Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Five shackles of the heart — unresolved greed for sensual pleasures, for the body, for physical form, indulgence in comfort and sleep, and desire for rebirth among the gods pursued through one's own spiritual practice — each keep the mind from inclining toward keenness, commitment, persistence, and striving, and are given up by developing the four kinds of mindfulness meditation.
The same mechanism as AN 9.71, a different content
This discourse shares its closing mechanism exactly with AN 9.71 — each shackle, like each kind of hard-heartedness, is defined by keeping the mind from ‘inclining toward keenness, commitment, persistence, and striving’ — but where hard-heartedness named doubt and interpersonal rupture, these five shackles all concern unresolved attachment.
A shackle turned against spiritual practice itself
The fifth and final shackle is the most pointed: a mendicant who leads the spiritual life hoping that precepts, observances, austerity, or practice will earn rebirth among the gods has turned the very tools of liberation into a subtler form of the same craving those tools exist to end — practice itself, corrupted by an ordinary worldly aim.
Closing the chapter with full treatment restored
Unlike AN 9.71, this discourse gives the complete four-foundation formula one final time, matching AN 9.63 and AN 9.64's opening treatment and closing Satipatthanavagga on the same full detail it began with. The source's own untranslated colophon and chapter-summary verse name all ten discourses of the chapter by their opening words.
Key terms
The text
Five shackles of the heart
§1“Mendicants, there are these five shackles of the heart. What five? Firstly, a mendicant isn’t free of greed, desire, fondness, thirst, passion, and craving for sensual pleasures. This being so, their mind doesn’t incline toward keenness, commitment, persistence, and striving. This is the first shackle of the heart. Furthermore, a mendicant isn’t free of greed for the body … They’re not free of greed for form … They eat as much as they like until their belly is full, then indulge in the pleasures of sleeping, lying down, and drowsing … They lead the spiritual life wishing to be reborn in one of the orders of gods: ‘By this precept or observance or fervent austerity or spiritual practice, may I become one of the gods!’ This being so, their mind doesn’t incline toward keenness, commitment, persistence, and striving. This is the fifth shackle of the heart. These are the five shackles of the heart.
Four kinds of mindfulness meditation
§2To give up these five shackles of the heart you should develop the four kinds of mindfulness meditation. What four? It’s when a mendicant meditates by observing an aspect of the body—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world. They meditate observing an aspect of feelings … They meditate observing an aspect of the mind … They meditate observing an aspect of principles—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world. To give up these five shackles of the heart you should develop these four kinds of mindfulness meditation.”
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