Reading guide
A complaint about repetition, not a confrontation
Unlike this saṃyutta's more dramatic encounters, nothing here rises to outright hostility; Udaya's grumbling about the Buddha's repeated visits is closer to mild social irritation than genuine anger, a notably lower-stakes opening than most of this collection.
The complaint's own word becomes the verse's structure
The Buddha doesn't argue against the accusation of repetitiveness; he takes ‘again and again’ literally and builds the entire response verse around that exact repeated phrase, turning the brahmin's complaint into the teaching's own organizing device.
Ordinary cycles named before the larger one
The verse doesn't leap immediately to birth and death; it moves through smaller, familiar repetitions first — sowing seed, rain falling, farmers plowing, grain being produced, giving and receiving merit — each cycle recognizable and unremarkable on its own.
A pivot from the mundane to the cosmic within the same structure
Only after establishing this rhythm of ordinary repetition does the verse turn to its real subject: birth and death themselves repeating ‘again and again’, using the exact same grammatical pattern that described farming and giving to describe saṃsāra itself.
An exit named in the same breath as the cycle it exits
The verse's closing line doesn't simply lament endless rebirth; it names, in the same structure, what interrupts it — one of vast wisdom, having found the path to no further becoming, is not reborn again and again, the escape stated as concretely as the repetition it escapes.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Then the Buddha robed up in the morning and, taking his bowl and robe, went to the home of the brahmin Udaya. Then Udaya filled the Buddha’s bowl with rice. The next day … Udaya again filled the Buddha’s bowl with rice. But when he had filled the Buddha’s bowl on the third day, he said to the Buddha, “This ascetic Gotama is such a drag! He keeps coming back again and again!”
§2“Again and again, they sow the seed; again and again, the king of the heavens sends rain; again and again, farmers plough the field; again and again, grain is produced for the nation.
§3Again and again, the beggars beg; again and again, the donors give. Again and again, when the donors have given, again and again, they take their place in heaven.
§4Again and again, dairy farmers milk; again and again, a calf cleaves to its mother; again and again, oppressing and intimidating, that dullard returns to the womb again and again.
§5Again and again, you’re reborn and die; again and again, you get carried to a charnel ground. But when they’ve gained the path for no further rebirth, one of vast wisdom is not reborn again and again.”
§6When he had spoken, the brahmin Udaya said to the Buddha, “Excellent, worthy Gotama … From this day forth, may the worthy Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.”
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