Khuddaka Nikaya - Sutta Nipata - Tissa-metteyya-manava-puccha

Sn 5.2
Tissa-metteyya-manava-puccha
Tissa-metteyya's Questions
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro BhikkhuPTS: Sn 1040-1042



Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.



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[Tissa-metteyya:]
Who
here in the world
is contented?
Who
has no agitations?
What thinker
knowing both sides,
doesn't adhere in between?
Whom
do you call a great person?
Who here
has gone past
the seamstress:
craving.
[The Buddha:]
He who
in the midst of sensualities,
follows the holy life,
always mindful, craving-free;
the monk who is
— through fathoming things —
Unbound:
he has no agitations. He,
the thinker
knowing both sides,
doesn't adhere in between. He
I call a great person. He
here has gone past
the seamstress:
craving.



Note
AN 6.61 reports a discussion among several elder monks as to what is meant in
this poem by "both sides" and "in between." Six of the elders express the
following separate opinions:
Contact is the first side, the origination of contact the second side, and the
cessation of contact is in between.
The past is the first side, the future the second, and the present is in
between.
Pleasant feeling is the first side, painful feeling the second, and
neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling is in between.
Name (mental phenomena) is the first side, form (physical phenomena) the
second, and consciousness is in between.
The six external sense media (sights, sounds, aromas, flavors, tactile
sensations, ideas) are the first side, the six internal sense media (eye, ear,
nose, tongue, body, intellect) the second side, and consciousness is in
between.
Self-identity is the first side, the origination of self-identity the second,
and the cessation of self-identity is in between.
The issue is then taken to the Buddha, who states that all six interpretations
are well-spoken, but the interpretation he had in mind when speaking the poem
was the first.