With Anuruddha (SN9.6)

Linked Discourses 9.6

1. In the Woods

With Anuruddha

At one time Venerable Anuruddha was staying in the land of the Kosalans in a certain forest grove.

Then a certain deity of the company of the thirty-three named Penelope had been Anuruddha’s partner in a former life. She went up to Anuruddha, and recited these verses:¹

“Set your heart there,

where you used to live:

among the gods of the thirty-three,

whose every desire is granted!

At the fore of a retinue

of divine maidens, you’ll shine!”

“Divine maidens are in a sorry state,

stuck in substantial reality.

And those beings too are in a sorry state,

who are attached to divine maidens.”²

“They don’t know pleasure

who don’t see the Garden of Delight!

It’s the abode of lordly gods,

the glorious host of Thirty!”

“Fool, don’t you understand

the saying of the perfected ones:

All conditions are impermanent,

their nature is to rise and fall;

having arisen, they cease;

their settling is such bliss.

O Penelope, weaver of the web—

there are no more abodes for me in the heavenly host.

Transmigration through births is finished,

now there’ll be no more future lives.”