"The Cave of the Body" (Guhatthaka Sutta)
Clinging to this cave heavily defiled [1]
from craving for the sensual pleasures [2]
of the world, which are hard to let go.
Those chained to craving
bound by the allure of becoming
find no release
for there is no liberation by others.
Intent, before and behind [3], on thirst
for sensual pleasure here or before —
full of lust for sensual pleasures,
busy, deluded, greedy, entrenched
in the wobbling way [4] they —
impelled into pain — lament:
"What will we be
when we pass away from here?"
So one ought to train here and now.
Whatever one knows as wobbling
in the world, do not, for its sake, behave,
for such life, the enlightened say, is short.
I see them in the world
floundering
men immersed in craving
for new states of becoming.
Base people moan in the mouth of death, their craving
See them floundering in their sense of mine like fish in the
puddles of a dried-up stream — and, seeing this,
live with no sense of mine, not forming
attachments to states of becoming.
Subdue craving for both sides [6],
comprehending [7] sensory contact free of greed.
Doing nothing for which one would oneself
rebuke oneself, for the enlightened person
adheres not to what is seen, to what's heard.
Comprehending perception, one crosses over the flood —
the sage unstuck from possessions.
One, with arrow removed, lives heedful,
longing for neither
this world nor the next.
ENDNOTES
- Nd.I: Covered with defilements and unskillful mental states, characteristics, qualities.
- "Sensual craving" and "sensual pleasures" are two possible translations of kama ("sensuality"). According to Nd.I, both meanings are intended here.
- Nd.I: "Before" ("in front") means experienced in the past; "behind" means to-be-experienced in the future.
- Nd.I: "Wobbling way" means the karma of the Ten Courses of Unwholesome Action. (See AN 10.176).
- States of not-becoming = "oblivion." These are states of becoming that people can get themselves into through a desire or craving for annihilation, either after death or as a misguided goal of their spiritual striving. (See Iti 49, ucchedavada, annihilationism). As with all states of becoming, these states are impermanent (transient) and disappointing (painful).
- According to Nd.I, "both sides" has here several possible meanings: sensory contact and the origination of sensory contact; past and future; name-and-form; internal and external sense media; self-identity (view) and the origination of self-identity. It might also mean the states of becoming and not-becoming (eternalism and annihilationism) mentioned in the previous verse and below, in Sn 4.5.
- Nd.I: Comprehending sensory contact has three aspects: (1) being able to identify and distinguish types of sensory contact; (2) contemplating the true nature of sensory contact (e.g., impermanent/inconstant, disappointing/unable to fulfill, and impersonal/not-self); and (3) abandoning attachment to sensory contact. The same three aspects apply to comprehending perception, as mentioned in the following verse.
