Numbered Discourses 3.33

4. Messengers of the Gods

With Sāriputta

Then Venerable Sāriputta went up to the Buddha, bowed, and sat down to one side. The Buddha said to him, “Maybe I’ll teach Dhamma in brief, maybe in detail, maybe both in brief and in detail. But it’s hard to find anyone who understands.”

“Now is the time, Blessed One! Now is the time, Holy One! Let the Buddha teach Dhamma in brief, in detail, and both in brief and in detail. There will be those who understand the teaching!”

“So, Sāriputta, you should train like this: ‘There’ll be no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for all external stimuli; and we’ll live having achieved the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where ego, possessiveness, and underlying tendency to conceit are no more.’ That’s how you should train.

When a bhikkhu has no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for all external stimuli; and they live having attained the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where ego, possessiveness, and underlying tendency to conceit are no more—they’re called a bhikkhu who has cut off craving, untied the fetters, and by rightly comprehending conceit has made an end of suffering.

And Sāriputta, this is what I was referring to in ‘The Way to the Far Shore’, in ‘The Questions of Udaya’ when I said:

‘The giving up of sensual desires and aversions, both; the dispelling of dullness, and the prevention of remorse.

Pure equanimity and mindfulness, preceded by investigation of principles—this, I declare, is liberation by enlightenment, the smashing of ignorance.’”