[294] When the wanderer Sandaka was seated to one side, the venerable Ānanda said this to him: "Sandaka, what were you sitting together in conversation about just now? And what was the talk among you that was left unfinished?"
"Worthy Ānanda, let that talk be, the talk for which we were sitting together just now. That talk will not be hard for the worthy Ānanda to hear even later. It would be good indeed if a Dhamma talk on the worthy Ānanda's own teacher's doctrine were to occur to the worthy Ānanda himself."
"Then, Sandaka, listen and attend carefully; I will speak."
"Yes, sir," the wanderer Sandaka replied to the venerable Ānanda. The venerable Ānanda said this: "Sandaka, these four ways of living that are not the spiritual life (abrahmacariyavāsā) have been declared by that Blessed One who knows and sees, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, and four kinds of spiritual life (brahmacariya) that are without consolation (anassāsikāni) have been declared, wherein a wise person would, so far as possible, not live the spiritual life; and if he did live it, he would not accomplish the true way, the wholesome Dhamma (ñāyaṃ dhammaṃ kusalaṃ)."
"But which, worthy Ānanda, are those four ways of living that are not the spiritual life, declared by that Blessed One who knows and sees, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, wherein a wise person would, so far as possible, not live the spiritual life; and if he did live it, he would not accomplish the true way, the wholesome Dhamma?"
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.