Recitation

Linked Discourses 9.10

1. In the Woods

Recitation

At one time one of the mendicants was staying in the land of the Kosalans in a certain forest grove.

Now at that time that mendicant had previously been spending too much time rehearsing. But some time later they adhered to passivity and silence.

Not hearing the teaching, the deity haunting that forest approached that mendicant, and addressed them in verse:

“Mendicant, why don’t you recite passages of the teaching,

living together with other mendicants?

Hearing the teaching, one garners confidence;

and in this very life, one garners praise.”

“I used to be zealous for passages of the teaching,

until I encountered dispassion.

When I encountered dispassion,

whatever was seen, heard, and thought,

this, good people say, is the laying down by complete understanding.”