The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Nanamoli

  424 MA: Because he has quieted down (samita) all defilements, he is a recluse in the highest sense (paramatthasamaṇa ).

  SUTTA 41

  425 This is a morally nihilistic materialist view that denies an afterlife and kammic retribution. “There is nothing given” means that there is no fruit of giving; “no this world, no other world” that there is no rebirth into either this world or a world beyond; “no mother, no father” that there is no fruit of good conduct and bad conduct towards mother and father. The statement about recluses and brahmins denies the existence of Buddhas and arahants.

  426 MA explains that “the gods of Radiance” is not a separate class of gods but a collective name for the three classes that follow; the same applies to “the gods of Glory.” This celestial hierarchy is explained in the Introduction, pp. 46–48.

  427 It should be noted that while “conduct in accordance with the Dhamma” as described in the sutta is a necessary condition for rebirth in the higher heavenly worlds and for the destruction of the taints, it is by no means a sufficient condition. Rebirth into the realms beginning with the gods of Brahmā’s retinue requires the attainment of jhāna, rebirth into the Pure Abodes (the five beginning with the Avihā gods) the attainment of the stage of non-returner, rebirth into the immaterial planes the corresponding immaterial attainments, and the destruction of the taints requires the full practice of the Noble Eightfold Path up to the path of arahantship.

  SUTTA 43

  428 Ven. Mahā Koṭṭhita was declared by the Buddha the foremost disciple of those who have attained the analytical knowledges (paṭisambhidā

  429 According to MA, the understanding of the Four Noble Truths being discussed here is penetration by the supramundane path. Thus the lowest type of person to be described as “one who is wise” (paññavā) is the person on the path of stream-entry. The rendering of paññā as “wisdom” (which I substituted for Ñm’s “understanding”) has the disadvantage of severing the tie, evident in the Pali, with the verb pajānāti. To preserve the connection, here and in the preceding paragraph, the verb has been rendered “wisely understand.”

  430 The Pali phrase defining consciousness uses only the verb, vijānāti vijānāti, and this could as well be understood to mean “One cognizes, one cognizes.” Although Ñm had translated this phrase without any pronoun, the pronoun has been inserted for greater intelligibility. The renderings of the verb definitions of feeling and perception at §7 and §8 have been similarly augmented by the addition of the pronoun.

  431 MA: The question concerns the consciousness with which the person described as “one who is wise” examines formations; that is, the consciousness of insight by which that person arrived (at his attainment), the mind which does the work of meditation. Ven. S̄riputta answers by explaining the meditation subject of feeling, in the way it has come down in the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness (MN 10.32). The Pali construction, sukhan ti pi vijānāti, indicates that the feeling is being treated as a direct object of consciousness rather than as an affective tone of the experience; to show this the words “this is” have been supplied in brackets and the entire phrase set in quotation marks.

  432 MA: This statement refers to the wisdom and consciousness on the occasions of both insight and the supramundane path. The two are conjoined in that they arise and cease simultaneously and share a single sense base and object. However, the two are not inseparably conjoined since, while wisdom always requires consciousness, consciousness can occur without wisdom.

  433 Wisdom, being the path factor of right view, is to be developed as a factor of the path. Consciousness, being included among the five aggregates that pertain to the noble truth of suffering, is to be fully understood—as impermanent, suffering, and not self.

  434 MA says that the question and reply refer to mundane feelings that are the objective range of insight. The Pali construction here, sukham pi vedeti, etc., shows feeling as simultaneously a quality of the object and an affective tone of the experience by which it is apprehended. MA points out that feeling itself feels; there is no other (separate) feeler.

  435 MA: The question and reply refer to mundane perceptions that are the objective range of insight.

  436 MA: Wisdom has been excluded from this exchange because the intention is to show only the states that are conjoined on every occasion of consciousness.

  437 MA: Purified mind-consciousness (parisuddha manoviññāṇa ) is the consciousness of the fourth jhāna. It can know the immaterial attainments insofar as one established in the fourth jhāna is capable of reaching them. The base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception is excluded here because, owing to its subtlety, it does not come into the direct range of contemplation for the attainment of insight.

  438 MA: The eye of wisdom (paññ̄ācakkhu) is wisdom itself, called an eye in the sense that it is an organ of spiritual vision.

  439 For the distinction between direct knowledge (abhiññā) and full understanding (pariññā), see n.23.

  440 MA: “The voice of another” (parato ghosa) is the teaching of beneficial Dhamma. These two conditions are necessary for disciples to arrive at the right view of insight and the right view of the supramundane path. But paccekabuddhas arrive at their enlightenment and fully enlightened Buddhas at omniscience solely in dependence on wise attention without “the voice of another.”

  441 MA: Right view here is the right view pertaining to the path of arahantship. “Deliverance of mind” and “deliverance by wisdom” both refer to the fruit of arahantship; see n.83. When one fulfils these five factors, the path of arahantship arises and yields its fruit.

