Reading guide
Declining faith, asserting direct knowledge
Confirmed by direct reading, Sāriputta's own answer draws a sharp distinction: those who have not personally known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this truth with wisdom “may rely on faith in this matter”; but Sāriputta himself has directly verified it and therefore has “no doubts or uncertainties” — he explicitly does not answer “yes, I have faith,” even when asked by the Buddha himself.
The Buddha's own approval of this distinction
Confirmed by direct reading, the Buddha responds “Good, good, Sāriputta!” and repeats Sāriputta's own distinction back almost verbatim — confirming that faith remains valid for those who have not yet directly realized the truth, while direct knowledge supersedes the need for faith once that realization has occurred.
A direct echo of SN 48.42's own nibbāna formula
Confirmed by direct comparison, this discourse's own closing formula — “amatogadhaṁ amataparāyaṇaṁ amatapariyosānaṁ” (“grounded in the deathless, the deathless as destination, the deathless as culmination”) — shares the identical grammatical shape with SN 48.42's own “nibbānogadhaṁ … nibbānaparāyaṇaṁ nibbānapariyosānaṁ” formula, using “amata” (the deathless) in place of “nibbāna” (extinguishment) for what this project's own reading takes to be the same final goal, named two ways.
Key terms
The text
§1 — the Buddha's own questionSo I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying in Sāvatthī at the eastern gate. Then the Buddha said to Venerable Sāriputta: “Sāriputta, do you have faith that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, have freedom from death as their objective, destination, and culmination?”
§2 — Sāriputta's own answer“Sir, in this case I don’t rely on faith in the Buddha’s claim that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, have freedom from death as their objective, destination, and culmination. There are those who have not known or seen or understood or realized or experienced this with wisdom. They may rely on faith in this matter. But there are those who have known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this with wisdom. They have no doubts or uncertainties in this matter. I have known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this with wisdom. I have no doubts or uncertainties that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, have freedom from death as their objective, destination, and culmination.”
§3 — the Buddha's own approval“Good, good, Sāriputta! There are those who have not known or seen or understood or realized or experienced this with wisdom. They may rely on faith in this matter. But there are those who have known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this with wisdom. They have no doubts or uncertainties that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, have freedom from death as their objective, destination, and culmination.”
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