“Reverends, the ascetic Gotama teaches his disciples like this: ‘Mendicants, please give up the five hindrances—corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom—and truly develop the seven awakening factors.’ We too teach our disciples: ‘Reverends, please give up the five hindrances—corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom—and truly develop the seven awakening factors.’ What, then, is the difference between the ascetic Gotama’s teaching and instruction and ours?”

Those mendicants neither approved nor rejected that statement of the wanderers of other religions. They rose from their seats, thinking: “We will learn the meaning of this statement from the Buddha himself.” Then, after the meal, when they returned from almsround, they went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what had happened.