SN 5.6 - SN 5:6 Sister Cālā | Cālā Sutta
Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
Source: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN5_6.html
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Copyright: Copyright 2014 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Revised edition 2017
License notice: Copyright 2014 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Revised edition 2017 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. “Commercial” shall mean any sale, whether for commercial or non-profit purposes or entities. Questions about this book may be addressed to Metta Forest Monastery Valley Center, CA 92082-1409 U.S.A. Additional resources More Dhamma talks, books and translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu are available to download in digital audio and various ebook formats at dhammatalks.org. Printed copy A paperback copy of this book is available free of charge. To request one, write to: Book Request, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA 92082 USA.
Attribution: From Handful of Leaves, Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu; https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/SuttaPitaka_251113.epub. Copyright 2014 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Revised edition 2017 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. “Commercial” shall mean any sale, whether for commercial or non-profit purposes or entities. Questions about this book may be addressed to Metta Forest Monastery Valley Center, CA 92082-1409 U.S.A. Additional resources More Dhamma talks, books and translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu are available to download in digital audio and various ebook formats at dhammatalks.org. Printed copy A paperback copy of this book is available free of charge. To request one, write to: Book Request, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA 92082 USA.
Publisher references (not part of the sutta): See also: MN 106; MN 140; Iti 43; Iti 72
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.

Sister Cālā
 Cālā Sutta (SN 5:6)

Near Sāvatthī. Then, early in the morning, Cālā the nun adjusted her robes and, taking her bowl & outer robe, went into Sāvatthī for alms. When she had gone for alms in Sāvatthī and had returned from her alms round, after her meal she went to the Grove of the Blind to spend the day. Having gone deep into the Grove of the Blind, she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day’s abiding.

Then Māra the Evil One, wanting to arouse fear, horripilation, & terror in her, wanting to make her fall away from concentration, approached her & said, “What is it that you don’t approve of, nun?”

“I don’t approve of birth, my friend.”

Māra:
“Why don’t you approve of birth?
  One who is born 
  enjoys sensual pleasures.
Who on earth
ever persuaded you:
  ‘Nun, don’t approve of birth’?”

Sister Cālā:
“For one who is born
      there’s death.
One who is born
      sees pain.
It’s a binding, a flogging, a torment.
That’s why one shouldn’t approve
      of birth.

The Awakened One taught me the Dhamma
  —the overcoming of birth—
  for the abandoning of all pain,
      he established me in
      the truth.
But beings who have come to form
& those with a share in the formless,
  if they don’t discern cessation,
  return to becoming-again.”

Then Māra the Evil One—sad & dejected at realizing, “Cālā the nun knows me”—vanished right there.