Reading guide
A direct echo of SN 48.29, faculty set aside
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse's own text is nearly identical to SN 48.29: the same criterion, the same contrastive structure denying and then affirming the title of true ascetic or brahmin, applied here to the five feeling faculties instead of the six sense faculties.
This vagga's own sequence, tracking Vagga 3's closely
This project's own running observation: this vagga's own discourse types so far — plain listing (48.31), stream-enterer (48.32), arahant (48.33), and now ascetics-and-brahmins (48.34) — track Vagga 3's own sequence (SN 48.25-29) closely, category for category. This project continues to read each discourse fresh rather than assume the parallel holds exactly for what remains.
Marked "(1st)" again, expecting a paired continuation
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse's own title again explicitly marks it “(1st),” matching SN 48.29's own pattern and signaling a paired “(2nd)” discourse next — which this project will read fresh rather than assume mirrors SN 48.30 in every detail.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, there are these five faculties. What five? The faculties of pleasure, pain, happiness, sadness, and equanimity. There are ascetics and brahmins who don’t truly understand the origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape when it comes to these five faculties. I don’t deem them as true ascetics and brahmins. Those venerables don’t realize the goal of life as an ascetic or brahmin, and don’t live having realized it with their own insight. There are ascetics and brahmins who do truly understand the origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape when it comes to these five faculties. I deem them as true ascetics and brahmins. Those venerables realize the goal of life as an ascetic or brahmin, and live having realized it with their own insight.”
Self-check quiz
3 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.