In The Path of Dhamma (Dhammapada)
DhammaPada verses 44-59 share on the trainee, nature of the body, what happens to one who dwells with an attached mind, how a sage should wander in village, one who speaks on virtue and wisdom though various similes. The fragrance of virtue is compared to the fragrance of flowers, and the virtue of the noble person is said to spread in all directions.
DhammaPada verses 209–220 explore the danger of attachment to what is pleasing, how sorrow and fear arise from the beloved, fondness, delight, sensual pleasures, and craving, who is dear to the people, who flows upstream, and on the importance of merit.
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.
In As It Was Said (Itivuttaka)
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 teaches that one could be far from him despite being physically close, and one could be near to him despite being physically far. When one sees the Dhamma, one sees the Buddha.
The Buddha describes three kinds of beings who partake in sensual pleasures - 1) those who enjoy what is presently available, 2) those who delight in their own creations, and 3) those who wield power over the creations of others.
The Buddha classifies beings according to their attachment or detachment from sensual pleasures and conditioned existence. Those entangled in both are returners; those detached from sensual pleasures but still bound to existence are non-returners; and those freed from both are arahants who have ended the taints.
The Buddha uses the simile of a person carried downstream 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.
In Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya)
The Buddha uses the simile of a defiled cloth to explain how the mind can be similarly defiled by various impurities, and how it can be purified by abandoning them. And it is through this very practice that one arrives at unshakeable faith in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha. The Buddha also addresses a brahmin in verses who believes in purification by bathing in river.
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 how to completely comprehend the gratification, drawback, and escape in the case of sensual pleasures, form, and felt experience.
A lay disciple asks the Buddha why greed, aversion, and illusion still occupy and remain in his mind. The Buddha explains the importance of cultivating discernment of the gratification, drawback, and escape in the case of sensual pleasures along with cultivating the joy and happiness apart from sensual pleasures. He then recounts a conversation with the Nigaṇṭhas on this topic.
The Buddha explains the four cases of taking up practices, based on whether they are pleasant or painful now and whether they ripen as suffering or a pleasant abiding in the future.
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.
Shortly after the Buddha's final Nibbāna, Venerable Ānanda addresses the brahmins Gopaka Moggallāna and chief minister Vassakāra, clarifying that the Buddha appointed no successor, establishing the Dhamma itself as the refuge for the Saṅgha. He outlines ten qualities that make a bhikkhu worthy of veneration and distinguishes the meditations praised by the Buddha from those based on hindrances.
In The Buddha's Ancient Discourses (Sutta Nipāta)
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.
In Linked Discourses (Saṃyutta Nikāya)
A radiant deity tempts young Samiddhi to enjoy sensual pleasures. The Buddha later reveals that true liberation transcends identity and craving, and is only found by those who let go of even the need to describe themselves.
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 shares vivid similes to illustrate the benefits of developing the recognition of impermanence. This practice gradually exhausts all passion for sensual pleasure, materiality, becoming, ignorance, and uproots the conceit ‘I am.’
The Buddha answers Sakka's question on the causes and supporting conditions whereby some beings do not attain Nibbāna in this very life and some beings do attain Nibbāna in this very life.
The Buddha contrasts the suffering experienced by gods and humans, who delight in impermanent sense objects, with the contentment of the Tathāgata who understands their true nature, highlighting the differing views of happiness held by the world and the Noble Ones.
The Buddha likens the six types of desirable sense objects to baited hooks, set in the world for the misfortune of beings—those who cling to them fall under Māra’s power.
The Buddha explains the difference between an uninstructed ordinary person and a learned noble disciple in how they experience pleasant, painful, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings.
The four kinds of clinging - 1) clinging to sensual pleasures, 2) clinging to views, 3) clinging to rules and observances, and 4) clinging to a doctrine of self - are described in brief. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way for direct knowledge, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these four kinds of clinging.
The seven underlying tendencies - 1) sensual desire, 2) aversion, 3) wrong view, 4) doubt, 5) conceit, 6) attachment to existence, and 7) ignorance - are described in brief. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way for direct knowledge, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these tendencies.
The five cords of sensual pleasure are described in brief. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way for direct knowledge, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these five cords of sensual pleasure.
The five hindrances - 1) sensual desire, 2) ill will, 3) dullness and drowsiness, 4) restlessness and worry, and 5) doubt - are described in brief. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way for direct knowledge, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these five hindrances.
The five lower fetters - 1) personality view, 2) doubt, 3) attachment to rites and rituals, 4) sensual desire, and 5) ill will - are described in brief. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way for direct knowledge, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these five lower fetters.
The four floods of sensual pleasures, continued existence, views, and ignorance are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these floods.
The four bonds of sensual pleasures, continued existence, views, and ignorance are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these bonds.
The four kinds of clinging - 1) clinging to sensual pleasures, 2) clinging to views, 3) clinging to rules and observances, and 4) clinging to a doctrine of self - are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these bonds.
The seven underlying tendencies - 1) sensual desire, 2) aversion, 3) wrong view, 4) doubt, 5) conceit, 6) attachment to existence, and 7) ignorance - are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these tendencies.
The five cords of sensual pleasure are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these five cords of sensual pleasure.
The five hindrances - 1) sensual desire, 2) ill will, 3) dullness and drowsiness, 4) restlessness and worry, and 5) doubt - are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these five cords of sensual pleasure.
The five lower fetters - 1) personality view, 2) doubt, 3) attachment to rites and rituals, 4) sensual desire, and 5) ill will - are described in brief. The four establishments of mindfulness should be cultivated for directly knowing, full understanding, complete exhaustion, and giving up of these five lower fetters.
In Numerical Discourses (Aṅguttara Nikāya)
The Buddha explains how the mind can be obsessed by the senses.
The Buddha explains what causes the hindrances to arise and how to abandon them.
The Buddha teaches about integrity, gratitude, how one can repay one's parents, action and non-action, who to make offerings to, persons who are internally or externally fettered, and the importance of right practice and well grasp of the Dhamma. The chapter gets its name from the <a href="/an2.36" class="text-blue-600 hover:underline">AN 2.36</a> discourse.
The Buddha describes three types of people - the blind, the one-eyed, and the two-eyed.
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.
Using the example of a king’s elephant on the battlefield, the Buddha presents two contrasting scenarios - In one case, a person, overwhelmed by enticing sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches is unable to collect and settle the mind; in the other, a person patiently endures without becoming infatuated with external objects, and is able to compose and stabilize the mind amidst sensory contact.
The Buddha describes the seven underlying tendencies toward 1) sensual desire, 2) aversion, 3) views, 4) doubt, 5) conceit, 6) passion for existence, and 7) ignorance that are present in living beings.
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 explains seven things that lead to the decline of a trainee bhikkhu and seven things that do not.
In Inspired Utterances (Udāna)
On seeing the people of Sāvatthi excessively clinging to sensual pleasures, the Buddha expresses an inspired utterance on the bondage that ensues from sensual desire.
On seeing the people of Sāvatthi clinging to sensual pleasures, the Buddha expresses an inspired utterance on harm that comes from sensual desire.