AN 6:88 · Listening Well (Sussūsa Sutta)
“Endowed with these six qualities, a person is incapable of alighting on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful qualities even when listening to the true Dhamma. Which six?
“When the Dhamma & Vinaya declared by the Tathāgata is being taught, he does not listen well, does not give ear, does not apply his mind to gnosis, grabs hold of what is worthless, rejects what is worthwhile, and is not endowed with the patience [or: preference] to comply with the teaching.
“Endowed with these six qualities, a person is incapable of alighting on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful qualities even when listening to the true Dhamma.
“Endowed with these six qualities, a person is capable of alighting on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful qualities even while listening to the true Dhamma. Which six?
“When the Dhamma & Vinaya declared by the Tathāgata is being taught, he listens well, gives ear, applies his mind to gnosis, rejects what is worthless, grabs hold of what is worthwhile, and is endowed with the patience [or: preference] to comply with the teaching.
“Endowed with these six qualities, a person is capable of alighting on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful qualities even while listening to the true Dhamma.”
Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. © 2014 / rev. 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu — released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licence, for free distribution only. Source: dhammatalks.org (Metta Forest Monastery).
