111 Spk: It is feeling itself that feels, not another—a being or a person.
112 Saṅkhataṃ abhisaṅkharontī ti bhikkhave tasmā saṅkhārā ti vuccanti . Unfortunately English is a poor medium for capturing the interconnections of this sentence in the Pāli, with the object (saṅkhataṃ), the verb (abhisaṅkharonti), and the subject (saṅkhārā) all derived from the same stem. See my discussion of saṅkhārā in the General Introduction, pp. 44-47. To replicate the Pāli we might have rendered it, “They construct the constructed, therefore they are called volitional constructions,” though this would bear certain connotations quite alien to the original. It is also an unfortunate coincidence that “volitional formations,” my rendering for saṅkhārā, is related to “form,” my rendering for rūpa. In Pāli there is no etymological tie between rūpa and saṅkhārā. To capture the several nuances of the verb abhisaṅkharoti we might have taken the liberty of rendering it, in this passage, by two verbs: “to generate,” which conveys the idea that the volitional formations actually produce the other aggregates (see the following note); and “to form,” which makes apparent the correspondence with the noun “formations.”This passage shows the active role of cetanā, volition, in constructing experienced reality. Not only does volition influence the objective content of the experience, but it also shapes the psychophysical organism within which it has arisen and, via its role as kamma, shapes the future configurations of the five aggregates to be produced by kamma. In this connection see 35:146, on the six sense bases as “old kamma.”
113 All three printed eds. of SN read, rūpaṃ rūpattāya saṅkhataṃ abhisaṅkharonti, and so for the other aggregates, except viññāṇa, where Ee reads, viññāṇatthāya; however, since Ee has no note on vv.ll., this is almost certainly an editorial inconsistency rather than a meaningful variant. Spk (Se and Ee) reads rūpatthāya in its lemma, implying that the termination -atthāya should apply to every aggregate, and apparently old Sinhalese mss of SN had this reading. Spk (Be), however, has rūpattāya. The explanation in Spk is equally intelligible on either reading of SN. I follow Be here: “As one is said to cook conjee as conjee, to bake a cake as a cake, so it [Spk-pṭ: the collection of states headed by volition] constructs, builds up, amasses (abhisaṅkharoti āyūhati sampiṇḍati) form itself—called ‘the conditioned’ because it is made by a combination of conditions—so that it becomes ‘conditioned form’ in accordance with its nature, for its formness (tathattāya rūpabhāvāya); the meaning is that it produces it (nipphādetī ti attho). This is the sense in brief: It constructs, produces the form arising along with itself and the associated feeling, etc. Here, too, the Blessed One shows just the specific characteristic of volitional formations, whose characteristic is volition. [Spk-pṭ: This is said because volition is the chief of the states belonging to the aggregate of volitional formations.]”
114 The eight flavours are: ambila, tittaka, kaṭuka, madhuka, khārika, akhārika, loṇaka, aloṇaka; see too 47:8. The explanation of viññāṇa here is very similar to that of saññā, the difference being only in the type of sense object they cognize. Spk explains that the difference in object highlights a difference in their cognitive functions: “Perception is analysed by way of the eye door because it is evident in grasping the appearance and shape of the object; consciousness is analysed by way of the tongue door because it can grasp particular distinctions in an object even when there is no appearance and shape.” Spk continues with an explanation (also found at Vism 437; Ppn 14:3-5) according to which saññā, viññāṇa, and paññā are cognitive functions of increasing depth, discriminative acumen, and power of comprehension; this, however, is difficult to reconcile with the account of these factors found in the Nikāyas. Usually in the suttas viññāṇa is presented simply as the basic awareness of an object through one of the sense bases, i.e., as bare “consciousness of” rather than as a discriminative capacity. A parallel treatment of viññāṇa at MN I 292,26-29 defines it through its ability to cognize the three types of feelings (pleasant, painful, neutral); this just shifts the problem to that of distinguishing between viññāṇa and vedanā. Hamilton discusses the problem posed by these passages (Identity and Experience, pp. 53-55, 92-93). She offers the helpful suggestion that although viññāṇa is here defined in a way that encroaches upon the domain of saññā, we should understand that saññā does the actual discrimination (of objects at all five senses) while viññāṇa “is the awareness by which we experience every stage of the cognitive process, including the process of discriminating” (p. 92). From the commentarial standpoint, saññā is discussed more fully at As 110-11 and viññāṇa (under the name citta) at As 63-64.
