Ru-Yi Meditation Center
Saṃyutta Nikāya · Discourse 35.137

Liking Sights (2nd)

Dutiyarūpārāmasutta — Devadahavagga

Setting
Not restated; presumably continuing at Devadaha
Speakers
The Buddha, addressing the mendicants
Form
The previous discourse's prose only, with the sound/smell/taste/touch/idea repetitions compressed to bare untranslated ellipsis
Length
under 1 minute 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
★☆☆☆☆ — the previous discourse's own teaching, stripped to its plainest form

Why this discourse

This second discourse restates the first's own prose — gods and humans liking, loving, and enjoying the six sense fields and suffering when they change; the Realized One truly understanding each field's origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape and so living happily instead — but drops the nine-stanza closing verse entirely. In Sujato's own English, the compression goes further still: the sight-related lines are given in full, then sound, smell, taste, touch, and every remaining idea-related repetition are left as bare, untranslated ellipsis, following a single trailing “…” rather than being spelled out again.

Reading guide

Same prose, no verse

This discourse's own title, “2nd,” marks exactly what it is: the previous discourse's prose contrast, retold, with its closing nine-stanza verse removed — the teaching's plainer half, standing alone.

The most compressed treatment in this pairing

Where the previous discourse (and the Devadahasutta and Khaṇasutta before it) at least names the remaining senses within their own shared ellipsis — “the ear … nose … tongue … body …” — this discourse's English leaves five-sixths of its own content as bare blank placeholders following a single trailing “…,” the terser end of an already terse pair.

One of this book's simpler 1st/2nd pairings

Many paired titles elsewhere in this saṃyutta use “2nd” to add new material or restate a teaching as compressed catechism. Here it is simpler still — the same teaching, minus its own verse, with nothing new introduced.

Key terms

rūpārāmā rūparatā rūpasammuditā — like, love, and enjoy sights — the same opening triple as the previous discourse, still the anchor of both
… — the bare ellipsis carrying, in Sujato's own English, the entire repeated structure across sound, smell, taste, touch, and most of the idea-related closing lines
tathāgato...yathābhūtaṁ viditvā — the Realized One...truly understood — the same epistemic claim as the previous discourse, unchanged
na rūpārāmo na rūparato na rūpasammudito — the negated triple, applied to the Realized One, set against the affirmed triple applied to gods and humans
sukho...viharati — lives happily — contrasted against dukkhā viharanti, gods and humans living in suffering, the same pivot as the previous discourse

The text

This discourse's full substantive English content — the prose contrast between gods and humans and the Realized One, run through the sight-related lines in full. The remaining sense-door repetitions (sound, smell, taste, touch, and most of the idea-related lines) are left as untranslated ellipsis in Sujato's own source and are described, not fabricated, here. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).

§1“Mendicants, gods and humans like sights, they love them and enjoy them. But when sights perish, fade away, and cease, gods and humans live in suffering. … The Realized One has truly understood the origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape of sights, so he doesn’t like, love, or enjoy them. When sights perish, fade away, and cease, the Realized One lives happily. …”

· · ·

Self-check quiz

5 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.

Question 1 of 5
How does this discourse relate to the previous one, SN 35.136?
Correct: A. The same prose contrast, without its own verse.
Question 2 of 5
How does Sujato's own English translation of this discourse handle the sound, smell, taste, touch, and most idea-related repetitions?
Correct: A. The most compressed treatment in this vagga's own opening pairing.
Question 3 of 5
What relationship does gods' and humans' liking of sense fields have to their suffering, in this discourse's own logic?
Correct: A. The same pivot as SN 35.136 — enjoyment followed by change followed by suffering.
Question 4 of 5
What does the Realized One's own understanding of each sense field include, according to this discourse?
Correct: A. The same fivefold understanding carried over from SN 35.136.
Question 5 of 5
What best describes this discourse's own relationship to SN 35.136 within this vagga's own pairing convention?
Correct: A. Simpler than many of this book's other paired titles, which often add or restructure material.
Answered 0 of 5 · Correct 0

Further reading

← PreviousSN 35.136 · Liking Sights (1st)