155. [Discourse on the View of the Inefficacy of Effort] (SA155)

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī in Jeta's Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika's Park.

At that time the Blessed One said to the monks: “The existence of what is the cause, by clinging to what, by being fettered and attached to what, by seeing what as the self, do living beings have a view like this and speak like this: 'There is no strength, there is no effort, there is no strong effort, there is no personal efficacy, there is no personal effort, there is no personal efficient effort, there is no doing by oneself, there is no doing by another, there is no doing by oneself and by another; all humans, all living beings, all divine beings are without expediency, without strength, without power, without effort, without capability, being destined to be successively transformed by experiencing pleasure and pain in the six modes of existence?'”

The monks said to the Buddha: “The Blessed One is the root of the Dharma, the eye of the Dharma, the foundation of the Dharma …” to be recited fully in the same way in the sequence of the above three discourses.

Translated by Bhikkhu Anālayo. Originally published in ‘On Views and Penetrative Knowledge – A Translation of Saṁyukta-āgama Discourses 139 to 187 (Fascicle 7)’, Dharma Drum Journal of Buddhist Studies, 2015, vol. 17 pp. 43–100.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Seniya Ariyakumara and Ayya Vimala.