12.29. Ascetics and Brahmins (1) (SN12.29)

At Savatthī. “Bhikkhus, those ascetics or brahmins who do not fully understand aging-and-death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation; who do not fully understand birth … existence … clinging … craving … feeling … contact … the six sense bases … name-and-form … consciousness … volitional formations, their origin, their cessation, and the way leading to their cessation: these I do not consider to be ascetics among ascetics or brahmins among brahmins, and these venerable ones do not, by realizing it for themselves with direct knowledge, in this very life enter and dwell in the goal of asceticism or the goal of brahminhood.

“But, bhikkhus, those ascetics and brahmins who fully understand aging-and-death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation; who fully understand birth … volitional formations, their origin, their cessation, and the way leading to their cessation: these I consider to be ascetics among ascetics and brahmins among brahmins, and these venerable ones, by realizing it for themselves with direct knowledge, in this very life enter and dwell in the goal of asceticism and the goal of brahminhood.”

© Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha (Wisdom Publications, 2000)

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