Majjhima Nikāya
The Middle-Length Discourses — the core teachings, in narrative discourses.
The discourses
111 texts
MN 52 · To the Man from Aṭṭhakanagara (Aṭṭhakanāgara Sutta)
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Ānanda names eleven doors to the deathless, each reached through a jhāna or formless attainment seen with insight as impermanent and empty.
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MN 53 · The Practice for One in Training (Sekha-paṭipadā Sutta)
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The graduated training of a disciple in higher virtue, sense restraint, moderation in eating, wakefulness, mindfulness, and meditative absorption.
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MN 54 · To Potaliya (Excerpt) (Potaliya Sutta)
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Renunciation of sensual pleasure through similes of a bone, meat, a grass torch, a pit of coals, and a borrowed loan.
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MN 55 · To Jīvaka (Jīvaka Sutta)
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Rules on eating meat: it is blameless unless seen, heard, or suspected to have been killed specifically for the eater.
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MN 56 · The Teaching to Upāli (Upālivāda Sutta)
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Debate over which kind of action, bodily, verbal, or mental, is most culpable for producing harmful kamma, converting the householder Upāli from Jain doctrine.
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MN 58 · To Prince Abhaya (Abhaya Rāja-kumāra Sutta)
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Criteria governing what the Buddha will and won't say: whether a statement is true, beneficial, and timely, whether pleasing or not.
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MN 59 · Many Things to Be Felt (Bahuvedanīya Sutta)
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A taxonomy of feeling, from two to over a hundred varieties, and how jhāna pleasure surpasses sensual pleasure without being feared.
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MN 60 · A Safe Bet (Apaṇṇaka Sutta)
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A pragmatic wager for holding right view over annihilationism, reasoning that virtuous kamma and rebirth are the safer bet regardless of certainty.
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MN 61 · The Exhortation to Rāhula at Mango Stone (Ambalaṭṭhikā Rāhulovāda Sutta)
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Rāhula is taught to reflect before, during, and after every action on whether it causes harm, using truthfulness as the measure of a contemplative.
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MN 62 · The Greater Exhortation to Rāhula (Mahā Rāhulovāda Sutta)
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Rāhula is taught the five aggregates as not-self, meditation on the elements after the model of earth, and mindfulness of breathing.
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MN 63 · The Shorter Exhortation to Māluṅkya (Cūḷa Māluṅkyovāda Sutta)
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The simile of the poisoned arrow shows why speculative questions about the cosmos and the self are irrelevant to ending suffering.
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MN 64 · The Longer Exhortation to Māluṅkya (Mahā Māluṅkyovāda Sutta)
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The five lower fetters, binding beings to the sensual realm, and the path of jhāna and insight that uproots them for non-return.
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MN 66 · The Quail Simile (Laḍukikopama Sutta)
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Renouncing even trifling attachments, likened to a quail snared by a creeper, on the gradual path from sense restraint through the jhānas to release.
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MN 67 · Near Cātumā (Cātuma Sutta)
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The Buddha turns away disorderly monks, then likens perils for one gone forth to waves, crocodiles, whirlpools, and sharks: anger, gluttony, sensuality, and lust.
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MN 69 · About Golissāni (Golissāni Sutta)
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Sāriputta sets out the qualities a wilderness-dwelling monk must cultivate to merit the respect due to seclusion.
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MN 70 · At Kīṭāgiri (Kīṭāgiri Sutta)
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Restraint in eating and the classification of seven types of noble disciples by their degree of release through faith, wisdom, or both.
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MN 72 · To Vacchagotta on Fire (Aggi-vacchagotta Sutta)
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Refusal to answer speculative questions about the cosmos and the self, using the simile of an extinguished fire to explain why they don't apply to a liberated one.
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MN 74 · To LongNails (Dīghanakha Sutta)
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Refutation of the view that nothing is pleasing, non-clinging to feelings and opinions, with Sāriputta gaining insight while merely listening.
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MN 75 · To Māgaṇḍiya (Māgaṇḍiya Sutta)
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Sensual pleasure is compared to a leper scratching diseased sores, with health and freedom from craving, nibbāna, held up as true happiness.
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MN 77 · The Greater Discourse to Sakuludāyin (Mahāsakuludāyi Sutta)
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The Buddha sets aside minor ascetic virtues his followers praise and details the deeper qualities, discernment, conduct, and path factors, that truly warrant respect.
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