His spiritual companions advise and instruct him: ‘Reverend, the Buddha says that sensual pleasures give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks. With the similes of a skeleton … a scrap of meat … a grass torch … a pit of glowing coals … a dream … borrowed goods … fruit on a tree … a butcher’s knife and chopping board … swords and spears … a cobra’s head, the Buddha says that sensual pleasures give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks. Be happy with the spiritual life. Venerable, please don’t declare your inability to continue training, resign it and return to a lesser life.’

When thus advised and instructed by his spiritual companions, he says: ‘Reverends, even though the Buddha says that sensual pleasures give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks, I am unable to keep up the spiritual life. I declare my inability to continue training. I resign it and will return to a lesser life.’ Declaring his inability to continue training, he resigns it and returns to a lesser life.

I say that they are like the warrior who dies of his injuries while in the care of his relatives. Some individuals are like that. This is the third individual similar to a warrior found among the monks.