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Tidipa

Ādittasutta (The Discourse on Burning)

· 17 min read

13S4/1.1.3.6, the fire sermon at Gayāsīsa: to a thousand bhikkhū the Bhagavā declares the senses, their objects, consciousness, contact and feeling burning with the fires of passion, hatred and delusion, and while the discourse is spoken the minds of the thousand are liberated from the defilements.

Original text: 13S4/1.1.3.6 Ādittasutta 75–77 in the World Tipitaka Edition

Summary

Section titled “Summary”

At Gayāsīsa, to a thousand bhikkhū, the Bhagavā declares that all is burning: each sense, its objects, its consciousness, its contact and the feeling that arises from that contact, burning with the fires of passion, hatred and delusion and with birth, ageing, death, sorrow and despair. The learned disciple who sees this is disenchanted, detached and liberated, and while the discourse was being spoken the minds of the thousand bhikkhū were liberated from the defilements.

Diagram

Section titled “Diagram”
flowchart TB
    A["all is burning"] --> B["each sense, its objects, consciousness, contact, feeling"]
    B --> C["the fires of passion, hatred and delusion"]
    B --> D["birth, ageing, death, sorrow, despair"]
    C --> E["the learned disciple is disenchanted"]
    D --> E
    E --> F["detachment"] --> G["liberation"] --> H["birth finished, the optimal life lived"]
    G --> I["the thousand bhikkhū freed from the defilements"]

Text

Section titled “Text”

(28.)

75. At one time the Bhagavā was dwelling at Gayā, at Gayāsīsa, with a thousand bhikkhū. There the Bhagavā addressed the bhikkhū: “All, Bhikkhave, is ādittaṃ (burning). And what, Bhikkhave, is the all that is burning? The cakkhu (eye) is burning, rūpā (forms) are burning, cakkhuviññāṇaṃ (eye-consciousness) is burning, cakkhusamphasso (eye-contact) is burning. And whatever vedayitaṃ (feeling) arises with eye-contact as cause, whether pleasant or painful or neutral, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of passion (rāgaggi), with the fire of hatred (dosaggi), with the fire of delusion (mohaggi); burning with birth, ageing, death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, griefs, and despairs, I say … and so on … The tongue is burning, tastes are burning, tongue-consciousness is burning, tongue-contact is burning. And whatever feeling arises with tongue-contact as cause, whether pleasant or painful or neutral, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of passion, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with birth, ageing, death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, griefs, and despairs, I say … and so on … The mind is burning, mental phenomena (dhammā) are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning. And whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as cause, whether pleasant or painful or neutral, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of passion, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with birth, ageing, death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, griefs, and despairs, I say. Thus seeing, Bhikkhave, the sutavā (learned) ariyasāvaka (disciple of the liberated) nibbindati (is disenchanted with) the eye, is disenchanted with forms, is disenchanted with eye-consciousness, is disenchanted with eye-contact, and whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as cause, whether pleasant or painful or neutral, that too he is disenchanted with … and so on … and whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as cause, whether pleasant or painful or neutral, that too he is disenchanted with. Being disenchanted, he virajjati (becomes detached); from detachment he vimuccati (becomes liberated); in liberation there is the ñāṇa (knowledge): ‘liberated’. He pajānāti (knows clearly): ‘Birth (of suffering) is finished, the optimal life is lived, what had to be done is done, there is nothing further for this present state of existence.’”

76. This the Bhagavā said. Those bhikkhū, delighted, rejoiced in the Bhagavā’s words. And while this detailed exposition was being spoken, the cittāni (minds) of that thousand bhikkhū, anupādāya (not grasping), were liberated from the āsavā (defilements).

