AN7 - Collection of Numbered Speeches

Book excerpt: The seventh book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 1124 suttas or discourses whose subject matter is centered on groups of seven topics. This book contains suttas to be read, long suttas with expositions, some of them interesting. This book is devoid of false suttas. The rulers' thread resurfaces two versions, the traditional one in which they are compared to bandits, fires and floods, as in AN 7.7 With Ugga, and a more disturbing variation: in AN 7.53 Mother of Nanda, the rulers appear as kidnappers and murderers of her son. In the section of featured suttas, this time we find more. Of particular note is AN 7.19: Nibbāna. Here the different final ways of becoming extinct are explained. AN 7.24 which denounces the work of the bhikkhus as the first cause of decline. AN 7.44 which explains the different planes of consciousness. The above AN 7.53, where a laywoman reaches the final achievement. AN 7.66 The Seven Suns, an interesting planetary cosmogony. AN 7.92 A Worthy One, in which any kind of rite or ceremony is qualified as an erroneous belief, as being able to deliver from Samsara.