Reading guide
Honor's absence named as dangerous too
Every discourse before this one in the vagga warned against being overcome by receiving too much; this one adds a second case entirely absent elsewhere — being overcome by asakkāra, lack of honor, is named as equally capable of leading to hell.
A third case: overcome by both at once
The discourse doesn't stop at two symmetrical dangers; it adds a third person overcome by both honor and its absence together, closing off the possibility that simply avoiding one extreme is enough on its own.
Verse arriving only at the vagga's close
Every discourse from SN 17.1 through 17.9 is pure prose; this one alone shifts into verse for its final statement, a formal signal that this discourse is meant to summarize and close the collection, not merely add one more case.
A positive model named for the first time
Where the preceding nine discourses describe only failure — contempt, entanglement, disrobing, loss — this discourse alone describes what success looks like: immersion that doesn't waver either way, framed in the same terms as the danger it answers.
Sappurisa as the vagga's final word
The verses close not with a warning but with a title — sappurisa, “a true person” — granted to whoever's practice holds steady regardless of whether honor comes or doesn't, ending the vagga on a note of what's actually possible rather than only what's at risk.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. “Possessions, honor, and popularity are grim … Take a case where I see a certain individual whose mind is overcome and overwhelmed by honor. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. Take another case where I see a certain individual whose mind is overcome and overwhelmed by lack of honor. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. And take another case where I see a certain individual whose mind is overcome and overwhelmed by both honor and lack of honor. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. So grim are possessions, honor, and popularity. …”
§2That is what the Buddha said. Then the Holy One, the Teacher, went on to say:
§3“Whether they’re honored or not honored, or both, their immersion doesn’t waver as they abide in the immeasurables.
§4They persistently meditate with subtle view and discernment. Rejoicing in the ending of grasping, they’re said to be a true person.”
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