77. The sixth [discourse of the chapter].

Commentary

Section titled “Commentary”
  • The Saṃyutta’s telling of the fire sermon; the Vinaya tells it at the end of the miracles at Uruvelā, to the thousand bhikkhū who had been matted hair ascetics (3V/1.12 Uruvelapāṭihāriyakathā).
  • Every sentence but the frame and the three runs the edition abbreviates is a twin of the textbook’s chapter 9, which writes the six senses out in full; here the edition’s …pe… for the ear to the body and for the disenchantment run is “… and so on …”.
  • Renderings: āditta “burning”, vedayita “feeling”, rāgaggi, dosaggi, mohaggi “the fire of passion, hatred, delusion”, nibbindati “is disenchanted with”, virajjati “becomes detached”, ariyasāvaka “disciple of the liberated”.
  • The edition holds the whole sermon in one paragraph (75), the close in 76 and the colophon “the sixth” in 77, the sixth sutta of the Sabbavagga.

Parallels

Section titled “Parallels”

The Chinese parallel is the 197th sūtra of the 雜阿含經 (fascicle 8, CBETA T02, no. 99, pp. 50b–c), in the Saṃyuktāgama’s section on the sense bases that Choong’s comparison of the two collections covers (Choong, 2000), read here in CBETA’s text. The two agree in the frame and the sermon: the Buddha at Gayāsīsa (迦闍尸利沙支提, p. 50b) with a thousand bhikkhus; all is burning — the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant or neither, and so for the other senses — burning with the fires of greed, anger and delusion (貪火、恚火、癡火) and with birth, ageing, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering; and at the close the minds of the thousand bhikkhus liberated from the defilements. The differences, read in CBETA’s text:

  • Who the thousand were. The Chinese says they were “all formerly brahmins with matted hair” (皆是舊縈髮婆羅門, p. 50b); the Pāḷi sutta says only “with a thousand bhikkhū” (75) and leaves their past to the Vinaya’s telling.
  • Three demonstrations. The Chinese frames the sermon as the third of three demonstrations (三種示現教化) the Buddha gave the thousand: the demonstration of psychic power (entering absorption, rising into the air towards the east, the four postures, the fire absorption with flames of six colours, water and fire from the upper and lower body, p. 50b), the demonstration of mind-reading (他心示現: “such is your mind, such your thought, such your consciousness; thus you should think, thus you should not think”, p. 50b), and the demonstration of instruction (教誡示現), which is the fire sermon. The Pāḷi has the sermon alone.
  • The sermon’s form. The Chinese gives the eye in full, then “likewise the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind are burning” with the mind’s objects, consciousness, contact and feeling (如是耳、鼻、舌、身、意燒然, pp. 50b–c), and asks “burning with what?” (以何燒然) once, at the end; the Pāḷi asks it for every sense and abbreviates the ear to the body with …pe…. The Chinese orders the feelings painful, pleasant, neither (若苦、若樂、不苦不樂); the Pāḷi pleasant, painful, neither.
  • The fires. After the fires of greed, anger and delusion the Chinese has “burning with the fire of birth, old age, illness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering” (生、老、病、死、憂、悲、惱、苦火燒然, p. 50c): illness is added, and the eight are themselves a fire; the Pāḷi has the eight as plain instrumentals, “burning with birth, ageing, death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, griefs, and despairs” (75).
  • No disenchantment. The Chinese has nothing of the learned disciple’s disenchantment, detachment, liberation and knowledge “birth is finished” (75); from the fires it passes to the thousand bhikkhus who, “hearing what the Buddha said, did not arouse the defilements, and their minds attained liberation” (不起諸漏，心得解脫, p. 50c), and to the standard close, “the bhikkhus, hearing what the Buddha said, rejoiced and put it into practice” (歡喜奉行). The Pāḷi has “This the Bhagavā said. Those bhikkhū, delighted, rejoiced” before the liberation (76) and no closing formula.

Go to previous page (Dutiyadvayasutta (The Second Discourse on the Pair)) / Go to parent page (Saṃyutta Nikāya) / Go to next page (Ādittapariyāyasutta (The Discourse on the Exposition of Burning))

References

Section titled “References”
Choong, M. (2000). The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism: A Comparative Study Based on the Sūtrāṅga Portion of the Pāli Saṃyutta-Nikāya and the Chinese Saṃyuktāgama. Harrassowitz.

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