  442 “Renewal of being in the future” (āyatiṃ punabbhavābhinibbatti ) is rebirth, the continuation of the round. This question and the next may be regarded as synoptic approaches to the entire twelvefold formula of dependent origination laid out in MN 38.17 and 20.

  443 The five outer sense faculties each have their own unique object—forms for the eye, sounds for the ear, etc.—but the mind faculty is able to experience the objects of all five sense faculties as well as the mental objects exclusive to itself. Hence the other five faculties have mind as their resort (manopaṭisaraṇaṁ).

  444 MA identifies vitality (āyu) with the life faculty (jıvitindriya ), which has the function of maintaining and vitalising the other material phenomena of the living body.

  445 Heat (usmā) is the kamma-born heat intrinsic to the living body.

  446 “Vital formations” (āyusankhārā), according to MA, denotes vitality itself. They cannot be states of feeling because they are required to keep the body of a bhikkhu alive when he has attained to the cessation of perception and feeling. This special meditative attainment, in which all mental activity ceases, is accessible only to non-returners and arahants who also have mastery over the eight attainments on the side of serenity. For a brief discussion see the Introduction, p. 41, and for the full scholastic account, Vsm XXIII, 16–52. The cessation of perception and feeling will be taken up again in MN 44.

  447 That is, dead. The departure of consciousness from the body is not sufficient to constitute death; vitality and the vital heat must also perish.

  448 The bodily formations are in-and-out breathing, the verbal formations are applied thought and sustained thought, the mental formations are perception and feeling—see MN 44.14–15. MA says that the faculties during the ordinary course of life, being impinged upon by sense objects, are afflicted and soiled like a mirror set up at a crossroads; but the faculties of one in cessation become exceptionally clear like a mirror placed in a case and deposited in a box.

  449 MA: The “signless deliverance of mind” (animittā cetovimutti) is the attainment of fruition; the “signs” are objects such as forms, etc.; the “signless element” is Nibbāna, in which all signs of conditioned things are absent.

  450 MA identifies this suññatā cetovimutti with insight into the voidness of selfhood in persons and things.

  451 As a
bove, the signless deliverance of mind is identified by MA with the attainment of fruition. Of the four deliverances of mind mentioned in §30, this one alone is supramundane. The first three—the brahmavihāras, the third immaterial attainment, and insight into the voidness of formations—all pertain to the mundane level.

  452 Lust, hate, and delusion may be understood as “makers of measurement” (pamāṇakaraṇa) in that they impose limitations upon the range and depths of the mind; MA, however, explains this phrase to mean that the defilements enable one to measure a person as a worldling, a stream-enterer, a once-returner, or a non-returner.

  453 MA: There are twelve immeasurable deliverances of mind: the four brahmavihāras, the four paths, and the four fruits. The unshakeable deliverance of mind is the fruit of arahantship. The statement that this unshakeable deliverance is void of lust, hate, and delusion—repeated at the end of §36 and §37 as well—also identifies it as the supramundane deliverance of mind through voidness.

  454 The word kiñcana is explained by MA as meaning “impediment” or “obstacle.” Ñm rendered it as “owning.” I have gone back to the original meaning “something” to maintain coherence with the statement that its abandonment issues in deliverance of mind through nothingness.

  455 MA: There are nine deliverances of mind through nothingness: the base of nothingness and the four paths and fruits.

  456 MA interprets the phrase “maker of signs” (nimittakaraṇa ) to mean that lust, hate, and delusion brand a person as a worldling or a noble one, as lustful, hating, or deluded. But it may also mean that these defilements cause the mind to ascribe a false significance to things as being permanent, pleasurable, self, or beautiful.

  457 MA: There are thirteen signless deliverances of mind: insight, because it removes the signs of permanence, pleasure, and self; the four immaterial attainments, because they lack the sign of material form; and the four paths and fruits, because of the absence of the sign of defilements.

  458 All the four deliverances of mind are one in meaning in that they all refer to the fruition attainment of arahantship. MA also points out that the four deliverances are one in meaning because the terms—the immeasurable, nothingness, voidness, and the signless—are all names for Nibbāna, which is the object of the fruition attainment of arahantship.

  SUTTA 44

  459 Visākha was a wealthy merchant of Rājagaha and a non-returner. Dhammadinnā, his former wife in lay life, had attained arahantship soon after her ordination as a bhikkhunı̄. She was declared by the Buddha the foremost bhikkhunı̄ disciple in expounding the Dhamma.

  460 MA explains the compound pañc’upādānakkhandhā as the five aggregates that become the condition for clinging (Ṃ: as its objects). Since these five aggregates are, in brief, the entire noble truth of suffering (MN 9.15; 28.3), it will be seen that the first four questions pose an inquiry into the Four Noble Truths expressed in terms of personal identity rather than suffering.

  461 MA: Because clinging is only one part of the aggregate of formations (as defined here, greed), it is not the same as the five aggregates; and because clinging cannot be altogether disconnected from the aggregates, there is no clinging apart from the aggregates.

