Aratī sutta: Dissatisfaction

At one time Venerable Vaṅgīsa was staying near Āḷavī, at Āḷavī’s premier shrine, together with his mentor, Venerable Nigrodhakappa.

Now at that time after Venerable Nigrodhakappa had finished his meal, on his return from almsround, he would enter his dwelling and not emerge for the rest of that day, or the next.

And at that time Venerable Vaṅgīsa became dissatisfied, as lust infected his mind.

Then he thought, “It’s my loss, my misfortune, that I’ve become dissatisfied, with lust infecting my mind. How is it possible for someone else to dispel my discontent and give rise to satisfaction? Why don’t I do it myself?”

Then, on the occasion of dispelling his own discontent and giving rise to satisfaction, he recited these verses:

“Giving up desire and discontent,
along with all thoughts of domestic life,
they wouldn’t get snarled in anything;
unsnarled, undesiring: that’s a real mendicant.

Whatever here is included in form—
on earth, in the sky, or in planet’s deep—
wears out, it is all impermanent:
the self-examined live having comprehended this.

People are bound to their attachments,
to impingement of the seen and heard, <j>and to what is thought.
Unstirred, dispel desire for these things;
for one called ‘a sage’ does not cling to them.

Trapped in the sixty wrong views, <j>full of their own opinions,
ordinary people are fixed in wrong principles.
But that mendicant wouldn’t join a sect,
still less would they utter lewd speech.

Proficient, long serene,
free of deceit, alert, without envy,
the sage has reached the state of peace;
quenched, he awaits his time.”