Ekādasamasutta — Parisuddhavagga — the thirteenth chapter of the Tens, the Chapter on Purified Things
Setting
None stated in the source
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
A single bare list, mirroring AN 10.132
Length
under 1 minute to read
Closing this chapter
This discourse closes Parisuddhavagga, the thirteenth chapter, with its own untranslated colophon and uddāna verse naming all eleven discourses
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — the plainest possible close to an already spare chapter
Why this discourse
Closing the most compact chapter met so far in this nipāta, the Buddha simply names the ten right ways, mirroring AN 10.132's bare listing of the wrong ones and ending eleven discourses of steadily varied claims on the plainest note of all.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
There are ten right ways: right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right immersion, right knowledge, and right freedom.
A mirror without elaboration
As anticipated by AN 10.132, this discourse simply names the ten right ways with no claim attached — no purity, no exclusivity, no fruitfulness — the positive mirror completing the chapter's final pairing in the same stripped-down form.
A chapter's full architecture, seen from its close
Read end to end, this chapter now shows a complete shape: five independent claims (AN 10.123–127), a new condition (AN 10.128), three recombinations of that condition with three of the five claims (AN 10.129–131), and finally two bare, unelaborated lists (AN 10.132–133) — wrong and right, closing exactly where this project's exploration of the ten-factor path across chapters 11 through 13 first began, at AN 10.103's own plain statement of the same two lists.
The plainest possible ending to three chapters' work
It is fitting that three chapters spent almost entirely on one recurring ten-factor teaching, dressed in seeds, medicine, shores, fire rituals, and now claims about purity and cultivation, should close not with another elaboration but with the same bare list that started it all — content outlasting every costume it has worn.
Key terms
dasa sammattā — “ten right ways” — this discourse's own title and entire content, mirroring AN 10.132's “ten wrong ways” with no further claim attached.
sammādiṭṭhi — “right view” — the first item, opening the bare list exactly as it opened every list across chapters 11 through 13.
sammāsamādhi — “right immersion” — the eighth item, the classical eightfold path's own final member.
sammāñāṇaṁ — “right knowledge” — the ninth item, one of the two factors extending the classical path throughout this whole three-chapter exploration.
Parisuddhavaggo tatiyo — “the Purified Chapter, the third” — the chapter's own closing colophon, left untranslated in the English text.
The text
The discourse in full: the ten right ways, mirroring AN 10.132. The chapter's own colophon and uddāna verse, in Pāli only, are described but not reproduced. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Ten right ways
§1“Mendicants, there are ten right ways. What ten? Right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right immersion, right knowledge, and right freedom. These are the ten right ways.”
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Self-check quiz
5 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 5
What does this discourse claim about the ten right ways it lists?
Correct: B. A bare mirror, closing this chapter's final pairing without elaboration.
Question 2 of 5
According to the guide, what four-part structure does this chapter reveal, read end to end?
Correct: B. A deliberate architecture only fully visible from this closing discourse.
Question 3 of 5
According to the guide, where does this chapter's closing pair of bare lists echo back to?
Correct: B. A closing that returns to where the entire exploration across chapters 11 through 13 began.
Question 4 of 5
What does this discourse close, according to the guide?
Correct: B. A fitting close to the most compact chapter met so far in this nipāta.
Question 5 of 5
Where is this discourse set?
Correct: D. No location is given for this brief, closing discourse.