  462 These are the twenty kinds of identity view. MA quotes Pṭs i.144–45 to illustrate the four basic modes of identity view in regard to material form. One may regard material form as self, in the way the flame of a burning oil-lamp is identical with the colour (of the flame). Or one may regard self as possessing material form, as a tree possesses a shadow; or one may regard material form as in self, as the scent is in the flower; or one may regard self as in material form, as a jewel is in a casket.

  463 The word khandha here has a different meaning than in the more common context of the five aggregates affected by clinging. It here refers to a body of training principles, the three divisions of the Noble Eightfold Path into virtue (sı̄la), concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā).

  464 The four foundations of mindfulness are the basis of concentration (samādhinimitta) in the sense of being its condition (MA). Here it would seem incorrect to translate nimitta as “sign,” in the sense of either distinctive mark or object. The four right kinds of striving are explained at MN 77.16.

  465 MA: Dhammadinnā anticipated Visākha’s intention to ask about the formations that cease when one enters the attainment of cessation. Thus she explained the three formations in this way rather than as wholesome and unwholesome volitions of body, speech, and mind, the meaning relevant within the context of dependent origination.

  466 MA explains further that the bodily formation and the mental formation are said to be formations “bound up” with the body and the mind in the sense that they are formed by the body and by the mind, while the verbal formation is a formation in the sense that it forms speech. The verb form vitakketvā vicāretvā has been rendered in a way that maintains consistency with the rendering of the nouns vitakka and vicāra as “applied thought” and “sustained thought.”

  467 Cessation can be attained only by a non-returner or an arahant with mastery over the eight jhānic attainments. The meditator enters each attainment in turn, emerges from it, and contemplates it with insight as impermanent, suffering, and not self. After completing this procedure through the base of nothingness, he attends to certain preliminary duties, and then determines to be without mind for a particular length of time. He then briefly enters the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, after which mind and mental functions utterly cease. Thus his determination, backed by his previous accomplishments and preparations, leads him into the attainment of cessation. See Vsm XXIII, 32–43.

  468 Applied and sustained thought cease first in the second jhāna; in-and-out breathing cease next in the fourth jhāna; and perception and feeling cease last in the attainment of cessation itself.

  469 When the time decided upon by the determination for the attainment has lapsed, by reason of that prior determination the meditator spontaneously emerges from the attainment of cessation and the mind-process resumes.

  470 MA: When one emerges from cessation, the consciousness of fruition attainment arises first, and the perception and feeling associated with that are the mental formation that arises first. Then, with the subsequent descent into the life continuum, the bodily formation, i.e., breathing, recommences. And subsequently, when the meditator resumes his ordinary activity, the verbal formation arises.

  471 The first state of consciousness to arise on emerging from cessation is that of fruition attainment, which is called voidness, the signless, and the desireless because of its own inherent quality and because of its object, Nibbāna. Here these three names for fruition are assigned to the contact associated with fruition.

  472 Ṃ: Nibbāna, the object of the fruition consciousness that arises on emerging from cessation, is called seclusion (viveka) because it is secluded from all conditioned things.

  473 Ṃ: The three defilements are called anusaya, underlying tendencies, in the sense that they have not been abandoned in the mental continuum to which they belong and because they are capable of arising when a suitable cause presents itself.

  474 MA explains that the bhikkhu suppresses the tendency to lust and attains the first jhāna. Having made the tendency to lust well suppressed by the jhāna, he develops insight and eradicates the tendency to lust by the path of the non-returner. But because it has been suppressed by the jhāna, it is said “the underlying tendency to lust does not underlie that.”

  475 MA identifies “that base” (tadāyatana), as well as “the supreme liberations,” with arahantship. The grief that arises because of that longing is elsewhere called “the grief based on renunciation” (MN 137.13). MA explains that one does not actually abandon the tendency to aversion by means of that grief; rather, spurred on by the longing for the supreme liberations, one takes up the practice with firm determination and eradicates the tendency to aversion by attaining the path of the non-returner.
/>   476 MA: The bhikkhu suppresses the tendency to ignorance with the fourth jhāna, makes it well suppressed, and then eradicates the tendency to ignorance by attaining the path of arahantship.

  477 The word “counterpart” (paṭibhāga) is used to express the relationships of both opposition and supplementation.

  478 Ignorance is its counterpart because neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling is subtle and difficult to recognise.

  479 Ṃ: Nibbāna does have an opposite counterpart, namely, conditioned states. But in the strict sense it has no supplementary counterpart, for how can there be anything to supplement Nibbāna, the unconditioned?

  480 MA: By saying this, the Buddha makes this sutta Word of the Conqueror, stamped as it were with the seal of the Conqueror.

  SUTTA 46

  481 A full analysis of the things that should and should not be followed is presented in MN 114.

  SUTTA 47

  482 Parassa cetopariyāyaṁ ajānantena, reading the last word with BBS and SBJ rather than with PTS as ājānantena, which gives the positive sense “knowing.” In the context the negative is clearly required, since the bhikkhu who cannot know by direct cognition of the Buddha’s mind that he is fully enlightened must arrive at this conclusion by inference from his bodily and verbal behaviour and the other evidence adduced by the sutta.