This chapter contains twelve poetic suttas, opening with the Uraga Sutta, which likens liberation to a snake shedding its skin. Key texts include the Mettā Sutta, teaching loving-kindness, and the Parābhava Sutta, listing causes of downfall. Drawn from varied sources, these poems offer practical lessons on ethics, mindfulness, and wisdom in diverse styles.
This chapter of the Sutta Nipāta consists of fourteen diverse poetic suttas, exploring themes like the worth of the Triple Gem, the inner nature of defilement, and the rewards of skillful conduct. It also defines a true brahmin by actions, not birth. These verses provide straightforward guidance on living morally and pursuing liberation.
This chapter features twelve longer suttas, blending narrative and doctrine. The Pabbajjā Sutta and Padhāna Sutta recount the Buddha’s renunciation and fight with Māra, while the Nalaka Sutta shares a prophecy about his life. The Dvayatānupassanā Sutta examines dependent co-arising. It merges storytelling with core Buddhist teachings.
An early collection of sixteen suttas, often in sets of eight verses, this chapter critiques clinging to views and fruitless arguments. The Attadaṇḍa Sutta ties the Buddha’s renunciation to life’s suffering. Direct and unadorned, it emphasizes clarity, detachment, and the path to peace.
This chapter starts with a brahmin sending sixteen students to ask the Buddha profound questions about mindfulness, ending suffering, and a sage’s qualities. The Buddha’s replies lead to their declarations of faith. Poetic and deep, it traces a clear path to liberation through dialogue.
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.
Verses on the cultivation of boundless loving-kindness for all beings, without exception. One should develop a protective, selfless love like a mother for her child. Maintained constantly, this "divine abiding" purifies the mind of ill-will and, combined with wisdom, leads to ultimate liberation.
Verses describing the characteristics of a false friend—one who disregards conscience and speaks without sincerity—contrasted with a true friend whose loyalty is unbreakable and whose actions reflect inner integrity. It further speaks to the joy and peace found in virtuous conduct, seclusion, and the realization of the Dhamma.
Verses urging one to rise from negligence, train steadfastly for the state of peace, and not waste the fleeting opportunity of the present moment. The teaching emphasizes the urgency of effort with the imagery of the afflicted pierced by a dart and the King of Death misleading one who remains negligent.
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 recounts his striving and meditation under the Nerañjarā river, where he was approached by Māra. The Buddha rejects Māra's temptations and describes the qualities of a true practitioner who conquers Māra's army.
The Buddha explains the four qualities of speech that is well-spoken - 1) speaking only what is well spoken, 2) speaking only the Dhamma, 3) speaking only what is pleasing, and 4) speaking only the truth. The Venerable Vaṅgīsa then praises the Buddha’s teaching with verses on the nature of well-spoken speech.
Verses depicting the uncertain, brief, and suffering-laden nature of mortal life, emphasizing the inevitability of death for all beings, like ripe fruits fated to fall. The Buddha counsels against futile grief and lamentation over the departed, urging the wise to understand the world’s relentless course of decay and death.
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 explains the nature of a corrupted mind and the consequences of holding onto views in these verses.
Can seeing the pure in another purify one still bound by attachments? A sage’s purity is not found through another, nor through what is seen, heard, or sensed. While the attached mind swings like a monkey from branch to branch, the wise one, having relinquished all grasping, abides unbound.
By esteeming one’s view as superior in the world, one cannot overcome disputes. The steadfast sage is one who has abandoned all grasping and clinging, standing free from every view.
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 Buddha advises Tissa Metteyya on the dangers of engaging in sexual activity and the benefits of solitary conduct.
The Buddha advises Pasūra on the futility of debate and the danger of conceit. Seeking praise, one finds only pride in victory or humiliation in defeat. This whole cycle of elation and dejection is fruitless, bringing no true benefit beyond fleeting praise and gain.
The Buddha refused Māgaṇḍiya’s offer of his daughter, rejecting worldly desires. He taught that true peace arises not from clinging to views, observances, or status, but from letting go of all attachments. Like a lotus unstained by water, the sage remains free, calm, and detached amidst the world.
The Buddha describes the conduct of a person who is said to be ‘peaceful’. Such a person is free from craving before the breakup of body. He is one who examines distinctions in all contacts, withdrawn, straightforward, unassuming, unmoved amid views, not holding to a construct, and for whom, there is no ‘mine’ in the world.
The Buddha answers step-by-step to a series of questions starting with the source of quarrels and disputes, followed by the arising of various things such as hopes, aims, desires, possessions; leading all the way to the description of the ultimate purity of the spirit.
The Buddha describes that disputes arise not from many truths, but from people clinging to their own views out of conceit. By labeling others "fools" to affirm their own skill, they create conflict. The path to peace lies not in proving one's view, but in abandoning all judgments.
Among those entrenched in views, arguing “This alone is truth,” the Buddha calls praise won by such to be a small matter. Seeing safety in the ground of non-dispute, the wise do not seek purity by precepts and vows or by what is seen, heard, or sensed. The sage ends craving for various states of existence and stands equanimous.
When asked about the state of peace and the way of practice to reach it, the Buddha describes this state as being steady and unruffled, like the middle of the ocean where no wave arises. He then shares the way of practice to achieve it without delay: guarding the senses, letting go of indulgence, to be a meditator who cultivates wakefulness, and through investigation, abandoning a host of unwholesome qualities.
The Buddha shares in poignant terms his observations on the agitation all beings experience which led to his urgency to awaken. He then shares on the path to awakening and describes the dwelling of an awakened being.
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.’
The venerable Ajita asks the Buddha a series of questions about the nature of the world, the currents of defilements, how to overcome name and form and the conduct of those who have comprehended the Dhamma.
The Buddha answers the venerable Tissa Metteyya's questions about who is content in the world, who is not perturbed, and who has gone beyond the net of existence.
The Buddha answers the venerable Puṇṇaka’s questions about the sacrifices made by sages and brahmins, the nature of their desires, and who has truly crossed over birth and old age.
The venerable Mettagū asks the Blessed One about the origin of suffering and how the wise cross the flood of birth and sorrow. The Buddha shares a Dhamma that is directly visible, revealing that sufferings have acquisitions as their source and showing the path for the wise to reach the far shore, free from craving and untroubled.
The venerable Dhotaka asks the Buddha to free him from doubt and teach the principle of peace. The Buddha explains that liberation cannot be bestowed by another but arises from directly knowing the Dhamma. He instructs Dhotaka to see even the act of knowing as a ‘sticking point’ in the world, and to abandon craving for any state of existence.
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.
The venerable Mogharāja asks the Buddha how to look upon the world so that the King of Death does not see one. The Buddha advises to look upon the world as empty, being ever mindful, and to uproot the sense of self.