Venerable Sāriputta👤person

The Buddha illustrates that his true inheritance is the Dhamma, not material possessions. Venerable Sāriputta clarifies the practice of seclusion by listing numerous harmful qualities to abandon and the Middle Way that leads to abandoning of them, to clear vision, wisdom, tranquility, to full awakening.

Venerable Sāriputta describes four types of persons based on their awareness of inner blemishes—harmful, unwholesome mental qualities. Using the simile of a bronze bowl, he shows that recognizing one's own faults is essential to attaining an undefiled mind.

The venerable Sāriputta delivers a comprehensive exposition on “Right View,” detailing sixteen ways a noble disciple achieves clarity in the Dhamma. By understanding the wholesome and unwholesome, nutriments, the Four Noble Truths, dependent origination, and the taints—including their arising and cessation—a disciple abandons underlying tendencies and realizes the end of suffering.

When a bhikkhu who has left the Dhamma and training is disparaging the Buddha’s states as merely human and his teaching as merely leading to the end of suffering, the Buddha counters that this is in fact praise and goes on to enumerate his various attainments.

When venerable Sāriputta meets venerable Puṇṇa Mantāṇiputta, he asks whether the spiritual life is lived for the sake of various purifications—of conduct, mind, view, overcoming doubt, knowing the path, knowing the practice, and knowledge and vision. Venerable Mantāṇiputta explains, with the simile of seven relay chariots, that each stage of purification serves only as a step toward the next, culminating in final Nibbāna without clinging—the true goal of the spiritual life.

Venerable Sāriputta explains how all wholesome teachings are encompassed by the Four Noble Truths. He then explains the four great elements of earth, water, fire and wind.

In the Gosiṅga Sal wood park, Sāriputta asks several elder disciples what kind of monk illuminates the place. Each answers based on their personal strength — learning, seclusion, divine eye, asceticism, Dhamma dialogue and mastery over mind. They present their answers to the Buddha, who affirms that all have spoken well and then shares his own answer.

A series of questions and answers between venerable Sāriputta and venerable Mahākoṭṭhita that clarify subtle yet important aspects of the teachings. Topics covered include wisdom, consciousness, felt experience, perception, purified mind-consciousness, right view, existence, first jhāna, the five faculties, vital formations, and the release of the mind.

The Buddha shows the wanderer Dīghanakha how obstinately clinging to the view that “nothing is acceptable” inevitably causes disputes and vexation. He then teaches the impermanence of the body and the naturally wearing-away nature of feelings. Hearing this, Sāriputta attains full liberation through non-clinging, while Dīghanakha attains the stainless Dhamma eye.

The Buddha affirms the Four Noble Truths as the core of his teaching and praises venerable Sāriputta’s deep understanding of them, who then expounds the truths, detailing suffering in all its forms, the arising of suffering rooted in craving, the end of suffering, and the Noble Eightfold Path as the way of practice leading to the end suffering.

Gravely ill, the householder Anāthapiṇḍika is visited by Sāriputta and Ānanda. Sāriputta delivers a profound discourse on non-clinging, instructing him not to let consciousness depend on the senses, elements, or aggregates.

Dismantling contemporary debates on the origin of experience, the Buddha and Sāriputta declare that pleasure and pain are dependently arisen from contact. The text maps how intentions regarding the body, speech, and mind actively generate bodily, verbal, and mental constructs under the condition of ignorance.

When an aging householder approaches the Buddha distressed by his failing body, the Buddha advises him to train so his mind remains unafflicted despite physical decline. The venerable Sāriputta then clarifies this teaching.

Which things should a virtuous bhikkhu radically attend to? Venerable Sāriputta explains how a bhikkhu at each stage of awakening should radically attend to the five aggregates that are subject to clinging.

Which things should a learned bhikkhu radically attend to? Venerable Sāriputta explains how a bhikkhu at each stage of awakening should radically attend to the five aggregates that are subject to clinging.

