Equal Seeing (नपुंसक)

जहा इत्थीसु संगम्मि, तहा नपुंसएसु वि। ॥५.१॥

Just as in the case of attachment to women, so too in the case of attachment to persons of the third gender.

Chapter 5 opens with an explicit bridge to Chapter 4: "just as in the case of attachment to women, so too" in this case. The teaching is not starting over; it is extending. Whatever was said in Chapter 4 — all thirty-two sutras of metaphor, diagnosis, and warning — applies here with equal force. The Jain philosophical tradition recognized three genders — male, female, and napumsaka (a third category that encompassed those who did not fit the standard two-gender classification, including various forms of what we might today describe as intersex or non-binary individuals) — and the teaching on non-attachment is explicitly extended to all three. This is philosophically significant: the teaching does not assume a single form of desire or a single type of person who experiences it. It recognizes that the human experience of attraction and attachment is more varied than a simple male-female model, and it applies the same teaching to every form. The principle is universal: attachment is the problem, and its object does not change the nature or the consequence of the attachment.

The simple version: The same teaching applies here as in the previous chapter. The object of attachment changes; the nature of attachment does not.

मा पमायए भिक्खू, नपुंसएसु संगमे। ॥५.२॥

The monk should not be negligent — he should not practice attachment toward persons of the third gender.

The direct address to the monk repeats the exact opening of Chapter 4, word for word in structure: "the monk should not be negligent." This repetition is deliberate and meaningful. The teacher is not introducing a new problem; he is applying the same warning to a different form of the same problem. Negligence — pamaya — is the same failure regardless of the object that draws the mind into careless wandering. The monk who thought that the warning of Chapter 4 did not apply to him because his form of craving runs differently has now been explicitly addressed. The Jain path makes no exceptions for the particular form attachment takes. The teaching applies universally because attachment is universal — it is a feature of the unmastered mind, not a feature of any particular object. The monk's vigilance must be complete: not simply vigilant against the obvious forms of craving while leaving the subtler or more personally resonant forms unchecked. Complete vigilance means seeing every form of attachment for what it is, regardless of how it presents itself.

The simple version: The monk must be equally alert to all forms of attachment. There is no version of this that is acceptable or harmless.

संसारे वड्ढए मग्गो, नपुंसाणमवि सो। ॥५.३॥

The path through this attachment also increases wandering in the cycle of birth and death.

The mechanics of karma-binding do not vary with the object of attachment. Craving generates karma; karma drives rebirth; rebirth is suffering. This chain of causation is indifferent to its particular trigger. The Jain universe does not have a special category of karma that is "less binding" because the attachment that created it was of a different type, or because the object of the attachment was unusual or culturally non-standard. Karma is karma. The sutra is making an explicit universality claim: the teaching about attachment is not conditional on what kind of person or relationship is involved. It applies wherever and whenever attachment arises — because it is addressing the nature of attachment itself, not the nature of any particular object. This universality is one of the most philosophically consistent aspects of Jain ethics: there are no special cases. The principle holds everywhere, or it holds nowhere.

The simple version: Attachment of this kind binds the soul to rebirth, regardless of who the attachment is toward. The karma mechanism doesn't distinguish.

न तेण सक्किज्जइ धम्मो, न सील न बंभचेर। ॥५.४॥

By such a one, the teaching cannot be practiced, nor celibacy, nor moral conduct.

This sutra directly parallels the corresponding teaching in Chapter 4, using nearly identical language. The three pillars of the monastic path — dharma (following the teaching), sheela (moral conduct), and brahmacharya (celibacy) — are incompatible with attachment in any form. The deliberate repetition across chapters is not laziness or poor editing; it is the Sutrakritanga establishing a principle that does not admit exceptions. The three pillars do not collapse only when the attachment is of one specific type. They collapse when the attachment is genuine and strong. Brahmacharya in particular deserves emphasis here: it is not merely physical continence — it is not just a rule about what the body does. It is a total orientation of the mind away from sensory craving, a complete reconfiguration of how attention moves in the world. Any form of strong sensory craving that the mind entertains and pursues violates the spirit of brahmacharya regardless of whether the physical act occurs. The monk who manages physical restraint while maintaining an active craving in the mind is practicing the form but not the substance of the vow.

The simple version: Any strong attachment — whatever its form — destroys the monk's ability to practice. The specifics don't matter; the principle holds.

