New Publication: The Questions of the Householder Vīradatta

While the Buddha is residing in Anāthapiṇḍada’s pleasure garden in Śrāvastī with a great assembly of monks, elsewhere in Śrāvastī the eminent householder Vīradatta hosts a meeting with five hundred householders to discuss certain questions regarding the practice of the Great Vehicle. Hoping to resolve these questions, Vīradatta and the householders decide to approach the Buddha in Anāthapiṇḍada’s pleasure garden. There the Buddha explains how bodhisattvas should engender the spirit of great compassion while not being attached to the body or to enjoyments, and he then instructs the householders on how bodhisattvas should examine the impermanence and impurity of the body. This prose teaching is followed by a set of verses that reiterate how the body is impure and impermanent and that elucidate the process of karma and its effects. As a result of this teaching, Vīradatta and the five hundred householders attain the acceptance that phenomena are unborn. They then proclaim, in a well-known series of verses, the merits of aspiring for the awakening to buddhahood. The Buddha smiles, predicting that Vīradatta and the five hundred householders will attain spiritual awakening. The sūtra concludes with the Buddha telling Ānanda about the name of this Dharma discourse.

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The Questions of the Householder Vīradatta