Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A mendicant who has given up the five hindrances and possesses the five aggregates of an adept — ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and the knowledge and vision of freedom — is called consummate, accomplished, a supreme person.
Five given up, a familiar list
The five things given up are the standard hindrances already met repeatedly in this project: sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt.
Five possessed, the aggregates of an adept
The five things possessed are the classic ‘dhammakkhandha,’ the fivefold Dhamma body attributed to an adept (asekha, one beyond further training): ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and knowledge and vision of freedom — the same final term that closed AN 10.1's entire ten-link chain, here serving as the culmination of just five.
Prose, then verse, of the same content
This discourse's distinctive structure restates its own prose teaching in verse immediately afterward — not a separate teaching but the identical ten-item content (five given up, five possessed) recast in poetic form within the same page, a compact demonstration of how the same doctrine could travel in either register.
Key terms
The text
Five given up, five possessed
§1“Mendicants, in this teaching and training a mendicant who has given up five factors and possesses five factors is called consummate, accomplished, a supreme person. And how has a mendicant given up five factors? It’s when a mendicant has given up sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. That’s how a mendicant has given up five factors. And how does a mendicant have five factors? It’s when a mendicant has the entire spectrum of an adept’s ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and knowledge and vision of freedom. That’s how a mendicant has five factors. In this teaching and training a mendicant who has given up five factors and possesses five factors is called consummate, accomplished, a supreme person.
The same teaching, in verse
§2Sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness, and doubt are not found in a mendicant at all. That sort are accomplished in an adept’s ethics, an adept’s immersion, and freedom and knowledge. Possessing these five factors, and rid of five factors, in this teaching and training they’re called ‘consummate’.”
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