The Fire Sermon

  (Adittapariyaya Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya XXXV, 28)

  

  

  I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at 

  Varanasi in Gaya, at Gaya Head, with 1,000 monks.  There he addressed 

  the monks:  

  

  'Monks, the All is aflame.  What All is aflame?  The eye is aflame.  

  Forms are aflame.  Visual consciousness is aflame.  Visual contact is 

  aflame.  And whatever there is that arises in dependence on visual 

  contact, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain, 

  that too is aflame.  Aflame with what?  Aflame with the fire of 

  passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion.  Aflame, I say, 

  with birth, ageing & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, griefs 

  & despairs.

  

  'The ear is aflame.  Sounds are aflame...

  

  'The nose is aflame.  Odors are aflame...

  

  'The tongue is aflame.  Flavors are aflame...

  

  'The body is aflame.  Tactile sensations are aflame...

  

  'The intellect is aflame.  Ideas are aflame.  Mental consciousness is 

  aflame.  Mental contact is aflame.  And whatever there is that arises 

  in dependence on mental contact, experienced as pleasure, pain or 

  neither-pleasure-nor-pain, that too is aflame.  Aflame with what?  

  Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of 

  delusion.  Aflame, I say, with birth, ageing & death, with sorrows, 

  lamentations, pains, griefs & despairs.

  

  'Seeing thus, the instructed Noble disciple grows disenchanted with 

  the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with visual 

  consciousness, disenchanted with visual contact.  And whatever there 

  is that arises in dependence on visual contact, experienced as 

  pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain:  He grows 

  disenchantedwith that too.

  

  'He grows disenchanted with the ear...

  

  'He grows disenchanted with the nose...

  

  'He grows disenchanted with the tongue...

  

  'He grows disenchanted with the body...

  

  'He grows disenchanted with the intellect, disenchanted with ideas, 

  disenchanted with mental consciousness, disenchanted with mental 

  contact.  And whatever there is that arises in dependence on mental 

  contact, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain:  

  He grows disenchanted with that too.  Disenchanted, he becomes 

  dispassionate.  Through dispassion, he is released.  With release, 

  there is the knowledge, "Released."  He discerns that, "Birth is 

  depleted, the holy life fulfilled, the task done.  There is nothing 

  further for this world."'

  

  That is what the Blessed One said.  Glad at heart, the monks delighted 

  at his words.  And while this explanation was being given, the hearts 

  of the 1,000 monks, through no clinging (not being sustained), were 

  released from the mental effluents