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.
Pārāyanavagga - The Chapter on the Way to the Beyond
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 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.