The Book of Threes

Sutta 123

Laying Down the Line at Gotamaka

I HEAR TELL:

Once Upon a Time,

The Lucky Man, Vesali District, Gotama Shrine, came-a revisiting. There he said to those same Beggars who had found no satisfaction in a teaching of his delivered on another occasion:

Beggars!

And ‘Broke-tooth’ those Beggars responded.

Beggars, when I teach dhamma I do so knowing dhamma,
not without knowing.
I teach dhamma precisely,
not imprecisely.
I teach dhamma in a wondrously deep way,
not in a way that is not wondrously deep.

It is because I teach dhamma knowing,
not not knowning;
precisely,
not imprecisely;
in a wondrously deep way,
not in a way that is not wondrously deep
that it is as it ought to be
that it is I that am instructing,
that it is I that am advising.

In this case it is the reasonable thing
that one should be pleased and brought to higher consciousness,
mentally at ease with the thought that
"Well taught is the Dhamma by the #1 Wide-Awakened One"
"Properly conducted is the Order"

This is what I heartell the Buddha said,
and I hear also that it was at this time
that those Beggars understood
and were pleased and were brought to higher consciousness,
and furthermore the Thousandfold World System was shaken.