SuttaCentral
Are there any concordances for frequently used phrases/words in the suttas?
For example: “What arises is only suffering arising, what ceases is only suffering ceasing.”
Or, “Nothing whatsoever should be clung to.”
(I know the citations for these quotes, but am looking for a concordance for others).
With thanks
frequently used is a bit much.
dukkhameva uppajjamānaṃ uppajjati occurs at SN12.15 and SN22.90 (the second sutta is quoting the first btw)
nāññatra dukkhā sambhoti occurs at SN5.10
that’s it for “only suffering arising” in the 4 principle Nikayas as far as I am aware.
sabbe dhammā nālaṃ abhinivesāyā occurs at MN38, SN35.80 and AN7.61.
that’s it for “nothing whatever should be clung to”
by way of contrast,
vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṃ savicāraṃ vivekajaṃ pītisukhaṃ paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati
from
Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, they enter and remain in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. So vivicceva kāmehi, vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṁ savicāraṁ vivekajaṁ pītisukhaṁ paṭhamaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati.
occurs at DN1 DN2 DN10 DN22 DN26 DN29 DN33 DN34 MN10 MN13 MN25 MN26 MN27 MN30 MN38 MN43 MN44 MN45 MN51 MN52 MN59 MN60 MN64 MN65 MN76 MN77 MN94 MN101 MN107 MN108 MN111 MN113 MN138 MN139 MN141 SN16.9 SN36.19 SN36.31 SN40.1 SN45.8 SN48.10 SN48.40 SN53.1 SN53.13 AN2.11 AN3.59 AN3.75 AN3.95 AN4.123 AN4.163 AN5.14 AN5.94 AN9.33 AN9.35 AN9.38 AN9.39 AN9.40 AN10.99 AN11. 16
Thanks. I knew the citations for the particular quotes I used, but typing in
on DPR produced: 0 results
I’ve used individual words on DPR, but am looking for how to use and find phrases; also would be very helpful if entries in english could also lead to sutta citations.
Typing “only suffering arising” in search didn’t lead to sutta citations.
Maybe I’m missing something…?
phrases should work fine if you get the diacritics right, when I pasted the string you quote into DPR I get the relevant results, the main thing to be mindful of is that DPR (and suttacentral) both use pretty wretched source files for the pali which are absolutely littered with commas, quotes, double quotes and stops none of which are applied with any consistency at all, so you will often have to break passages up into chunks of one or two words long to avoid missing multiple results that just happen to have an extra comma in there.
In my dreams where I can actually still code I fantasize about combining DPR’s excellent search capabilities with suttacentrals excellent segmented translations, using a nice clean source of the pali with no western punctuation or capitals that allows one to rapidly and seamlessly see all the occurrences of a phrase or word in the suttas in order with english glosses, but then I wake up and remember that I can’t so I just keep pasting single words into DPR, laboriously look up each one in suttacentral and go from there.
and just to reiterate my point above, as you may not have seen my edits, the 2 examples you gave are NOT frequently used phrases by ANY standard. One is completely confined to just one NIkaya and ignoring a quotation and a poem is in fact singular, the other at least occurs in 3 of the 4 principle NIkayas, but only once in each case. compare that with the first jhana formula, given well over 50 times in it’s entirety, and implied to occur (after pe… ) dozens more times, in all 4 of the principle Nikayas, over and over again.
I must admit that it frustrates me to see people repeatedly claim that these statements are “frequent” when in fact they are rare while there are in fact common statements in the Nikayas that are repeated a full order of magnitude more often that seem to be passed over.
sabbe dhammā in any form occurs only at MN35 MN37 SN22.90 SN35.80 SN44.10 AN3.137 AN7.61 AN8.83 AN10.58 plus once in an identical verse in the Dhammapda and theragatha.
