Khuddaka Nikaya - Sutta Nipata - Tissa Metteyya Sutta

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Sn 4.7
Tissa Metteyya Sutta
Tissa Metteyya
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro BhikkhuPTS: Sn 814-823



Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.



Copyright © 1994 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1994
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
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"Tell the danger, dear sir,
for one given over
to sexual intercourse.
Having heard your teaching,
we'll train in seclusion."
The Buddha:
"In one given over
to sexual intercourse,
the teaching's confused
and he practices wrongly:
this is ignoble
in him.
Whoever once went alone,
but then resorts
to sexual intercourse
— like a carriage out of control —
is called vile in the world,
a person run-of-the-mill.
His earlier honor & dignity:
lost.
Seeing this,
he should train himself
to abandon sexual intercourse.

Overcome by resolves,
he broods
like a miserable wretch.
Hearing the scorn of others,
he's chagrined.
He makes weapons,
attacked by the words of others.
This, for him, is a great entanglement.
He
sinks
into lies.

They thought him wise
when he committed himself
to the life alone,
but now that he's given
to sexual intercourse
they declare him a fool.

Seeing these drawbacks, the sage
here — before & after —
stays firm in the life alone;
doesn't resort to sexual intercourse;
would train himself
in seclusion —
this, for the noble ones, is
supreme.
He wouldn't, because of that,
think himself
better than others:
He's on the verge
of Unbinding.

People enmeshed
in sensual pleasures,
envy him: free,
a sage
leading his life
unconcerned for sensual pleasures
— one who's crossed over the flood."