Reply To: Useful Essays from DRARISWORLD and Other Websites – Part 2

#51445
Jittananto
Participant

Attadīpa Sutta: Discourse on being an island to oneself

In the Attadipa sutta, the Buddha has instructed the monks to live with themselves as an island and a refuge and also with Dhamma as an island and a refuge. Living that way, one can investigate the source of sorrow, lamentation, physical pain, mental pain and despair. Then the Buddha has said that when an ordinary person considers the five aggregates of clinging: Form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), mental formations (sankhāra) and consciousness (viññāna), as self or considers self as possessing them, or considers the control to be in them, or considers them to be in control when they change by their very nature, it leads to the arising of sorrow, lamentation, physical pain, mental pain and despair. Then the Buddha has stated how when one truly understands the inability to maintain at our liking and the changeable nature of the five aggregates, one will abandon any sorrow, lamentation, physical pain, mental pain and despair, and will live happily in a state of temporary liberation.