115 Spk: The first two sections—the emptiness section and the section on the characteristic of emptiness—have discussed the characteristic of nonself. Now he will discuss the characteristic of suffering. Therein, form does not devour one as a dog does a piece of meat, by tearing one apart, but rather in the way a soiled garment might cause discomfort, as when one says, “This shirt is devouring me.” The lines following the reflection incorporate the conclusion of 22:9-11.
116 Spk: This passage is stated to show the characteristic of impermanence, and to do so by bringing the three characteristics together.
117 I render this passage with the aid of Spk, which glosses the last two pairs of terms thus: Visineti na ussinetī ti vikirati na sampiṇḍeti; vidhūpeti na sandhūpetī ti nibbāpeti na jālāpeti (some texts read viseneti, usseneti); cp. AN II 214-16. The present passage describes the sekha, who is still in the process of dismantling the round.
118 Spk: This shows the arahant, who abides having dismantled the round.
119 Pādas cd should be read: yassa te nābhijānāma, yampi nissāya jhāyati. See AN V 324-26 and MN I 140,3-6. Spk states that at the end of this discourse five hundred bhikkhus were established in arahantship.
120 Spk: After spending the rains residence at Sāvatthī, the Buddha had set out for Kapilavatthu together with a large company of bhikkhus. When they arrived, the Sakyans came to see him, bringing many gifts for the Saṅgha. A noisy quarrel broke out among the bhikkhus over the distribution of the gifts, and it was for this reason that the Teacher dismissed them. He wanted to teach them, “It isn’t for the sake of such things as robes, etc., that you have gone forth into homelessness, but for the sake of arahantship.”
121 A similar passage is at MN I 457-59, but there the Sakyans first request the Buddha to pardon the bhikkhus, followed by Brahmā Sahampati, who makes the same appeal. In the MN version the sequence of the two similes is inverted.
122 I follow Se here, which reads: Tathārūpaṃ iddhābhisaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkhāsi yathā te bhikkhū ekadvīhikāya sārajjamānarūpā yena bhagavā ten’ upasaṅkameyyuṃ. Be and Ee read yenāhaṃ in place of yena bhagavā; it seems the whole phrase is missing in SS. Spk glosses: Ekadvīhikāyā ti ek’ eko c’ eva dve dve ca hutvā. Sārajjamānarūpā ti ottappamānasabhāvā bhāyamānā.Spk: Why did the Buddha perform such a feat? From a desire for their welfare. For if they had come to him in groups they would not have shown reverence towards the Buddha nor would they have been able to receive a Dhamma teaching. But when they come timidly, ashamed, alone and in pairs, they show reverence and can receive a teaching.
123 Abhisāpa, glossed akkosa by Spk, which explains: “For when people get angry they abuse their antagonist by saying, ‘You should put on a monk’s robe, get yourself a begging bowl, and roam about seeking alms!’” Kapāla, rendered here “begging bowl,” is not the usual word for a monk’s almsbowl (= patta), but refers to the kind of bowl used by non-Buddhist ascetics (sometimes made from a skull); the use of the word seems pejorative. This paragraph and the next are also at It 89-90. Some of the terms describing the deviant monk just below are commented on in I, n. 176.
124 Spk says this passage is introduced to show that this person has become like a brand from a funeral pyre because of his evil thoughts. The “signless concentration” (animittasam�
�dhi ) is insight concentration (vipassanā-samādhi), called “signless” because it removes the signs of permanence, etc. For more on the signless concentration, see IV, nn. 280, 312, 368.
