Reading guide
A new second variable: the three times
“In the past the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind were impermanent” opens this discourse — the interior sense fields, declared impermanent not simply in general but specifically in the past, the first of round two's own three time-values (past, future, present).
The full liberation formula, spelled out once more
Where round one closed each discourse with a bare instruction to give up desire or greed, this discourse runs the complete formula this project has traced across dozens of earlier discourses: seeing the sense fields' impermanence, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned, disillusionment fades into dispassion, dispassion frees, and the freed one knows they are freed — “rebirth is ended…”
A precise match already published: SN 22.9-11
This discourse's own structure — a time-value crossed with impermanence, closing in the full liberation formula — is not new to this project. SN 22.9 (Kālattayaaniccasutta), already published in Book III, runs the identical three-times formula for the five aggregates rather than the six sense fields; SN 22.10 and 22.11 continue with suffering and not-self, exactly mirroring the three qualities this round will cycle through here.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, in the past the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind were impermanent.
§2Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
§3Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed. They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’”
Self-check quiz
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