Snp 4.5 - Paramatthaka Sutta: Supreme
Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Source: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.4.05.than.html
License: CC-BY-NC-4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Copyright: ©1994 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
License notice: The text of this page ("Paramatthaka Sutta: Supreme", 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: ©1994 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The text of this page ("Paramatthaka Sutta: Supreme", 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 30 November 2013. How to cite this document (a suggested style): "Paramatthaka Sutta: Supreme" (Sn 4.5), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.4.05.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.

When dwelling on views as "supreme," a person makes them the utmost thing in the world, &, from that, calls all others inferior and so he's not free from disputes. When he sees his advantage in what's seen, heard, sensed, or in precepts & practices, seizing it there he sees all else as inferior. That, too, say the skilled, is a binding knot: that in dependence on which you regard another as inferior. So a monk shouldn't be dependent on what's seen, heard, or sensed, or on precepts & practices; nor should he conjure a view in the world in connection with knowledge or precepts & practices; shouldn't take himself to be "equal"; shouldn't think himself inferior or superlative. Abandoning what he had embraced, abandoning self,[1] not clinging, he doesn't make himself dependent even in connection with knowledge; doesn't follow a faction among those who are split; doesn't fall back on any view whatsoever. One who isn't inclined toward either side — becoming or not-, here or beyond — who has no entrenchment when considering what's grasped among doctrines, hasn't the least preconceived perception with regard to what's seen, heard, or sensed. By whom, with what, should he be pigeonholed here in the world? — this brahman who hasn't adopted views. They don't conjure, don't yearn, don't adhere even to doctrines. A brahman not led by precepts or practices, gone to the beyond — Such — doesn't fall back. 

Note

1.

Self... what he had embraced: two meanings of the Pali word, attam.

See also: MN 72; AN 10.93.