Reading guide
The third and final substitution
“You should give up desire for what is not-self” closes the cluster's sequence: impermanence at SN 35.162, suffering at SN 35.163, not-self here — the traditional three marks (tilakkhaṇa), run once each across all six sense fields.
Three marks here, four terms in Book III
SN 22.66-69 ran this same substitution sequence one term further, adding “not belonging to self” (na mama) at SN 22.69 as a fourth characterization beyond the traditional three marks. This vagga's own Koṭṭhika cluster stops at three, without that fourth extension — a genuine structural difference between the two clusters, not an oversight.
Closing a cluster, not a vagga
Unlike several closing discourses already met in this book, this discourse carries no colophon of its own — it closes only the three-discourse Koṭṭhika cluster within the vagga, which itself continues for three more discourses before Nandikkhayavagga's own close at SN 35.167.
Key terms
The text
§1“Koṭṭhita, you should give up desire for what is not-self. And what is not-self? The eye, sights, eye consciousness, and eye contact are not-self: you should give up desire for them. The pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact is also not-self: You should give up desire for it. The ear … nose … tongue … body … The mind, ideas, mind consciousness, and mind contact … The pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on mind contact is also not-self: you should give up desire for it. Koṭṭhita, you should give up desire for what is not-self.”
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