The Buddha: The Fire Sermon

The Fire Sermon: "All is burning"

The Fire Sermon (Buddhistdoor.net)

(Ādittapariyāya Sutta, SN 35.28) In the Pali language canon there is a discourse (sutra) called the "Fire Sermon Discourse," popularly referred to as the Fire Sermon [1].

In this discourse, the Buddha teaches that achieving liberation (vimutti, moksha) from all suffering (pain, disappointment, rebirth, and unsatisfactorinesss) through letting go everything (ALL) mind and the five senses obsessively CLING to as personal, as sources of pleasure, and/or as enduring.

• The Three Poisons of the Heart/Mind in Buddhism

This sutra is also found in the Buddhist Monastic Code (Vinaya) at Vin I 35 [5].

English speakers might be familiar with the name of this discourse due to T. S. Eliot's titling the third section of his celebrated poem "The Waste Land" as The Fire Sermon. In a footnote, Eliot states that this Buddhist discourse "corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount" in Christianity [6].

Background

Let us cut off our jatas and follow this sage!

In the Pali canon's "Collection of Discourses" (Sutta Pitaka), the Fire Sermon is the third sutra delivered by the Buddha (after the first discourse, called the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta, and the Anattalakkhana Sutta), several months after his great awakening/enlightenment, on top of Gayasisa Hill, near Gaya, in what is now India (formerly the maha-janapada Kingdom of Magadha before there was an "India").

He delivered it to 1,000 newly converted wandering ascetics (samanas) who formerly practiced a sacred fire ritual (Pali aggihutta, Sanskrit agnihotra) [7].

The 5th-century CE post-canonical Pali commentary called the Sāratthappakāsini (the Spk.), attributed to the Theravada scholar-monk Buddhaghosa, draws a direct connection between the ascetics' prior practices and this discourse's main rhetorical device:

Having led the 1,000 ascetics to Gayā's Head, the Buddha reflected, "What kind of Dhamma talk would be suitable for them?"

He then realized, "In the past they worshipped fire morning and evening. I will teach them that the 12 sense bases (āyatana) are burning and blazing. In this way they will be able to attain full enlightenment" [8]. More

• The Fire Sermon: The Third Sermon of the Buddha (Buddhistdoor Global)
• Buddha's Wisdom; Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit