Ten Discourses on Searches, Etc. (SN49.35-44)

Linked Discourses 49.35–44

4. Searches

Ten Discourses on Searches, Etc.

“Mendicants, there are these three searches.

What three?

The search for sensual pleasures, the search for continued existence, and the search for a spiritual path.

These are the three searches.

The four right efforts should be developed for the direct knowledge, complete understanding, finishing, and giving up of these three searches.

What four?

It’s when a mendicant generates enthusiasm, tries, makes an effort, exerts the mind, and strives so that bad, unskillful qualities don’t arise. …

so that skillful qualities that have arisen remain, are not lost, but increase, mature, and are fully developed.

These four right efforts should be developed for the direct knowledge, complete understanding, finishing, and giving up of these three searches.”

(Tell in full as in SN 45.161–170.)

Searches, discriminations, defilements,

states of existence, three kinds of suffering,

barrenness, stains, and troubles,

feelings, craving, and thirst.