Iti 53 · uttaka 53
This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: “Monks, there are these three feelings. Which three? A feeling of pleasure, a feeling of pain, a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain. A feeling of pleasure should be seen as stressful. A feeling of pain should be seen as an arrow. A feeling of neither pleasure nor pain should be seen as inconstant. When a monk has seen a feeling of pleasure as stressful, a feeling of pain as an arrow, and a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain as inconstant, then he is called a monk who is noble, who has seen rightly, who has cut off craving, destroyed the fetters, and who–from the right breaking-through of conceit–has put an end to suffering & stress.”
Whoever sees
pleasure as stress,
sees pain as an arrow,
sees peaceful neither pleasure nor pain
as inconstant:
he is a monk
who’s seen rightly.
From that he is there released.
A master of direct knowing,
at peace,
he is a sage
gone beyond bonds.
See also: MN 44; SN 36:4; SN 36:6
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).
