The Discourse about Veneration (UD2.4)

Thus I heard: At one time the Gracious One was dwelling near Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Wood, at Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Then at that time the Gracious One was venerated, respected, revered, honoured, esteemed, and in receipt of robes, almsfood, dwellings, and medicinal requisites to help when sick; also the Community of monks was venerated, respected, revered, honoured, esteemed, and in receipt of robes, almsfood, dwellings, and medicinal requisites to help when sick. But wanderers from other sects were not venerated, not respected, not revered, not honoured, not esteemed, nor were they in receipt of robes, almsfood, dwellings, and medicinal requisites to help when sick.

Then those wanderers from other sects, being unable to bear the veneration of the Gracious One and the Community of monks, after seeing the monks in the village or the wilderness, with vulgar and rough words scolded, abused, annoyed, and troubled them. Then many monks went to the Gracious One, and after going and worshipping the Gracious One, they sat down on one side. While sat on one side those monks said this to the Gracious One:

“At present, reverend Sir, the Gracious One is venerated, respected, revered, honoured, esteemed, and in receipt of robes, almsfood, dwellings, and medicinal requisites to help when sick; also the Community of monks is venerated, respected, revered, honoured, esteemed, and in receipt of robes, almsfood, dwellings, and medicinal requisites to help when sick. But wanderers from other sects are not venerated, not respected, not revered, not honoured, not esteemed, nor are they in receipt of robes, almsfood, dwellings, and medicinal requisites to help when sick. Then those wanderers from other sects, reverend Sir, being unable to bear the veneration of the Gracious One and the Community of monks, after seeing the monks in the village or the wilderness, with vulgar and rough words scold, abuse, annoy, and trouble them.”

Then the Gracious One, having understood the significance of it, on that occasion uttered this exalted utterance:

“Affected by pleasure and pain in the village or wilderness,
you should certainly not consider it as due to oneself or another.

“Contacts affect one with cleaving as condition,
How could contacts affect one without cleaving?”

Translated by Bhikkhu Ānandajoti from the Buddha Jayanthi Tripitaka text. Version 2.2, revised February 2008.

The text and translation, together with detailed notes and discussions, may be found in multiple formats on the translator’s website, Ancient Buddhist Texts.

Used by kind permission of Bhikkhu Ānandajoti.

The original translation was released under the following licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.