Bāhiya Sutta
The Teaching to Bāhiya
Bāhiya of the Bark-Cloth, by tradition the swiftest of the Buddha's awakened followers, attained full liberation hearing the few sentences below. It is among the shortest discourses in the Pāli Canon and one of the most pointed teachings on direct perception ever recorded.
Bāhiya came to the Buddha asking for the Dhamma in brief, for he sensed his life was short. Seeing his sincerity, the Buddha taught him thus:
In what is seen, there is only the seen. In what is heard, there is only the heard. In what is sensed, there is only the sensed. In what is cognized, there is only the cognized.
When for you, Bāhiya, in the seen there is only the seen — in the heard only the heard, in the sensed only the sensed, in the cognized only the cognized — then there is no 'you' in connection with that.
When there is no 'you' in connection with that, there is no 'you' there.
When there is no 'you' there, then there is no 'you' here, no 'you' beyond, no 'you' in between.
This itself is the end of suffering.
Translator: buddha.fm — adapted from public-domain renderings of the Pāli · CC0