The venerable Sāriputta describes his experience of the first jhāna.

Venerable Mahākoṭṭhita asks Venerable Sāriputta if the eye is the fetter of forms or if forms are the fetter of the eye. Venerable Sāriputta explains that it is the desire and attachment that arises in dependence on both that is the fetter.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the path and the way for the realization of Nibbāna.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the path and the way of practice for the realization of awakening.

Ven. Sāriputta answers the question of what is difficult to do in the teaching and discipline, and what is difficult for one who has gone forth.

When Sāriputta says that good friendship is the whole of the spiritual life, the Buddha agrees, explaining that good friendship is the basis for the development of the Noble Eightfold Path.

Venerable Sāriputta explains how he can dwell in any of the seven factors of awakening at will, knowing their qualities and conditions. He likens this mastery to a king or royal minister freely choosing garments from a wardrobe for morning, midday, or evening wear.

The Buddha asks Sāriputta if a devoted disciple harbors any doubt about the Tathāgata or his teaching. Sāriputta explains how unwavering faith naturally generates energy, mindfulness, collectedness, and penetrating wisdom. Through direct personal experience of Nibbāna—rather than mere hearsay—the disciple’s faith transforms into absolute, unshakeable conviction. The Buddha praises this analysis.

The venerable Ānanda asks the venerable Sāriputta about the qualities that make a person a stream-enterer, no longer subject to downfall, fixed in destiny, and headed for full awakening.

The Buddha asks Sāriputta about the four factors of stream-entry, what the stream is, and who is a stream-enterer.

Venerable Sāriputta inquires of the Buddha about how a bhikkhu dwelling in solitude should deal with various challenges and cultivate the path. The Buddha delivers a complete guide for dispelling the darkness, moving from withstanding hardships to dispelling ‘distressing thoughts’ and ultimately purifying the mind from the ‘five kinds of dust.’

Venerable Sāriputta describes the four analytical knowledges he realized a half-month after his full ordination.

Five ways to remove arisen resentment toward a person based on their bodily conduct, verbal conduct, and mental clarity.

When the venerable Udāyī repeatedly contradicts Sāriputta regarding mind-made bodies and cessation, the Buddha intervenes to correct his misunderstanding. Afterwards, the venerable Upavāṇa enumerates the five essential qualities that make an elder monk truly worthy of respect.

One who delights in work, talk, sleep, company, bonding, and mental proliferation faces a bad death, remaining bound to personal existence.

One who delights in work, talk, sleep, company, bonding, and mental proliferation faces a passing full of regret and remains bound to personal existence.

After the lay disciple Nandamātā is visited by the deity Vessavaṇa, she recounts the event to the venerable Sāriputta. She then lists her seven wonderful and marvelous qualities, including profound equanimity in the face of tragedy, her attainment of the four jhānas, and her attainment of non-returning.

Venerable Sāriputta is sitting in meditation posture, aligning his body upright, having set up mindfulness at the fore. The Blessed One sees this and expresses an inspired utterance.

When a reckless spirit strikes the venerable Sāriputta with a blow powerful enough to split a mountain, the elder remains in deep collectedness, feeling only a “little pain.”

Seeing venerable Sāriputta sitting in a meditation posture, content, secluded, disentangled and with energy aroused for cultivation of the mind, the Buddha expresses an inspired utterance.

Seeing the venerable Sāriputta sitting cross-legged and reviewing his own tranquility, the Buddha expresses an inspired utterance about the ultimate freedom of a calmed and peaceful mind.

Seeing venerable Lakuṇḍaka Bhaddiya’s mind liberated from the taints through not grasping from a talk on the Dhamma by venerable Sāriputta, the Blessed One expresses an inspired utterance about his liberation.

Seeing venerable Sāriputta instructing venerable Lakuṇḍaka Bhaddiya even more, considering him to be a trainee despite his mind having already been liberated, the Blessed One expresses an inspired utterance about the cutting of the round and the end of suffering.