Tissa
SN 22.84 Tissa Sutta: Tissa
Tissa, the Buddha’s cousin, says ‘my body seems as if drugged, I have become disoriented, the teachings are no longer clear to me. Sloth and torpor persist obsessing my mind.’
The Buddha calls Tissa and asks him ‘If one is not devoid of lust for [form/feeling/perception/volitional formations/consciousness], not devoid of desire, affection, thirst, passion and craving for it, then with the change and alteration of that [form/…], do sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure and despair arise within?’ Tissa answers ‘yes’.
He concludes with a simile, comparing the noble eightfold path to a path going through a dense forest (ignorance), a marshy swamp (sensual desires), past a steep drop-off (anger & despair), and finally arriving at a patch of level ground: unbinding.
Tissa is encouraged, he doesn’t leave the Sangha and he makes it in the end.