Reading guide
The exterior sense fields, named together
“Sights, mendicants, are impermanent. Sounds … smells … tastes … touches … and ideas are impermanent…” — the root text still marks each field separately, but Sujato's own English compresses them into a compact, single-sentence list.
Three discourses from the vagga's own close
SN 35.225-227 will complete round four, this vagga, and — unlike any other round in this vagga — carry the vagga's own closing colophon and uddāna at their own final discourse, SN 35.227.
Key terms
bāhirāyatana — the six exterior sense fields — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas, this discourse's own new subject
rūpā…dhammā — sights…ideas — the six exterior sense fields, named together in this discourse's own compact list
anicca — impermanent — the quality declared here, the first of the exterior half's own three-quality cycle in round four
ajjhattikāyatana — the six interior sense fields — already completed at SN 35.222-224, contrasted here with the exterior fields
aniccasutta — “The Discourse on Impermanence” — sharing its own title with SN 35.222's own interior counterpart and, further back, SN 22.12
The text
The complete discourse: the declaration, naming each of the six exterior sense fields, then the liberation formula in compressed form. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1“Mendicants, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas are impermanent. Seeing this … They understand: ‘… there is nothing further for this place.’”
· · ·
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 sense fields does this discourse address, opening round four's second half?
Correct: A. Bāhirāyatana, following the interior half's own completion at SN 35.222-224.
Question 2 of 5
What quality does this discourse declare of the exterior sense fields?
Correct: A. The exterior half repeats the identical anicca/dukkha/anattā cycle already run for the interior fields.
Question 3 of 5
What three discourses complete this vagga, and what unique feature does the last one carry?
Correct: A. SN 35.227, the vagga's own final discourse, is where the closing colophon and summary uddāna appear.
Question 4 of 5
How does Sujato's own English render the six exterior sense fields in this discourse?
Correct: A. A compact list, though the Pāli root still marks each field separately.
Question 5 of 5
What combination follows this discourse, at SN 35.226?
Correct: A. SN 35.226 continues round four's exterior half with suffering, before SN 35.227 closes with not-self.