Saṁyutta Nikāya
IV. Saḷāyatana Vagga
36: Vedanā Saṁyutta
1. Sagāthā Vagga

IV. Kindred Sayings on the 'Six-Fold Sphere' of Sense and Other Subjects
36: Kindred Sayings about Feeling
1. With Verses

Sutta 4

Pātāla Suttaṁ

The Bottomless Pit¹

 

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[206] [138]

Thus have I heard:

The Exalted One once addressed the brethren, saying:

"Brethren."

"Lord," responded those brethren to the Exalted One.

The Exalted One thus spoke:

"The untaught manyfolk, Brethren, utters this saying:

'There is a bottomless pit in the mighty Ocean.'

But herein, Brethren, the untaught manyfolk utters this saying of what is not,
of what exists not, to wit:

'There is a bottomless pit in the mighty Ocean.'

Now this word 'bottomless pit,' Brethren,
is a term for painful bodily feeling.

The untaught manyfolk,
when touched by painful bodily feeling,
weeps and wails,
cries aloud,
knocks the breast
and comes by utter bewilderment.

So, Brethren, it is said:

'The untaught manyfolk
has not emerged from the bottomless pit,²
does not reach solid ground.'

But the well-taught Ariyan disciple, Brethren,
when touched by painful bodily feeling,
weeps not,
wails not,
cries not aloud,
knocks not the breast,
comes not by utter bewilderment.

Thus, Brethren, it is said:

'The well-taught Ariyan disciple
has emerged from the bottomless pit,
he reaches solid ground.'³

He who cannot bear with patience
pains that come upon him,
that rack the body,
drain the life,
cause trembling at their touch:

Who weeps and wails,
bursts into tears,
feeble
and void of strength,

From the abyss has not come forth,
nor reached the solid ground.

But he that bears patiently
the pains that come upon him,
That rack the body,
drain the life,
and fears not their touch,

He has come forth from the abyss
and reached the solid ground.

 

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¹ Pātālā. Comy. derives it thus: pātassa alaṅ pariyatto n'atthi ('no end of falling'). See Append., to Brethren, p. 418, where Mrs. Rhys Davids says: 'any circumstance in which one is carried off one's feet, loses balance.'

² Text has pātālena for pātāle na.

³ Gādhañ ca n'ajjhagā. Cf. S. i, 47.