Iti 16
Itivuttaka: The Group of Ones
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "With regard to internal factors, I don't envision any other single factor like appropriate attention[1] as doing so much for a monk in training,[2] who has not attained the heart's goal but remains intent on the unsurpassed safety from bondage.[3] A monk who attends appropriately abandons what is unskillful and develops what is skillful.
Appropriate attention as a quality of a monk in training: nothing else does so much for attaining the superlative goal. A monk, striving appropriately, attains the ending of stress.
==Notes--
1. Appropriate attention (yoniso manasikara) is the ability to focus attention on questions that lead to the end of suffering. MN 2 lists the following questions as not fit for attention: "Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past?... Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future?... Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?" The discourse also lists the following issues as fit for attention: "This is stress. This is the origination of stress. This is the cessation of stress. This is the way leading to the cessation of stress."
2. A person "in training" is one who has attained at least the first level of Awakening, but not yet the final level.
3. Bondage = the four yokes: sensual passion, becoming, views, & ignorance.