When the Buddha fails to achieve reconciliation among quarrelsome bhikkhus at Kosambi, he withdraws into solitude and later encounters an inspiring community of monks devoted to liberation. He teaches them the path of inner purification based on his own practice prior to full awakening—discerning and abandoning eleven subtle impurities of mind, developing collectedness in three ways, and realizing unshakable liberation.

The Buddha deconstructs speculative views about the past and future, revealing them as forms of clinging. He exposes subtle attachments within even exalted meditative states, showing that all conditioned experiences are unstable. True liberation lies not in constructed peace, but in non-clinging through full understanding of the six sense bases.

The Buddha explains how the diversity of the elements conditions a causal chain in the mind. Dependent on diverse elements, there arises a diversity of perceptions, which successively condition diverse intentions, desires, fevers, and ultimately, diverse quests.

The Buddha provides a detailed analysis of the six sense bases, differentiating worldly feelings based on attachment from those born of renunciation and insight. He outlines a progressive path of abandoning lower states for higher ones, guiding practitioners through refined meditative states toward complete liberation.

The Buddha describes the diversity of elements that shapes one’s experience.

The Buddha describes how dependent on the diversity of elements, there arises a diversity of contacts.

The Buddha describes how dependent on the diversity of elements, there arises a diversity of contacts, and not the other way around.

The Buddha describes how dependent on the diversity of elements, there arises a diversity of contacts, and dependent on the diversity of contacts, there arises a diversity of felt experiences.

The six sense elements condition diverse contacts, which then condition diverse felt experiences. The Buddha emphasizes that this dependent arising is strictly one-way: feelings do not condition contacts, nor do contacts condition the elements.

The Buddha explains how the diversity of the elements conditions a causal chain in the mind and then emphasizes that this dependent arising is strictly one-way: subsequent emotional and cognitive states do not condition the preceding elements.

The Buddha describes how dependent on the diversity of elements, there arises a diversity of perceptions, intentions, contacts, felt experiences connected with contact, desires, fevers, quests, and acquisitions.

The six sense elements condition a causal chain sequentially leading to diverse perceptions, intentions, contacts, felt experiences, desires, fevers, quests, and acquisitions. The Buddha emphasizes this dependent arising is strictly one-way: subsequent states do not condition the preceding elements.

When Citta the householder asks elder bhikkhus to explain the “diversity of elements,” a senior monk remains silent. Venerable Isidatta steps in and correctly enumerates the sensory elements, earning the senior elder’s humble praise.