{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/sam/sn6-1.htm","path":"bud/sam/sn6-1.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/sam/sn6-1.htm","text":"Main index\nBuddhism index\nindex\nSamyutta Nikaya VI.1\nAyacana Sutta\nThe Request\nFor free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma\nContext of this sutta\nI have heard that on one occasion, when the Blessed One was newly Self-awakened, he was staying at Uruvela on the bank of the Nera\u00f1jara River, at the foot of the Goatherd's Banyan Tree. Then, while he was alone and in seclusion, this line of thinking arose in his awareness: \"This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality and dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding. And if I were to teach the Dhamma and if others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me.\"\nJust then these verses, unspoken in the past, unheard before, occurred to the Blessed One:\nEnough now with teaching\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 what\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 only with difficulty\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I reached.\nThis Dhamma is not easily realized\nby those overcome\nwith aversion & passion.\nWhat is abstruse, subtle,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 deep,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 hard to see,\ngoing against the flow -- \nthose delighting in passion,\ncloaked in the mass of darkness,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 won't see.\nAs the Blessed One reflected thus, his mind inclined to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma.\nThen Brahma Sahampati, having known with his own awareness the line of thinking in the Blessed One's awareness, thought: \"The world is lost! The world is destroyed! The mind of the Tathagata, the Arahant, the Rightly Self-awakened One inclines to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma!\" Then, just as a strong man might extend his flexed arm or flex his extended arm, Brahma Sahampati disappeared from the Brahma-world and reappeared in front the Blessed One. Arranging his upper robe over one shoulder, he knelt down with his right knee on the ground, saluted the Blessed One with his hands before his heart, and said to him: \"Lord, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma! Let the One-Well-Gone teach the Dhamma! There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are falling away because they do not hear the Dhamma. There will be those who will understand the Dhamma.\"\nThat is what Brahma Sahampati said. Having said that, he further said this:\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the past\nthere appeared among the Magadhans\nan impure Dhamma\ndevised by the stained.\nThrow open the door to the Deathless!\nLet them hear the Dhamma\nrealized by the Stainless One!\nJust as one standing on a rocky crag\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 might see people\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 all around below,\nSo, O wise one, with all-around vision,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ascend the palace\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 fashioned of the Dhamma.\nFree from sorrow, behold the people\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 submerged in sorrow,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 oppressed by birth & aging.\nRise up, hero, victor in battle!\nO Teacher, wander without debt in the world.\nTeach the Dhamma, O Blessed One:\nThere will be those who will understand.\nThen the Blessed One, having understood Brahma's invitation, out of compassion for beings, surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world. Just as in a pond of blue or red or white lotuses, some lotuses -- born and growing in the water -- might flourish while immersed in the water, without rising up from the water; some might stand at an even level with the water; while some might rise up from the water and stand without being smeared by the water -- so too, surveying the world with the eye of an Awakened One, the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world.\nHaving seen this, he answered Brahma Sahampati in verse:\nOpen are the doors to the Deathless\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to those with ears.\nLet them show their conviction.\nPerceiving trouble, O Brahma,\nI did not tell people the refined,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sublime Dhamma.\nThen Brahma Sahampati, thinking, \"The Blessed One has given his consent to teach of Dhamma,\" bowed down to the Blessed One and, circling him on the right, disappeared right there.\nRevised: Sat 17 October 1998","title":"SN VI.1: Ayacana Sutta","type":"page"}