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Sn 4.5
PTS: Sn 796-803
Paramatthaka Sutta: Supreme
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 1994
Alternate translation: Ireland
When dwelling on views as "supreme," a person makes them the utmost thing in the world, &, from that, calls all others inferior and so he's not free from disputes. When he sees his advantage in what's seen, heard, sensed, or in precepts & practices, seizing it there he sees all else as inferior. That, too, say the skilled, is a binding knot: that in dependence on which you regard another as inferior. So a monk shouldn't be dependent on what's seen, heard, or sensed, or on precepts & practices; nor should he conjure a view in the world in connection with knowledge or precepts & practices; shouldn't take himself to be "equal"; shouldn't think himself inferior or superlative. Abandoning what he had embraced, abandoning self,[1] not clinging, he doesn't make himself dependent even in connection with knowledge; doesn't follow a faction among those who are split; doesn't fall back on any view whatsoever. One who isn't inclined toward either side — becoming or not-, here or beyond — who has no entrenchment when considering what's grasped among doctrines, hasn't the least preconceived perception with regard to what's seen, heard, or sensed. By whom, with what, should he be pigeonholed here in the world? — this brahman who hasn't adopted views. They don't conjure, don't yearn, don't adhere even to doctrines. A brahman not led by precepts or practices, gone to the beyond — Such — doesn't fall back.

# Note

1.
  Self... what he had embraced: two meanings of the Pali word, attam.

See also: MN 72; AN 10.93.