The Buddha alone, addressing the assembled mendicants
Form
A single three-item chain, closing both this descending sequence and the vagga itself, followed by a reciter's instruction and the vagga's closing verse
Length
~2 minutes to read
Northern parallel
A rough counterpart may exist in the Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama (T99), though this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★★★☆☆ — short in itself, but closes a pattern spanning the previous four discourses
Why this discourse
This discourse supplies the one pairing left unstated after SN 14.18–21: lazy paired with unmindful, both closing on witless as always. With this single chain given, Dutiyavagga's descending sequence is complete, and the vagga's own closing verse confirms the shape this reading guide has been tracing discourse by discourse: five chains rooted in the faithless, four rooted in the shameless, three rooted in imprudence, two rooted in the unlearned, and one rooted in the lazy — fifteen chains in total, exhausting every pairwise combination available among the septet's six non-witless qualities. A second reciter's instruction closes the discourse itself, before the vagga's own summary verse takes over.
Reading guide
The final, single chain
Lazy and unmindful, the one combination not yet given, closes the negative side; energetic and mindful close the positive side — both still bookended by witless and wise, exactly as in every discourse since SN 14.18.
A second reciter's instruction
After the chain itself, the source adds “tell all in full for the past, future, and present” — confirming that SN 14.19–22's compressed, present-tense-only chains were always meant to be mentally expanded across all three time frames, as SN 14.14 and 14.17 modeled explicitly.
The vagga's closing verse confirms the count directly
Untranslated in the source but readable in Pali, this vagga's uddāna literally states the descending count this reading guide has tracked: pañca (“five”) for assaddhamūlaka, cattāro (“four”) for ahirikamūlaka, tīṇi (“three”) for anottappamūlaka, duve (“two”) for appassutena, ekakaṁ (“one”) for kusītaṁ — the source's own arithmetic, not an inference this reading guide is making on its own.
Twenty-two discourses, confirmed by the same verse
The closing verse also states bāvīsati vuttā suttā, “twenty-two discourses spoken,” matching this vagga's SN 14.11–22 span exactly and closing with dutiyo vaggo pavuccati, “the second chapter is told.”
A vagga that moved from narrative to pure combinatorics
Looking back across Dutiyavagga as a whole, it opened with SN 14.11's technical meditation-attainment list and SN 14.15's vivid, named roll call, then closed with five discourses of increasingly abstract, purely combinatorial recombination — a real shift in register within a single vagga.
Key terms
kusītamūlaka — “rooted in,” or “beginning with, the lazy” — this discourse's title, naming lazy as the fixed opening term of the sequence's final chain.
kusītā … muṭṭhassatino … duppaññā — “lazy … unmindful … witless” — this vagga's fifteenth and final chain, completing the combinatorial set.
sabbattha atītānāgatapaccuppannaṁ kātabbaṁ — “tell all in full for the past, future, and present” — the reciter's instruction closing this discourse, confirming the three-time-frame expansion applies throughout SN 14.19–22.
assaddhamūlakā pañca … kusītaṁ ekakaṁ vuttaṁ — “five rooted in the faithless … the lazy one spoken as one” — the vagga's own closing verse, stating the 5-4-3-2-1 count in the source's own words.
bāvīsati vuttā suttā — “twenty-two discourses spoken” — the closing verse's confirmation of this vagga's total span, SN 14.11 through 14.22.
The text
The discourse in full, including its closing reciter's instruction. The vagga's closing verse of discourse counts and titles is not translated in the source and is not quoted here. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, sentient beings join together and converge because of an element: the lazy with the lazy … unmindful … witless … energetic … mindful … wise …”
§2(Tell all in full for the past, future, and present.)
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
What is the one remaining pairing this discourse's chain supplies?
Correct: A. The last combination not given across SN 14.18-21.
Question 2 of 10
What does the vagga's own closing verse state directly, confirmed in Pali?
Correct: A. Pañca, cattāro, tīṇi, duve, ekakaṁ — the source's own arithmetic.
Question 3 of 10
What reciter's instruction closes this discourse?
Correct: A. Confirming SN 14.19-22's compressed chains were meant to be expanded across all three time frames.
Question 4 of 10
How many total discourses does the vagga's closing verse confirm for Dutiyavagga?
Correct: A. Bāvīsati vuttā suttā, matching SN 14.11 through 14.22 exactly.
Question 5 of 10
How many total pairwise combinations does the SN 14.18-22 sequence exhaust?
Correct: A. Five plus four plus three plus two plus one, systematically covering every pair.
Question 6 of 10
How does this discourse describe Dutiyavagga's overall shift in register?
Correct: A. SN 14.11's technical list and SN 14.15's named roll call giving way to SN 14.18-22's pure recombination.
Question 7 of 10
Is the vagga's closing verse of discourse titles translated in the source?
Correct: A. Following the same convention used for untranslated closing material elsewhere in this collection.
Question 8 of 10
Who is the sole speaker in this discourse?
Correct: A. No interlocutor or visitor appears; the Buddha teaches directly.
Question 9 of 10
Where does the Buddha deliver this teaching?
Correct: A. The setting shared with most discourses in this collection.
Question 10 of 10
What numbering tag closes this discourse?
Correct: A. The twelfth and closing discourse of Dutiyavagga.
