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### Sutta Nipata V.11

# Jatukanni-manava-puccha

# Jatukannin's Question

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

Jatukannin:

> Hearing that there was a hero --
> desiring no sensuality,
> having crossed over the flood --
> I've come with a question:
> Tell me the state of peace,
> O One with quick eyes. O Blessed One,
> tell me
> as it actually is.
> For the Blessed One lives
> having surpassed sensuality,
> as the radiant sun, in its radiance,
> the earth.
> Limited my discernment,
> O One whose discernment's profound.
> Teach me to know the Dhamma,
> the abandoning here
> of birth
> & aging.

The Buddha:

> Subdue greed for sensual pleasures,
> & see renunciation as rest.
> Let there be nothing grasped
> or rejected by you.
> Burn up what's before,
> and have nothing for after.
> If you don't grasp
> at what's in between, [1]
> you will go about, calm.
> One completely devoid of greed
> for name & form, brahman,
> has
> no effluents
> by which he would go
> under Mara's sway.

### Note

1. According to Nd.II, "before" stands for defilements related to the past, "after" for defilements related to the future, and "in between" for the five aggregates -- form, feeling, perception, thought-fabrications, sensory consciousness -- in the present. [Go back]

Revised: Wed 16 May 2001