THE UNPROFITABLE QUESTIONS
Chûla Mâlunkya Sutta, Majjhima Nikâya
NOTES
This is a free and abridged translation of the Chûla-Mâlunkya-Sutta, discourse 63 in the Majjhima-Nikâya section of the Sutta-Pitaka of the Pali Canon. A complete translation is available in H.C. Warren, Buddhism in Translations, 117-122. From this dialogue between Malunkyaputta and ‘the Blessed One’ (bhagavat), we learn that the Buddha was not concerned about metaphysical questions, but about the problem of dukkha (pain, suffering, misery) in this life, and nibbana (nirvana) in this life and beyond. He uses an amusing parable about a wounded man who refuses to have a poisoned arrow taken out until all his questions about its source have been answered. But if the surgeon is to save him, the patient will have to put all such irrelevant questions aside, or he will die in agony. The ascetic Malunkyaputta seems to have learned his lesson from this encounter; we are told elsewhere (Anguttara-Nikâya) that after further instruction from the Buddha he too became an arahat (achieved enlightenment). Note that it is ‘the four noble truths’ that the Buddha is intent on explaining (in 11-12).