In this teaching, the Buddha succinctly shares the allure and the drawbacks of desiring sensual pleasures.

Eight verses on overcoming the mire of delusion by avoiding attachment to sensory pleasures, discerning their causes, and practicing for being free of ‘mine’.

The Buddha uses the simile of a bonfire to explain how perceiving gratification in objects that can be grasped at leads to clinging, to suffering, and how perceiving drawbacks in objects that can be grasped at leads to the cessation of clinging, to the end of suffering.

Using the simile of a great tree nourished by sap, the Buddha explains that perceiving gratification in graspable objects fuels craving and perpetuates suffering, whereas seeing their drawbacks leads to the cessation of craving and the end of suffering.

Using the role of food as nutriment that sustains and endures the body, the Buddha describes the nutriments for the arising and growth of the five hindrances and the seven factors of awakening.

The Buddha describes the nutriments for the sustenance of the five hindrances and the seven factors of awakening.

Before his awakening, the Buddha reflected on the gratification in the world, the drawback in it, and the escape from it.