SN 5.6: Cala Sutta

Translated from the Pali by

Alternate translation:

Source: From Discourses of the Ancient Nuns (BL 143), translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1997). Copyright © 1997 Buddhist Publication Society. Used with permission.

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Setting at Savatthi. Then, in the morning, the bhikkhuni Cala dressed... she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day's abiding.

Then Mara the Evil One approached the bhikkhuni Cala and said to her: "What don't you approve of, bhikkhuni?"

"I don't approve of birth, friend."

[Mara:]

Why don't you approve of birth?
Once born, one enjoys sensual pleasures.
Who now has persuaded you of this:
'Bhikkhuni, don't approve of birth'?

[Cala:]

For one who is born there is death;
Once born, one encounters sufferings — 
Bondage, murder, affliction — 
Hence one shouldn't approve of birth.

The Buddha has taught the Dhamma,
The transcendence of birth;
For the abandoning of all suffering
He has settled me in the truth. [133]

As to those beings who fare amidst form,
And those who abide in the formless — 
Not having understood cessation,
They come again to re-becoming.

Then Mara the Evil One, realizing, "The bhikkhuni Cala knows me," sad and disappointed, disappeared right there.