{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/sam/sn5-10.htm","path":"bud/sam/sn5-10.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/sam/sn5-10.htm","text":"Main index\nBuddhism index\nindex\nSamyutta Nikaya V.10\nVajira Sutta\nSister Vajira\nFor free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma\nContext of this sutta\nTranslator's note:\nThis discourse dramatizes a problem that often arises in meditation practice -- a speculative question arises that, if followed, pulls one out of concentration. Sister Vajira shows how to deal with the situation: recognize that the terms in which the question is expressed are just that -- terms -- and that whatever reality there is in the issue raised by the question can be reduced to phenomena observable in the immediate present. In ultimate terms, this comes down to the arising and passing away of stress, which should be observed and comprehended to the point where one can see through to that which neither arises nor passes away.\nAt Savatthi. Then, early in the morning, Vajira the nun put on her robes and, taking her bowl & outer robe, went into Savatthi for alms. When she had gone for alms in Savatthi 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.\nThen Mara the Evil One, wanting to arouse fear, horripilation, & terror in her, wanting to make her fall away from concentration, approached her & addressed her in verse:\nBy whom \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 was this living being created?\nWhere \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 is the living being's maker?\nWhere \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 has the living being originated?\nWhere \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 does the living being\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cease?\nThen the thought occurred to Vajira the nun: \"Now who has recited this verse -- a human being or a non-human one?\" Then it occurred to her: \"This is Mara the Evil One, who has recited this verse wanting to arouse fear, horripilation, & terror in me, wanting to make me fall away from concentration.\"\nThen, having understood that \"This is Mara the Evil One,\" she replied to him in verses:\nWhat? Do you assume a 'living being,' Mara?\nDo you take a position?\nThis is purely a pile of fabrications.\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here no living being\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 can be pinned down.\nJust as when, with an assemblage of parts,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 there's the word,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 chariot,\neven so when aggregates are present,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 there's the convention of\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 living being.\nFor only stress \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 is what comes to be;\nstress, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 what remains & falls away.\nNothing but stress \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 comes to be.\nNothing ceases\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but stress.\nThen Mara the Evil One -- sad & dejected at realizing, \"Vajira the nun knows me\" -- vanished right there.\nRevised: Sat 17 October 1998","title":"SN V.10: Vajira Sutta","type":"page"}