Numbered Discourses 6.23

3. Unsurpassable

Dangers

“‘Danger’, bhikkhus, is a term for sensual pleasures. ‘Suffering’, ‘disease’, ‘boil’, ‘snare’, and ‘bog’ are terms for sensual pleasures.

And why is ‘danger’ a term for sensual pleasures? Someone who is besotted by sensual greed and shackled by lustful desire is not freed from dangers in the present life or in lives to come. That is why ‘danger’ is a term for sensual pleasures.

And why are ‘suffering’, ‘disease’, ‘boil’, ‘snare’, and ‘bog’ terms for sensual pleasures? Someone who is besotted by sensual greed and shackled by lustful desire is not freed from suffering, disease, boils, chains, or bogs in the present life or in lives to come. That is why these are terms for sensual pleasures.

Danger, suffering, disease, boils, and snares and bogs both. These describe the sensual pleasures to which ordinary people are attached.

Seeing the danger in grasping, the origin of birth and death, the unattached are freed with the ending of birth and death.

Happy, they’ve come to a safe place, extinguished in this very life. They’ve gone beyond all threats and dangers, and risen above all suffering.”