DhammaPada verses 179-196 describe the boundless and traceless nature of the Buddha, the teachings of all the Buddhas, rarity of a human birth, rarity of the arising of a Buddha, what is a safe refuge that leads to release from suffering, and the merit gained by ones who honor the Buddhas or their disciples.

Dhammapada verses 290–305 share on the renunciation of lesser happiness for greater joy, mindfulness of the body, and applying effort to overcome defilements. Further, the verses highlight the harm of neglecting what should be done, consequence of imposing suffering on another, while praising recollection of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha as well as the qualities of mindfulness, non-violence, and cultivation. The verses conclude with the benefits of solitude and the wilderness for those who are energetic and self-restrained.

Dhammapada verses 360–382 depict the ideal bhikkhu as one who restrains the senses, body, speech, and mind, leading to freedom from suffering. Emphasis is placed on mindfulness, inner joy, collectedness, and self-reliance. Through discipline and reflection, the bhikkhu advances towards the peace of Nibbāna, shining like the moon freed from clouds.

Dhammapada verses 383–423 redefine ‘Brāhmaṇa’ (sage) by inner attainment, not birth or appearance. Through effort, a true sage cuts craving, understands reality, and realizes Nibbāna. Fearless, detached, pure, and restrained, they embody non-violence and patience. Free from defilements and attachments, having overcome suffering and rebirth, the sage achieves the ultimate goal, radiating wisdom and peace.

The spiritual life is not lived for the purpose of deceiving people, nor for the purpose of winning favor with people, nor for the sake of acquisitions, respect, and popularity, nor for the thought ‘Let people know me.’ But rather, this spiritual life is lived for the purpose of restraint and for the purpose of letting go.

The Buddha describes the distinction between the two Nibbāna elements - 1) one with fuel remaining pertaining to this life, and 2) one without fuel remaining and of relevance to the hereafter.

The Buddha describes the three elements - 1) form element, 2) formless element, and 3) element of cessation.

The Buddha describes the three quests of sensual pleasure, renewed existence, and spiritual life.

The Buddha describes the three quests of sensual pleasure, renewed existence, and spiritual life as the result of holding tight to the thought ‘This is the truth’ and the accumulation of bases for views.

The Buddha describes the three kinds of craving - 1) craving for sensual pleasures, 2) craving for becoming, and 3) craving for non-becoming.

The Buddha describes the three kinds of purity - by body, speech and mind.

Whoever has not let go of passion, aversion, and delusion is said to be bound by Māra, ensnared by Māra’s trap, at the mercy of the Evil One, and subject to his will.

Whoever has let go of passion, aversion, and delusion is called one who has crossed beyond the ocean—with its waves, currents, whirlpools, lurking with fierce animals and monsters.

The Buddha describes the three elements of escape - renunciation, formless element and cessation.

The Buddha shares the three unwholesome thoughts - 1) concerning one’s reputation, 2) concerning acquisitions, respect, and popularity, and 3) associated with inappropriate concern for others.

The three unwholesome thoughts are blinding, produce lack of clarity, cause ignorance, obstruct wisdom, and are troublesome and not conducive to Nibbāna. The three wholesome thoughts give sight, produce clarity and create insight, grow wisdom, and are trouble-free and conducive to Nibbāna.

The Buddha uses the simile of a person being carried down by a lovely and alluring river current to illustrate the painful results of craving and indulgence in the internal sense bases.

The Buddha describes two types of bhikkhus based on how they deal with thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harming while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, and which one is capable of reaching the highest awakening.

The Buddha distinguishes pleasant abidings in the here and now from the way of effacement leading upwards to complete quenching. Effacement is shown as the gradual chipping away of defilements through restraint, cultivation of the noble eightfold path, and diligent training, culminating in the complete freedom of Nibbāna.

The Buddha explains how he divided his thoughts into two kinds - 1) thoughts of sensual desire, ill will, and harm; and 2) thoughts of relinquishment, non-ill will, and non-harm. He explains how he abandoned harmful thoughts and cultivated wholesome thoughts, leading to the attainment of the four jhānas and the three knowledges.

Using the simile of an elephant’s footprint, the Buddha illustrates how confidence in him develops gradually through practice. A noble disciple trains in conduct, sense restraint, contentment, and mindfulness, progressing through the jhānas. Unshakable confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha arises through direct knowledge and liberation.

A series of questions and answers between Venerable Sāriputta and Venerable Mahākoṭṭhika 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.

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 feeling, felt experience, underlying tendencies and various counterparts.

The Buddha explains how even small attachments can be strong fetters if not relinquished, using similes of a quail and an elephant, and contrasts between the poor and wealthy. He describes four types of practitioners based on their response to attachment and mindfulness. The discourse also presents gradual refinement of meditative attainments from the first jhāna to the cessation of perception and feeling.

The wanderer Māgaṇḍiya holds the view that sensual indulgence is spiritual growth and harshly criticizes the Buddha for teaching sense restraint, calling him a destroyer of spiritual growth. The Buddha skilfully reveals the true nature of sensual pleasures through vivid similes such as a leper finding relief by scorching himself over burning coals and a blind man mistaking a filthy rag for a spotless white cloth.

The Buddha teaches in detail how to develop mindfulness while breathing in and out through sixteen naturally unfolding steps, showing how their cultivation fulfills the four establishments of mindfulness, which in turn fulfill the seven factors of awakening, culminating in true knowledge and liberation.

