This is my attempt to render into contemporary English one of my favorite suttas from the Pali canon, known variously as the Vyagghapajja Sutta or the Dighajanu Sutta, for the two names by which the Buddha’s questioner is called in the text (see first note, below). I’ve written this version after exhaustive reading of three translations, all by people who know Pali (which I do not) and who have spent their lives practicing the discipline of the Blessed One (which I have not). Two of those are on the web, available at the generally excellent Access to Insight site:

• Translation by Narada Thera
• Translation by Thanissaro Bhikku

There is also an excellent translation, a bit more abbreviated than those, and more contemporary in its style, in Bhikku Boddhi’s selection of suttas from the Anguttara Nikaya, Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (Chapter on the Eights).

I’m particularly fond of this sutta because, in it, the Buddha addresses a question that spiritual leaders seldom address—how can we find happiness in the life we’ve chosen in this world. And the answers he gives are entirely practical, and, in fact, reflect a shrewd understanding of the economics and operational realities of holding a job and heading a family.