Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Beyond simply living by the precepts and the monastic code, a mendicant who, in any of the four postures, has abandoned desire and ill will, dispelled dullness-and-drowsiness and restlessness-and-remorse, given up doubt, and settled into roused energy, lucid mindfulness, a tranquil body, and a unified mind, is called “keen and prudent, always energetic and resolute” in that posture.
A question the discourse asks itself
The opening instruction is foundational and almost austere: “Live by the ethical precepts and the monastic code… seeing danger in the slightest fault, keep the rules you’ve undertaken.” Having said this much, the text immediately raises the obvious follow-up — “When you’ve done this, what more is there to do?” — refusing to let ethical conduct alone stand in for the whole of the training. The answer that follows doesn’t introduce a new topic so much as describe, in far more interior detail, what a mendicant grounded in that ethical foundation is actually meant to be doing with their mind, moment to moment.
Five things absent, six things present
Where Iti 110 described its diligent mendicant purely by what they refuse to tolerate — unwholesome thoughts, given up in each posture — this discourse names a considerably fuller inner state. Desire and ill will are gone; so are “dullness and drowsiness,” “restlessness and remorse,” and doubt — the five hindrances (nīvaraṇa) named individually rather than as a set, though any reader familiar with the standard list will recognize all five present. In their place: energy that is roused and unflagging, mindfulness that is established and lucid, a body that is tranquil and undisturbed, and a mind immersed in samādhi, unified. This is Iti 110’s bare instruction to abandon bad thoughts, filled in with what a mendicant’s mind looks like once that abandoning has actually taken hold.
Scrutinizing the rise and fall
The closing verse adds a further, more active practice: such a mendicant, “above, below, all round, as far as the planet extends,” “scrutinizes the rise and fall of phenomena such as the aggregates.” This is not simply calm abiding; it is calm paired with a specific investigative attention, watching how conditioned things (the khandhas, among others) arise and pass in every direction the mind can reach. The verse’s final image draws the whole discourse together: “training in what leads to serenity of heart, always staying mindful,” such a mendicant is called “always determined” — the same closing epithet, pahitatta, that ended Iti 110 as well, now earned by a fuller and more explicit path.
Key terms
The text
§1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
§2“Mendicants, live by the ethical precepts and the monastic code. Live restrained in the monastic code, conducting yourselves well and resorting for alms in suitable places. Seeing danger in the slightest fault, keep the rules you’ve undertaken.
§3When you’ve done this, what more is there to do?
§4Suppose a mendicant has got rid of desire and ill will while walking, and has given up dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. Their energy is roused up and unflagging, their mindfulness is established and lucid, their body is tranquil and undisturbed, and their mind is immersed in samādhi and unified. Such a mendicant is said to be ‘keen and prudent, always energetic and resolute’ when walking.
§5–7Suppose a mendicant has got rid of desire and ill will while standing… sitting… or when lying down while awake… Such a mendicant is said to be ‘keen and prudent, always energetic and resolute’ when lying down while awake.”
The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
§8–10“Carefully walking, carefully standing, carefully sitting, carefully lying; a mendicant carefully bends their limbs, and carefully extends them. Above, below, all round, as far as the planet extends; they scrutinize the rise and fall of phenomena such as the aggregates. Meditating diligently like this, peaceful, not restless, training in what leads to serenity of heart, always staying mindful; they call that sort of mendicant ‘always determined’.”
§11This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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