Abhaya — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Ten · Poem 8 of 10
Setting
No narrative setting; a step-by-step account of how mindfulness is lost at the eye
Speaker
An unnamed voice describing, in general terms, what happens to ‘one who’ attends to a pleasant sight
Form
One six-line verse, a chain of cause and effect
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, a precise causal chain
Why this text
Abhaya traces a chain: seeing a sight, mindfulness is lost; attending to its pleasant feature, desire arises; experiencing it with an infatuated mind, clinging follows; and from there, defilements grow, ‘leading to the root of rebirth’. Each step follows plainly from the one before it.
Reading guide
Mindfulness lost at the eye
The verse's six lines trace a single causal sequence with no gaps: seeing (disvā) a sight (rūpa) is followed by lost mindfulness (sati muṭṭhā); attending to its pleasant feature (piyaṁ nimittaṁ manasikaroto) is followed by an infatuated mind (sāratta); experiencing it that way is followed by clinging (ajjhosa tiṭṭhati); and clinging is followed by growing defilements (āsavā), which lead to bhavamūla, ‘the root of [continued] existence’. Each link follows plainly from the one before it, without commentary or elaboration.
Grammatically general, translated as 'you'
Sujato's English renders this verse in the second person throughout — ‘when you see a sight...’ — but the Pali itself uses impersonal constructions: disvā is a gerund (‘having seen’), and manasikaroto is a participle describing ‘one who attends’, with no explicit pronoun for who this is. The English ‘you’ is a translator's choice for readability, closer in grammatical shape to the general, third-person teaching register of earlier verses like Thag 1.71 and Thag 1.74 than to true second-person address.
A name already used as a common word
Abhaya (‘fearless, free from danger’) is this elder's own name, but the same word already appeared as ordinary vocabulary earlier in this chapter — sivāni abhayāni ca, ‘safe and free of peril’, in Thag 1.82's blessing to a child. There, abhaya described a place to be sought; here, it is a person's name.
Key terms
rūpa — “a sight, a visible form” — what triggers the chain this verse describes.
nimitta — “feature, sign” — here, the ‘pleasant feature’ of the sight that draws attention.
sāratta — “full of desire, infatuated” — the state of mind that follows lost mindfulness.
āsava — “defilement, taint” — what this verse says grows once clinging has taken hold.
bhavamūla — “the root of [continued] existence” — bhava (‘existence’) plus mūla (‘root’), where this chain of causes leads.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1When you see a sight, mindfulness is lost as you focus on a pleasant feature. Experiencing it with a mind full of desire, you keep clinging to it. Your defilements grow, leading to the root of rebirth.
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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 is the first step in this verse's causal chain?
Correct: A. Rūpaṁ disvā sati muṭṭhā, the verse's opening line.
Question 2 of 10
What does the verse say this chain ultimately leads to?
Correct: B. Bhavamūlopagāmino, the verse's closing phrase.
Question 3 of 10
Does the Pali grammar of this verse use an explicit second-person pronoun ('you')?
Correct: B. Sujato's 'you' is a translation choice, not a literal match to the Pali's grammatical person.
Question 4 of 10
What does this reading guide compare this verse's grammatical register to?
Correct: C. Closer in grammatical shape to impersonal teaching than to true second-person address.
Question 5 of 10
Where did the word 'abhaya' already appear earlier in this chapter, before becoming this elder's name?
Correct: D. There as ordinary vocabulary; here as a person's name.
Question 6 of 10
What does 'sāratta' mean?
Correct: A. The state of mind that follows lost mindfulness.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'bhavamūla' mean?
Correct: D. Bhava ('existence') plus mūla ('root').
Question 8 of 10
What does 'āsava' mean?
Correct: A. What this verse says grows once clinging has taken hold.
Question 9 of 10
How many distinct steps does this verse's causal chain contain?
Correct: C. Seeing, lost mindfulness, desire, clinging, and growing defilements.
