735 MA: This teaching is undertaken to show Dı̄ghanakha the danger in his view and thereby encourage him to discard it.
736 MA: At this point Dı̄ghanakha has discarded his annihilationist view. Thus the Buddha now undertakes to teach him insight meditation, first by way of the impermanence of the body and then by way of the impermanence of the mental factors under the heading of feeling.
737 MA quotes a verse that says that an arahant may use the words “I” and “mine” without giving rise to conceit or misconceiving them as referring to a self or ego (SN 1:5/i.14). See too DN 9.53/i.202, where the Buddha says of expressions employing the word “self”: “These are merely names, expressions, turns of speech, designations in common use in the world, which the Tathāgata uses without misapprehending them.”
738 MA: Having reflected on the discourse spoken to his nephew, Ven. Sāriputta developed insight and attained arahantship. Dı̄ghanakha attained the fruit of stream-entry.
739 See nn.588–89.
SUTTA 75
740 Bhūnahuno. In Ms, Ñm had rendered this cryptic expression “a wrecker of being.” I follow Horner in translating after the commentarial gloss hatavaḍḍhino mariyādakārakassa . MA explains that he held the view that “growth” should be accomplished in the six senses by experiencing whatever sense objects one has never experienced before without clinging to those that are already familiar. His view thus seems close to the contemporary attitude that intensity and variety of experience is the ultimate good and should be pursued without inhibitions or restrictions. The reason for his disapproval of the Buddha will become clear in §8.
741 MA glosses the term nippurisa, lit. “non-men,” as meaning that they were all women. Not only the musicians, but all posts in the palace, including the door-keepers, were filled by women. His father, the king, had provided him with three palaces and the entourage of women in hopes of keeping him confined to the lay life and distracting him from thoughts of renunciation.
742 MA: This is said referring to the attainment of the fruit of arahantship based on the fourth jhāna.
743 The expression viparı̄tasaññā alludes to the “perverted perception” (saññāvipallāsa) of perceiving pleasure in what is really painful. MṬ says that sensual pleasures are painful because they arouse the painful defilements and because they yield painful fruits in the future. Horner misses the point by translating the line “(they may) receive a change of sensation and think it pleasant” (MLS 2:187).
744 Māgandiya evidently understands the verse in line with the fifty-eighth wrong view of the Brahmajāla Sutta: “When this self, furnished and supplied with the five strands of sense pleasures, revels in them—at this point the self attains supreme Nibbāna here and now” (DN 1.3.20/i.36).
745 MA: The full verse had been recited by the previous Buddhas seated in the midst of their fourfold assemblies. The multitude learned it as “a verse concerned with the good.” After the last Buddha passed away, it spread among the wanderers, who were able to preserve only the first two lines in their books.
746 The emphatic yeva, “just,” implies that he was clinging to material form, feeling, etc., misconceived to be “I,” “mine,” and “my self.” With the arising of vision—a metaphorical expression for the path of stream-entry—identity view is eradicated and he understands the aggregates to be mere empty phenomena devoid of the selfhood that he had earlier imputed to them.
747 “These” refers to the five aggregates.
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748 Tiracchānakathā. Many translators render this expression as “animal talk.” However, tiracchāna means literally “going horizontally,” and though this term is used as a designation for animals, MA explains that in the present context it means talk that goes “horizontally” or “perpendicularly” to the path leading to heaven and liberation.
749 The “four ways that negate the living of the holy life” (abrahmacariyavāsā, lit. “ways that are not living the holy life”) are teachings that in principle nullify the prospect of attaining the ultimate fruits of spiritual discipline. As the sutta will show, their proponents—inconsistently with their own principles—did observe celibacy and practise austerities. The “four kinds of holy life without consolation” (anassāsikāni brahmacariyāni) do not undermine the principles of the holy life, but they fail to offer the prospect of attaining the ultimate fruits of spiritual discipline.
750 The following passage makes explicit the materialist premises of the nihilistic view already set forth at MN 60.7. The Sāmaññaphala Sutta ascribes this view to Ajita Kesakambalin (DN 2.23/i.55).
751 The point seems to be that even if one does not live the holy life, one ultimately reaps the same rewards as one who does, as the rest of the passage will make clear.
752 In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta the view that follows, as far as “the space between the seven bodies,” is ascribed to Pakudha Kaccāyana (DN 2.26/i.56). However, in that sutta the following passage on the elaborate system of classifications, down to “fools and the wise both will make an end of suffering,” is connected with the view of non-causality and follows immediately upon the statement of the doctrine of non-causality set forth in this sutta at §13. The entire view is there assigned to Makkhali Gosāla. Since there are evident connections between the non-causality doctrine and items in the system of classifications (e.g., the reference to the “six classes”), and since both are known to have been typical of the Ājı̄vaka movement headed by Makkhali Gosāla, it seems that the inclusion of this system of classifications here under the doctrine of the seven bodies came about through an error of oral transmission. The correct version would thus be the one preserved by the Dı̄gha Nikāya. For the commentary on the system of classification, see Bodhi, The Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship, pp. 72–77.
