A brief instruction and its rationale, run across eye and mind as representative sense fields
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
★☆☆☆☆ — a short, direct instruction
Why this discourse
“Mendicants, develop immersion” opens this discourse, followed by its own rationale: a mendicant who has immersion truly understands — specifically, the impermanence of the eye, sights, eye consciousness, eye contact, and the feeling born of eye contact, run in full for the eye and then, by the same chain, for the mind. Sujato's own note points to a parallel already published on this site, SN 22.5, which opens Book III's own treatment of immersion and clear seeing together.
Reading guide
A four-word instruction, then its rationale
“Develop immersion” is the entire instruction; everything else in this short discourse explains what develops from it — true understanding, specified precisely as understanding impermanence.
Five links, twice named
The eye, sights, eye consciousness, eye contact, and the feeling born of eye contact are each declared impermanent in turn; the identical five-link chain repeats for the mind, ideas, mind consciousness, mind contact, and mind-born feeling, with the four intervening senses left to inference.
A parallel already on this site
Sujato's own note connects this discourse to SN 22.5, which opens this project's own treatment (in Book III, Khandhavagga) of immersion and clear seeing run together — already published, and worth reading alongside this shorter companion.
Key terms
samādhi — immersion — this discourse's own single instruction, developed as a condition rather than an end in itself
yathābhūtaṁ pajānāti — truly understands — what immersion is said to make possible, specified here as understanding impermanence
cakkhu…rūpā…cakkhuviññāṇaṁ…cakkhusamphasso — eye…sights…eye consciousness…eye contact — the first four links of the five-link chain declared impermanent
phassajā vedanā — the feeling born of contact — the chain's own fifth and final link
anicca — impermanent — what true understanding, made possible by immersion, discloses about every link in the chain
The text
The complete discourse: the instruction to develop immersion, and its rationale run for the eye and the mind. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1“Mendicants, develop immersion. A mendicant who has immersion truly understands. What do they truly understand? They truly understand that the eye is impermanent. They truly understand that sights … eye consciousness … eye contact … the pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact is impermanent. … They truly understand that the mind is impermanent. They truly understand that ideas … mind consciousness … mind contact … the pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on mind contact is impermanent. Mendicants, develop immersion. A mendicant who has immersion truly understands.”
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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 is this discourse's own single instruction?
Correct: A. Everything else in the discourse explains what develops from it.
Question 2 of 5
What does a mendicant with immersion truly understand, per this discourse?
Correct: A. The same five-link chain repeats for the mind, ideas, mind consciousness, mind contact, and mind-born feeling.
Question 3 of 5
How many links make up the chain declared impermanent for each sense?
Correct: A. Faculty, object, consciousness, contact, and the feeling born of contact.
Question 4 of 5
What parallel discourse, already published on this site, does Sujato's own note connect this to?
Correct: A. Opening this project's own Book III treatment of immersion and clear seeing together.
Question 5 of 5
For which two senses does this discourse give the chain explicitly, leaving the rest to inference?
Correct: A. The first and last of the six, with ear through body compressed by ellipsis.
