Understood (AN4.1)

Numbered Discourses 4.1

1. At Wares Village

Understood

So I have heard.

At one time the Buddha was staying in the land of the Vajjis at Wares Village.

There the Buddha addressed the mendicants,

“Mendicants!”

“Venerable sir,” they replied.

The Buddha said this:

“Mendicants, due to not understanding and not penetrating four things, both you and I have wandered and transmigrated for such a very long time.

What four?

Noble ethics,

immersion,

wisdom,

and freedom.

These noble ethics, immersion, wisdom, and freedom have been understood and comprehended. Craving for continued existence has been cut off; the leash to existence is ended; now there’ll be no more future lives.”

That is what the Buddha said.

Then the Holy One, the Teacher, went on to say:

“Ethics, immersion, and wisdom,

and the supreme freedom:

these things have been understood

by Gotama the renowned.

And so the Buddha, having insight,

explained this teaching to the mendicants.

The teacher made an end of suffering,

seeing clearly, he is fully quenched.”