Reading guide
A definition of "practicing in line with the teaching"
The discourse opens by naming its own subject precisely: when a mendicant is practicing in line with the teaching (anudhamma), this — what follows — is what that consists of. The definition is not left implicit; the discourse states outright that it is defining the term named in its own title.
A three-step chain from disillusionment to freedom
The chain itself has three explicit steps: living full of disillusionment (nibbidābahula) for the five aggregates; from this, completely understanding (parijānāti) them; and from complete understanding, being freed (vimuccati) from them. Each step depends strictly on the one before it, in the same dependency structure seen in SN 22.12's earlier liberation chain.
The fullest description of freedom in this vagga
Where many discourses in this book close on the compact phrase “freed from suffering,” this discourse spells out what that freedom specifically includes: freedom from rebirth, old age, and death, and from sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress — the fullest single description of the aggregates of dukkha found together anywhere in Natumhākavagga, before compressing it all into the final summary “they're freed from suffering, I say.”
A template the vagga's closing quartet will vary
This discourse's opening step — living full of disillusionment — is what the three discourses immediately after it will each replace with a different meditation practice: observing impermanence (SN 22.40), observing suffering (SN 22.41), and observing not-self (SN 22.42), each still leading to the identical closing declaration.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, when a mendicant is practicing in line with the teaching, this is what’s in line with the teaching. They should live full of disillusionment for form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness. Living in this way, they completely understand form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness. Completely understanding form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness, they’re freed from these things. They’re freed from rebirth, old age, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress. They’re freed from suffering, I say.”
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