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One Arrow, Not Two

SN 36.6, the Salla Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 5 min · 783 words

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Before you read

What happens

The Buddha asks a group of monks a question. An untrained person and a trained disciple both feel pleasant, painful, and mixed feelings, so what is the difference?

Central question

When pain is unavoidable, what turns it into a second layer of suffering?

Main point

Both people feel bodily pain, but the untrained person adds grief and resistance and turns to sensual pleasure for relief. The trained person feels the pain without adding that second layer. They understand how feelings arise and pass, their appeal, their danger, and the way out.

Reading tip

Read the Two Arrows and One Arrow sections side by side. Almost every reaction in the first is missing from the second.

This text is not saying

The text does not say that training prevents bodily pain. Its contrast is between pain itself and the mental reaction added to it.

Key words

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

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.
underlying tendency
A reactive pattern that isn't necessarily active right now but is ready to reassert itself given the right conditions -- lying underneath rather than gone.
mixed feeling
A felt experience that is neither clearly pleasant nor clearly unpleasant. Rendered "mixed" rather than "neutral" to keep it an active third register rather than a flat absence of feeling.

Translation

The Difference

"Bhikkhus, an unlearned ordinary person feels pleasant, painful, and mixed feelings.

A learned noble disciple feels pleasant, painful, and mixed feelings too.

So what's the difference, bhikkhus? What sets them apart?"

"Bhante, our teachings come from the Buddha. The Buddha is our guide, and we rely on him. Please explain what this means. We will listen and remember it."

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

"Yes, Bhante," the bhikkhus replied.

The Buddha said this:

Two Arrows

"Bhikkhus, when an unlearned ordinary person is touched by painful feeling, they grieve, they wear themselves out, they wail, they beat their chest and cry, and they lose their bearings.

They feel it twice: once in the body and once in the mind.

Suppose, bhikkhus, someone is shot with an arrow. Then they are shot again with a second arrow. They would feel both arrows.

It is the same for an unlearned ordinary person. When painful feeling touches them, they grieve, they wear themselves out, they wail, they beat their chest and cry, and they lose their bearings.

They feel it twice: once in the body and once in the mind.

When that same painful feeling touches them, they resist it. The underlying tendency toward resistance in painful feeling remains.

When painful feeling touches them, they turn to sensual pleasure.

Why?

Because sensual pleasure is the only escape from painful feeling they know. When they delight in sensual pleasure, the underlying tendency toward passion in pleasant feeling remains.

They do not understand those feelings as they have come to be: how they arise and vanish, what is gratifying about them, what danger they hold, and what escape there is from them. Because they do not understand all this, the underlying tendency toward ignorance in mixed feeling remains.

If they feel a pleasant feeling, they feel it while bound. If they feel a painful feeling, they feel it while bound. If they feel a mixed feeling, they feel it while bound.

Bhikkhus, this is what it means to call someone an unlearned ordinary person. They are bound to birth, ageing, and death. They are bound to sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair. I say they are bound to dissatisfaction."

One Arrow

"But when a learned noble disciple is touched by painful feeling, bhikkhus, they do not grieve, they do not wear themselves out, they do not wail, they do not beat their chest and cry, and they do not lose their bearings.

They feel it once: in the body, not in the mind.

Suppose, bhikkhus, someone is shot with an arrow but not with a second arrow. They would feel only one arrow.

It is the same for a learned noble disciple. When painful feeling touches them, they do not grieve, do not wear themselves out, do not wail, do not beat their chest and cry, and do not lose their bearings.

They feel it once: in the body, not in the mind.

When that same painful feeling touches them, they do not resist it. No underlying tendency toward resistance in painful feeling remains.

When painful feeling touches them, they do not turn to sensual pleasure.

Why?

Because they know an escape from painful feeling other than sensual pleasure. Since they do not delight in sensual pleasure, no underlying tendency toward passion in pleasant feeling remains.

They understand those feelings as they have come to be: how they arise and vanish, what is gratifying about them, what danger they hold, and what escape there is from them. Because they understand all this, no underlying tendency toward ignorance in mixed feeling remains.

If they feel a pleasant feeling, they feel it while unbound. If they feel a painful feeling, they feel it while unbound. If they feel a mixed feeling, they feel it while unbound.

Bhikkhus, this is what it means to call someone a learned noble disciple. They are unbound from birth, ageing, and death. They are unbound from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair. I say they are unbound from dissatisfaction.

That, bhikkhus, is the difference. That is what sets a learned noble disciple apart from an unlearned ordinary person."

Verses

"Someone wise and learned does not add another feeling to what is pleasant or painful.

This is the great difference between the steady, skillful person and the ordinary person.

The learned person has understood the teaching and sees this world and the next. Desirable things do not churn their heart, and undesirable things bring up no resistance.

Favoring and opposing have been blown away. They are finished. They are gone.

That person knows the dustless, sorrowless state. They have gone beyond becoming and discern rightly."

The sixth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (16)
arrow
A recurring image with more than one meaning. In MN 63 it is a poisoned arrow: refusing treatment until you know every background fact about the wound. It warns against blocking practice with questions no one can answer. In SN 36.6 the image is different. An ordinary person's pain is one arrow, and the extra suffering they add on top is a second arrow they could avoid.
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.
body
The physical body, as distinct from speech and the mental side of experience.
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.
escape
This project's rendering of "nissaraṇa". It is the real way out of whatever the text is discussing, unlike the false escapes an untrained mind reaches for. In SN 36.6 the escape is from being stuck in a feeling; in Ud 8.3 it is from everything born, made, and conditioned.
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.
ignorance
This project's rendering of "avijjā" -- not general stupidity, but specifically not seeing how dissatisfaction works and how it ends. The first link in the dependent-arising sequence.
mixed feeling
A felt experience that is neither clearly pleasant nor clearly unpleasant. Rendered "mixed" rather than "neutral" to keep it an active third register rather than a flat absence of feeling.
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.
resistance
A reflexive pushing-away from what's unwanted, arising automatically in response to unpleasant feeling.
underlying tendency
A reactive pattern that isn't necessarily active right now but is ready to reassert itself given the right conditions -- lying underneath rather than gone.
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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