Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The dark path is the ten wrong factors from wrong view to wrong freedom; the bright path is the ten right factors from right view to right freedom.
A sensory image, not an abstract judgment
Kaṇha and sukka, dark and bright, trade the abstract evaluative register of “noble” for something almost visual — a path one could imagine walking, lit or unlit, rather than a purely conceptual standard to be judged against.
An echo of kamma vocabulary used elsewhere
“Dark and bright” is recognizable vocabulary from this canon's broader discussions of kamma, where deeds themselves are classified as dark, bright, or a mixture of both; this discourse applies the same light-based classification not to individual deeds but to the entire ten-factor path as a whole.
The second of ten, following the chapter's own template exactly
As with every discourse in this chapter's run, no further structural surprise appears here beyond the new word-pair itself — the compact template established at AN 10.145 holds without variation.
Key terms
The text
The dark path, and the bright path
§1“I will teach you the dark path and the bright path. … And what is the dark path? Wrong view, wrong purpose, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, wrong immersion, wrong knowledge, and wrong freedom. This is called the dark path. And what is the bright path? Right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right immersion, right knowledge, and right freedom. This is called the bright path.”
Self-check quiz
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