Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A monk and his mother, a nun, who wanted to see each other often during a shared rains retreat grew close, then intimate, then overcome by lust, and had sex without formally leaving the training first; when told of this, the Buddha names how closeness of this kind develops and warns, in the strongest terms available to him, against unguarded proximity between a man and a woman.
A five-step chain, named without blame at any single step
The discourse traces exactly how this happened, as a causal sequence: wanting to see each other often, leading to frequent seeing, leading to closeness (saṁsagga), leading to intimacy (vissāsa), leading to an opening for lust (otāra) that finally overcame them. No single step in this chain is itself framed as the transgression; the transgression is what the completed chain produced. This mirrors a structural pattern this nipāta has used before, at AN 5.24's causal chain and AN 5.26's opportunity-chain, applied here to a case where the momentum runs toward harm rather than freedom.
The Buddha's response, and what it does not say
The Buddha's first words — how could that futile man imagine that a mother cannot lust for her son, or a son for his mother? — refuse to let kinship be treated as automatic protection against desire. This reading guide reads this as a direct, unflinching acknowledgment of how thoroughly desire can operate, not as commentary on the mother and son’s particular characters. What the discourse does not do is excuse what happened; it explains the mechanism honestly while still treating the outcome as a serious breach.
What follows, and its intended audience
What comes next is addressed to a male monastic audience specifically, using the grammatical masculine throughout: no sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch is named as more arousing or more of an obstacle to freedom than a woman's; a woman is called an all-round snare of Māra; the verses counsel that one should sooner sit beside an armed stranger or a venomous snake than talk alone with a woman. This reading guide states this content directly rather than paraphrasing it into something gentler, because softening it would misrepresent both the discourse and the seriousness of what it is actually claiming.
Reading this discourse honestly, without endorsing its frame
This is a text produced within and for a celibate male monastic community managing a specific, historically situated anxiety: how physical closeness with women specifically threatened the vows those particular listeners had taken. It is not presented here as this series' own claim that women are inherently dangerous, nor as a template for how anyone should regard anyone else today. The honest response to a text like this is neither to erase it from the record nor to repeat its framing as though this reading guide endorsed it; it is to state clearly what audience it addresses, what problem it is actually trying to solve, and what remains genuinely useful in it — the causal chain from casual contact to crossed vows applies to more situations than this one, even where the discourse's gendered framing does not travel.
Key terms
The text
What happened
§1At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery.
§2Now, at that time a mother and son had both entered the rainy season residence at Sāvatthī, as a monk and a nun. They wanted to see each other often. The mother wanted to see her son often, and the son his mother. Seeing each other often, they became close. Being so close, they became intimate. And being intimate, lust overcame them. With their minds swamped by lust, without resigning the training and declaring their inability to continue, they had sex.
§3Then several mendicants went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what had happened.
The Buddha's response
§4“Mendicants, how could that futile man imagine that a mother cannot lust for her son, or that a son cannot lust for his mother? Compared to the sight of a woman, I do not see a single sight that is so arousing, sensuous, intoxicating, captivating, and infatuating, and such an obstacle to reaching the supreme sanctuary from the yoke. Sentient beings are lustful, greedy, tied, infatuated, and attached to the sight of a woman. They sorrow for a long time under the sway of a woman’s sight.
§5Compared to the sound … smell … taste … touch of a woman, I do not see a single touch that is so arousing, sensuous, intoxicating, captivating, and infatuating, and such an obstacle to reaching the supreme sanctuary from the yoke. Sentient beings are lustful, greedy, tied, infatuated, and attached to the touch of a woman. They sorrow for a long time under the sway of a woman’s touch.
§6When a woman walks, she occupies a man’s mind. When a woman stands … sits … lies down … laughs … speaks … sings … cries … is injured, she occupies a man’s mind. Even when a woman is dead, she occupies a man’s mind. For if anyone should be rightly called ‘an all-round snare of Māra’, it’s ladies.
The closing verses
§7You might chat with someone who has knife in hand. You might even chat with a goblin. You might sit close by a viper, whose bite would take your life. But never should you chat one on one with a lady.
§8They captivate the unmindful with a glance and a smile. Or scantily clad, they speak charming words. It’s not good to sit with such a person, even if she’s injured or dead.
§9These five kinds of sensual stimulation are apparent in a woman’s body: sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches so delightful.
§10Those swept away by the flood of sensual pleasures, not comprehending them, are governed by transmigration—time and destination, and life after life.
§11But those who fully understand sensual pleasures live fearing nothing from any quarter. They are those in the world who’ve crossed over, having reached the ending of defilements.”
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