The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [300]
49. “When his concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, he directs it to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. He understands as it actually is: ‘This is suffering’...(as Sutta 51, §26)...He understands as it actually is: ‘This is the way leading to the cessation of the taints.’
50. “When he knows and sees thus, his mind is liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, and from the taint of ignorance. When it is liberated there comes the knowledge: ‘It is liberated.’ He understands: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.’ A wise man certainly would live the holy life with a teacher under whom a disciple attains such a lofty distinction, and while living it he would attain the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome.”
51. “But, Master Ānanda, when a bhikkhu is an arahant with taints destroyed, one who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached his own goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge, [523] could he enjoy sensual pleasures?”
“Sandaka, when a bhikkhu is an arahant with taints destroyed …and is completely liberated through final knowledge, he is incapable of transgression in five cases. A bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed is incapable of deliberately depriving a living being of life; he is incapable of taking what is not given, that is, of stealing; he is incapable of indulging in sexual intercourse; he is incapable of knowingly speaking falsehood; he is incapable of enjoying sensual pleasures by storing them up as he did formerly in lay life.756 When a bhikkhu is an arahant with taints destroyed…he is incapable of transgression in these five cases.”757
52. “But, Master Ānanda, when a bhikkhu is an arahant with taints destroyed…is his knowledge and vision that his taints are destroyed continuously and uninterruptedly present to him whether he is walking or standing or sleeping or awake?”
“As to that, Sandaka, I shall give you a simile, for some wise men here understand the meaning of a statement by means of a simile. Suppose a man’s hands and feet were cut off. Whether he is walking or standing or sleeping or awake, his hands and feet are continuously and uninterruptedly cut off, but he would know this only when he reviews the fact. So too, Sandaka, when a bhikkhu is an arahant with taints destroyed…his knowledge and vision that his taints are destroyed is not continuously and uninterruptedly present to him whether he is walking or standing or sleeping or awake; rather, he knows ‘My taints are destroyed’ only when he reviews this fact.”758
53. “How many emancipators759 are there in this Dhamma and Discipline, Master Ānanda?”
“There are not only one hundred, Sandaka, or two hundred, three hundred, four hundred or five hundred, but far more emancipators than that in this Dhamma and Discipline.” “It is wonderful, Master Ānanda, it is marvellous! There is no lauding of one ’s own Dhamma and no disparaging of the Dhamma of others; there is the teaching of the Dhamma in its full range, [524] and so many emancipators. But these Ājīvakas, those mothers’ dead sons, laud themselves and disparage others, and they recognise only three emancipators, namely, Nanda Vaccha, Kisa Sankicca, and Makkhali Gosāla.”760
54. Then the wanderer Sandaka addressed his own assembly: “Go, sirs. The holy life is to be lived under the recluse Gotama. It is not easy for us now to give up gain, honour, and renown.”
That is how the wanderer Sandaka exhorted his own assembly to live the holy life under the Blessed One.
Mahāsakuludāyi Sutta
The Greater Discourse
to Sakuludāyin
[1] 1. THUS HAVE I HEARD. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Rājagaha