125 Spk: The view of existence (bhavadiṭṭhi) is eternalism (sassatadiṭṭhi ); the view of extermination (vibhavadiṭṭhi) is annihilationism (ucchedadiṭṭhi). This passage is introduced to show that the signless concentration removes not only the three wrong thoughts but also eternalism and annihilationism.
126 Here the Buddha connects clinging, which arises on the basis of the mere five aggregates mistakenly held to as a self, with the last portion of the formula on dependent origination, thus showing present clinging to be the sustaining cause for the continuation of the round of existence. For a parallel, see MN I 511,30-512,2.
127 Spk: At the end of the discourse five hundred bhikkhus attained arahantship together with the analytical knowledges (paṭisambhidā).
128 Spk assigns this sutta to the time of the famous quarrel at Kosambī. After he had failed in three attempts to reconcile the factious parties, the Buddha decided to set out alone. For a full account, see Vin I 337-57 and Ñāṇamoli, Life of the Buddha, pp. 109-19.
129 Spk: The residents of Pārileyyaka built a leaf hall for the Blessed One in a protected grove near their town. An auspicious (bhadda) sal tree grew there. While living in dependence on the town, the Blessed One dwelt at the foot of the tree near the leaf hut in the grove. Spk relates here the story of the bull elephant who came to wait upon the Buddha; see Ud 41-42 and Vin I 352-53.
130 Spk: These were not the factious bhikkhus, but five hundred other monks who had come from various quarters after the rains.
131 See 22:55 and n. 78 above. Spk explains this as referring to “the fruit of arahantship immediately following the path” (maggānantaraṃ arahattaphalaṃ). However, as in the commentarial system the fruit inevitably occurs in immediate succession to the path, I think the monk is really asking how to attain arahantship swiftly and directly, without being detained at any lower stage of awakening.
132 Vicayaso. Spk glosses with vicayena and explains: “Having delimited with knowledge that is capable of discriminating the real nature of the various phenomena.” What follows are the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment (bodhipakkhiyā dhammā); see pp. 1485-87.
133 Spk glosses “that regarding” (sā sasamanupassanā) as a “viewformation” (diṭṭhi-saṅkhāra). I understand saṅkhāra here as meaning what is conditioned rather than the active power of generation, i.e., as the saṅkhata-saṅkhāra of the commentaries rather than as abhisaṅkharaṇa-saṅkhāra, the act of volitional formation. The point, it seems, is that by calling the act of regarding a “formation,” the Buddha underlines its conditioned origination. This in turn highlights its impermanence, recognition of which knocks away the adherence to the very notion “I am,” thus culminating in arahantship. On “ignorance-contact” (avijjāsamphassa), see n. 63.
134 This view, which posits the identity of the self and the world (so attā so loko), seems to be derived from the Upaniṣads. Strangely, Spk passes over this view in silence, and Ps (commenting on MN I 135,37) offers only an unilluminating word gloss. For a discussion, see Wijesekera, “An Aspect of Upaniṣadic Ātman and Buddhist ‘Anattā,’” Buddhist and Vedic Studies, pp. 261-63.
135 Here I read with Se and Ee: no c’ assaṃ no ca me siyā, na bhavissāmi na me bhavissati. Be reads the third negated verb as nābhavissaṃ. Spk: “If I were not, neither would there be my belongings; if I will not be in the future, neither will there be my belongings.” For a fuller discussion, see n. 75.
136 Spk: Even though doubt (vicikicchā) does not exist in the cittas associated with craving, the doubt-formation arises from it because craving has not been abandoned. For doubt arises in one who has not abandoned craving.
137 Spk: In this sutta, in twenty-three cases, insight culminating in arahantship has been explained.
138 This entire sutta is at MN No. 109.
139 Ime … pañcupādānakkhandhā chandamūlakā. Spk: Taṇhāchandamūlakā . On how the five aggregates originate from craving, see 22:5 and n. 30.
