Considering Self (SA45)

Thus have I heard. Once the Awakened One lived at Srāvasti’s greater-metropolitan-area, in Jeta’s grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastry. At that time the World Honoured One said to the mendicants:

“There are five clinging aggregates. What are the five? The form clinging aggregate, feeling..., perception..., formulation... and the consciousness clinging aggregate. If any wanderer or priest considers there is a self, then they see the self in these five aggregates. Wanderers and priests consider form is self, form is other than self, self is in form, or form is in self. They consider feeling..., perception..., formulations… and consciousness is self, consciousness is other than self, self is in consciousness, or consciousness is in self. The foolish untaught common person has ignorance therefore he considers, form is self, other than self, or one is in the other.

“Saying self is truly real, they do not give up the view. With not giving up the view as the cause, all bases come to be. All bases having come to be, all contact comes to be. The six contact organs are that which causes contact. From contact organs arise suffering and pleasurable experience for the foolish untaught common person. What are the six? They are the eye sense organ, the ear..., the nose..., the tongue..., the body... and the mind sense organ. Thus, mendicants there is the mind element, the dhamma element and the ignorance element.

“The foolish untaught common person has ignorance therefore arise: the experience of existence, the experience of non existence, the experience of existence and non existence, the experience that I am superior, the experience that I am equal, the experience that I am inferior, the experience that I know, the experience that I see, the experience that I know like this and the experience that I see like this. These are all from the six sense organs.

“Therefore the well-learned noble disciple, having given up ignorance regarding these six sense organs and wisdom arises and: the experience of existence, the experience of non existence, the experience of existence and non existence, the experience that I am superior, the experience that I am equal, the experience that I am inferior, the experience that I know, the experience that I see, the experience that I know like this and the experience that I see like this, do not arise. The ignorant contact which had arisen before is destroyed and thereafter wise contact and experience arise.”

The Awakened One said this discourse. The mendicants heard what the Awakened One had said and happily practised.

Translation from the Chinese by N. J. Smith. 16/9/2001.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.