The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Nanamoli

  255 Dhammā pi vo pahātabbā pageva adhammā. The word dhammā is ambiguous here. MA interprets it as meaning good states, which it identifies with serenity and insight (samatha-vipassanā) thus in its paraphrase of the text: “I teach, bhikkhus, even the abandoning of desire and attachment to such peaceful and sublime states as serenity and insight, how much more so to that low, vulgar, contemptible, coarse, and impure thing that this foolish Ariṭṭha sees as harmless when he says that there is no obstruction in desire and lust for the five cords of sensual pleasure.” The commentator cites MN 66.26–33 as an example of the Buddha teaching the abandonment of attachment to serenity, MN 38.14 as an example of his teaching the abandonment of attachment to insight. Note that in each case it is the attachment to the good states that should be abandoned, not the good states themselves.Despite MA, it seems to me that dhammā here signifies, not good states themselves, but the teachings, the correct attitude to which was delineated just above in the simile of the snake. The simile of the raft thus intimates that even the teachings that are to be rightly grasped must finally be relinquished. This, however, is not an invitation to moral nihilism, but a warning that even attachment to the noble teachings is an obstacle to progress. What is contrary to the teachings, adhammā, would include the moral laxity that the bhikkhu Ariṭṭha advocated.

  256 This section evidently has the purpose of forestalling another type of misconception and misrepresentation of the Dhamma, i.e., the introduction of a view of self into the teaching. According to MA, standpoints for views (diṭṭhiṭṭhāna) are wrong views themselves as grounds for other more elaborate wrong views; the objects of views, i.e., the five aggregates; and the conditions for views, i.e., such factors as ignorance, perverted perception, and false thoughts, etc.

  257 MA states that the notion “this is mine” is induced by craving, the notion “this I am” by conceit, and the notion “this is my self” by wrong views. These three—craving, conceit, and views—are called the three obsessions (gāha). They are also the mainsprings behind conceiving (MN 1) and mental proliferation (MN 18).

  258 This series of terms shows the aggregate of consciousness indirectly, by way of its object. The “seen” points to eye-consciousness, the “heard” to ear-consciousness, the “sensed” to the other three kinds of sense consciousness, and the remaining terms to mind-consciousness.

  259 This is a full-fledged eternalist view arisen on the basis of one of the earlier, more rudimentary types of personality view; here it becomes itself an object of craving, conceit, and the false view of self. This view seems to reflect the philosophy of the Upanishads, which assert the identity of the individual self (ātman) with the universal spirit (brahman), though it is difficult to determine on the basis of the texts whether the Buddha was personally acquainted with the early Upanishads themselves.

  260 Asati na paritassati. The noun form paritassanā, according to MA, has the twofold connotation of fear and craving, thus “agitation” was chosen as comprehending both. Agitation about what is non-existent externally (§18) refers to the worldling’s despair over the loss or non-acquisition of possessions; agitation about what is non-existent internally (§20) to the eternalist’s despair when he misinterprets the Buddha’s teaching on Nibbāna as a doctrine of annihilation.

  261 Pariggahaṁ parigaṇheyyātha, lit. “you may possess that possession.” This links up with §18 on agitation about external possessions.

  262 Attavādupādānaṁ upādiyetha, lit. “you may cling to that clinging to a doctrine of self.” On the problem this idiom involves for translation, see n.176. This passage links up with §20 on agitation arising from a view of self.

  263 The support of views (dị̣hinissaya), according to MA, is the sixty-two views mentioned in the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1), which emerge from personality view or “doctrine of a self.” It might also include the pernicious view adopted by Ariṭṭha at the beginning of the sutta.

  264 The notion “what belongs to self” or “self’s property” (attaniya) is ascribed to whichever among the five aggregates are not identified as self, as well as to all the individual’s external possessions. This passage shows the mutual dependence, and thus the equal untenability, of the twin notions “I” and “mine.”

