A series of questions and answers between the lay follower Visākha and bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā that clarify subtle yet important aspects of the teachings. Topics covered include personal existence, Noble Eightfold Path, intentional constructs, attainment of cessation of perception and what is felt, felt experience, underlying tendencies and various counterparts.

The Buddha outlines an approach to cross-examine other sects and their doctrines, and how to distinguish between the true Dhamma and the false Dhamma through the comprehension of the four kinds of clinging.

The Buddha explains the process of thoroughly investigating the arising and cessation of suffering through dependent co-arising.

The Buddha analyzes each of the twelve links of dependent co-arising, and explains how there is an arising and ending of the whole mass of suffering.

Venerable Kaccānagotta asks the Buddha about right view, and the Buddha explains how the world depends on a duality of existence and non-existence, and how the Tathāgata teaches the Dhamma by the middle way.

When a misguided monk clings to the idea of an unchanging consciousness that “wanders through rebirths,” the Buddha corrects him, revealing the truth of dependent co-arising. Consciousness, like fire, arises only through conditions. Tracing the cycle of existence from the four nutriments and conception to the snare of sensory reaction, he shows the way to the complete exhaustion of craving.

After examining the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and the changing nature of the five aggregates, the Buddha teaches how to see them with proper wisdom, as not being suitable to identify with.

Only after fully understanding the gratification, drawback, and escape in the case of form, felt experience, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness, the Buddha declared that he had attained the unsurpassed perfect awakening.

Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not knowing intentional constructs, the arising of intentional constructs, the cessation of intentional constructs, and the practice leading to the cessation of intentional constructs.

The Buddha explains how anxiety arises through clinging and how there is freedom from anxiety through non-clinging.

The Buddha describes how wrong view leads to unwholesome qualities and suffering, while right view leads to wholesome qualities and happiness and what kind of attention fuels what kind of view.

The Buddha teaches about dependent co-arising and the phenomena arisen from dependent co-arising. A noble disciple who has thoroughly seen this with right wisdom will no longer be doubtful about who they were in the past, who they will be in the future, or who they are in the present.

The causes, supporting conditions for the arising of the five aggregates are impermanent, so then how could the five aggregates be stable?