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Brickwall Unlimited

When Life Goes Up and Down

AN 8.6, the Dutiyalokadhamma Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 5 min · 824 words

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Before you read

What happens

The Buddha compares two ways people respond to gain and loss, fame and disrepute, blame and praise, and pleasure and pain.

Central question

Since changing circumstances happen to everyone, what makes one person get carried away by them while another remains free?

Main point

The difference is not whether pleasant and painful things happen. It is whether the heart welcomes one side and resists the other until they take it over, or sees that every condition will change.

Reading tip

The two long middle sections mirror each other. Learn the pattern from gain and loss. Then notice the same response to status, other people's judgments, and bodily feeling.

This text is not saying

The text does not promise a life without loss, blame, or pain, and it does not recommend suppressing them. It contrasts two responses to changing conditions: letting them take you over, and understanding them as they happen.

Key words

These definitions are here so you do not need to know Pali or Buddhist vocabulary before reading.

heart
This project's rendering of "citta": the feeling side of mind. It takes on moods, wants, leans, and reacts. Practice can gladden, steady, train, and release it. Some call it the "heart-mind" or "feeling mind". Here "heart" does not mean only emotion, or the physical organ.
ordinary person
This project's rendering of "puthujjana" -- someone who has not yet had the breakthrough into the path. It is the standard term for the untrained starting point, not an insult.
noble disciple
Someone who has had the breakthrough into the path and so is no longer merely an ordinary person. It does not mean noble by birth, and does not require being a monastic.
resistance
A reflexive pushing-away from what's unwanted, arising automatically in response to unpleasant feeling.
dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.

Translation

Eight Conditions That Turn the World

"Bhikkhus, eight worldly conditions turn around the world, and the world turns around these eight conditions.

Which eight?

Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, blame and praise, pleasure and pain.

These eight worldly conditions turn around the world, and the world turns around them.

What Makes the Difference

Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, blame and praise, pleasure and pain all happen to an unlearned ordinary person. They also happen to a learned noble disciple.

So what is the distinction? What makes the difference between them?"

"Bhante, our teachings are rooted in the Buddha, guided by the Buddha, and take the Buddha as their refuge. It would be good if the Buddha explained the meaning. The bhikkhus will remember it."

"Then listen and pay close attention. I will speak."

"Yes, Bhante," they replied.

When the Conditions Take Over

"When gain comes to an unlearned ordinary person, they do not reflect:

'This gain has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

They do not understand it as it really is.

When loss comes, they do not reflect: 'This loss has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When fame comes, they do not reflect: 'This fame has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When disrepute comes, they do not reflect: 'This disrepute has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When blame comes, they do not reflect: 'This blame has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When praise comes, they do not reflect: 'This praise has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When pleasure comes, they do not reflect: 'This pleasure has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When pain comes, they do not reflect: 'This pain has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

They do not understand it as it really is.

Gain takes over their heart. Loss takes over their heart. Fame takes over their heart. Disrepute takes over their heart. Blame takes over their heart. Praise takes over their heart. Pleasure takes over their heart. Pain takes over their heart.

They welcome gain and resist loss. They welcome fame and resist disrepute. They welcome praise and resist blame. They welcome pleasure and resist pain.

Caught in welcoming and resisting like this, they are not freed from birth, ageing, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress. I say they are not freed from dissatisfaction.

When the Conditions Do Not Take Over

When gain comes to a learned noble disciple, they reflect:

'This gain has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

They understand it as it really is.

When loss comes, they reflect: 'This loss has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When fame comes, they reflect: 'This fame has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When disrepute comes, they reflect: 'This disrepute has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When blame comes, they reflect: 'This blame has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When praise comes, they reflect: 'This praise has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When pleasure comes, they reflect: 'This pleasure has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

When pain comes, they reflect: 'This pain has come to me. It is impermanent, dissatisfying, and bound to change.'

They understand it as it really is.

Gain does not take over their heart. Loss does not take over their heart. Fame does not take over their heart. Disrepute does not take over their heart. Blame does not take over their heart. Praise does not take over their heart. Pleasure does not take over their heart. Pain does not take over their heart.

They do not welcome gain or resist loss. They do not welcome fame or resist disrepute. They do not welcome praise or resist blame. They do not welcome pleasure or resist pain.

They give up welcoming and resisting. This frees them from birth, ageing, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress. I say they are freed from dissatisfaction.

This is the distinction. This is what makes the difference between a learned noble disciple and an unlearned ordinary person.

The Verses

Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, blame and praise, pleasure and pain: these conditions among human beings are impermanent, unstable, and bound to change.

A wise person knows this and remembers. They watch these changing conditions. What they like does not shake their heart, and what they dislike brings no resistance.

Their welcoming and resisting have been scattered, have ended, and are no more. Knowing the stainless, sorrowless state, they understand rightly and have crossed beyond becoming."

The sixth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (12)
becoming
This project's rendering of "bhava" -- the settling of experience into a way of being that feels like somebody being something. Often translated "existence."
Bhante
A respectful way of addressing a senior monastic, roughly "venerable sir." Left untranslated because English has no natural equivalent.
bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
birth
This project's rendering of "jāti": birth, coming into being. In the dependent-arising sequence, ageing and dying depend on it. In MN 141 the word appears once in its everyday sense instead, in a simile about a mother.
dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.
heart
This project's rendering of "citta": the feeling side of mind. It takes on moods, wants, leans, and reacts. Practice can gladden, steady, train, and release it. Some call it the "heart-mind" or "feeling mind". Here "heart" does not mean only emotion, or the physical organ.
knowing
This project's rendering of "viññāṇa" (often translated "consciousness") -- bare awareness of an object through one of the senses or the mind.
noble disciple
Someone who has had the breakthrough into the path and so is no longer merely an ordinary person. It does not mean noble by birth, and does not require being a monastic.
ordinary person
This project's rendering of "puthujjana" -- someone who has not yet had the breakthrough into the path. It is the standard term for the untrained starting point, not an insult.
refuge
Where someone turns for safety and direction. Going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha is how a person shows they take this path seriously. It is not a conversion ritual.
resistance
A reflexive pushing-away from what's unwanted, arising automatically in response to unpleasant feeling.
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
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