Hatthaka Sutta

Jaliya Sutta

About Jaliya

Thus Have I Heard:

Once the Lord was staying at Kosambi, in the Ghosita Park.  And two wanderers, Mandissa and Jaliya, the pupil of the wooden-bowl ascetic, came to him, exchanged courtesies with him and sat down to one side …

  “Once, Mahali, I was staying at Kosambi, in the Ghosita Park.  And two wanderers, Mandissa and Jaliya, the pupil of the wooden-bowl ascetic, came to me, exchanged courtesies with me, and sat down to one side.  Then they said:  “How is it, friend Gotama, is the soul the same as the body, or is the soul one thing and the body another?”  “Well now, friends, you listen, pay proper attention, and I will explain.”  “Yes, friend,” they said, and I went on:

“Friends, a Tathágata arises in the world, an Arahant, fully-enlightened Buddha, endowed with wisdom and conduct, Well-Farer, Knower of the worlds, incomparable Trainer of men to be tamed, Teacher of Gods and humans, enlightened and blessed.  He, having realized it by his own super-knowledge, proclaims this world with its Devas, Maras and Brahmas, its princes and people.  He preaches the Dhamma, which is lovely in it’s beginning, lovely in its middle, lovely in it’s ending, in the spirit and in the letter, and displays the fully-perfected and purified holy life.

“A disciple goes forth and practices the moralities” (Digha Nikáya 2, verses 41–63).  On account of his morality, he sees no danger anywhere.  He experiences in himself the blameless bliss that comes from maintaining this Aryan morality.  In this way, he is perfected in morality (as Digha Nikáya 2, verses 64–74) …  It is as if he were freed from debt, from sickness, from bonds, from slavery, from the perils of the desert …  Being thus detached from sense-desires, detached from unwholesome states, he enters and remains in the first jhana … and so suffuses, drenches, fills and irradiates his body, that there is no spot in his entire body that is untouched by this delight and joy born of detachment.  Now of one who thus knows and thus sees, is it proper to say:  “The soul is the same as the body,” or “The soul is different from the body?”    “It is not, friend.”   “But I thus know and see, and I do not say that the soul is either the same as, or different from the body.”

“And the same with the second…the third…the fourth jhana” (as Digha Nikáya 2, verses 77–82).   “The mind bends and tends towards knowledge and vision.  Now, of one who thus knows and thus sees, is it proper to say:  “The soul is the same as the body,” or “The soul is different from the body?”  “It is not, friend.”

He knows: “There is nothing further here.”  Now of one who thus knows and thus sees, is it proper to say:  “The soul is the same as the body,” or “The soul is different from the body?”  “It is not, friend.”  “But I thus know and see, and I do not say that the soul is either the same as, or different from the body.”

Thus the Lord spoke, and the two wanderers rejoiced at his words.

Footnotes:

  1   For some reason, the last part of Digha Nikáya 6 is here repeated as a separate Sutta.

Jara Sutta

Old Age

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi in the Eastern Monastery, the palace of Migara's mother. Now on that occasion the Blessed One, on emerging from seclusion in the late afternoon, sat warming his back in the western sun. Then Ven. Ánanda went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One, massaged the Blessed One's limbs with his hand and said, "It's amazing, lord. It's astounding, how the Blessed One's complexion is no longer so clear and bright; his limbs are flabby and wrinkled; his back, bent forward; there's a discernible change in his faculties -- the faculty of the eye, the faculty of the ear, the faculty of the nose, the faculty of the tongue, the faculty of the body."

"That's the way it is, Ánanda. When young, one is subject to aging; when healthy, subject to illness; when alive, subject to death. The complexion is no longer so clear and bright; the limbs are flabby and wrinkled; the back, bent forward; there's a discernible change in the faculties -- the faculty of the eye, the faculty of the ear, the faculty of the nose, the faculty of the tongue, the faculty of the body."

That is what the Blessed One said. Having said that, the One Well-gone, the Teacher, said further:

I spit on you, old age --old age that makes for ugliness.

The bodily image, so charming,
is trampled by old age.
Even those who live to a hundred
are headed -- all -- to an end in death,
which spares no one,
which tramples all.

Jara Sutta

Old Age

How short this life!
You die this side of 100 years,
but even if you live past,
you die of old age.

People grieve

for what they see as mine,
for nothing possessed is constant,
nothing is constantly possessed.
Seeing this separation
simply as it is,
one should not live the household life.

At death a person abandons

what he construes as mine.
Realizing this, the wise
should not incline
to be devoted to mine.

Just as a man doesn't see,

on awakening,
what he met in a dream,
even so he doesn't see,
when they are dead
 -- their time done --
those he held dear.

Even when they are seen and heard,

people are called by this or that name,
but only the name remains
to be pointed to
when they are dead.

Grief, lamentation, and avarice

are not let go
by those greedy for mine,
so sages
letting go of possessions,
seeing the Secure,
go wandering forth.

Of a monk, living withdrawn,

enjoying a dwelling secluded:
they say it's congenial
that he not, in any realm,
display self.

Everywhere

the sage
independent
holds nothing dear or un-dear.

In him
lamentation and selfishness,

like water on a white lotus,
do not adhere.

As a water bead on a lotus leaf,

as water on a red lily,
does not adhere, so the sage
does not adhere
to the seen, the heard, or the sensed;

for, cleansed,

he does not construe
by means of the seen, the heard, or the sensed.

In no other way

does he ask for purity,
for neither impassioned
nor dis-passioned
is he.