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### Sutta Nipata IV.2

# Guhatthaka Sutta

# The Cave of the Body

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.

> Staying attached to the cave,
> covered heavily over,[1]
> a person sunk in confusion
> is far from seclusion --
> for sensual pleasures
> sensual desires[2]
> in the world
> are not lightly let go.

> Those chained by desire,
> bound by becoming's allure,
> aren't easily released
> for there's no liberation by others.
> Intent, in front or behind,[3]
> on hunger for sensual pleasures
> here or before --
> greedy
> for sensual pleasures,
> busy, deluded, ungenerous,
> entrenched in the out-of-tune way,[4]
> they -- impelled into pain -- lament:
> "What will we be
> when we pass on from here?"

> So a person should train
> right here & now.
> Whatever you know
> as out-of-tune in the world,
> don't, for its sake, act out-of-tune,
> for that life, the enlightened say,
> is short.

> I see them,
> in the world, floundering around,
> people immersed in craving
> for states of becoming.
> Base people moan in the mouth of death,
> their craving, for states of becoming & not-,[5]
> unallayed.

> See them,
> floundering in their sense of mine,
> like fish in the puddles
> of a dried-up stream --
> and, seeing this,
> live with no mine,
> not forming attachment
> for states of becoming.
> Subdue desire
> for both sides,[6]
> comprehending[7] sensory contact,
> with no greed.

> Doing nothing for which
> he himself
> would rebuke himself,
> the enlightened person doesn't adhere
> to what's seen,
> to what's heard.
> Comprehending perception,
> he'd cross over the flood --
> the sage not stuck
> on possessions.
> Then, with arrow removed,
> living heedfully, he longs for neither --
> this world,
> the next.

### Notes

1. Nd.I: "Covered heavily over" with defilements and unskillful mental qualities. [Go back]

2. "Sensual desires/sensual pleasures": two possible meanings of kama. According to Nd.I, both meanings are intended here. [Go back]

3. Nd.I: "In front" means experienced in the past (as does "before" two lines down); "behind" means to-be-experienced in the future. [Go back]

4. Nd.I: "The out-of-tune way" means the ten types of unskillful action (see AN X.176). [Go back]

5. States of not-becoming are oblivious states of becoming that people can get themselves into through a desire for annihilation, either after death or as a goal of their religious striving (see Iti 49). As with all states of becoming, these states are impermanent and stressful. [Go back]

6. According to Nd.I, "both sides" here has several possible meanings: sensory contact and the origination of sensory contact; past and future; name and form; internal and external sense media; self-identity and the origination of self-identity. It also might mean states of becoming and not-becoming, mentioned in the previous verse and below, in Sn IV.5. [Go back]

7. Nd.I: Comprehending sensory contact has three aspects: being able to identify and distinguish types of sensory contact; contemplating the true nature of sensory contact (e.g., inconstant, stressful, and not-self); and abandoning attachment to sensory contact. The same three aspects would apply to comprehending perception, as mentioned in the following verse. [Go back]

See also: AN IV.184

Revised: Tue 16 April 2002