इंदियाणि अजिए भिक्खू, बज्झए न य मुच्चए। ॥५.५॥

The monk who has not conquered the senses is bound and not freed.

This sutra states one of the most important negative formulations in the Sutrakritanga: the monk who has not conquered the senses is bound and not freed. Not partially freed. Not on his way to being freed, just a little delayed. Bound. The word is absolute. It cuts directly against the comfortable notion that following the outer forms of monastic life — wearing the robes, reciting the prayers, keeping the schedule, living in the monastery — is itself liberation. It is not. The outer forms may be entirely correct and the monk still bound, if the senses remain masters rather than servants. The unmastered senses respond to every pleasant stimulus with craving and every unpleasant stimulus with aversion. Every one of those responses generates karma. In a monk who goes through an entire day generating hundreds of these reactions — all within the correct external form of monasticism — liberation is not occurring. What is occurring is a more disciplined version of ordinary bondage. The inner mastery is what matters. Without it, the outer forms are form without substance.

The simple version: Outer forms of practice are not enough. Without inner mastery of the senses, the monk is still bound.

एयं विण्णाय पंडिए, नपुंसएसु न पसज्जए। ॥५.६॥

The learned one, understanding this, does not become attached to persons of the third gender.

As in Chapter 4, the parallel chapter closes this section with the same affirmation: the learned one, understanding this, does not become attached. The repetition across both chapters is the teaching itself: right knowledge removes attachment. Not rules. Not punishments. Not social pressure. Not willpower. Understanding. When you truly understand what attachment is — the fire that burns, the serpent that strikes, the flood that sweeps away — and what it costs in karmic terms, and how it blocks the path you have committed to walking — the craving that drives attachment loses its fuel. It cannot sustain itself against genuine understanding. The Jain teaching on right knowledge as the root of right practice is one of the most psychologically accurate teachings in any tradition: you cannot permanently behave your way out of a craving your mind still holds to be valuable. But genuine understanding changes what the mind holds to be valuable. And when the valuing changes, the behavior follows naturally, without effort, without suppression, without the ongoing battle of willpower against desire.

The simple version: Real understanding removes the attachment. The monk who truly sees what's happening doesn't need to fight it — it dissolves.

सव्वेसु चेव जीवेसु, समदंसी हवेज्ज जो। ॥५.७॥

One who sees equally in all living beings — for such a one, liberation is not far.

The chapter's featured verse arrives at exactly the right moment — after all the warnings and the affirmation that understanding frees, here is the positive vision of what freedom looks like in practice: equal seeing in all living beings. Samadarshin — equal-seer — is the one who looks at every being without the distorting filters of preference and aversion, attraction and repulsion. The monk who sees equally in all beings has done something remarkable: he has removed the primary engine of karma-binding from his inner life. That engine is the differential response — the reaction that craves some beings and rejects others, that assigns "desirable" to some and "undesirable" to others, that moves toward some and away from others. All of that differential movement generates karma. Equal seeing stops the engine. When you see the soul-nature equally in every living being — recognizing that every creature, however physically different from you, is a conscious soul navigating its own karmic journey — the differential response cannot sustain itself. And for that monk, the sutra says, liberation is not far. Not distant. Close. Already beginning to happen in the equal seeing itself.

The simple version: Equal seeing in all beings — that is what liberation looks like from the inside. The monk who sees this way is already close to freedom.

अगारम्मि अणागारे, सव्वेसु समभावए। ॥५.८॥

In the householder and in the homeless, he maintains equanimity toward all.

This sutra specifies the social range of equal seeing: it extends across householder (agaara — one who lives in a home, with family and possessions) and homeless (anaagaara — the renunciant monk, without fixed home or possessions). These are the two broadest social categories of the Jain world, and they represent very different levels of spiritual commitment and very different daily realities. The freed monk does not look at a householder and feel superior because of his renunciation. He does not look at other monks and feel camaraderie based on shared status while being subtly condescending toward those in the world. He sees the soul-nature in each — in the merchant with his accounts, in the farmer with his fields, in the grandmother with her household concerns — as the same quality of conscious, knowing soul that is present in himself and in every other renunciant. All of them are in different circumstances on the same journey. The equanimity here is not the false equanimity of someone who has secretly ranked everyone but is pretending not to. It is genuine recognition of the soul in each: different karma, different circumstances, same essential nature, all moving (consciously or not) toward liberation.

The simple version: The freed monk doesn't rank people by their spiritual status. He sees the soul in everyone, wherever they are on the path.

