notes on the Dhamma

  4👑☸ → STED → EBT    Miscellaneous collection of EBT resources   A collection of Early Buddhist material not found in the Pali Nikayas and Chinese Agamas (Javier J. Fernandez-Viña, 2019) https://archive.org/details/early-buddhist-teachings-from-j-unknown

AN 4.170  170. Yuganaddhasutta 170. In Conjunction Evaṃ me sutaṃ— So I have heard. ekaṃ samayaṃ āyasmā ānando kosambiyaṃ viharati ghositārāme. At one time Venerable Ānanda was staying near Kosambi, in Ghosita’s Monastery. Tatra kho āyasmā ānando bhikkhū āmantesi: There Ānanda addressed the monks: “āvuso bhikkhave”ti. “Reverends, monks!” “Āvuso”ti kho te bhikkhū āyasmato ānandassa paccassosuṃ. “Reverend,” they replied. Āyasmā ānando etadavoca: Ānanda said this: “Yo hi koci, āvuso, bhikkhu vā bhikkhunī vā mama santike arahattappattiṃ byākaroti, sabbo so catūhi maggehi, etesaṃ vā aññatarena. “Reverends, all of the monks and nuns who declare in my presence that they have attained perfection, did so by one or other of four paths. Katamehi catūhi? What four? Idha, āvuso, bhikkhu samathapubbaṅgamaṃ vipassanaṃ bhāveti. Take a monk who develops serenity before discernment. Tassa samathapubbaṅgamaṃ vipassanaṃ bhāvayato maggo sañjāyati. As they do so, the path is born in them. So taṃ maggaṃ ā...

  for a-subha (non-beauty, foul perception), Ajahn Mun points out the skin (from 31asb body parts)  is especially important Ajahn Mun: "When we get infatuated with the human body, the skin is what we are infatuated with. When we conceive of the body as being beautiful (subha) and attractive, and develop love, desire, and longing for it, it’s because of what we conceive of the skin. When we see a body, we suppose it to have a complexion—fair, ruddy, dark, etc.—because of what we conceive the color of the skin to be. If the body didn’t have skin, who would conceive it to be beautiful or attractive? Who would love it, like it, or desire it? We’d regard it with nothing but hatred, loathing, and disgust. If it weren’t wrapped in skin, the flesh, tendons, and other parts of the body wouldn’t hold together and couldn’t be used to accomplish anything at all—which is why we say the skin is especially important. The fact that we can keep on living is because of the skin. The fact that w...