Dhamma-Kakka-Ppavattana Sutta 3 (Rhys Davids, SBE 11)

Bhikkhu Bodhi's modern translation of the Samyutta Nikaya renders this same sermon under its place in a systematic arrangement, as discourse fifty six, eleven, grouped with other teachings on the same topic under a heading that names the truths themselves rather than the event, whereas Rhys Davids' nineteenth century translation, part of the Sacred Books of the East series and the one this passage quotes, presents the sutta on its own, following the older Pali Text Society divisions rather than the topical grouping later editions adopted. Both translate the same underlying Pali text; the difference is organizational, a reminder that even a single sermon's place in the canon has been arranged more than one way by more than one generation of translators.

The line this passage records describes the middle path in purely functional terms, a path that opens the eyes and leads to peace of mind, without yet naming what the path consists of; the fuller sermon that follows immediately after supplies that content as the eightfold path and states the four truths themselves, on suffering, its origin, its cessation and the way to its cessation, the structure later Buddhist teaching treats as the compressed statement of the entire doctrine. This middle way, positioned explicitly against both self indulgence and self mortification, is presented in the sermon as the Buddha's own correction of extremes he says he tried and rejected before his enlightenment.