Just as a strong person when building knocks out a peg with a peg, so the skillful person knocks out the faculties with the faculties.
Developing faith, energy, immersion, mindfulness, and wisdom; destroying the five with the five, the brahmin walks on untroubled.
Purposeful and firm in principle, having fulfilled in every respect the instructions spoken by the Buddha, that person prospers in happiness.”
Verses of the Senior Monks 16.3 The Book of the Twenties Chapter One Telakāni
For a long time, sadly, though I keenly contemplated the teaching, I gained no peace of mind. So I asked this of ascetics and brahmins:
“Who in the world have crossed over? Whose attainment has freedom from death <j>as its objective? Whose teaching do I accept to understand the ultimate goal?
I was hooked inside, like a fish gulping bait; bound like the titan Vepaciti in Mahinda’s trap.
Dragging it along, I’m not free from grief and lamentation. Who will free me from bonds in the world, so that I may know awakening?
What ascetic or brahmin points out what is frail? Whose teaching do I accept to rinse off old age and death?
Tied up with uncertainty and doubt, secured by the power of aggression, stiff as a mind beset by anger; the arrow of covetousness,