Chapter 24: Thirst

The author describes how uncontrolled thirst grows like a vine and causes a person to be reborn repeatedly, comparing the thirsty man to a monkey seeking fruit.

Thirst is characterized as a fierce poison that increases human suffering, likened to abundant grass spreading.

The author claims that those who overcome fierce thirst achieve relief from suffering, which falls away like water drops from a lotus leaf.

The author directly instructs the assembled audience to dig up the root of thirst entirely, using the metaphor of removing a grass to protect precious roots, to prevent repeated suffering.

The author uses a tree metaphor to argue that unless the roots of thirst are destroyed, suffering will inevitably return repeatedly.

The author describes how thirst operating through thirty-six channels carries people away through their desires and passionate inclinations.

The author advises that while channels of passion are everywhere, knowledge can cut the creeper of passion at its root if one recognizes it.

The author argues that creatures devoted to extravagant pleasures and lust undergo repeated cycles of birth and decay.

The author compares those driven by thirst to snared hares held in fetters, undergoing prolonged and repeated pain.

The author instructs mendicants to actively eliminate thirst by cultivating passionlessness.

The author illustrates through a paradox that a person who has escaped lust but returns to it becomes re-enslaved despite theoretical freedom.

The author argues that wise people recognize that iron, wood, and hemp chains are less binding than emotional attachments to possessions and family.

The author identifies care for precious objects and loved ones as the most formidable fetter, though it can eventually be cut through practice.

The author describes enslaved people as spiders caught in the webs they themselves have created, but wise people cut through these to achieve freedom.

The author instructs that to reach the other shore of existence and escape rebirth, one must give up all positions and free the mind entirely.

The author explains that a person troubled by doubts and strong passions will experience growing thirst and strengthen their own fetters.

The author argues that a person who resolves doubts and reflects on the impurity of pleasure will cut Mara's fetter.

The author describes the enlightened person as one who has reached perfection, trembles not, lacks thirst and sin, and lives their final existence.

The author characterizes the fully enlightened person as one without thirst or affection, understanding all language and interpretation, living their final life.

The author presents a first-person declaration of the enlightened one who has conquered all, knows all, is free from taint, and through destruction of thirst achieves liberation.

The author establishes that the teaching of dharma and especially the extinction of thirst surpass all gifts, sweetness, and delights.

The author warns that pleasures destroy the foolish who do not seek the other shore, as their thirst for pleasure becomes self-destructive.

The author establishes a parallel structure showing that just as weeds damage fields, passion damages mankind, making gifts to the passionless highly rewarding.

The author extends the parallel structure to show hatred damages mankind as weeds damage fields, making gifts to non-haters highly rewarding.

The author applies the same parallel structure to vanity, showing it damages mankind as weeds damage fields, making gifts to the humble highly rewarding.

The author concludes the parallel structure with lust, showing it damages mankind as weeds damage fields, making gifts to the lustless highly rewarding.