753 This is the claim made by the Jain teacher the Niga˚ṭha Nātaputta at MN 14.17, and both the latter and Pūra˚a Kassapa at AN 9:38/iv.428–29. The fact that he makes bad judgements and must ask questions belies his claim to omniscience.
754 With BBS and SBJ we should read sussutaṁ and dussutaṁ. PTS sussataṁ and dussataṁ are clearly mistaken.
755 MA: This position is called eel-wriggling (amarāvikkhepa) because the doctrine roams about here and there, like an eel diving in and out of the water, and thus it is impossible to catch hold of it. In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta this position is ascribed to Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta (DN 2.32/1.58–59). It is quite possible that the “eel-wrigglers” were a class of radical sceptics who questioned the entire prospect of apodictic knowledge about ultimate issues.
756 MA: He is incapable of storing up food provisions and other pleasurable goods and subsequently enjoying them.
757 At DN 29.26/iii.133 four other things that the arahant cannot do are mentioned: he cannot take a wrong course of action because of desire, hatred, fear, or delusion.
758 The translation of this passage follows SBJ and PTS. The BBS version is more elaborate.
759 Niyyātāro: Ñm had rendered this as “guides,” Horner as “great leaders.” Evidently both followed PED, which takes niyyātar to be an agent noun related to niyyāma(ka), pilot or helmsman. But niyyātar must be an agent noun of the verb niyyāti, “to go out (to final emancipation),” and thus it has been rendered here as “emancipator.” This may be the only place in the Nikāyas where this word occurs.
760 On these three mentors of the Ājı̄vakas, see MN 36.5 and n.383. MA explains the phrase puttamatāya puttā, “mother’s dead sons,” thus: The idea occurred to him, “The Ājı̄vakas are dead; their mother had dead sons.”
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761 Anāgataṁ vādapathaṁ. Ñm had translated: “a future logical consequence of an assertion.” The meaning seems to be that the Buddha understands all the unexpressed implications of his own doctrine as well as of his opponents’ doctrines.
762 Explained in full in MN 10. The first seven groups of “wholesome states” (§§15–21)
constitute the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment (bodhipakkhiyā dhammā).
763 Abhiññāvosānapāramippatta. MA explains as the attainment of arahantship. This may be the only sense that the word pāramı̄ bears in the four Nikāyas. In the later Theravāda literature, beginning perhaps with such works as the Buddhavaṁsa, this word comes to signify the perfect virtues that a bodhisatta must fulfil over many lives in order to attain Buddhahood. In that context it corresponds to the pāramitā of the Mahāyāna literature, though the numerical lists of virtues overlap only in part.
764 MA explains liberation (vimokkha) here as meaning the mind’s full (but temporary) release from the opposing states and its full (but temporary) release by delighting in the object. The first liberation is the attainment of the four jhānas using a kasi˚a (see §24 and n.768) derived from a coloured object in one’s own body; the second is the attainment of the jhānas using a kasi˚a derived from an external object; the third can be understood as the attainment of the jhānas through either a very pure and beautiful coloured kasi˚a or the four brahmavihāras . The remaining liberations are the immaterial attainments and the attainment of cessation.
765 MA explains that these are called bases of transcendence (abhibhāyatana) because they transcend (abhibhavati, overcome) the opposing states and the objects, the former through the application of the appropriate antidote, the latter through the arising of knowledge.
766 MA: The meditator does the preliminary work on an internal form—e.g., the blue of the eyes for a blue-kasi˚a, the skin for a yellow kasi˚a, the blood for a red-kasi˚a, the teeth for a white-kasi˚a—but the sign of concentration (nimitta) arises externally. The “transcending” of the forms is the attainment of absorption together with the arising of the sign. The perception “I know, I see” is the advertence (ābhoga) that occurs after he emerges from the attainment, not within the attainment. The second base of transcendence differs from the first only by the extension of the sign from limited to unlimited dimensions.
767 MA: The third and fourth bases involve preliminary work done on an external form and the arising of the sign externally. The fifth through eighth bases differ from the third and fourth in the superior purity and luminosity of their colours.
768 The kasiṇa is a meditation object derived from a physical device that provides a support for acquiring the inwardly visualised sign. Thus, for example, a disk made of clay can be used as the preliminary object for practising the earth-kasi˚a, a bowl of water for practising the waterkasi˚a. The kasi˚as are explained in detail in Vsm IV and V. There, however, the space-kasi˚a is restricted to limited space, and the consciousness-kasi˚a is replaced by the light-kasi˚a.
769 The similes for the jhānas also appear in MN 39, as do the similes for the last three types of knowledge at §§34–36.
770 §§29–36 describe eight varieties of higher knowledge which, in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, are designated superior fruits of recluseship.