The Buddha provides a detailed analysis of the six sense bases, differentiating worldly feelings based on attachment from those born of renunciation and insight. He outlines a progressive path of abandoning lower states for higher ones, guiding practitioners through refined meditative states toward complete liberation.

In a chance meeting, the Buddha, unrecognized by the bhikkhu Pukkusāti, teaches him to deconstruct experience into six elements, six fields of contact, eighteen mental explorations, and four foundations. He further reveals that all notions of self—such as “I am this” or “I will be that”—are mere conceptions, inherently afflictive, and the peace of Nibbāna is realized by overcoming all conceptual proliferations.

Verses depicting the path to liberation through the central metaphor of a serpent shedding its skin. Each stanza illustrates how a bhikkhu abandons defilements like anger, passion, craving, and conceit, thereby casting off attachment to this world and the next.

The Buddha’s serene conduct on an alms round catches the attention of King Bimbisāra. In the ensuing encounter, the king offers him wealth and royal pleasures, but the Buddha shares his insight on the drawbacks in sensual pleasures, his view of renunciation as security and where his mind delights in.

The Buddha explains the nature of a corrupted mind and the consequences of holding onto views in these verses.

The Buddha shares a reflection on aging and the impermanence of life and possessions. Seeing that all we call ‘mine’ must be lost at death, one should not cling to self. The sage, like a lotus leaf unstained by water, does not cling or spurn what is seen, heard, or sensed.

The venerable Jatukaṇṇi asks the Buddha on how to attain the state of peace and abandon birth and old age. The Buddha advises him to remove greed for sensual pleasures by seeing renunciation as safety, and to cease all grasping related to name and form in the past, future, as well as present.

For one brought to old age, there are no shelters.

Time flies by, one should abandon world’s bait, looking for peace.

A young deity recites a verse to the Buddha about the shortness of life and the importance of doing meritorious deeds.

A young deity observes that time flies by and speaks on performing meritorious deeds. The Buddha agrees with the observation but instead advises to drop the world's bait, and seek peace.

A young deity asks how to escape the body, described as a defiled form with “nine openings” bound by greed. The Buddha explains that escape requires severing specific mental bonds - one must cut the “strap” of grudge and the “harness” of craving, and uproot all harmful desires.

The Buddha explains how thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harming arise from a cause and how to abandon them.

What is the burden and who bears it, what is the taking up of the burden and the putting down of it.

The Buddha explains that those recollecting past lives are merely recalling one or more of the five aggregates. He defines each aggregate and shows how a noble disciple sees them as impermanent, dissatisfactory, and not suitable to identify with, leading to disenchantment, dispassion, and liberation.

The Buddha teaches the Dhamma for the giving up of everything based on the six sense bases and the process leading up to the arising of feeling and perception.

Everything, when not directly known, not completely comprehended, not detached from, and not let go of, is incapable of resulting in the wearing away of suffering.

The Buddha uses the simile of a log of wood carried by a river to explain the eight obstacles to reaching Nibbāna.

The Buddha explains in detail each factor of the noble eightfold path—right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness.

When a bhikkhu asks the Buddha why the factors of awakening are called so, the Buddha gives a simple and direct answer, ‘since they lead to awakening.’

The Buddha visits the dying lay disciple Dīghāvu and guides him to reflect on his solid foundation of faith and virtue (stream-entry), and then on deeper insights into impermanence. After his death, the Buddha declares him a wise non-returner, now bound for final Nibbāna.

When a brahmin assumes that the Buddha’s serene faculties and radiant appearance must result from enjoying the finest worldly luxuries, the Buddha explains the true “luxurious and lofty beds” he attains—the heavenly bed, through abiding in the jhānas; the brahmic bed, through the boundless cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity; and the noble bed, through the complete abandonment of passion, aversion, and delusion.

The Buddha uses the gradual purification of gold as a metaphor for mental cultivation through meditation. Just as a goldsmith removes coarse, medium, and subtle impurities until the gold is workable and radiant, a meditator abandons defilements in stages. This gradual refinement leads to deep collectedness of mind, forming the foundation for supernormal abilities and, ultimately, liberation.

The Buddha describes two types of bhikkhus based on how they deal with thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harming while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, and which one is capable of reaching the highest awakening.

The Buddha explains that one is incapable of entering and abiding in the first jhāna without giving up these five things.

Six qualities to abandon to dwell in the first jhāna - 1) sensual desire, 2) ill will, 3) complacency, 4) restlessness, 5) doubt, 6) failure to clearly see the true danger in sensual pleasures with correct wisdom.

Six qualities to abandon to dwell in the first jhāna - 1) thoughts of sensual desire, 2) thoughts of ill will, 3) thoughts of harm, 4) perception of sensual desire, 5) perception of ill will, 6) perception of harm.

The spiritual life is lived for the abandoning and complete uprooting of the seven underlying tendencies toward 1) sensual desire, 2) aversion, 3) views, 4) doubt, 5) conceit, 6) passion for existence, and 7) ignorance.

The Buddha defines a sage, a Brāhmaṇ not by birth, but as one who has cast off harmful qualities and is always mindful.

After the serpent king Mucalinda stands guard over the Buddha during a rainstorm, the Buddha utters a verse on the happiness found in seclusion, harmlessness toward living beings, the transcendence of sensual desire, and the relinquishment of the conceit ‘I am.’

The Buddha expresses an inspired utterance after reflecting on his giving up of the perceptions and notions [born of] mental proliferation.