140 This exchange is also at MN I 299,33-300,3; see too 22:121 below.Spk: “Clinging is neither the same as the five aggregates subject to clinging” because the aggregates are not reducible simply to desire and lust; “nor is the clinging something apart from the five aggregates subject to clinging” because there is no clinging apart from the aggregates either as conascent factors or as object. For when a citta associated with craving occurs, the form produced by that citta belongs to the form aggregate, and the remaining mental states except craving belong to the other four aggregates: thus there is no clinging apart from the aggregates as conascent factors. (Craving is excepted because craving is what clings to the aggregates, and a mental factor cannot cling to itself.) Then, too, there is no clinging apart from the aggregates as object, because when clinging arises it takes as object one of the aggregates such as form.
141 Rūpakkhandhassa paññāpanāya. This might have been rendered “for the description of the form aggregate.” Paññāpana is literally “making known,” and something is “made known” either by becoming manifest or by being described.
142 I prefer the reading of the parallel at MN III 19,12-13, anattakatāni kammāni kam attānaṃ phusissanti. In the SN text, Be and Se read katham attānaṃ, and Ee katam attānaṃ, which perhaps should be amended to kam attānaṃ. Spk is silent, but MA explains that this monk had slipped into an eternalist view.
143 Paṭipucchā-vinītā kho me tumhe bhikkhave tatra tatra tesu tesu dhammesu. The readings in Ee and MN (Ee) should be amended accordingly. Neither MA nor Spk offers any explanation, but it is clear enough that the “training through interrogation” is the catechistic method to be applied in the following paragraph.
144 MN No. 109 concludes by stating that while this discourse was being spoken the minds of sixty bhikkhus were liberated from the taints. Spk states that at the conclusion of each sutta in this vagga five hundred bhikkhus attained arahantship! The verse that follows is in Be and Ee, but not in Se or MN. Pāda c should be read with Be: sakkāyena duve vuttā.
145 Puṇṇa Mantāniputta was declared by the Buddha the foremost among the bhikkhus who were speakers on the Dhamma (AN I 23,26). See 14:15.
146 Upādāya has a double meaning that is difficult to capture in translation. As absolutive of upādiyati it means “having clung to,” but it also has an idiomatic sense, “derived from, dependent on,” as in the expression catunnañ ca mahābhūtānaṃ upādāya rūpaṃ, “the form derived from the four great elements.” I have translated it here “by clinging to,” on the supposition that the literal meaning is primary, but the gloss of Spk emphasizes the idiomatic sense: Upādāyā ti āgamma ārabbha sandhāya paṭicca; “upādāya: contingent on, referring to, on the basis of, in dependence on.” The mirror simile can support either meaning, and both are probably intended: The youth looks at his or her image with concern for his or her personal appearance (“with clinging”), and the image becomes manifest in dependence on the mirror. Similarly, a person conceives “I am” by clinging to the five aggregates, and it is in dependence on the five aggregates, i.e., with the aggregates as objective referents, that the notion “I am” arises. See 22:151, which again plays upon this dual meaning of upādāya.
147 Dhammo me abhisameto. Spk: He penetrated the Four Noble Truths with wisdom and became a stream-enterer. On abhisamaya, see II, n. 13.
148 See 21:9.
149 This passage occurs elsewhere, e.g., in SN at 47:9 (V 153,11-12) and 47:13 (V 162,15-16). Spk does not explain the etymology of madhurakajāto but paraphrases, “It has become unwieldy, as if heavy.” Madhuraka means “sweet, pleasant, charming,” but I follow PED’s explanation, “full of sweet drink, intoxicated.” See madhupītā in I, v. 842 and I, n. 590. In explaining dhammā pi maṃ na paṭibhanti, Spk takes dhammā as “the teachings”: “Even the doctrinal teachings are not clear to
me; what I learned and studied does not appear.” Possibly dhammā here bears the more general sense of “things.”
150 Spk: He not only delighted in it, but having gained this consolation from the Teacher, struggling and striving, after some time he was established in arahantship.
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha Page 117