Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A mendicant who meets sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental phenomena at their six sense doors with neither happiness nor sadness, remaining equanimous, mindful, and aware, has the six qualities that make them “worthy of offerings.”
A formula named four ways
The Pāli gives four separate epithets in a row — āhuneyyo pāhuneyyo dakkhiṇeyyo añjalikaraṇīyo — each naming a different social occasion for giving: an oblation offered from a distance, a guest gift given to someone arriving, a donation given as an act of religious merit, and a simple gesture of raised palms. English collapses these into “worthy of offerings dedicated to the gods, worthy of hospitality, worthy of a religious donation, worthy of veneration with cupped palms.” The chapter takes its name, Āhuneyyavagga, from the first of the four.
Six doors, not six qualities of mind
It would be easy to misread this as praising six separate mental qualities. It names one quality — equanimity paired with mindfulness and full awareness — and applies it across six occasions, one for each sense door. The “six things” of the title are the six doors the one quality is tested at, not six different virtues.
Not withdrawal from the senses
The formula does not describe a mendicant who avoids sights and sounds, or who fails to notice them. It describes one who sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, and cognizes exactly as anyone does, and simply does not tip into liking or disliking what arises. The senses keep functioning; what changes is what happens after contact.
An opening formula the chapter will keep testing
AN 6.1 gives the fourfold worthiness formula its simplest possible attachment: equanimity at the six senses. The next several discourses attach the same formula to increasingly different sets of six qualities — the six kinds of superhuman knowledge at AN 6.2, the five spiritual faculties plus liberation at AN 6.3 — testing how far a single closing refrain can stretch across different content.
Key terms
The text
At Sāvatthī
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants, “Mendicants!” “Venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:
Six qualities, one at each sense door
§2“Mendicants, a mendicant with six qualities is worthy of offerings dedicated to the gods, worthy of hospitality, worthy of a religious donation, worthy of veneration with cupped palms, and is the supreme field of merit for the world. What six? It’s a mendicant who, when they see a sight with their eyes, is neither happy nor sad. They remain equanimous, mindful and aware. When they hear a sound with their ears … When they smell an odor with their nose … When they taste a flavor with their tongue … When they feel a touch with their body … When they know an idea with their mind, they’re neither happy nor sad. They remain equanimous, mindful and aware. A mendicant with these six qualities is worthy of offerings dedicated to the gods, worthy of hospitality, worthy of a religious donation, worthy of veneration with cupped palms, and is the supreme field of merit for the world.”
The conclusion
§3That is what the Buddha said. Satisfied, the mendicants approved what the Buddha said.
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