AN8.83 is a great example of why one should be suspicious of this rare construction:
“Mendicants, if wanderers who follow other paths were to ask:
“Sace, bhikkhave, aññatitthiyā paribbājakā evaṁ puccheyyuṁ:‘Reverends, all things have what as their root? What produces them? What is their origin? What is their meeting place? What is their chief? What is their ruler? What is their overseer? What is their core?’ How would you answer them?” ‘
kiṁmūlakā, āvuso, sabbe dhammā, kiṁsambhavā sabbe dhammā, kiṁsamudayā sabbe dhammā, kiṁsamosaraṇā sabbe dhammā, kiṁpamukhā sabbe dhammā, kiṁadhipateyyā sabbe dhammā, kiṁuttarā sabbe dhammā, kiṁsārā sabbe dhammā’ti, evaṁ puṭṭhā tumhe, bhikkhave, tesaṁ aññatitthiyānaṁ paribbājakānaṁ kinti byākareyyāthā”ti?“Our teachings are rooted in the Buddha. He is our guide and our refuge. Sir, may the Buddha himself please clarify the meaning of this. The mendicants will listen and remember it.”
“Bhagavaṁmūlakā no, bhante, dhammā, bhagavaṁnettikā bhagavaṁpaṭisaraṇā. Sādhu, bhante, bhagavantaṁyeva paṭibhātu etassa bhāsitassa attho. Bhagavato sutvā bhikkhū dhāressantī”ti.“Well then, mendicants, I will teach it.
“Tena hi, bhikkhave, desessāmi. Listen and pay close attention, I will speak.” Taṁ suṇātha, sādhukaṁ manasi karotha, bhāsissāmī”ti.“Yes, sir,” they replied.
“Evaṁ, bhante”ti kho te bhikkhū bhagavato paccassosuṁ. The Buddha said this: Bhagavā etadavoca:“Mendicants, if wanderers who follow other paths were to ask:
“sace, bhikkhave, aññatitthiyā paribbājakā evaṁ puccheyyuṁ:‘Reverends, all things have what as their root? What produces them? What is their origin? What is their meeting place? What is their chief? What is their ruler? What is their overseer? What is their core?’
‘kiṁmūlakā, āvuso, sabbe dhammā, kiṁsambhavā sabbe dhammā, kiṁsamudayā sabbe dhammā, kiṁsamosaraṇā sabbe dhammā, kiṁpamukhā sabbe dhammā, kiṁadhipateyyā sabbe dhammā, kiṁuttarā sabbe dhammā, kiṁsārā sabbe dhammā’ti, You should answer them: evaṁ puṭṭhā tumhe, bhikkhave, tesaṁ aññatitthiyānaṁ paribbājakānaṁ evaṁ byākareyyātha:‘Reverends, all things are rooted in desire. Attention produces them. Contact is their origin. Feeling is their meeting place. Immersion is their chief. Mindfulness is their ruler. Wisdom is their overseer. Freedom is their core.’
‘chandamūlakā, āvuso, sabbe dhammā, manasikārasambhavā sabbe dhammā, phassasamudayā sabbe dhammā, vedanāsamosaraṇā sabbe dhammā, samādhippamukhā sabbe dhammā, satādhipateyyā sabbe dhammā, paññuttarā sabbe dhammā, vimuttisārā sabbe dhammā’ti,When questioned by wanderers who follow other paths, that’s how you should answer them.”
evaṁ puṭṭhā tumhe, bhikkhave, tesaṁ aññatitthiyānaṁ paribbājakānaṁ evaṁ byākareyyāthā”ti.
So when people explain that sabbe dhamma anatta means nibbana is anatta we should ask them to explain also how nibanna is rooted in desire, produced by attention, originated in contact and met in feeling.
anyway /rant
metta
I agree, “frequently “ was not accurate. The hope was more along the lines of frequently cited phrases and teachings, similar to some Bible concordances, as well as along the lines of what you hoped to do with SC snd DPR.
Good point!
Do you take sabbe sankhārā aniccā/dukkhā to be the conditions for the dhammā which are anattā? i.e. all dhammas are conditioned, and because those conditions are impermanent and dukkha, the dhammas are empty.
Mettā
I believe DPR supports regex, no? So you could just put [ \.,'"]* between your Pali words (or somesuch)
yes I believe so, although the one time i tried it didn’t seem to work, although that is probably just my own ineptitude. would still be nice IMO to have a nice clean uniform pali corpus in electronic form, it’s something I have been toying with using the Bilara dataset but am taking a break from after one too many sessions ending in a blank file, which basically happens every time I try to use regex extensively 
My basic take is that sabbe dhammā is just not something that makes sense to say in an early Buddhist context that denies the possibility of realism or anti-realism.
