The Discourse about Reflecting (UD6.3)

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 sitting reflecting on his own abandonment of countless bad, unwholesome things, and how through development countless wholesome things had come to fulfilment.

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

“Before it was, then it wasn’t; before it wasn’t, then it was;
It was not, and it will not be, and at present it is not found.”

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.