Aṅguttara Nikāya
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Places that should be commemorated by kings and deciples.
How consciousness, karma, and craving create and sustain future lives.
Ānanda gets the Tathagata to talk about the scale of the universe.
The endeavors to restrain, to give up, to develop, and to preserve.
There are four developments of concentration. There is concentration that, when developed and cultivated, leads to living happily in the present life, concentration that leads to the attainment of knowing and vision, concentration that leads to mindfulness and full awareness, and concentration that leads to the destruction of the taints.
Distortions of perception, mind, and view.
There are four qualities are desirable, agreeable, and pleasing but hard to obtain in the world. Accomplishment in faith, accomplishment in virtue, accomplishment in generosity, and accomplishment in wisdom.
Length of rebirth in various exalted realms.
Rebirth in Brahmā realms from divine abiding meditations.
A teaching to Rāhula, the Tathagata’s son, on the four elements.
Noble and ignoble searches.
The five powers explained in detail.
The hindrances are like the corruptions in gold.
The Tathagata teaches the development of the noble five-factored right concentration.
The five hindrances weaken wisdom like side-channels weaken a river’s flow.
Topics that are worthy regularly reflecting on, whether as a lay person or a disciple.
The Tathagata describes the five dangers that the Dhamma will face in the future. It will begin to decline, fade, and eventually become corrupted. With his teachings no longer being truly understood, and with no true practitioners left to pass on the Dhamma, people will struggle to practice effectively until eventually the teachings fade completely from memory.
Even if a senior deciple has many good qualities, they can still lead people astray if they have wrong view.
Supported by five factors, one who practices mindfulness of breathing will soon realize the unshakable.
Five qualities to instill in recently ordained deciples.
Five perceptions that train a desciple to shift their perception at will.
The Tathagata encourages Anāthapiṇḍika to not rest short with generosity, but to practice meditation too.
Many of those who practice mindfulness of death don’t do so urgently enough. Death might come to us at any moment.
A method for recollecting one’s own death that leads to urgency, diligence, and joy.
The six recollections are a way to escape from greed.
When the Tathagata asks about the topics for recollection, a disciple reveals his ignorance. Ānanda then gives an unusual list of five recollections, which the Tathagata supplements with a sixth.
A detailed analysis of several central themes, including sense perception, feeling, defilements, kamma, etc.
A deciple who loves to socialize can’t find peace in meditation, but one who loves solitude can.
Requirements for becoming a stream-enterer.
Contemplating the seven perceptions leads to the deathless.
Four areas where the Realized One has nothing to hide, and three ways he is irreproachable.
Before his awakening, Moggallāna is struggling with sleepiness in meditation. The Tathagata visits him and gives seven ways to dispel drowsiness, and other important teachings.
The Tathagata compares the factors of the practice to a well-fortified fortress that can’t be brought down by external foes or untrustworthy allies.
The eight worldly conditions that affect an ordinary person are: gain and loss, fame and disgrace, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. For a Noble Disciple neither gain nor loss, fame nor disrepute, blame nor praise, happiness nor suffering overwhelm his mind. He reflects thus: This gain has arisen for me, but it is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change; he understands it as it really is.
Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī, the Tathagata’s foster mother, requests ordination from the Tathagata. He declines, until urged to relent by Ānanda. He allows Mahāpajāpatī to go forth on eight conditions.
Mahāpajāpatī wishes to go on retreat, so the Tathagata teaches her eight principles that summarize the Dhamma in brief.
A disciple asks for teachings before going on retreat, but the Tathagata rebukes him, as he has not practiced sincerely. Nevertheless, he persists, and the Tathagata teaches him meditation in detail.
Mindfulness and situational awareness are a foundation for developing higher spiritual qualities leading to liberation.
Beginning with good friendship, the Tathagata teaches nine things that give rise to the qualities that lead to awakening.
Venerable Meghiya, while attending on the Tathagata, wants to go off and meditate in a forest alone. The Tathagata discourages him, but he goes anyway. When his meditation doesn’t go well, he returns chastened to the Tathagata, who teaches him about the benefits of good companions and other fundamentals of a balanced spiritual practice.
The wealthy and devoted lay supporter Anāthapiṇḍika rather curiously says that only poor alms are given in his home. The Tathagata praises gracious and bounteous generosity. But meditation surpasses even the greatest offering.
A householder who has eliminated the perils that come with breaking the five precepts, and possesses the four factors of stream-entry is freed from lower rebirths.
Just as a foolish cow can get in trouble wandering the mountains, a foolish desciple can get lost practicing concentration if they do it wrongly.
The ending of defilements happens due to the practice of concentration.
The householder Tapussa reflects that it is renunciation that distinguishes a lay person from a disciple. The Tathagata responds by giving a long account of his practice of concentration before awakening.
At Udāyī’s request, Ānanda explains an obscure verse spoken (in SN 2.7) by a deity. The nine progressive meditations are the escape from confinement.
The ten dhammas that protect one from suffering.
The root of all things, and similar principles.
The disciple Girimānanda is sick. The Tathagata encourages Ānanda to visit him and teach him the ten perceptions.
Even though ignorance has no discernible first point, it still has a cause.
The Tathagata covers the different kinds of fuels for unwholesome and wholesome mental states.
The 10 Thorns that prevent a disciple from a peaceful abiding.
Anāthapiṇḍika explains to a group of sectarians why right view is a special form of view: Holding to other views, one is holding to stress, but using right view enables you to see the escape even from right view.
The wanderer Uttiya asks the Tathagata a series of ten metaphysical questions as to whether the cosmos is finite, etc. The Tathagata responds by saying that he only teaches the end of suffering. Uttiya goes on to ask whether all beings will be liberated. The Tathagata is silent, and Ānanda answers on his behalf.
When Upāli asks to go into retreat, the Tathagata warns him that secluded wilderness dwellings are hard to endure unless one is accomplished in meditation. He gives a long account of the training required before going into solitude, and ends by encouraging Upāli to stay in the Saṅgha.
Good conduct leads to non-regret, to joy, and so on all the way to liberation.
A virtuous person need not make a wish; it is natural for the path to flow on.
The Tathagata tells Venerable Sandha to meditate like a trained thoroughbred, not like a wild colt. Doing so, they may attain a deep state.