The Related Discourses

35. Views

58-60 (160). Knowledge and Vision Has No Cause

1. Thus I have heard: One time, the Buddha was staying at Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park in Jeta’s Grove of Śrāvastī.

2. It was then that the Bhagavān addressed the monks, “Because of what’s existence, what’s cause, being bound by what, adherence to what, and viewing what as self do sentient beings make such views and such statements as this? ‘Knowledge and vision in sentient beings has no cause and no condition.’”[1]

3. The monks then said to the Buddha, “The Bhagavān is the Dharma root, the Dharma eye, and the Dharma refuge …”

It’s explained in detail the same as the remainder of SĀ 35.7, and the next two sūtras are like SĀ 35.8-9 above but with this introduction.

Notes

1. The Taisho edition inexplicably omits a wrong view in this sūtra. Yinshun corrects this by assuming it should be the positive corollary to the view in the previous sūtra (SN 35.55-57). [back]

Translator: Charles Patton

Last Revised: 1 November 2023