Khitaka — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Eleven · Poem 4 of 10
Setting
A first-person, exclamatory account of meditative rapture
Speaker
Khitaka, in the first person
Form
One four-line verse, opening with an interjection
Length
under 1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this poem in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — plain vocabulary, one vivid physical image
Why this text
Khitaka describes his own body as light, ‘full of so much rapture and happiness’, floating ‘like cotton in a gale’. The verse opens with vata, an exclamation — ‘Hey!’ — giving it a more exuberant tone than the measured teaching or retrospective testimony found in most of this collection's verses.
Reading guide
An exclamation, not a declaration
Lahuko vata me kāyo, ‘Hey, my body is light!’, opens with vata, an interjection of surprise or delight rather than a flat statement. Where most verses in this collection open with a measured claim — a teaching, a retrospective account, an address — this one opens with something closer to an exclamation, caught in the moment of the experience itself.
Rapture and happiness, a familiar pairing
Pītisukhena, ‘rapture and happiness’, names two qualities the wider canon standardly pairs together as factors of meditative absorption. This verse doesn't explain the pairing or place it within a larger framework — it simply reports the felt experience of both, filling the body to the point of feeling weightless.
Cotton in a gale
Tūlamiva eritaṁ mālutena, ‘like cotton stirred by the wind’, gives the verse its central image: not a doctrinal point but a physical sensation, rendered concrete. Khitaka's own name may relate to khitta (‘thrown, tossed’, from khipati), which would make an interesting fit with a verse about a body that feels tossed and floating — though this reading guide notes the connection only as a possibility, not something confirmed.
Key terms
vata — an interjection of surprise or delight — “hey!” or “how...!”, opening this verse.
pīti — “rapture” — paired with sukha as a standard description of meditative absorption.
sukha — “happiness” — the second of the two qualities named together in this verse.
lahuka — “light” — describing the felt weight of the body.
tūla — “cotton, cotton-fluff” — the verse's closing image for a weightless, floating body.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Hey! My body is light, full of so much rapture and happiness. My body feels like it’s floating, like cotton in a gale.
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
What does the verse's opening word, 'vata', signal?
Correct: B. 'Hey!' or 'how...!', an unusually exuberant opening for this collection.
Question 2 of 10
What two qualities does the verse say fill the speaker's body?
Correct: A. Pītisukhena, a standard pairing describing meditative absorption.
Question 3 of 10
What image does the verse close on?
Correct: C. Tūlamiva eritaṁ mālutena, the verse's closing simile.
Question 4 of 10
What does the name Khitaka possibly relate to, according to this reading guide?
Correct: A. Noted only as a possible fit, not a confirmed connection.
Question 5 of 10
How does this verse's tone compare to most other verses in this collection?
Correct: B. Caught in the moment of experience, rather than a flat statement or teaching.
Question 6 of 10
What does 'pīti' mean?
Correct: A. Paired with sukha as a standard factor of meditative absorption.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'lahuka' mean?
Correct: C. Describing the felt weight of the body.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'tūla' mean?
Correct: D. The verse's closing image.
Question 9 of 10
Does this verse explain meditative absorption within a larger doctrinal framework?
Correct: D. A physical sensation rendered concrete, not a doctrinal analysis.
