The Great Disciples are overwhelmed by the news that they, too, will attain to full and perfect

enlightenment but remind the Buddha that they are…

“old, aged, advanced in years; honoured as seniors in this assemblage of monks. Worn out by old

age we fancy that we have attained Nirvâna; we make no efforts, O Lord, for supreme perfect

enlightenment; our force and exertion are inadequate to it. Though the Lord preaches the law and

has long continued sitting, and though we have attended to that preaching of the law, yet, O Lord, as

we have so long been sitting and so long attended the Lord's service, our greater and minor

members, as well as the joints and articulations, begin to ache. … For by having fled out of the triple

world, O Lord, we imagined having attained Nirvâna, and we are decrepit from old age. Hence, O

Lord, though we have exhorted other Bodhisattvas and instructed them in supreme perfect

enlightenment, we have in doing so never conceived a single thought of longing. And just now, O

Lord, we are hearing from the Lord that disciples also may be predestined to supreme perfect

enlightenment.”

Text based on the translation by J H C Kern