Sn 4.7 Tissa Metteyya Sutta

Tissa Metteyya Sutta: Tissa Metteyya

translated from the Pali by

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

"Tell the danger, dear sir, for one given over to sexual intercourse. Having heard your teaching, we'll train in seclusion."

The Buddha:

"In one given over to sexual intercourse, the teaching's confused and he practices wrongly: this is ignoble in him. Whoever once went alone, but then resorts to sexual intercourse like a carriage out of control is called vile in the world, a person run-of-the-mill. His earlier honor & dignity: lost. Seeing this, he should train himself to abandon sexual intercourse. Overcome by resolves, he broods like a miserable wretch. Hearing the scorn of others, he's chagrined. He makes weapons, attacked by the words of others. This, for him, is a great entanglement. He sinks into lies. They thought him wise when he committed himself to the life alone, but now that he's given to sexual intercourse they declare him a fool. Seeing these drawbacks, the sage here before & after stays firm in the life alone; doesn't resort to sexual intercourse; would train himself in seclusion this, for the noble ones, is supreme. He wouldn't, because of that, think himself better than others: He's on the verge of Unbinding. People enmeshed in sensual pleasures, envy him: free, a sage leading his life unconcerned for sensual pleasures one who's crossed over the flood."