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771 MA: The park had been built by Queen Mallikā, the wife of King Pasenadi of Kosala, and beautified with flower trees and fruit trees. At first only one hall was built, which accounts for its name, but afterwards many halls were built. Various companies of brahmins and wanderers would assemble here to expound and discuss their doctrines.
772 MA: First the Buddha shows the plane of the arahant, the one beyond training (i.e., by mentioning the ten qualities), then he sets up an outline applicable to the sekha, the disciple in higher training. The word rendered as “habits” is sı̄la, which in some contexts can assume a wider range of meaning than “virtue.”
773 MA explains that this refers to the fruit of stream-entry, for it is at that point that the virtue of restraint by the Pātimokkha is fulfilled (and, for a lay Buddhist, the observance of the Five Precepts). MA will also explain the subsequent passages by reference to the other supramundane paths and fruits. Although the text of the sutta does not expressly mention these attainments, the commentarial interpretation seems to be justified by the expression “cease without remainder” (aparisesā nirujjhanti), for it is only with the attainment of the respective paths and fruits that a total cessation of the particular defilement occurs. The commentary’s view is further supported by the culmination of the entire discourse in the figure of the arahant.
774 MA: As far as the path of stream-entry he is said to be practising for their cessation; when he has attained the fruit of stream-entry they are said to have ceased.
775 This passage shows the arahant, who maintains virtuous conduct but no longer identifies with his virtue by conceiving it as “I” and “mine.” Since his virtuous habits no longer generate kamma, they are not describable as “wholesome.”
776 MA: As far as the path of arahantship he is said to be practising for their cessation; when he has attained the fruit of arahantship they are said to have ceased.
777 MA: This refers to the first jhāna pertaining to the fruit of non-returning. The path of non-returning eradicates sensual desire and ill will, and thus prevents any future arising of the three unwholesome intentions—those of sensual desire, ill will, and cruelty.
778 MA: As far as the path of non-returning he is said to be practising for their cessation; when he has attained the fruit of non-returning they are said to have ceased.
779 MA: This refers to the second jhāna pertaining to the fruit of arahantship.
780 MA: As far as the path of arahantship he is said to be practising for their cessation; when he has obtained the fruit of arahantship they are said to have ceased. The virtuous intentions of the arahant are not described as “wholesome.”
781 See MN 65.34.
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782 See n.408.
783 Evaṁvaṇṇo attā hoti arogo param maraṇā. The word arogo, normally meaning healthy, here should be understood to mean permanent. MA says that he speaks with reference to rebirth in the heavenly world of Refulgent Glory, the objective counterpart of the third jhāna, of which he has heard without actually attaining it. His view would seem to fall into the class described at MN 102.3.
784 Previous translators seem to have been perplexed by the verb anassāma. Thus Ñm in Ms renders the line: “We don’t renounce our teachers’ doctrines for this reason.” And Horner: “We have heard to here from our own teachers.” But anassāma is a first-person plural aorist of nassati, “to perish, to be lost.” The same form occurs at MN 27.7. MA explains that they knew that in the past meditators would do the preparatory work on the kasi˚a, attain the third jhāna, and be reborn in the world of Refulgent Glory. But as time went on, the preparatory work on the kasi˚a was no longer understood and meditators were not able to attain the third jhāna. The wanderers only learned that “an entirely pleasant world” exists and that the five qualities mentioned at §21 were the “practical way” to it. They knew of no entirely pleasant world higher than the third jhāna, and of no practical way higher than the five qualities.
785 MA: Having attained the fourth jhāna, by supernormal power he goes to the world of Refulgent Glory and converses with the deities there.
786 MA explains that in a previous life, as a monk during the time of the Buddha Kassapa, he had persuaded another monk to return to lay life in order to gain his robes and bowl, and this obstructive kamma prevented him from going forth under the Buddha in this life. But the Buddha taught him two long suttas to provide him with a condition for future attainment. During the reign of King Asoka he attained arahantship as the Elder Assagutta, who excelled in the practice of loving-kindness.
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787 MA identifies Vekhanassa as Sakuludāyin’s teacher.
788 MA: Even though he was a wanderer, he was keenly intent on sensual pleasures. The Buddha undertook this teaching in order to make him recognise his strong concern with sensual pleasures, and thus the discourse would be beneficial to him.
789 In the Pali this sentence takes the form of a riddle, and the translation here i
s conjectural. MA explains that the “pleasure at the peak of the sensual” (or “the highest sensual pleasure,” kāmaggasukhaṁ) is Nibbāna.
SUTTA 81
790 At the end of this sutta the Buddha will state that at that time he himself was Jotipāla. At SN 1:50/i,35–36 the deity Ghaṭı̄kāra visits the Buddha Gotama and recalls their ancient friendship.
791 This seems to have been a common pejorative expression used by the brahmin householders with reference to those who led a full-time renunciate life, contrary to their own ideal of maintaining the family lineage.
The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha Page 141