  265 According to the commentaries, disenchantment (nibbid̄ā, also rendered “revulsion” or “disgust”) signifies the culminating stages of insight, dispassion (virāga) the attainment of the supramundane path, and liberation (vimutti) the fruit. The arahant’s reviewing knowledge (paccavekkhaṇañāṇa ) is shown by the phrase “there comes the knowledge” and “he understands: ‘Birth is destroyed…’.”

  266 “Thus gone” is, in Pali, tathāgata, the usual epithet of the Buddha, but here applied more broadly to the arahant. MA interprets this passage in two alternative ways thus: (1) The arahant even while alive is here and now untraceable as a being or individual (in the sense of an abiding self) because in the ultimate sense there is no being (as self). (2) The arahant is untraceable here and now because it is impossible for the gods, etc., to find the support for his insight-mind, path-mind, or fruition-mind (vipassanācitta, maggacitta, phalacitta); that is, the object being Nibbāna, his mind cannot be known by the worldling.

  267 This refers back to §20, where the eternalist misunderstands the Buddha’s teaching on Nibbāna, the cessation of being, to involve the annihilation of an existing being considered as self.

  268 The import of this statement is deeper than appears on the surface. In the context of the false accusations of §37, the Buddha is stating that he teaches that a living being is not a self but a mere conglomeration of factors, material and mental events, linked together in a process that is inherently dukkha, and that Nibbāna, the cessation of suffering, is not the annihilation of a being but the termination of that same unsatisfactory process. This statement should be read in conjunction with SN 12:15/ii.17, where the Buddha says that one with right view, who has discarded all doctrines of a self, sees that whatever arises is only dukkha arising, and whatever ceases is only dukkha ceasing.

  269 “What earlier was fully understood” (pubbe pariññātaṁ) are the five aggregates. Since it is only these to which honour and abuse are shown, not an “I” or self, there is no reason for elation or dejection.

  270 MA points out that it is the attachment to the five aggregates that should be abandoned; the aggregates themselves cannot be torn apart or pulled out.

  271 MA: “Chinna-pilotika: pilotikā is a torn and worn-out rag stitched and knotted here and there; there is nothing (in the Dhamma) like this—torn, worn-out, stitched and knotted by way of hypocrisy and other deceptions.”

  272 That is, as the arahants have achieved deliverance from the entire round of existence, it is impossible to point to any plane within the round where they might be reborn.

  273 These are two classes of individuals standing on the path of stream-entry. “Dhamma-followers” (dhammānusārin) are disciples in whom the faculty of wisdom (paññindriya) is predominant and who develop the noble path with wisdom in the lead; when they attain the fruit they are called “attained-to-view” (diṭṭ). “Faith-followers” (saddh̄nus̄rin) are disciples in whom the faculty of faith (saddhindriya) is predominant and who develop the noble path with faith in the lead; when they attain the fruit they are called “liberated-by-faith” (saddhāvimutta). See MN 70.20, 21; also Pug 1:35–36/15 and Vsm XXI, 75.

  274 MA says that this refers to persons devoted to the practice of insight meditation who have not reached any supramundane attainment. Note that they are headed only for heaven, not for enlightenment, though if their practice matures they can attain the path of stream-entry and thus gain assurance of enlightenment. The expression saddhāmattaṁ pemamattaṁ might be rendered “simply faith, simply love” or “mere faith, mere love” (as it sometimes is), but this could not explain the guarantee of rebirth in heaven. It therefore seems obligatory to take the suffix matta here as implying a requisite
amount of faith and love, not simple possession of these qualities.

  SUTTA 23

  275 Ven. Kum̄ra Kassapa was an adopted son of King Pasenadi of Kosala, born of a woman who, not knowing she was pregnant, had gone forth as a bhikkhunı̄ after having conceived him. At the time this sutta was delivered he was still a sekha; he attained arahantship using this sutta as his subject of meditation.

  276 According to MA, this deity was a non-returner living in the Pure Abodes. He and Kumāra Kassapa had been members of a group of five fellow monks who, in the Dispensation of the previous Buddha Kassapa, had practised meditation together on a mountain-top. It was this same deity who spurred Bāhiya Dāruciriya, another former member of the group, to visit the Buddha (see Ud 1:10/7).

