A Good Death (AN6.14)

Numbered Discourses 6.14

2. Warm-hearted

A Good Death

There Sāriputta addressed the mendicants:

“Reverends, mendicants!”

“Reverend,” they replied.

Sāriputta said this:

“A mendicant lives life so as to not have a good death.

And how do they live life so as to not have a good death?

Take a mendicant who relishes work, talk, sleep, company, closeness, and proliferation. They love these things and like to relish them.

A mendicant who lives life like this does not have a good death.

This is called

a mendicant who enjoys substantial reality, who hasn’t given up substantial reality to rightly make an end of suffering.

A mendicant lives life so as to have a good death.

And how do they live life so as to have a good death?

Take a mendicant who doesn’t relish work, talk, sleep, company, closeness, and proliferation. They don’t love these things or like to relish them.

A mendicant who lives life like this has a good death.

This is called

a mendicant who delights in extinguishment, who has given up substantial reality to rightly make an end of suffering.

A beast who likes to proliferate,

enjoying proliferation,

fails to win extinguishment,

the supreme sanctuary from the yoke.

But one who gives up proliferation,

enjoying the state of non-proliferation,

wins extinguishment,

the supreme sanctuary from the yoke.”