Thus have I heard. The Blessed One was once going along the high road between Râgagaha and Nâlandâ with a great company of the brethren, with about five hundred brethren. And Suppiya the mendicant too was going along the high road between Râgagaha and Nâlandâ with his disciple the youth Brahmadatta. Now just then Suppiya the mendicant was speaking in many ways in dispraise of the Buddha, in dispraise of the Doctrine, in dispraise of the Order. But young Brahmadatta, his pupil, gave utterance, in many ways, to praise of the Buddha, to praise of the Doctrine, to praise of the Order. Thus they two, teacher and pupil, holding opinions in direct contradiction one to the other, were following, step by step, after the Blessed One and the company of the brethren.
A discourse of the Buddha regarding the way in which the mind of ordinary people works - from object to perception, concept, conceiving of related ideas and finding pleasure in it - in contrast to the direct knowledge and abandoning of cravings of the Tathagata (Truth-finder).
A discourse of the Buddha on the way to get rid of the asavas - by scrutiny of mental states, by restraint of the senses, by proper use of food, clothing, lodging etc., by endurance of painful feelings, by avoidance of dangerous places and bad friends, by removal of wrong mental states and by culture of the factors of enlightenment: self-collectedness, study of the Doctrine, strenuous effort, zest, tranquillity, concentration and equanimity.
The Buddha instructs the bhikksus to seek to be partakers not of the world's goods, but of his Doctrine. His discourse is followed by one by Sariputta on detachment of the inner life.
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Sutta Nipata
'For him who has disappeared there is no form, O Upasîva,' [-] so said Bhagavat, [-] 'that by which they say he is, exists for him no longer, when all things [I](dhamma)[/I] have been cut off, all (kinds of) dispute are also cut off.'
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the...
Earnestness is the path of immortality (Nirvana), thoughtlessness the path of death. Those who are in earnest do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.
Those who are...
As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to guard, difficult to hold back.
As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on dry ground...
Who shall overcome this earth, and the world of Yama (the lord of the departed), and the world of the gods? Who shall find out the plainly shown path of virtue, as a clever man finds out the (right) flower?
The disciple will overcome the earth, and the world of Yama, and the world of...
Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.
If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better, or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey;
Several times during my long residence in Hong Kong I endeavoured to read through the “Narrative of Fa-hien;” but though interested with the graphic details of much of the work, its columns bristled so constantly — now with his phonetic representations of Sanskrit words, and now with his substitution for them of their meanings in Chinese characters, and I was, moreover, so much occupied with my own special labours on the Confucian Classics, that my success was far from satisfactory.
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English Edition