  277 The meaning of the deity’s imagery will be explained later on in the sutta itself.

  278 Kummāsa: The Vinaya and commentaries explain it as something made of yava, barley. Ñm had translated the word as bread, but from MN 82.18 it is clear that kummāsa is viscous and spoils overnight. PED defines it as junket; Horner translates it as “sour milk.”

  279 MA: Just as a bar across the entrance to a city prevents people from entering it, so ignorance prevents people from attaining Nibbāna.

  280 Dvedhāpatha might also have been rendered “a forked path,” an obvious symbol for doubt.

  281 MA states that the four feet and head of a tortoise are similar to the five aggregates.

  282 MA: Beings desiring sensual enjoyments are chopped up by the butcher’s knife of sensual desires upon the block of sense objects.

  283 The symbolism is explicated at MN 54.16.

  284 This is an arahant. For the symbolism, see n.75.

  SUTTA 24

  285 The parenthetical specification is supplied from MA. The Buddha’s native land is Kapilavatthu, at the foot of the Himalayas.

  286 The last five items form a set called the five aggregates of Dhamma (dhammakkhandhā). “Deliverance” is identified with the noble fruits, “the knowledge and vision of deliverance” with reviewing knowledge.

  287 Ven. Pu˚˚a Mantā˚iputta belonged to a brahmin family and was ordained by Ven. Aññā Kondañña at Kapilavatthu, where he continued to reside until he decided to visit the Buddha at Sāvatthı̄. He was later declared by the Buddha the most eminent bhikkhu among the preachers of the Dhamma.

  288 Although these seven purifications (satta visuddhi) are mentioned elsewhere in the Pali Canon (at DN iii.288, with two added: purification by wisdom and purification by deliverance), it is curious that they are not analysed as a set anywhere in the Nikāyas; and this becomes even more puzzling when both these great disciples seem to recognise them as a fixed group of doctrinal categories. The sevenfold scheme forms, however, the scaffolding for the entire Visuddhimagga, which defines the different stages by means of the fully developed commentarial traditions on concentration and insight meditation.In brief, “purification of virtue” (sı̄lavisuddhi) is the unbroken adherence to the moral precepts one has undertaken, explained by Vsm with reference to the moral training of a bhikkhu as the “fourfold purification of virtue.” “Purification of mind” (cittavisuddhi) is the overcoming of the five hindrances through the attainment of access concentration and the jhānas. “Purification of view” (diṭṭhivisuddhi) is the understanding that defines the nature of the five aggregates constituting a living being. “Purification by overcoming doubt” (kankhāvitaraṇavisuddhi ) is the understanding of conditionality. “Purification by knowledge and vision of what is the maggāmaggañāṇadassanavisuddhi path and what is not the path” ( ) is the correct discrimination between the false path of the ecstatic, exhilarating experiences and the true path of insight into impermanence, suffering, and not self. “Purification by knowledge and vision of the way” (paṭipadāñāṇadassanavisuddhi) comprises the ascending series of insight knowledges up to the supramundane paths. And “purification by knowledge and vision” (ñāṇadassanavisuddhi) is the supramundane paths.

  289 MA glosses anupādā parinibbāna as appaccayaparinibbāna, “final Nibbāna that has no condition,” explaining that upādāna has two meanings: grasping (gahṇa), as in the usual passage on the four types of clinging; and condition (paccaya), as illustrated by this passage. The commentators explain “final Nibbāna without clinging” either as the fruit of arahantship, because it cannot be grasped by any of the four types of clinging; or as Nibbāna the unconditioned, because it has not arisen through any condition.

  290 MA explains that the first six stages are “accompanied by clinging” in the sense both of being conditioned and of existing in one who still has grasping; the seventh stage, being supramundane, only in the sense of being conditioned.

  291 MA says that Sāriputta asked this only as a way of greeting Pu˚˚a Mantā˚iputta since he already knew his name. Pu˚˚a, however, had never seen Sāriputta before and so must have been genuinely surprised to meet the great disciple.

