Fire Sermon - Text

Text

In this discourse, the Buddha describes the sense bases and resultant mental phenomena as "burning" with passion, aversion, delusion and suffering. Seeing such, a noble disciple becomes disenchanted with, dispassionate toward and thus liberated from the senses bases, achieving arahantship. This is described in more detail below.

After a prefatory paragraph identifying this discourse's location of deliverance (Gaya) and audience (a thousand monks or bhikkhus), the Buddha proclaims (represented here in English and Pali):

The ensuing text reveals that "all" (sabba) refers to:

• the six internal sense bases (ayatana): eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind
• the six external sense bases: visible forms, sound, smells, tastes, touches and mental objects
• consciousness (viññāṇa) contingent on these sense bases
• the contact (samphassa) of a specific sense organ (such as the ear), its sense object (sound) and sense-specific consciousness.
• what is subsequently felt (vedayita): pleasure (sukha), pain (dukkha), or neither (adukkhamasukhaṃ).

By "burning" (āditta) is meant:

• the fire of passion (rāgagginā)
• the fire of aversion (dosagginā)
• the fire of delusion (mohagginā)
• the manifestations of suffering: birth, aging and death, sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses and despairs.

According to the Buddha, a well-instructed noble disciple (sutavā ariyasāvako) sees this burning and thus becomes disenchanted (nibbindati) with the sense bases and their mental sequelae. The text then uses a formula found in dozens of discourses to describe the manner in which such disenchantment leads to liberation from suffering:

A closing paragraph reports that, during this discourse, the thousand monks in attendance became liberated.