snp.4.4 Suttanipata

Eight on the Pure

“I see a pure being of ultimate wellness;
it is vision that grants a person purity.”
Recalling this notion of the ultimate,
they believe in the notion that there is one who observes purity.
If a person were granted purity through vision,
or if by a notion they could give up suffering,
then one with attachments is purified by another:
their view betrays them as one who asserts thus.
The brahmin speaks not of purity from another
in terms of what is seen, heard, or thought; or by precepts or vows.
They are unsullied in the midst of good and evil,
letting go what was picked up, without creating anything new here.
Having let go the last they lay hold of the next;
following impulse, they don’t get past the snare.
They grab on and let go like a monkey
grabbing and releasing a branch.
Having undertaken their own vows, a person
visits various teachers, being attached to perception.
One who knows, having comprehended the truth through the knowledges,
does not visit various teachers, being of vast wisdom.
They are remote from all things
seen, heard, or thought.
Seeing them living openly,
how could anyone in this world judge them?
They don’t make things up or promote them,
or speak of the uttermost purity.
After untying the tight knot of grasping
they long for nothing in the world.
The brahmin has stepped over the boundary;
knowing and seeing, they adopt nothing.
Neither in love with passion nor besotted by dispassion,
there is nothing here they adopt as the ultimate.