Reading guide
A question that goes further than its companion
"How does one know and see so that the heart is rid of I-making, mine-making, and conceit... and going beyond discrimination, it's peaceful and well freed?" — where SN 22.124 asked how to prevent these things from arising, this discourse asks how the heart is actively freed of them and reaches a settled, peaceful condition.
"Going beyond discrimination" (vidhāsamatikkanta) recalls SN 22.49 earlier in this book, where the comparing conceits — "better than," "equal to," "worse than" — were analyzed at length; this discourse's closing phrase gathers that entire earlier analysis into a single compressed term.
The same formula, now marked as liberation rather than prevention
The Buddha's answer applies the identical elevenfold scope formula as SN 22.124, but this time explicitly "freed by not grasping having truly seen" — anupādā vimutto — rather than simply "truly sees," marking the outcome as accomplished liberation rather than an ongoing practice of prevention.
This small but precise verbal shift — from "one truly sees" (SN 22.124) to "one is freed by not grasping having truly seen" (SN 22.125) — carries the entire difference between the two discourses' questions in a single grammatical change.
"Peaceful and well freed" as a closing formula
"Santaṁ... suvimuttaṁ" ("peaceful... well freed") echoes the exact language closing SN 22.72 (With Surādha) earlier in this book — the same descriptive pair marking a discourse's own arrival at full liberation, now reused here to close Dhammakathikavagga on an identical note.
Closing Dhammakathikavagga
With Kappa's two questions complete, Dhammakathikavagga ends without any explicit colophon in the source text, having moved across its thirteen discourses from a basic definitional question (ignorance and knowledge) through titles, bondage, direct questioning, precise technical distinctions, and an extended five-stage dialogue, to close on this compressed, liberative formula — Uparipaṇṇāsaka's second vagga complete, with Avijjāvagga to follow.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Seated to one side, Venerable Kappa said to the Buddha: “Sir, how does one know and see so that the heart is rid of I-making, mine-making, and conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs; and going beyond discrimination, it’s peaceful and well freed?”
§2“Kappa, one is freed by not grasping having truly seen any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: <em>all</em> form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ One is freed by not grasping having truly seen any kind of feeling …
§3perception … choices … consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: <em>all</em> consciousness—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ That’s how to know and see so that the heart is rid of I-making, mine-making, and conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs; and going beyond discrimination, it’s peaceful and well freed.”
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