The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Nanamoli

  545 Sukhapaṭisaṁvedı̄ brahmabhūtena attanā. MA: He experiences the bliss of the jhānas, paths, fruits, and Nibbāna. “Brahma” here should be understood in the sense of holy or excellent (sẹ̣ha). There may be an allusion here to the main theme of the Upanishads, the identity of the ātman with brahman.

  546 MA: Pessa would have attained the fruit of stream-entry, but he rose from his seat and left before the Buddha had completed his discourse. The benefits he did receive are two: he gained greater confidence in the Sangha, and he gave rise to a new method for comprehending the foundations of mindfulness.

  547 This passage details the austerities undertaken by many of the Buddha’s ascetic contemporaries, as well as by the Bodhisatta himself during his period of striving for enlightenment. See MN 12.45.

  548 This passage shows the practice of one who torments himself in the hope of gaining merit and then offers sacrifices that involve the slaughter of many animals and the oppression of his workers.

  549 This is the arahant. To show clearly that he torments neither himself nor others, the Buddha next undertakes to describe the path of practice by which he arrived at arahantship.

  SUTTA 52

  550 All these expressions are descriptive of arahantship.

  551 Abhisankhataṁ abhisañcetayitaṁ. The two terms are frequently used in conjunction to indicate a conditioned state in which volition (cetan̄) is the most prominent conditioning factor.

  552 This passage explains a method for developing “insight preceded by serenity” (samathapubbangam̄ vipassanā; see AN 4:170/ ii.157). Having first attained a jhāna, the meditator emerges from it and contemplates that state as brought into being by conditions, particularly volition. On the basis of this, he ascertains its impermanence, and then contemplates the jhāna with insight into the three marks of impermanence, suffering, and non-self. See also MN 64.9–15 for a somewhat different approach to developing insight on the basis of the jhānas.

  553 Dhammarāgena dhammanandiyā. MA: These two terms signify desire and attachment (chandar̄ga) with respect to serenity and insight. If one is able to discard all desire and attachment concerning serenity and insight, one becomes an arahant; if one cannot discard them, one becomes a non-returner and is reborn in the Pure Abodes.

  554 The base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception is not mentioned because it is too subtle a state for its constituent factors to be used as objects of insight contemplation.

  555 The eleven “doors to the Deathless” are the four jhānas, the four brahmavihāras, and the first three immaterial attainments used as bases for the development of insight and attainment of arahantship.

  556 This would be five hundred kahāpaṇas, the latter being the standard monetary unit of the time.

  SUTTA 53

  557 It was believed to be a source of merit for those who construct a new dwelling to invite an eminent religious personage to dwell in it even for a single night before they inhabit it themselves. This belief still continues in Buddhist lands today, and people who have built a new house for themselves will often invite bhikkhus to hold an all-night recitation of paritta (protective) suttas in their new home before they move in.

  558 Sekho pāṭipado. On the sekha, see n.21.

  559 On the distinction between shame (hiri) and fear of wrongdoing (ottappa), see n.416.

  560 Here the text explains sati, mindfulness, by reference to its original meaning of memory. The relationship between the two senses of sati—memory and attentiveness—may be formulated thus: keen attentiveness to the present forms the basis for an accurate memory of the past. MA takes the mention of sati here to imply all seven factors of enlightenment, among which it is the first.

  561 MA: This is the wisdom of insight and of the path, capable of penetrating the rise and fall of the five aggregates. Path wisdom is called “penetrative” (nibbedhikā) because it pierces through and eradicates the mass of greed, hate, and delusion; insight wisdom is called penetrative because it pierces through them temporarily and because it leads to penetration by the path.

  562 As at MN 16.26.

  563 This refers to the fourth jhāna, which is the foundation for the three knowledges to follow.

  564 At this point he ceases to be a sekhā and becomes an arahant.

  565 These constitute the traditional list of fifteen factors making up conduct (caraṇa), which are often conjoined with the three following types of knowledge in the complete course of training. The two together enter into the common epithet of the Buddha and the arahants, vijjācaraṇasampanna , “perfect in true knowledge and conduct.” See Vsm VII, 30–31.

  566 The verse was approved by the Buddha at DN 3.1.28/i.99. The Brahmā Sanankumāra, “Forever Young,” according to MA was a youth who attained jhāna, passed away, and was reborn in the Brahma-world, retaining the same handsome form he possessed in his existence in the human world. See DN 18.17–29/ii.210–218.

  SUTTA 54

  567 Each of the two terms joined in this copulative compound, and in the two that follow, are roughly synonymous.

  568 MA: Although the killing of living beings is not included among the ten fetters and five hindrances, it may be called a fetter in the sense of binding one to the round of rebirths and a hindrance in the sense of obstructing one’s true welfare.

  569 MA: Killing and taking what is not given are to be abandoned by bodily virtue; false speech and malicious speech, by verbal virtue; rapacious greed, angry despair, and arrogance, by mental virtue. Spiteful scolding (which can include violent reprisals) is to be abandoned by both bodily and verbal virtue.

  570 These similes for the dangers in sensual pleasures are alluded to at MN 22.3, though this sutta does not elaborate on the last three similes mentioned there.

