Reading guide
The same dialogue, different speakers
Every element of SN 35.232's own dialogue recurs here unchanged in substance: the either-or question about the eye and sights, the chandarāga answer, and the ox-yoke simile. Only the setting (Ghosita's Monastery rather than Isipatana) and the speakers (Kāmabhū and Ānanda rather than Mahākoṭṭhita and Sāriputta) change.
A shorter telling
This discourse omits two elements SN 35.232 included: the counterfactual argument that the spiritual life for the ending of suffering would not be found if the fetter claim ran the other way, and the closing description of the Buddha's own sensing-but-unfettered mind. The core question, answer, and simile stand alone.
A pattern already met in this project
The same teaching restated between different named speakers, with only setting and cast changed, is a pattern this project has already met more than once — most recently, for example, in Book III's own Kukkuḷavagga and in this book's own earlier vaggas, where identical formulas recur across successive discourses.
A third telling to follow
This is the second of three consecutive dialogues in Samuddavagga built on questions between named senior disciples — the third, SN 35.234 immediately following, keeps the Kosambī setting and the same pair of speakers who feature here, but turns to a different question entirely.
Key terms
The text
§1At one time the venerables Ānanda and Kāmabhū were staying near Kosambī, in Ghosita’s Monastery. Then in the late afternoon, Venerable Kāmabhū came out of retreat, went to Venerable Ānanda, and exchanged greetings with him. When the greetings and polite conversation were over, he sat down to one side and said to Ānanda: “Reverend Ānanda, which is it? Is the eye the fetter of sights, or are sights the fetter of the eye? Is the ear … nose … tongue … body … mind the fetter of ideas, or are ideas the fetter of the mind?”
§2“Reverend Kāmabhū, the eye is not the fetter of sights, nor are sights the fetter of the eye. The fetter there is the desire and greed that arises from the pair of them. The ear … nose … tongue … body … mind is not the fetter of ideas, nor are ideas the fetter of the mind. The fetter there is the desire and greed that arises from the pair of them.
§3Suppose there was a black ox and a white ox yoked by a single harness or yoke. Would it be right to say that the black ox is the yoke of the white ox, or the white ox is the yoke of the black ox?” “No, reverend. The black ox is not the yoke of the white ox, nor is the white ox the yoke of the black ox. The yoke there is the single harness or yoke that they’re yoked by.” “In the same way, the eye is not the fetter of sights, nor are sights the fetter of the eye. The ear … nose … tongue … body … mind is not the fetter of ideas, nor are ideas the fetter of the mind. The fetter there is the desire and greed that arises from the pair of them.”
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