The second arrow
Today, when something hurts, notice whether a second arrow follows the first.
- Read · about 2 minutes
“When an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings they sorrow and wail and lament, beating their breast and falling into confusion.…It’s like a person who is struck with an arrow,only to be struck with a second arrow.That person experiences the feeling of two arrows.…When a learned noble disciple experiences painful physical feelings they don’t sorrow or wail or lament, beating their breast and falling into confusion.They experience one feeling:physical, not mental.It’s like a person who is struck with an arrow,but was not struck with a second arrow.That person would experience the feeling of one arrow.SN 36.6 · The second arrow (Sallatha Sutta) · “An Arrow” · tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0)
From the text
The passage says that an unlearned ordinary person who feels physical pain also sorrows, laments, and falls into confusion, like someone struck by two arrows. A learned noble disciple who feels physical pain does not; they experience one feeling, physical and not mental, like someone struck by one arrow.
In everyday life
Pain arrives. The text does not pretend otherwise: both people in the passage are struck. The difference is what comes next. The unlearned ordinary person adds sorrow, lamenting, and confusion on top, and that is the second arrow. The learned noble disciple feels the first arrow only. The passage does not define those two labels here; one way to gloss them is someone who has not yet taken the teaching in, and someone who has. You may recognise the pattern from a stubbed toe or a sharp headache: the pain, and then the story about the pain. This journey is practice, not treatment. It offers small ways to notice the second arrow, and it is not a substitute for support from people you trust, or from a professional, when pain is severe or will not lift. Today’s sit is simply arriving: settle, rest attention on the body sitting here, and notice what is actually present.
- Sit · 3, 5 or 10 minutes
Arriving and Settling
Sit upright on a chair or cushion, hands resting in your lap. Read each cue as it appears; between cues you may close your eyes or lower your gaze.
- Live · during your day
The next time something hurts today, a bump, a cold, a sharp remark, silently name the first arrow, then check whether a second one is on its way.
- Reflect · this evening
When something hurt today, what did you notice being added to it, if anything?
Answer on paper, or in the app’s journal, which stays on your iPhone.