The Related Suttas Collection 21.1

1. Monks

With Kolita

So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. There Venerable Mahāmoggallāna addressed the bhikkhus: “Friends, bhikkhus!”

“Friend,” they replied.

Venerable Mahāmoggallāna said this:

“Just now, friends, as I was in private retreat this thought came to mind: ‘They speak of this thing called “noble silence”. What then is this noble silence?’

It occurred to me: ‘As the thougths being born and the sustained analysis going on are stilled, a bhikkhu enters and remains in the second jhāna, which has the (mental) joy and (bodily) pleasure born of samādhi, with internal clarity and mind at one, without thougths being born and without sustained analysis going on. This is called noble silence.’

And so, as the thougths being born and the sustained analysis going on were stilled, I was entering and remaining in the second jhāna, which has the (mental) joy and (bodily) pleasure born of samādhi, with internal clarity and mind at one, without thougths being born and without sustained analysis going on.

While I was in that meditation, perceptions accompanied by thougths being born beset me due to loss of focus.

Then the Buddha came up to me with his psychic power and said, ‘Moggallāna, Moggallāna! Don’t neglect noble silence, brahmin! Settle your mind in noble silence; unify your mind and bring it to samādhi in noble silence.’

And so, after some time, as the thougths being born and the sustained analysis going on were stilled, I entered and remained in the second jhāna …

So if anyone should be rightly called a disciple who attained to great direct knowledge with help from the Teacher, it’s me.”