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Sn 4.7
PTS: Sn 814-823
Tissa Metteyya Sutta: Tissa Metteyya
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 1994
"Tell the danger, dear sir, for one given over to sexual intercourse. Having heard your teaching, we'll train in seclusion."

The Buddha:

"In one given over to sexual intercourse, the teaching's confused and he practices wrongly: this is ignoble in him. Whoever once went alone, but then resorts to sexual intercourse — like a carriage out of control — is called vile in the world, a person run-of-the-mill. His earlier honor & dignity: lost. Seeing this, he should train himself to abandon sexual intercourse. Overcome by resolves, he broods like a miserable wretch. Hearing the scorn of others, he's chagrined. He makes weapons, attacked by the words of others. This, for him, is a great entanglement. He sinks into lies. They thought him wise when he committed himself to the life alone, but now that he's given to sexual intercourse they declare him a fool. Seeing these drawbacks, the sage here — before & after — stays firm in the life alone; doesn't resort to sexual intercourse; would train himself in seclusion — this, for the noble ones, is supreme. He wouldn't, because of that, think himself better than others: He's on the verge of Unbinding. People enmeshed in sensual pleasures, envy him: free, a sage leading his life unconcerned for sensual pleasures — one who's crossed over the flood."

See also: AN 4.159; AN 5.75; AN 5.76.