN V.75; AN V.76
Source: ATI - For Free Distribution Only, as a Gift of Dhamma.

Dhamma Essay:
The Problem of Conflict by Bhikkhu Bodhi


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