SN 56.36 - Pana Sutta: Animals
Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Source: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.036.than.html
License: CC-BY-NC-4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Copyright: ©2011 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
License notice: The text of this page ("Pana Sutta: Animals", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions.
Attribution: ©2011 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The text of this page ("Pana Sutta: Animals", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Transcribed from a file provided by the translator. Last revised for Access to Insight on 10 December 2011. How to cite this document (a suggested style): "Pana Sutta: Animals" (SN 56.36), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 10 December 2011, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.036.than.html .
Changes: Presentation only: original HTML markup reflowed into plain text; wording, numbering and source repetitions retained. No repetitions expanded.
Completeness: ABBREVIATED. Every source-unit character is preserved, including introductions, notes and verse structure. Thanissaro's collection-level note explicitly states that repetitions were cut: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/about.html. This is evidence about the translation method, not an assertion that every individual unit contains an omission; no repetitions reconstructed.

"Monks, suppose that a man were to cut down all the grass, sticks, branches, & leaves in India and to gather them into a heap. Having gathered them into a heap, he would make stakes from them, and having made stakes [1] he would impale all the large animals in the sea on large stakes, all the medium-sized animals in the sea on medium-sized stakes, & all the minute animals in the sea on minute stakes. Before he had come to the end of all the sizable animals in the sea, all the grass, sticks, branches, & leaves here in India would have been used up and exhausted. It wouldn't be feasible for him to impale on stakes the even-more-numerous minute animals in the sea. Why is that? Because of the minuteness of their bodies. So great is the plane of deprivation.

"Freed from this great plane of deprivation is the individual consummate in view, who discerns, as it has come to be, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'

"Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"

Note

1.

The reference to making stakes is missing in CDB.