![[info icon]](./../../../img/question_16.gif "Summary: Why do monks living in the forest wilderness look so happy?")
Standing to one side, a devata addressed the Blessed One with a verse:
Living in the wilderness,
staying peaceful, remaining chaste,
eating just one meal a day:
why are their faces
so bright & serene?
[The Buddha:]
They don't sorrow over the past, don't long for the future. They survive on the present. That's why their faces are bright & serene. From longing for the future, from sorrowing over the past, fools wither away like a green reed cut down.
©1998 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
The text of this page ("Arañña Sutta: The Wilderness", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions.
Transcribed from a file provided by the translator. Last revised for Access to Insight on 30 November 2013.
How to cite this document (a suggested style): "Arañña Sutta: The Wilderness" (SN 1.10), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn01/sn01.010.than.html .