I take the construction to be late, confused, contradictory, and particularly associated with the Nidessa. It doesn’t occur at all in the early abhidhamma (it’s only occurance there is the late Kathuvatthu) , where you would expect it to be a pretty major theme, it doesn’t occur in the VInaya, it doesn’t occur in DN. It’s only occurrence in MN is in a sutta MN35 who’s parallel is in SA not MA, and which itself indicates that the statement was controversial enough to require a “deep in the woods” consultation with the Buddha to confirm it (it’s first put in the mouth of Assaji) , it’s first occurrence in SN at SN22.90 again is controversial enough to require a senior figure (Ananda) to quote other suttas to exclude the possibility of it’s misinterpretation (again in this sutta it is not the Buddha who says it but “senior monks”), and it’s second and last appearance in SN at SN44.10 appears tacked on to the end of an otherwise symmetrical argument about eternalism and annihilation that occurs verbatim elsewhere without it. Then at AN3.136 it is given the status of dhammaṭṭhitatā dhammaniyāmatā which in every other instance of it’s occurrence refers to idappaccayatā Finally the phrase occurs about 35 times, the vast majority of it’s occurrences, in the broader canon, in the acknowledged as late Nidessa.
It just seems to me completely unnecessary to try and turn this rare and strange turn of phrase into some kind of doctrinal fundamental. my basic impression is that it is simply poetic hyperbole.
compare yaṃ kiñci samudayadhammaṃ, sabbaṃ taṃ nirodhadhamman for example, a more chastened and parsimonious sentiment expressed at DN3 DN5 DN14 DN21 MN56 MN74 MN91 MN147 SN35.74 SN35.121 SN35.245 SN56.11 AN8.12 AN8.21 AN8.22 17 and times in the Vinaya.
why do people prefer the philosophically problematic one that is rare to the philosphically balanced on that is common?
Metta.
and just as a little follow up to the above, consider:
They understand: ‘But whatever is produced by choices and intentions is impermanent and liable to cessation.’
‘Yaṁ kho pana kiñci abhisaṅkhataṁ abhisañcetayitaṁ tadaniccaṁ nirodhadhamman’ti pajānāti.
MN52 MN121 AN11.16
“Mendicants, this body doesn’t belong to you or to anyone else.
“Nāyaṁ, bhikkhave, kāyo tumhākaṁ napi aññesaṁ.It’s old deeds, and should be seen as produced by choices and intentions, as something to be felt.
Purāṇamidaṁ, bhikkhave, kammaṁ abhisaṅkhataṁ abhisañcetayitaṁ vedaniyaṁ daṭṭhabbaṁ.
SN12.37 SN35.146
“Do you see that when that fuel ceases, what has come to be is liable to cease?”
“Tadāhāranirodhā yaṁ bhūtaṁ, taṁ nirodhadhammanti, bhikkhave, passathā”ti?
MN38
One truly sees with right wisdom that when that fuel ceases, what has come to be is liable to cease.
Tadāhāranirodhā yaṁ bhūtaṁ taṁ nirodhadhammanti yathābhūtaṁ sammappaññāya passati.Seeing this, one is practicing for disillusionment, dispassion, and cessation regarding what is liable to cease.
Tadāhāranirodhā yaṁ bhūtaṁ taṁ nirodhadhammanti yathābhūtaṁ sammappaññāya disvā nirodhadhammassa nibbidāya virāgāya nirodhāya paṭipanno hoti.
SN12.31
Old age and death are impermanent, conditioned, dependently originated, liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease.
Jarāmaraṇaṁ, bhikkhave, aniccaṁ saṅkhataṁ paṭiccasamuppannaṁ khayadhammaṁ vayadhammaṁ virāgadhammaṁ nirodhadhammaṁ.
SN12.20
And also their knowledge that even this knowledge of the stability of natural principles is liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease.
yampissa taṁ dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṁ tampi khayadhammaṁ vayadhammaṁ virāgadhammaṁ nirodhadhammanti ñāṇaṁ.