न पिए न य दोस्सए, न रज्जए न विरज्जए। ॥५.९॥

He has no favorites and no enemies — he is neither attracted nor repelled.

Favorites and enemies are the two poles of partial seeing — and virtually every person in ordinary life has both. You have people you particularly enjoy, whose company you seek out, whose opinions carry special weight for you. You have people who irritate you, who you find difficult, whose presence you tolerate rather than welcome. These are your favorites and your enemies, in the ordinary sense. The monk with no favorites and no enemies is not describing someone who has become emotionally numb or incapable of noticing that some interactions feel easier than others. He is describing someone whose inner state no longer spikes when a "favorite" arrives or a difficult person appears. The turbulence of attraction and repulsion — the private delight when the favorite is present, the private irritation when the difficult person is there — has settled. What remains is emotionally clear attention: the same quality of presence, the same genuine interest, the same willingness to help and listen and respond appropriately, available to every person without exception. This is not flatness. It is fullness — the fullness of attention that is not being consumed by the constant work of managing personal preferences.

The simple version: No favorites, no enemies — just clear, undistorted attention for every person. This is what equal seeing feels like in practice.

आयाणं च परं चेव, एगत्तं संपजाणए। ॥५.१०॥

He recognizes the oneness of self and other.

"Recognizes the oneness of self and other" — this is the philosophical heart of the chapter's positive teaching. But "oneness" here requires careful interpretation. Jain philosophy does not say that individual souls merge into each other or into a single universal consciousness. Individual souls remain permanently distinct: your karmic history, your specific liberation journey, your particular experience — these are yours alone and will never be identical to another soul's. What is one — what is the same — is the nature of consciousness itself. The pure knowing awareness that you are, and the pure knowing awareness that every other living being is, are the same kind of thing. Not the same individual instance, but the same quality, the same essential nature. Recognizing this — not as a philosophical statement but as a lived reality in your moment-to-moment perception of others — removes the felt distinction between self and other that motivates all harm. If what I am (pure knowing soul) is what you are (pure knowing soul), then to harm you is to harm what I am. Not "someone like me" — what I am. That recognition makes harm not just wrong but incoherent.

The simple version: The soul in me is the same kind of thing as the soul in you. That recognition makes harm to others impossible.

सव्वेसिं च जीवाणं, सुहं एइच्छए तहा। ॥५.११॥

For all living beings equally, he wishes happiness.

Universal goodwill for all living beings without exception — this is the emotional expression of equal seeing, and it is active rather than passive. It is not the mere absence of ill-will (which might be just emotional neutrality). It is the genuine presence of care, the actual wish that every being be well, be free from suffering, be moving toward liberation. The monk who has cultivated equal seeing does not experience this universal goodwill as an effort or a duty; it arises naturally from seeing clearly. When you perceive the soul-nature in every being — when you see that every creature, from the smallest insect to the most difficult person you have ever encountered, is a conscious soul trying to navigate its karmic journey — genuine care arises spontaneously. You want them to be well because you recognize them as what you are. Universal goodwill is not a practice you impose on yourself from outside; it is the natural emotional consequence of genuine soul-perception. And to wish all beings happiness in the deepest sense is to wish them all liberation: freedom from the cycle, from suffering, from bondage. This is the Jain monk's boundless wish for the world.

The simple version: The freed monk doesn't just avoid harming others — he genuinely wants good for all beings. Equal seeing produces equal care.

एवं नपुंसयं नाऊण, जाणिया सव्वसंपहू। ॥५.१२॥

Thus, having understood the chapter on the third gender, one knows all things fully. — iti bemi

The closing "iti bemi" seals not just this chapter but the arc from Chapter 4 through Chapter 5. Together, these two chapters have universalized the teaching on non-attachment. Chapter 4 warned about the strongest form of sensory craving and described in detail what it does to the monk's path. Chapter 5 extended the same warning without exception, then opened into the positive vision: equal seeing, no favorites and no enemies, oneness of self and other, universal goodwill, liberation not far. The monk who has genuinely understood these two chapters together has understood the complete teaching on attachment: it is the problem, in every form, for every practitioner. Understanding it — truly understanding it, down to the root — removes it. And in its absence, equal seeing arises naturally. Equal seeing is the door. Pass through it, and liberation is not far. The teacher has spoken.

The simple version: The teaching is universal: attachment is the problem, always, in every form. When you see this completely, you know everything that needs to be known. The teacher has spoken.