Samyutta Nikaya XXXVI.2

Sukha Sutta

Happiness

Translated from the Pali by Nyanaponika Thera

For free distribution only,
by arrangement with the Buddhist Publication Society

From Contemplation of Feeling: The Discourse-grouping on the Feelings (WH 303), translated from the Pali by Nyanaponika Thera (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1983).

"There are, O monks, these three feelings: pleasant feelings, painful feelings, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings."

Be it a pleasant feeling, be it a painful feeling, be it neutral,
one's own or others', feelings of all kinds[1] --
he knows them all as ill, deceitful, evanescent.
Seeing how they impinge again, again, and disappear,[2]
he wins detachment from the feelings, passion-free.

Notes

1. On "feelings of all kinds," see SN XXXVI.22. [Go back]

2. Phussa phussa vayam disva, The Comy. explains differently, paraphrasing these words by ñanena phusitva phusitva, "repeatedly experiencing (them) by way of the knowledge (of rise and fall)." These verses occur also in Sutta Nipata, v. 739, with one additional line. [Go back]

Revised: Sat 17 October 1998