SN12.34
So you have a quite common and pithy turn of phrase about the teaching; yaṃ kiñci samudayadhammaṃ, sabbaṃ taṃ nirodhadhamman that is symmetrical and balanced, spread across all 4 principle Nikayas, in the Vinaya, and then, popping up here and there, rarer constructions, sometimes confined to one or two Nikayas, sometimes confined to just one or two suttas, that seem to use several similar words to convey a similar idea, but now applied specific doctrinal ideas and so on.
finally you get sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā and saṅkhārā anattā in the rare instances that it does occur as a kind of culmination of this trend.
I think ultimately the problem with this kind of concordance @Jasudho is precisely that the most common contemporary claims most often rely on precisely the rarest ancient attestations.
How many times have you heard from a contemporary that the body is old kamma? it’s given as a truism, something one will presumably find all over the suttas, but as far as I can tell it occurs exactly once, at SN12.37, in the whole canon (it’s quoted in the Nidessa).
A moments reflection tells us why it’s rare, because it’s wrong, if the body is past kamma then we have not Buddhism but Jainism, and thus it’s not in fact repeated all over the place because it’s not meant to be taken as doctrine but rather as poetic language, which it is, and if not taken literally but figuratively is fine.
collecting these things really probably needs to start with something along the lines of https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/ but for the hyperbolic exaggerations of Buddhist scholars.
These days whenever I see a claim along the lines of “it is a well known fact” or “a frequently made statement in the early buddhist texts” or anything like that I am immediately suspicious, and head off to DPR to find the truth.
speaking of SN12.37 purāṇamidaṃ kammaṃ or old kamma may be unique to it, but one of my favorite short definitions of conditionality also occurs in it, iti imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti; imassuppādā idaṃ uppajjati; imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti; imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati which again I always thought was “common” widespread" etc etc, and it is more widespread than some of the above discussed examples, but really, it’s absent from the Vinaya, absent from DN, absent from the abhidhamma, occurs in only 3 suttas of MN; MN38 MN79 MN115
a collection of SN12 sutta starting at SN12.21 and again once at SN55.28 then once in AN at AN10.92 and a couple of times in the Udana…
This means for me, as a growing skeptic of the whole “the Buddha basically taught the contents of the sutta pitaka during his lifetime” school of thought, that most likely iti imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti; imassuppādā idaṃ uppajjati; imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti; imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati is not in fact an indisputable teaching of the Buddha but more likely a later pithy summary of such.
Thats fine, I don’t need the Buddha to have said every word for me to believe it, but I suspect others might not feel the same, anyway, my basic standard now is something that Rhys Davids is alledged to have said, that the earliest teachings are “The simple statements of Buddhist doctrine now found, in identical words, in paragraphs or verses recurring in all the books.”
This standard rules out iti imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti; imassuppādā idaṃ uppajjati; imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti; imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati (although 3 out of 4 aain’t bad as they say).
it in fact rules out quite a bit. I think it is for this reason that you see a lot of people leery of DN, they would rather rule it out than have to rule out some of their favorite articulations of doctrine.
basically a lot of what we take to be the “common” “standard” teaching of Buddhism, even amongst western contemporary scholars, seems to be hugely and disproportionately influenced by the Nidessa, and rarely based on actual word counts or standards like “all 4 principle Nikayas”.
for me its a bit like harry potter and dobby the elf. if you discovered some tattered and damaged books, and you could decifer only the names of the characters, and 4 volumes have harry and hermione and hagrid and one volume has harry and hermione and hagrid and dobby the elf, you can reasonably infer that most likely dobby the elf is an addition or new character, while harry and hermione and hagrid, being in both the dobby and non dobby volumes, are the original characters.
This is why for example it seems reasonable to infer that the jhana formula precedes and predates the mindfulness of breathing formula since vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṃ savicāraṃ vivekajaṃ pītisukhaṃ paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati occurs on all 4 Nikayas, dozens of times, while dīghaṃ vā assasanto occurs about one tenth as often and if we remove DN22 (since it is obviously imported form MN10) then it doesn’t occur at all in DN.
Metta.