Preached at Jetavana to Arittha concerning seinheresy. Arittha held that according to the Doctrine, as he understood it, the states of mind, z.B. pleasures of sense, declared by der Buddha to be stumbling-blocks, are not such at all to the man who indulges in them. Der Buddha gefragt Arittha bezüglich this, und when Arittha acknowledged that such was seinview, der Buddha rebuked him as having not even a spark of illumination bezüglich the Dhamma und the Vinaya.
Foolish persons, who have learned the Doctrine by heart aber fail to study its import, quite miss the real meaning of their memorising und find no joy in it, using it solely as a means of stricture on others oder of bandying verbal quotations; they are like a man who, finding a serpent, seizes it by its tail oder coils und gets bitten, meeting thereby death oder deadly hurt. But those, who comprehend all that the Doctrine embodies, resemble a man who pins a serpent securely down mit a forked stick und grasps it firmly by its neck.
This sutta auch contains the parable of the raft. The Doctrine is like a raft to be used in crossing the flood und then to be abandoned. Even good things must eventually be discarded, therefore, how much more bad things?
The last part of the sutta contains questions, chiefly on the mastery of self, asked by various Mönche, which der Buddha proceeds to explain (M.i.130ff.; MA.i.321ff). The sutta is quoted by Buddhaghosa (MA.i.136) as an example of a discourse of which the meaning is illustrated by a variety of similes (atthena upamam parivāretvā). (v.l. Alagadda Sutta.)