What virtue is needed for nirvana?

Dhr. Seven and Ven. Aloka (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly based on original trans. and notes by Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff), Kimsila Sutra: "With What Virtue?" (Sn 2.9), accesstoinsight.org

Path to Nirvana: sila, samadhi, and panna or virtue, meditation, and wisdom.

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Translator's note: This sutra mentions the metaphorical notion of "heartwood" (sara) three times. Although sara as a metaphor is often translated as "essence," this misses some of the metaphor's implications. When x is said to have y as its heartwood, it means that the proper development of x results in y. And it also suggests that y is the most valuable part of x — just as a tree, as it matures, develops heartwood at its core, the heartwood being the most valuable part of the tree.

"With what virtue, what behavior, the nurturing of what actions, would a person become rightly based and attain the ultimate goal?"

"One, respectful of one's superiors [Note 1], without being envious, has a sense of the best time for seeing teachers [2], valuing the opportunity to hear a talk on the Dharma in progress, and listening intently to well-spoken words.

"One goes at the proper time, humbly, abandoning stubbornness into a teacher's presence, both recollecting and following the Dharma, its meaning, restrained by the [code of the] holy life.

"Delighting in Dharma, savoring Dharma, established in Dharma, with a sense of how to investigate Dharma, one avoids speaking in ways destructive of Dharma [3], but guides oneself with true, well-spoken words.

"Shedding laughter, lamentation, idle chatter, hatred, deception, trickery, greed, pride, aggression, roughness, harshness, infatuation, one goes about steadfast, free of intoxication.

"Understanding is the heartwood of well-spoken words, Concentration is the heartwood of learning and understanding. When a person is hasty and heedless, that person's learning and discernment (wisdom) fail to grow.

"Those who delight in the doctrines taught by the noble ones are unexcelled in word, action, and mind. They are established in calm and composed concentration that have as their heartwood wisdom and learning [4]."

• 1. According to the Commentary, one's superiors include those who have more wisdom, more skill in concentration [absorption, jhana, samma-samadhi], and other aspects of the path than oneself, and those who have seniority [number of rains retreats since full ordination].
• 2. The Commentary says that the "right time" to see one's teacher is when one is overcome with passion, aversion, and/or delusion and cannot find a way out on one's own. This echoes a passage in AN 6.26 in which Ven. Maha Kaccana says that the right time to visit a "monastic worthy of esteem" is when one needs help in overcoming any of the Five Hindrances or when one does not yet have an appropriate meditation subject or topic to put an end to the mind's defilements [asavas, "fermentations," kilesas].
• 3. The Commentary equates "words destructive of the Dhamma" with "animal talk." See the discussion under Pacittiya 85 in The Buddhist Monastic Code [Vinaya].
• 4. The "heartwood" of learning and insight is liberation (awakening, bodhi, nirvana).