Sutta Study – Week Three
The Fire Sermon (SN 35.28)
Link to Sutta
So far, we have looked at the Turning of the Wheel Sutta, where the first five disciples had their initial
awakening to the Dhamma and entered the Stream by hearing the 4 Noble Truths. We then looked at the Sutta
of the Five Brethren, where they reached enlightenment via the teaching on the anatta (non-substantiality),
impermanence and unsatisfactoriness associated with the five khandas or aggregates. These were ostensibly the
first two of the Buddha’s sermons.
In this next Sutta, sometimes considered to be the Buddha’s third sermon, we read of a different approach taken
by the Buddha to expeditiously bring many monks to full awakening. This Sutta examines the six senses in all
their aspects, seeing them as being on fire with greed, hatred and delusion. If something is on fire, and is liable
to create even more fires, why do we insist on holding onto it?
Possible questions for reflection on this Sutta:
1. For each sense, there is the sense base (eye), what is sensed (form), the means of sensing (eye
consciousness), the meeting/combination of those three things (eye contact) and the resulting response
(sensation). Does it make sense to parse experience in this way, and do you recognize these various
aspects just looking around the room? If so, can there be the case where any of these aspects doesn’t
arise?
2. The intent is that we see that all these aspects of sensory experience as though they are burning, and that
the result will be estrangement or disenchantment. How would disenchantment with sensory experience
look in your life? What would change, and what wouldn’t change? How would this change our
participation in the world?
3. The very next Sutta (SN 35.29) describes that we are “weighed down” by all this sensory content, rather
than it all being on fire. How is that the same or different?
4. In the Emptiness Sutta (link), the Buddha declares that the world is empty, and again references the six
senses and its various aspects as constituting the “world”. In what way is seeing them as being empty
different than seeing them as being on fire and therefore disenchanting?
5. Is there anything outside of what we experience via the six senses?
6. Here is another translation (link) with different word choices. How do these differences strike you?
a. All is burning, versus the All is aflame
b. Eye consciousness is burning, versus consciousness at the eye is aflame
c. Finding estrangement, versus growing disenchanted