Five-fold sense-pleasures
Venerable Samiddhi woke up at dawn and went to the hot springs at Tapoda to bathe. Having bathed in the hot springs and come out of it, he stood in one robe drying his limbs. Then a certain deity, who was exceedingly beautiful, illuminating the entire hot springs, approached Venerable Samiddhi and standing in the air addressed him in verse:
Not having enjoyed, you go for alms, monk You do not go for alms, having enjoyed. Having enjoyed, monk, you go for alms Let not the time pass you by.
Monk you have come to this monkhood which is dependent on alms not having enjoyed the fivefold sense-pleasures. ‘na hi bhutvāna bhikkhasi’ – Not that you have come to monkhood after enjoying the sensepleasures. ‘bhutvāna bhikkhu bhikkhassu’ – Monk, go to monkhood having enjoyed the sense-pleasures. ‘mā taṁ kālo upaccagā’ – Do not let the best time for enjoying sensepleasures – that is youth – pass you by. Here is an invitation that goes against the Dhamma and here is the reply Venerable Samiddhi gave to it.
I do not know when I have to die, The time of death is hidden from me – it is not seen. ‘Therefore I have come to monkhood without enjoying sense-pleasures. With the thought: ‘let not the opportune time for monkhood pass me by.’ The deity’s advice was not to let the time for enjoying sense-pleasures, that is youth, pass by. What Venerable Samiddhi says is that youth is the proper time for striving as a monk, since one cannot do it in decrepit old age. But the deity did not give up his attempt to mislead Venerable Samiddhi. He came down and standing on the earth said: “Monk, you have gone forth while young with a lad’s black hair, endowed with the radiant youth, without having dallied with sensual pleasures. Enjoy human sensual pleasures, monk, do not abandon what is directly visible in order to pursue what takes time…...1. 2. 10. (20) Samiddhi Sutta, Devatā Saṁyutta Nikaya
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