3.122. Sagacity (AN3.122)

Monks, there are these three forms of sagacity. Which three? Bodily sagacity, verbal sagacity, and mental sagacity.

And what is bodily sagacity? There is the case where a monk abstains from taking life, abstains from theft, abstains from unchastity. This is called bodily sagacity.

And what is verbal sagacity? There is the case where a monk abstains from lying, abstains from divisive tale-bearing, abstains from harsh language, abstains from idle chatter. This is called verbal sagacity.

And what is mental sagacity? There is the case where a monk who—with the wasting away of the mental fermentations—remains in the fermentation-free awareness-release and discernment-release, having known and made them manifest for himself right in the here and now. This is called mental sagacity.

These, monks, are the three forms of sagacity.

A sage in body, a sage in speech,
A sage in mind, without fermentation:
a sage consummate in sagacity
is said to have abandoned everything.
—the All.

Translated from the Pali by: Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

©1998 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The text of this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.

Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/

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