Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Whether the true teaching fades quickly or lasts long after the Buddha's final quenching depends on one thing: whether the fourfold community — monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen — maintains respect and reverence for seven things, or lets that respect lapse.
A four-item core, extended to seven for this nipata
The seven objects of respect are the Teacher, the teaching, the Saṅgha, the training, immersion, diligence, and hospitality. The first four are the same constant core this book has encountered before, extended in the Sixes to six items with two varying additions across several discourses; here, in the Sevens, the same core is extended to seven, with immersion added ahead of diligence and hospitality.
A single cause, stated by negation and then by its mirror
The discourse gives its cause of decline first — a lack of respect for these seven — in response to Kimbila's first question, then simply reverses every element of that same answer when Kimbila asks the mirror question about what makes the teaching endure. Nothing new is introduced in the second half; the same seven items, and the same causal structure, now stated positively.
Kimbila, and the setting at Kimbilā
Venerable Kimbila's own name and the location, Kimbilā, share the same root, and this brief exchange is the only appearance this book gives him — a single, focused question about what will happen to the teaching once its founder is gone, answered with a single, symmetrical cause.
Key terms
The text
Kimbila's question: why the teaching fades
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Kimbilā in the Freshwater Mangrove Wood. Then Venerable Kimbila went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him: “What is the cause, sir, what is the reason why the true teaching does not last long after the final quenching of the Realized One?” “Kimbila, it’s when the monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen lack respect and reverence for the Teacher, the teaching, the Saṅgha, the training, immersion, diligence, and hospitality after the final quenching of the Realized One. This is the cause, this is the reason why the true teaching does not last long after the final quenching of the Realized One.”
The mirror question: why the teaching endures
§2“What is the cause, sir, what is the reason why the true teaching does last long after the final quenching of the Realized One?” “Kimbila, it’s when the monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen maintain respect and reverence for the Teacher, the teaching, the Saṅgha, the training, immersion, diligence, and hospitality after the final quenching of the Realized One. This is the cause, this is the reason why the true teaching does last long after the final quenching of the Realized One.”
Self-check quiz
6 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.