“Mendicants, an unlearned ordinary person feels pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. A learned
noble disciple [one anywhere along the four stages of enlightenment]
also feels pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings.
What, then, is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an ordinary unlearned person?”
“Our teachings are rooted in the Buddha. …”
“When an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings, she or he sorrows and wails and laments, beating the breast and falling into confusion. One experiences two feelings, physical and mental.
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| One is bad enough. Why make it worse? |
“It is like a person who is
struck by an arrow only to be struck with a second arrow. That person experiences the feeling of two arrows.
“In the same way, when an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings, one sorrows and wails and laments, beating one’s breast and falling into confusion. One experiences two feelings, physical and mental.
“When one is touched by painful feeling, one resists it. The underlying tendency for revulsion [aversion, resistance, hate, dosa] towards painful feeling underlies that.
“When touched by painful feeling, one looks forward to enjoying sensual pleasures. Why is that? It is because an unlearned ordinary person does not understand any other escape from painful feeling apart from [the temporary and unfulfilling distraction of] sensual pleasures.
“Since one looks forward to enjoying sensual pleasures, the underlying tendency to greed [lust, craving, grasping, clinging, lobha] for pleasant feeling underlies that.
“One does not truly understand feelings’ origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape. The underlying tendency to ignorance [delusion, confusion, wrong view, moha] about neutral feeling underlies that.
“If one feels a pleasant feeling, one feels it attached. If one feels a painful feeling, one feels it attached. If one feels a neutral feeling, one feels it attached.
“One is called an unlearned ordinary person who is attached [clinging] to rebirth, old age, and death, to sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, one who is attached to suffering [disappointment, unsatisfactoriness], I say.
Noble disciples
“When a learned noble disciple experiences painful physical feelings, one does not sorrow nor wail nor lament, beating one’s breast and falling into confusion. One experiences one feeling: physical, not mental.
“It is like a person who is struck by an arrow but not struck by a second arrow. That person would only experience the feeling of one arrow.
“In the same way, when a learned noble disciple experiences painful physical feelings, one does not sorrow nor wail nor lament, beating the breast and falling into confusion. One experiences one feeling, physical, not mental.
“When one is touched by painful feeling, one does not resist it. There is no underlying tendency for revulsion towards painful feeling underlying that.
“When touched by painful feeling, one does not look forward to enjoying sensual pleasures. Why is that? It is because a learned noble disciple understands an escape from painful feeling apart from sensual pleasures.
“Since one does not look forward to enjoying sensual pleasures, there is no underlying tendency to greed for pleasant feeling underlying that.
“One truly understands feelings’ origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape. There is no underlying tendency to ignorance about neutral feeling underlying that.
“If one feels a pleasant feeling, one feels it detached. If one feels a painful feeling, one feels it detached. If one feels a neutral feeling, one feels it detached.
“One is called a learned noble disciple who is detached from rebirth, old age, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, one who is detached from suffering, I say.
“This is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an unlearned ordinary person.
Summary in verse
“A wise and learned disciple is unmoved
by feelings of pleasure and pain.
This is the great difference in skill
between the wise and the ordinary.
A learned disciple who has appraised the Teaching
discerns this world and the next.
Desirable things do not disturb the mind
nor is one repelled by the repulsive.
Both favoring and opposing
are cleared and ended and are no more.
Knowing the stainless and sorrowless state,
one who has gone beyond rebirth
understands rightly.”
