Venerable Rāhulaperson
2 discourses
The Buddha's son, and the disciple he taught like a craftsman, in small lessons exactly fitted. He had the boy contemplate the four elements as 'not mine, not self, not my self,' each as unshaken by praise and blame as the earth and water themselves (AN 4.177); and he drilled the senses, the aggregates, and their craving in the short suttas of the saṃyutta in his name, until nothing was fit to be called 'mine, I am this, my self' (SN 18.1–22). The training matured in the Dark Forest: seeing that Rāhula's qualities for liberation had ripened, the Buddha taught the six sense bases and their objects, and Rāhula's mind was freed from the taints by not grasping (MN 147). The verses of the Rāhula Sutta keep the father's voice: shun sensual craving, abide secluded, keep the body in mindfulness (SNP 2.11).
Discourses
When the venerable Rāhula asks for a brief teaching to support his solitary practice, the Buddha guides him through an inquiry into the six sense bases, revealing how seeing their transient nature dismantles self-grasping and opens the way to liberation.
PTS 2.244Warning against the pitfalls of familiarity, the Buddha frequently admonished young Rāhula to shun sensual craving, abide in secluded lodgings, maintain bodily mindfulness, and develop signless meditation so as to eradicate all lingering conceit and attain lasting peace.
PTS 58