Those who know the essential as essential and the non-essential as non-essential reach the essential, because their thoughts are correct.

The luminous pair to the previous verse. Sārañca sārato ñatvā — knowing the essential as essential: this knowledge (ñāṇa) is not intellectual but direct, experiential. It is not enough to know that internal practice matters more than external form; one must have seen it with enough clarity that it genuinely reorganizes priorities.

Sammāsaṅkappa — right thought, right intention: the second element of the Noble Eightfold Path. It implies thoughts of renunciation (rather than greed), of benevolence (rather than hostility), and of non-harming (rather than cruelty). When these are the soil of thought, the actions that emerge from it naturally tend toward what is genuinely beneficial.

Adhigacchanti — they reach, they attain: there is dynamism here. Correct knowledge is not static; it has direction, leads toward something. The practitioner with sammāsaṅkappa advances on the path because they know, at each crossroads, which direction leads toward the essential.

The question this pair of verses leaves is concrete: what is my sāra? What is genuinely essential in my life? The honest answer to this question reorganizes everything else.