Catukkanipāta 8

Numbered Discourses 4.8

1. At Wares Village

Self-assured

1 “Mendicants, a Realized One possesses four kinds of self-assurance. With these he claims the bull’s place, roars his lion’s roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel. What four?

I see no reason for anyone—whether ascetic, brahmin, god, Māra, or the Divinity, or anyone else in the world—to legitimately scold me, saying: ‘You claim to be a fully awakened Buddha, but you don’t understand these things.’ Since I see no such reason, I live secure, fearless, and self-assured.

2 I see no reason for anyone—whether ascetic, brahmin, god, Māra, or the Divinity, or anyone else in the world—to legitimately scold me, saying: ‘You claim to have ended all defilements, but you still have these defilements.’ Since I see no such reason, I live secure, fearless, and self-assured.

3 I see no reason for anyone—whether ascetic, brahmin, god, Māra, or the Divinity, or anyone else in the world—to legitimately scold me, saying: ‘The acts that you say are obstructions are not really obstructions for the one who performs them.’ Since I see no such reason, I live secure, fearless, and self-assured.

4 I see no reason for anyone—whether ascetic, brahmin, god, Māra, or the Divinity, or anyone else in the world—to legitimately scold me, saying: ‘Regardless of your goal in teaching the Dhamma, it does not deliver one who applies it to the complete ending of suffering.’ Since I see no such reason, I live secure, fearless, and self-assured.

A Realized One possesses these four kinds of self-assurance. With these he claims the bull’s place, roars his lion’s roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel.

5 The various grounds for criticism

that ascetics and brahmins rely on

vanish on reaching a Realized One,

self-assured, gone beyond grounds for criticism.

6 He rolls forth the Wheel of Dhamma

as a consummate one,

complete, sympathetic for all living creatures.

Sentient beings revere him,

first among gods and humans,

who has gone beyond rebirth.”