…What do you think, mendicants? Suppose a person was to carry off the grass, sticks, branches, and leaves in this Jeta’s Grove, or burn them, or do what they want with them. Would you think, ‘This person is carrying us off, burning us, or doing what they want with us’?”
“No, sir. Why is that? Because to us that’s neither self nor belonging to self.”
“In the same way, mendicants, give up what isn’t yours. Giving it up will be for your lasting welfare and happiness. And what isn’t yours? Form … feeling … perception … choices … consciousness isn’t yours: give it up. Giving it up will be for your lasting welfare and happiness.
Thus the teaching has been well explained by me, made clear, opened, illuminated, and stripped of patchwork. In this teaching there are mendicants who are perfected, who have ended the defilements, completed the spiritual journey, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, achieved their own goal, utterly ended the fetter of continued existence, and are rightly freed through enlightenment. For them, there is no cycle of rebirths to be found. …
In this teaching there are mendicants who have given up the five lower fetters. All of them are reborn spontaneously. They are extinguished there, and are not liable to return from that world. …
In this teaching there are mendicants who, having given up three fetters, and weakened greed, hate, and delusion, are once-returners. All of them come back to this world once only, then make an end of suffering. …
In this teaching there are mendicants who have ended three fetters. All of them are stream-enterers, not liable to be reborn in the underworld, bound for awakening. …
In this teaching there are mendicants who are followers of teachings, or followers by faith. All of them are bound for awakening.
Thus the teaching has been well explained by me, made clear, opened, illuminated, and stripped of patchwork. In this teaching there are those who have a degree of faith and love for me. All of them are bound for heaven.”
That is what the Buddha said. Satisfied, the mendicants approved what the Buddha said.
Read the entire translation of Majjhima Nikāya 22 Alagaddūpamasutta: The Simile of the Cobra by Bhikkhu Sujato on SuttaCentral.net. Or read a different translation on SuttaCentral.net, DhammaTalks.org or AccessToInsight.org. Or listen on PaliAudio.com or SC-Voice.net. Or explore the Pali on DigitalPaliReader.online.
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