Sutta Study: Leading to Escape

Sutta Study: Leading to Escape
AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File

In the Leading to Escape sutta (Nissaraniya Sutta), the Buddha describes five elements of training the mind, saying, "These five properties lead to escape." When we become developed in these five aspects through mental training—which releases us from clinging to sensuality, ill will, harmfulness, forms, and self-identification—we can find freedom from suffering.

The first training entails finding an escape from sensuality, which we accomplish by cultivating a disenchantment with it. Here, sensuality refers to the pursuit of sense pleasure. It's important to understand that the Buddha isn't teaching us to find escape from sense pleasure in and of itself, but rather from the manner in which we chase after and crave it. We train the mind so that it "doesn't leap up at sensuality" and sees the benefits of renunciation instead.

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