Saṃyukta Āgama

195. Impermanent and Suffering

Translated from Taishō Tripiṭaka volume 2, number 99

Thus have I heard. At one time, the Buddha was in Śrāvastī, in the Jeta Grove, in Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park. At that time, the Bhagavān said to the bhikṣus, “Everything is impermanent. Why is everything impermanent? That is to say, [1] the eye is impermanent. Whether there is form, eye-consciousness, eye-contact; whether there is eye-contact which conditions arising sensations: awareness of suffering, awareness of joy, awareness of neither suffering nor joy: those are also impermanent. It is also such as this for [2] the ear, [3] nose, [4] tongue, [5] body, and [6] thought.

“The well-learned noble disciple thusly observes, giving rise to dispassion toward [1] the eye. Whether there is form, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, or eye-contact conditioning the arising of sensations: awareness of suffering, awareness of joy, or awareness of neither suffering nor joy, he gives rise to dispassion toward these. Toward the [2] ear, [3] nose, [4] tongue, [5] body, [6] thought, [2] sounds, [3] scents, [4] tastes, [5] sensations... toward [6] dharmas, thought consciousness, and mental contact; mental contact conditioning the arising of sensations: awareness of suffering, awareness of joy, awareness of neither suffering nor joy, he gives rise to dispassion for these. Dispassion causes one not to take joy in these, and not taking joy in these causes liberation and the knowledge and vision of liberation: ‘My births have been finished. Brahmacarya has been established. What was to be done has been done, and there is self-knowledge of no further existence.’”

After the Buddha had spoken this sūtra, the bhikṣus heard what the Buddha had said, and joyfully practiced in accordance.

(As with the sūtra on impermanence, it is said like this for suffering, emptiness, and without-self.)