Upatissa Meets Assaji

The monk Assaji said he was a disciple of the mendicant Gotama of the Sakyan clan, who he referred to as the Buddha, the Awakened One.

When Upatissa begged Assaji to explain the Buddha's doctrine, Assaji modestly said he was only a beginner and could not explain it in detail, but he could share the gist of it.

Upatissa said he would be satisfied with whatever Assaji could explain.

Assaji recite a short stanza that summed up the main points—a stanza that in the centuries and millennia to follow was to become famous wherever the Buddha's Teaching was carried.

        Of those things that arise from a cause,
        The Tathagata* has told the cause,
        And also what their cessation is:
        This is the doctrine of the Great Recluse*.

When Assaji spoke this stanza, Upatissa had a stainless experience of understanding and replied, "All that has the nature of arising has the nature of cessation."


*The Buddha