Nikaya

Where Suffering Subsides

Linked Discourses 35.29

  1. All

Overcome

So I have heard.

At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha, in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrels’ feeding ground.

There the Buddha addressed the mendicants:

“Mendicants, all is overcome.

And what is the all that is overcome?

The eye is overcome. Sights are overcome. Eye consciousness is overcome. Eye contact is overcome. The painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact is also overcome.

Overcome by what?

Overcome by the fires of greed, hate, and delusion. Overcome by rebirth, old age, and death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, I say.

The ear … nose … tongue …

body …

mind is overcome. Ideas are overcome. Mind consciousness is overcome. Mind contact is overcome. The painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises conditioned by mind contact is also overcome.

Overcome by what?

Overcome by greed, hate, and delusion. Overcome by rebirth, old age, and death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, I say.

Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with the eye, sights, eye consciousness, and eye contact. And they grow disillusioned with the painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact.

They grow disillusioned with the ear … nose … tongue … body … mind … painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on mind contact.

Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed.

They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’”