Reading guide
A live demonstration, not merely a described image
This project's own reading: unlike SN 56.49-50's own verbally described pebbles and eroded mountain, this discourse stages an immediate physical act — the Buddha himself picks up dirt on his own fingernail in front of the mendicants — opening this vagga with its own most concrete, witnessed comparison.
A vagga of ten variations on one formula
This project's own direct reading ahead, confirmed by this vagga's own closing uddāna at SN 56.60: all ten discourses in this vagga restate the identical “at most seven more lives” claim, varying only the pair of images compared — fingernail-dirt and earth here, with grass-tip water, river confluences, whole earth, ocean, and mountain to follow.
Key terms
The text
§1Then the Buddha, picking up a little bit of dirt on his fingernail, addressed the mendicants: “What do you think, mendicants? Which is more: the little bit of dirt on my fingernail, or this great earth?” “Sir, the great earth is certainly more. The little bit of dirt on your fingernail is tiny. Compared to the great earth, it doesn’t count, there’s no comparison, it’s not worth a fraction.” “In the same way, for an individual with comprehension, a noble disciple accomplished in view, the suffering that’s over and done with is more, what’s left is tiny. Compared to the mass of suffering in the past that’s over and done with, it doesn’t count, there’s no comparison, it’s not worth a fraction, since there are at most seven more lives. Such an individual truly understands about suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.
§2That’s why you should practice meditation …”
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