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Araṇavibhaṅga Sutta

The 139th Sutta of the Majjhimanikāya. It was taught at Jetavana and contains a statement and an exposition of the middle path of peace between the two extremes of pleasures of sense — low, ignoble and unprofitable — and self-mortification, also painful and unprofitable. The path is the Noble Eightfold Path: in teaching the doctrine the teacher should neither appreciate nor depreciate it, he should teach the truth in abstract terms of general principle. He should not be a tale-teller nor confront anyone with improper remarks; he should speak slowly and not hurriedly; he should neither affect provincialisms in speech nor depart from recognised parlance.

At the end of the discourse, a young monk, Subhūti, is praised because he practised this path of non-conflict (araṇapaṭipadaṃ paṭipanno) (M.iii.230‑7; MA.ii.977‑8).