  292 Satthukappa. MA says that this is the highest praise that can be spoken of a disciple.

  SUTTA 25

  293 Cetovimutti: MA explains that they simply abandoned their resolution to live in the wilds, though it could well be that these ascetics had attained—and lost—the eight meditative attainments that are usually implied by the term cetovimutti.

  294 These are the ten speculative views debated by the ascetic philosophers of the Buddha’s age. All were rejected by the Buddha as being unconnected with the fundamentals of the holy life and unconducive to liberation from suffering. See MN 63, MN 72.

  295 The eight meditative attainments here must be understood, as MA explains, as bases for insight. When a bhikkhu has entered such a jhāna, Māra cannot see how his mind is proceeding. This immunity from Māra’s influence, however, is as yet only temporary.

  296 This last bhikkhu, by destroying the taints, has become not only temporarily invisible to Māra but permanently inaccessible to him. On the cessation of perception and feeling, see Introduction, p. 41.

  SUTTA 26

  297 This title follows the PTS and SBJ eds. of MN. The BBS ed. of MN, and both the PTS and BBS eds. of MA, refer to this discourse as the Pāsarāsi Sutta, The Heap of Snares, with reference to the simile in §§32–33.

  298 MA points out that the second jhāna and one’s basic meditation subject are both called “noble silence” (ariyo tuṇhībhāvo). Those who cannot attain the second jhāna are advised to maintain noble silence by attending to their basic meditation subject.

  299 Upadhi: The root meaning is foundation, basis, ground (PED). In the commentaries various kinds of upadhi are enumerated, among them the five aggregates, objects of sensual pleasure, defilements, and kamma. Ñm renders the term consistently throughout as “essentials of existence,” which often obscures its clear contextual meaning. I have tried to capture the several connotations of the word by rendering it “acquisitions” where its objective meaning is prominent (as it is here) and as “acquisition” where its subjective meaning is prominent. At MN 26.19 Nibbāna is called “the relinquishing of all acquisitions” (sabb’̄ūpadhipaṭinissagga), with both meanings intended.

  300 Gold and silver are excluded from the things subject to sickness, death, and sorrow, but they are subject to defilement, according to MA, because they can be alloyed with metals of lesser worth.

  301 MA: He taught him the seven attainments (of serenity meditation) ending in the base of nothingness, the third of the four immaterial attainments. Though these attainments are spiritually exalted, they are still mundane and not in themselves directly conducive to Nibbāna.

  302 That is, it leads to rebirth in the plane of existence called the base of nothingness, the objective counterpart of the seventh meditative attainment. Here the lifespan is supposed to be 60,000 aeons, but when that has elapsed one must pass away and return to a lower world. Thus one who attains this is still not free from birth and death but is caught in the trap of Māra (MA). Horner misses the point that rebirth
is the issue by translating “only as far as reaching the plane of no-thing” (MLS 1:209).

  303 Both Horner in MLS and Ñm in Ms err in their translations of the account of the Bodhisatta’s meeting with Uddaka Rāmaputta by assuming that Uddaka is identical with Rāma. However, as his name indicates, Uddaka was the son (putta) of Rāma, who must have already passed away before the Bodhisatta arrived on the scene. It should be noted that all references to Rāma are in the past tense and the third person, and that Uddaka in the end places the Bodhisatta in the position of teacher. Though the text does not allow for definite conclusions, this suggests that he himself had not yet reached the fourth immaterial attainment.

  304 MN 36, which includes the account of the Bodhisatta’s meetings with Ā˘āra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, continues from this point with the story of the extreme ascetic practices that brought him to the verge of death and his subsequent discovery of the middle way that led to enlightenment.

  305 MA identifies “this Dhamma” with the Four Noble Truths. The two truths or states (ṭhana) spoken of just below—dependent origination and Nibbāna—are the truths of the origin of suffering and the cessation of suffering, which respectively imply the truths of suffering and the path.