At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Now at that time, after the meal, on return from alms-round, several mendicants sat together in the meeting hall. They engaged in all kinds of unworthy talk, such as talk about kings, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and beds; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries; talk about women and heroes; street talk and well talk; talk about the departed; motley talk; tales of land and sea; and talk about being reborn in this or that state of existence.

Then in the late afternoon, the Buddha came out of retreat and went to the assembly hall, where he sat on the seat spread out and addressed the mendicants: “Mendicants, what were you sitting talking about just now? What conversation was left unfinished?”

And they told him what had happened. “Mendicants, it is not appropriate for you people of good families who have gone forth in faith from the lay life to homelessness to engage in these kinds of unworthy talk.

There are, mendicants, these ten topics of discussion. What ten? Talk about fewness of wishes, contentment, seclusion, keeping your distance, arousing energy, ethics, immersion, wisdom, freedom, and the knowledge and vision of freedom. These are the ten topics of discussion.

Mendicants, if you bring up these topics of conversation again and again then your glory could surpass even the sun and moon, so mighty and powerful, how much more so the wanderers who follow other paths.”