SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

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retrofuturist
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SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

One of the Buddha's earliest teachings...

SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .nymo.html
Thus I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Gaya, at Gayasisa, together with a thousand bhikkhus. There he addressed the bhikkhus.

"Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?

"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

"The ear is burning, sounds are burning...

"The nose is burning, odors are burning...

"The tongue is burning, flavors are burning...

"The body is burning, tangibles are burning...

"The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

"Bhikkhus, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, he finds estrangement in the eye, finds estrangement in forms, finds estrangement in eye-consciousness, finds estrangement in eye-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful- nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, in that too he finds estrangement.

"He finds estrangement in the ear... in sounds...

"He finds estrangement in the nose... in odors...

"He finds estrangement in the tongue... in flavors...

"He finds estrangement in the body... in tangibles...

"He finds estrangement in the mind, finds estrangement in ideas, finds estrangement in mind-consciousness, finds estrangement in mind-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, in that too he finds estrangement.

"When he finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, he is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that he is liberated. He understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'"

That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were glad, and they approved his words.

Now during his utterance, the hearts of those thousand bhikkhus were liberated from taints through clinging no more.
It is good to be cool. :cool:

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Ben
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Ben »

Thanks Retro

This sutta has special significance for me and I have it bookmarked in Connected Discourses of the Buddha.
A couple of thoughts:
-- We have aversion, lust and hatred, paticcasamuppada and the remedy for becoming being expressed through revulsion of the aggregates. So in that way it is quite neat as it also echoes (in part) the four noble truths.
-- I also remember reading, perhaps in Gombrich, that the sutta was in response to a meeting with some fire-worshipping ascetics and that the sutta represented an instance where the Buddha used the language of his interlocutors to skillfully communicate his message. Unfortunately the index of How Buddhism Began leaves a lot to be desired and we have guests arriving in the next few minutes. If I get time I'll trawl for the relevant passage.

Times like these I wish I had access to additional commentarial sources!

Kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Ben,

Hopefully venerable Dhammanando or someone else will be able to lead us towards some commentarial sources.

I have always liked the contrast between the flames of greed/aversion/delusion and the cool quenching of nibbana when the flames and fuel are fully doused.

Hence the double meaning behind phrases like "The Buddha is cool 8-) "

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Ben »

Thanks Retro
'The Buddha is cool' - cute!

Anyway, I hope I don't bore anyone to death with this quote from Gombrich (he says reaching for his reading glasses):
The Lotus Sutra has made a story out of the fire metaphor in he Fire Sermon, and so moved it onto the plane of allegory. I think that the same thing had been done much earlier: in the very passage in the Mahavagga of the Vinaya Khandhaka in which the Fire Sermon is presented in a narrative context. The Buddha preaches that sermon to a thousand newly-converted brahmin fire-worshippers, and indeed at the end of it all of them are said to achieve Enlightenment. This comes as the culmination of what is by the standards of the texts a very long episode, ten pages of Pali (Vin I, 24-34) in the standard edition. In this episode the Buddha seems, if I may say so, to behave in a rather strange manner. There are texts (eg DN I, 213) in which he says that he loathes the display of miracles. But here he performs a whole series of them. He has come upon three brahmin ascetics, all of the Kassapa lineage (gotra)*, who between them have a thousand disciples. They are fire-worshippers, and evidently keep the sacred fire (the narrative says nothing of there being three) in a separate fire house. The Buddha asks to send the night in Uruvela Kassapa's fire-house. The ascetic warns him that there is a naga, a supernatural cobra, living in there who may burn him up. The Buddha goes in and successfully vies with the naga in heating himself up, though of course he does not get hurt. THe whole fire-house seems to be on fire (aditta) because of the heat the two of them generate. Moreover, the Buddha's flames come in five colours. Kassapa is impressed by this miracle, but not yet sufficiently impressed to be converted. The Buddha then performs several more miracles. Not all of them have to do with fire, but the last one does, and the brahmins finally throw away their fire-worshipping gear (aggihutta-missam) and convert (p.33). It is at this point that the narrative places the Fire Sermon.

*A gotra is an exogamous patrilineal descent group

-- Gombrich, RF, Metaphor, Alegory & Satire in How Buddhism Began: the conditioned genesis of the early teachings
Kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by gavesako »

Adittapariyaya Sutta -- videos
Contemplate Part 1 of Buddha's famous Fire Sermon.

Be sure to watch them in order for full benefit:
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfNXYtle6YE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8md-YjkJuo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAUNjnhgPok" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb6yDKNcyVc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbfV6U92Iqs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BI-6DOxkVU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 7 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr5aBM48w6Y" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

*Repeat as often as necessary.

Full text found here:
http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebsut026.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


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http://nkgen.com/31.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:candle:

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Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Spiny O'Norman »

retrofuturist wrote: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... .nymo.html
"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

Thanks, this is an excellent sutta. What I don't quite get in the passage above is where it says "burning with the fire of delusion". Burning with the fires of lust and hate makes perfect sense, but isn't delusion more like a state of mind, an absence of wisdom?

Spiny
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Spiny O'Norman wrote:What I don't quite get in the passage above is where it says "burning with the fire of delusion". Burning with the fires of lust and hate makes perfect sense, but isn't delusion more like a state of mind, an absence of wisdom?
The nature of fire is such that the more fuel you give it, the hotter and longer it burns. Passion (rāga), anger (dosa), and delusion (moha), are three kinds of fuel that feed the fire that is already raging in the six sense spheres.

Moha means not seeing things as they truly are. When a man is lost in the desert he walks around in circles not know which direction he should go to reach safety. Due to moha, people dwell on perceptions of beauty that excite lust, or they dwell on perceptions that excite anger.

Moha is a synonymn for avijjā, which is ignorance of the four noble truths. It is not that we do not see suffering — aging, disease, and death are plain for all to see — but we ignore it and focus instead on things that give us pleasure, delight, and happiness.
The empire of ‘I’ is very large,
in three eras from sky to earth.
Fire of death is blazing down ever and anon,
that won’t leave even a tiny atom,
shaking the whole universe
death, the murderer, is at large.

The existences or lives are only fuel.
Appearance and disappearance are perpetual,
death is the only monarch,
in cycles of world after world.

You can’t have the knowledge of reality,
on conditional materiality and mentality;
when will you be able to extinguish the fire
that’s very dangerous, ferocious and dire?
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Cittasanto »

if you would like an alternative translation see the link in my signature! "some suttas translated."
it is on page 10 of that PDF, although I will not vouch that it is better than any other, and possibly worse than some, but it maybe of interest and use!
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But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Otsom »

.
Last edited by Otsom on Thu Feb 09, 2012 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SN 35.28 - Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sutta)

Post by Spiny O'Norman »

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote: The existences or lives are only fuel.
Appearance and disappearance are perpetual,
death is the only monarch,
in cycles of world after world.
Thank-you, I hadn't come across that before.

Spiny
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