A single instruction: give up desire for the six interior sense fields, each declared impermanent
Length
~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
★☆☆☆☆ — opens this book's largest vagga, whose own name announces its scale
Why this discourse
This discourse opens Saṭṭhipeyyālavagga (“the sixty abbreviated texts”), Saḷāyatanasaṃyutta's own seventeenth vagga and, at sixty discourses, its largest by a wide margin. The vagga's own closing colophon (at SN 35.227) later spells out its arithmetic in an untranslated summary verse: sixty discourses built from four combinatorial rounds of eighteen-eighteen-eighteen-six, each round crossing interior and exterior sense fields with impermanence, suffering, and not-self. This discourse is round one's own opening item: give up desire (chanda) for the interior sense fields, declared impermanent.
Reading guide
The vagga's own name, confirmed from the root text
Bilara-data's own heading for this discourse (“17. Saṭṭhipeyyālavagga”, rendered by Sujato as “Sixty Abbreviated Texts”) confirms both this vagga's position (seventeenth) and its own defining feature — almost all of its sixty discourses are peyyāla, elided formula-texts, not narrative material.
Round one's first variable: desire, greed, or both
This discourse and its two immediate companions (SN 35.169-170) share the same subject — the interior sense fields (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind), each declared impermanent — and differ only in what is to be given up: desire (chanda) here, greed (rāga) next, and both together (chandarāga) the discourse after.
A three-item unit, kept as three separate files here
This is the only one of round one's six interior/exterior × impermanent/suffering/not-self combinations that bilara-data preserves as three separate one-line files rather than merging desire, greed, and both-together into a single elided sentence — the remaining five combinations (SN 35.171 onward) each compress the same three-item unit into one file.
Key terms
chando pahātabbo — “desire should be given up” — this discourse's own instruction, the first of round one's three variants
anicca — impermanent — the quality declared of the six interior sense fields in this discourse
ajjhattikāyatana — the six interior sense fields (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) — this discourse's own subject, as opposed to the six exterior fields addressed from SN 35.177 onward
rāga — greed — the second variant, substituted in at SN 35.169
chandarāga — desire-and-greed together — the third variant, at SN 35.170
The text
The complete discourse: the instruction, then the definition of what is impermanent. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1“Mendicants, you should give up desire for what is impermanent. And what is impermanent?
§2The eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are impermanent: you should give up desire for them. You should give up desire for what is impermanent.”
· · ·
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
What does this discourse instruct mendicants to give up?
Correct: A. Chando pahātabbo — the first of round one's three variants.
Question 2 of 5
Which six sense fields does this discourse name?
Correct: A. Ajjhattikāyatana, the six interior sense fields; the exterior fields follow from SN 35.177.
Question 3 of 5
How does this discourse's own bilara-data file differ from its two immediate companions, SN 35.169-170?
Correct: A. SN 35.168-170 are three separate one-line files; every other combination in round one merges its three variants into a single file.
Question 4 of 5
What does this vagga's own name, Saṭṭhipeyyālavagga, mean?
Correct: A. Confirmed from bilara-data's own heading, Sujato's own rendering of the vagga title.
Question 5 of 5
What two variables does this discourse's own closing colophon (at SN 35.227) confirm structure the whole vagga's sixty discourses?
Correct: A. The colophon's own untranslated arithmetic verse (eighteen-eighteen-eighteen-six) confirms this two-axis combinatorial design.
