Reading guide
A third private reflection, on wealth this time
Following love (SN 3.4) and protection (SN 3.5), this discourse's reflection turns to a third subject: what happens to people, statistically, when they come into luxury — completing what could be read as a loose trilogy of the king's own private ethical observations.
A statistical claim, not an absolute one
Unlike SN 3.4 and SN 3.5's binary distinctions (those who do versus those who don't), this reflection is explicitly comparative: ‘few’ avoid negligence with luxury, while ‘many more’ succumb to it, acknowledging exceptions exist without denying the general pattern.
The shortest confirmation formula so far
The Buddha's reply here is the most compressed of this trio's confirmations: no additional prose commentary before the elided repeat and the verse, letting the king's own observation stand with minimal further elaboration.
Deer in a trap, not noticing
The closing simile's key detail is not the trap itself but the deer's failure to notice: those infatuated with possessions and pleasure ‘don't notice that they've gone too far’, mirroring how the king's own observation concerns a failure of self-awareness under luxury's influence, not a deliberate choice to do wrong.
A simile this saṃyutta reuses with variation
The same closing couplet — ‘it'll be bitter later on; for the result will be bad for them’ — recurs at SN 3.7 with a different animal (fish rather than deer), suggesting this pairing of image and refrain functioned as a reusable unit within this saṃyutta, similar to the shared couplets already seen in the Devaputtasaṃyutta.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Seated to one side, King Pasenadi said to the Buddha, “Just now, sir, as I was in private retreat this thought came to mind: ‘Few are the sentient beings in the world who, when they obtain luxury possessions, don’t grow indulgent and negligent, giving in to greed for sensual pleasures, and doing the wrong thing by others. There are many more who, when they obtain luxury possessions, do grow indulgent and negligent, giving in to greed for sensual pleasures, and doing the wrong thing by others.’”
§2“That’s so true, great king! That’s so true!” said the Buddha. And he repeated the king’s statement, adding:
§3“Full of desire for possessions and pleasures, greedy, infatuated by sensual pleasures; they don’t notice that they’ve gone too far, like deer ensnared in a trap set out. It’ll be bitter later on; for the result will be bad for them.”
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