At one time one of the mendicants was staying in the land of the Kosalans in a certain forest grove.
Now at that time that mendicant had previously been spending too much time in recitation. But some time later they adhered to passivity and silence.
Not hearing the teaching, the deity haunting that forest approached that mendicant, and addressed them in verse:
“Mendicant, why don’t you recite passages of the teaching,
living together with other mendicants?
When you hear the teaching confidence grows;
and the reciter is praised in this very life.”
“I used to be zealous for passages of the teaching,
until I encountered dispassion.
When I encountered dispassion,
whatever was seen, heard, and thought,
this, good people say, is the laying down by complete understanding.”