Khuddaka Nikaya - Nettippakarana - The Play of Lions

Khuddaka Nikaya - Nettippakarana ( The Guide ) - The Play of Lions

ACCORDING TO
KACCANA THERA

TRANSLATED FROM THE PALI BY
BHIKKHU NANAMOLI
Pali Text Society
[The Play of Lions]
739. The play of these [is as follows]:
There are four nutriments: their opposites are the four ways.
There are four perversions: their opposites are the four foundations
of mindfulness. There are four assumings: their opposites are the
four meditations. There are four bonds: their opposites are the
four abidings. There are four ties: their opposites are the four
right endeavours. There are four taints: their opposites are the
four wonderful marvellous ideas. There are four floods: their
opposites are the four expressions. There are four barbs: their
opposites are the four ways of keeping concentration in being.
There are four steadying-points for consciousness: their opposites
are the four ideas that deal with pleasure. There are four goings
on a bad way: their opposites are the four measureless states (cf.
Pe 248-9).
740. The Lions are the Enlightened Ones, the Hermit Enlightened
Ones, and the hearers who have destroyed lust, hate, and delusion.
Their play [consists in] keeping in being, in verification, and in
termination.
The play is the expression of the faculties [beginning with faith
(cf. §670), and] the play is the non-expression of the perverted-
nesses:
1
the [four] faculties [of energy, mindfulness, concentration,
and understanding] are the pasture for the true object of [the
faculty of] faith, the pervertednesses being the pasture for defile-
ment. This is called the Play-of -Lions Guide-Line and the
Plotting-of-Directions Guide-Line. That is why it was said:
737/1 Read indriyasamvaro (one compound) or indriydnam samvaro for
indriyarh samvaro.
740/1 * Vipariydsa—pervertedness': not in PED; variant spelling of vipalldsa.
See Vin. iv, 79 = M. ii, 248.

The wise in Guide-Lines have called that
Lions' Play, which by the faculties
Does faith's true objects guide, and also
By the perversions the defilements' (§23),
and also
'What mentally plots out [ideas
Of] profit and unprofit stated
Or here or there in expositions
They call the Plotting of Directions' (§§24, 673).
*