[**The Sallatha Sutta** (SN 36.6)](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html) in the Pali Canon is well-known in the Theravada and MBI (mindfulness-based-intervention -- MBSR, MBCT, etc) worlds for the **two-arrows paradigm**.

The first arrow is a physical pain (or in modern readings, also primary emotional pain such as loss of a loved one). The second arrow, which ones shoots at oneself, is the emotional reaction to the first-arrow pain. The first arrow is inevitable -- it's part of being in samsara; the second arrow is not inevitable and is preventable dukkha.

It's sometimes expressed in the aphorism -- pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

**My question -- is this paradigm, aphorism or sutta discussed anywhere in the Mahayana?** I cannot find it in the Gelug Lam Rim (via [Pabonka](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0861711262)), but maybe it's elsewhere, or subsumed under something else? But perhaps this sutta is not included in the Tibetan canon (the [Kangyur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangyur)) at all.

Below is the two-arrow (dart) excerpt, Bikkhu Bodhi's translation. (But you might want to read the whole sutta; even though it is fairly short, there is a lot more to it than what's covered by most contemporary teachers and commentators.)

> 
> Bhikkhus, when the uninstructed worldling is being contacted by a
>  painful feeling, he sorrows, grieves, and laments; he weeps beating
>  his breast and becomes distraught. He feels two feelings a bodily one
>  and a mental one. Suppose they were to strike a man with a dart, and
>  then they would strike him immediately afterwards with a second
>  dart,so that the man would feel a feeling caused by two darts. So
>  too, when the uninstructed worldling is being contacted by a painful
>  feeling ... he feels two feelings—a bodily one and a mental one.
>    
> 
>  ...
>    
> 
>  Bhikkhus, when the instructed noble disciple is contacted by a painful feeling, he does not sorrow, grieve, or lament; he does not
>  weep beating his breast and become distraught. He feels one feeling
>  a bodily one, not a mental one. Suppose they were to strike a man with
>  a dart, but they would not strike him imme­diately afterwards with a
>  second dart, so that the man would feel a feeling caused by one dart
>  only. So too, when the instructed noble disciple is contacted by a
>  painful feeling ... he feels one feeling—a bodily one, not a mental
>  one.
> 
> 
> 

Thanks! --David