Itivuttaka 16

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Adapted From the Translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu(Geoffrey DeGraff)

Compared with the Pali Tipitaka at www.tipitaka.org

16. Pathamasekhasuttam (Training )

This was said by the Lord Buddha(Bhagavata), said by the Arahant, so I have heard:

“Monks, with regard to internal factors, I don’t envision any other single factor like appropriate attention[1] as doing so much for a monk in training,[2] who has not attained the heart’s goal but remains intent on the unsurpassed safety from bondage.[3] A monk who attends appropriately abandons what is unskillful and develops what is skillful.

Appropriate attention as a quality of a monk in training: nothing else does so much for attaining the superlative goal. A monk, striving appropriately, attains the ending of suffering.

NOTES

1. Appropriate attention (yoniso manasikara) is the ability to focus attention on questions that lead to the end of suffering. MN 2 lists the following questions as not fit for attention: “Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? … Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? … Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?” The discourse also lists the following issues as fit for attention: “This is suffering. This is the origination of suffering. This is the cessation of suffering. This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.” Other passages show that appropriate attention views experience not only in terms of the four noble truths, but also in terms of the duties appropriate to those truths. See SN 22:122 and SN 46:51.

2. A person “in training” is one who has attained at least the first level of awakening,

but not yet the final level.

3. Bondage = the four yokes: sensual passion, becoming (bhava), views, & ignorance.