Sacred Texts: Buddhism

Buddhism in Translations - § 71. The Summum Bonum.

Henry Clarke WarrenPali Canon TranslationsTheravada Buddhism

Summary only - full text stays on its own separately-gated source. Read the full text at the source »

This is a translation of the Ariyapariyesana Sutta ("The Noble Search," Majjhima-Nikaya 26), a canonical Pali Buddhist scripture presented in the traditional discourse format of the Buddha speaking to an assembly of monks. Its central argument distinguishes two types of craving: "ignoble" craving, in which a person subject to birth, aging, disease, death, and decay pursues things equally subject to those conditions (family, wealth, possessions), and "noble" craving, in which one recognizes the wretchedness of conditioned existence and seeks Nirvana—the "summum bonum" and "incomparable peaceful state"—as freedom from it. The text then shifts into autobiographical narrative, with the Buddha recounting his own pre-enlightenment spiritual search: his renunciation of household life over his parents' protests, his discipleship under Alara Kalama (who taught the "realm of nothingness") and then Uddaka son of Rama (who taught the "realm of neither perception nor non-perception"), and his ultimate dissatisfaction with both teachers' doctrines as insufficient paths to Nirvana. The distinctive claim is that mastery of advanced meditative attainments—even being recognized as an equal by one's teacher—does not constitute liberation if the doctrine reached stops short of true cessation. The text thus frames the Buddha's enlightenment as a deliberate rejection of the highest available contemplative traditions of his time, positioning Nirvana as categorically beyond what established teachers could offer.

Buddhism in Translations - § 71. The Summum Bonum.

Related pages View as graph →