Posted by: Michael Rickicki | 01/07/2020

A Wilderness Dweller Araññaka Sutta (AN 4:263)

“Endowed with (any of) four qualities, a monk isn’t fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness lodgings. Which four? (He is endowed) with thoughts of sensuality, with thoughts of ill will, with thoughts of harmfulness, and he is a person of weak discernment, dull, a drooling idiot. Endowed with (any of) these four qualities, a monk isn’t fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness dwellings.

“Endowed with four qualities, a monk is fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness lodgings. Which four? (He is endowed) with thoughts of renunciation, with thoughts of non-ill will, with thoughts of harmlessness, and he is a discerning person, not dull, not a drooling idiot. Endowed with these four qualities, a monk is fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness dwellings.”

Suttas/AN/4:263

Suffice it to say that I am far from having the qualities of even the lowliest city monks but suttas such as the one above are excellent for pointing out where we should be going. May I aspire to embody the resolves needed to make one fit to stay in an isolated forest.


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Shillelagh Studies

A hub for the music, culture, knowledge, and practice of Irish stick-fighting, past and present.