Delightful are the forests where ordinary people do not delight. Those free of passion will delight there, not those seeking sense pleasures.

Ramaṇīyāni araññāni yattha na ramatī jano — delightful are the forests where ordinary people do not delight: meditation forests are delightful for the advanced practitioner precisely because they do not offer the entertainments that ordinary people seek.

Vītarāgā ramissanti — those free of passion will delight: vīta-rāga is the person free of rāga (greed, coloring of the mind). They find in forest quietude the delight that the city cannot offer.

Na te kāmagavesino — not those seeking sense pleasures: for the pleasure seeker, the forest is boredom and isolation. For the advanced practitioner it is abundance and freedom.

Spiritual taste is a cultivated taste, like the taste for complex music. One who has not developed it cannot appreciate it. Contemplative practice cultivates the capacity to find joy in quietude, in simplicity, in naked presence without distractions.