Snp 5.13 - Sn 5:13 Udaya’s Questions
Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
Source: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/StNp/StNp5_13.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.
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5:13 Udaya’s Questions

To the one in jhāna—
  seated, dustless,
      passionless,
  his task done,
  effluent-free,
      gone to the beyond
      of all phenomena—
I’ve come with a desire for a question.
Tell me the gnosis of emancipation,
  the breaking open
  of ignorance.

The Buddha:
The abandoning
  both of sensual desires,
  & of unhappiness,
the dispelling of sloth,
the warding off of anxieties,
equanimity-&-mindfulness purified,
  with inspection of mental qualities
  swift in the forefront:
That I call the gnosis of emancipation,1
  the breaking open
  of ignorance.2

Udaya:
With what
  is the world fettered?
With what
  is it examined?
Through the abandoning of what
  is there said to be
      unbinding?

The Buddha:
With delight
  the world’s fettered.
With directed thought
  it’s examined.
Through the abandoning of craving
  is there said to be
      unbinding.

Udaya:
Living mindful in what way
does one bring consciousness
      to a halt?
We’ve come to ask
  the Blessed One.
Let us hear your words.

The Buddha:
Not relishing feeling,
  inside or out:
One living mindful in this way
  brings consciousness
      to a halt.3

vv. 1105–1111

Notes

1. The state of mind described here corresponds to the five-factored noble right concentration described in AN 5:28, and analyzed more fully in AN 9:36. For further discussion, see section III/F in The Wings to Awakening and the essays, “Jhāna Not by the Numbers” and “Silence Isn’t Mandatory.” 

2. AN 3:33 contains a discussion of this verse. The Buddha tells Ven. Sāriputta that one should train oneself such that “with regard to this conscious body, there will be no ‘I’-making or ‘mine’-making or obsession with conceit, such that with regard to all external themes [topics of concentration] there will be no ‘I’-making or ‘mine’-making or obsession with conceit, and that we will enter & remain in the awareness-release & discernment-release in which there is no ‘I’-making or ‘mine’-making or obsession with conceit.” When one has trained in this way, he says, one is called a person who has cut through craving, unraveled the fetter, who has, through the right penetration of conceit, put an end to suffering and stress. He then states that it was in connection to this state that he uttered this verse.

3. See DN 11, DN 15, MN 49, and SN 12:67. For a discussion of “bringing consciousness to a halt”—showing that it is not an annihilation of consciousness, but rather the ending of its proliferating activity—see SN 22:53. See also the image in SN 12:64.