Infant🌱 simile

The Buddha explains the five lower fetters and the way of practice for abandoning them.

The Buddha refutes the idea that merely refraining from bad deeds makes one a supreme ascetic, pointing out this would make infants enlightened. True awakening requires actively abandoning unwholesome states and cultivating the ten qualities of an adept.

The wanderer Vekhanasa praises an undefined supreme beauty. Through graded comparisons of radiance, from a beryl gem to the midday sun, the Buddha exposes the limits of sensual objects and points to the higher pleasure found in release from ignorance.