Translations:SN 56.11/2/en

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was staying in the deer park at Isipatana, near Bārāṇasī. It was there that the Blessed One spoke to a group of five mendicants: There are two extremes, mendicants, that one who has gone forth into homelessness should not practise. What two? The lustful devotion to adherence to happiness that is rooted in sensual pleasure, that is low, vulgar, ignoble and damaging; as well as the devotion to self-torture, which is painful, ignoble and damaging. By understanding to avoid these two extremes, mendicants, the so-gone understood fully the middle path, which leads to vision, knowledge, peace of mind, insight, the highest access and to cessation.