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Sakalika Sutta: The Stone Sliver

Sakalika Sutta

Summary: The Buddha, recuperating from an assassination attempt, receives an unwelcome visit from Mara.

SN 4.13 PTS: S i 110 CDB i 203

Sakalika Sutta: The Stone Sliver

translated from the Pali by

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Translator's note: See the introductory note to SN 1.38.

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Rajagaha at the Maddakucchi Deer Reserve. Now at that time his foot had been pierced by a stone sliver. Excruciating were the bodily feelings that developed within him — painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable — but he endured them mindful, alert, & unperturbed. Having had his outer robe folded in four and laid out, he lay down on his right side in the lion's posture — with one foot placed on top of the other — mindful & alert.

Then Mara the Evil One went to the Blessed One and recited this verse in his presence:

Are you lying there in a stupor, or drunk on poetry? Are your goals so very few? All alone in a secluded lodging, what is this dreamer, this sleepy-face? [The Buddha:]

I lie here,

not in a stupor,
nor drunk on poetry.

My goal attained,

I am sorrow-free.

All alone in a secluded lodging, I lie down with sympathy

for all beings.

Even those pierced in the chest with an arrow, their hearts rapidly,

rapidly
beating:

even they with their arrows are able to sleep.

So why shouldn't I,
with my arrow		removed?

I'm not awake with worry, nor afraid to sleep. Days & nights don't oppress me. I see no threat of decline in any world at all. That's why I sleep

with sympathy
for all beings.

Then Mara the Evil One — sad & dejected at realizing, “The Blessed One knows me; the One Well-Gone knows me” — vanished right there.

See also: SN 1.38; SN 36.6; AN 5.129.


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en/tipitaka/sut/sn/sn04/sn04.013.than.txt · Last modified: 2019/10/30 13:27 by Johann