  571 According to MA, the “equanimity that is based on diversity” is equanimity (i.e., apathy, indifference) related to the five cords of sensual pleasure; the “equanimity that is based on unity” is the equanimity of the fourth jhāna.

  572 In Ms, Ñm had followed the gloss of MA in rendering ̄j̄nı̄ya as “those who know” (taking the word as derived from ājānāti); it seems far preferable, however, to understand the word here as “thoroughbred.” See MN 65.32 for assājānı̄ya, “thoroughbred colt,” and for purisājānı̄ya, “thoroughbred man” (i.e., an arahant), see AN 9:10/v, 324.

  SUTTA 55

  573 Jı̄vaka was the abandoned child of a courtesan. Discovered and raised by Prince Abhaya, he studied medicine at Takkasilā and was later appointed the personal physician of the Buddha. He became a stream-enterer after hearing the Buddha teach the Dhamma.

  574 This passage states clearly and explicitly the regulations on meat-eating laid down by the Buddha for the Sangha. It will be noted that the Buddha does not require the bhikkhus to observe a vegetarian diet, but permits them to consume meat when they are confident that the animal has not been slaughtered especially to provide them with food. Such meat is called tikoṭiparisuddha, “pure in three aspects,” because it is not seen, heard, or suspected to come from an animal killed specifically for the bhikkhu. The lay Buddhist’s precept of abstaining from the taking of life would prohibit him from killing for his food, but does not proscribe purchasing meat prepared from animals already dead. For more on this issue see Vin Mv Kh 6/i.237–38, and I.B. Horner, Early Buddhism and the Taking of Life, pp. 20–26.

  575 Here the Buddha shows that he does not merely abide in loving-kindness by suppressing his ill will with jhāna based on loving-kindness, as the divinity Brahmā does, but has eradicated the roots of ill will through his attainment of arahantship.

  576 Cruelty, discontent, and aversion (vihesā, arati, paṭigha) are the opposites of compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity respectively.

  577 It is puzzling that Jı̄vaka here declares himself a lay follower as if for the first time when he had already been established in stream-entry. Perhaps this formula was used as a means of reaffirming one’s dedication to the Tri
ple Gem and was not restricted to an initial profession of going for refuge.

  SUTTA 56

  578 This means “Tall Ascetic,” a name given to him because of his height.

  579 Daṇḍa, originally a stick or staff, acquires the meaning of rod as an instrument of punishment, and subsequently comes to mean punishment or infliction itself, even without reference to an instrument. Its use here suggests that the Jains regarded bodily, verbal, and mental activity as instruments by which the individual torments himself by prolonging his bondage in saṁsāra and torments others by causing them harm.

  580 MA: The Niga˚ṭhas held that the first two “rods” create kamma independently of the involvement of the mind (acittaka) just as, when the wind blows, the branches sway and the leaves rustle without any initiative of mind.

  581 The Buddha may have said this because in his teaching volition (cetanā), a mental factor, is the essential ingredient of kamma, and in its absence—that is, in the case of unintentional bodily or verbal activity—no kamma is created. MA, however, maintains that the Buddha said this referring to wrong view with fixed consequences (niyatā micchā diṭṭhi), and it quotes in support AN 1:18.3/i.33: “Bhikkhus, I see nothing so blameworthy as wrong view. Wrong view is the most blameworthy of all things.” These types of wrong view are described at MN 60.5, 13 and 21.

  582 As at MN 35.5.

  583 The parenthetical additions in the previous paragraph, inserted by Ñm, are supplied from MA. Ñm, in Ms, sums up the argument thus: The Niga˚ṭhas are not allowed to use cold water (because they regard it as containing living beings). By his bodily and verbal refusal of cold water he has kept his bodily and verbal conduct pure, but if he longs in his mind for cold water his mental conduct is impure, and thus he is reborn among the “mind-bound gods” (manosattā devā).

  584 At §15 Upāli admits that at this point he had already acquired confidence in the Buddha. However, he continued to oppose him because he wished to hear the Buddha’s varied solutions to the problem.

  585 This statement, at DN 2.29/i.57, is ascribed to the Niga˚ṭha Nātaputta himself as a formulation of the Jain doctrine. Ñm points out in Ms that it may involve a pun on the word vāri, which can mean both “water” and “curb” (from vāreti, to ward off). In my translation of the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, The Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship , p. 24, I render it based on the Dı̄gha commentary as follows: “A Niga˚ṭha is restrained with regard to all water; he is endowed with the avoidance of all evil; he is cleansed by the avoidance of all evil; he is suffused with the avoidance of all evil.” Though the statement conveys a concern for moral purity, the tone is decidedly different from that of the Buddha’s teachings.

  586 The Buddha points to a contradiction between the Jain thesis that, even in the absence of volition, the “bodily rod” is the most reprehensible of all, and their assertion that the presence of volition significantly alters the moral character of an action.

  587 See Jāt iii.463, v.133ff., 267; v.144; vi.389, v.267; v.114, 267; Miln 130.

  588 MA: Vision of the Dhamma (dhammacakkhu) is the path of stream-entry. The phrase “All that is subject to arising is subject to cessation” shows the mode in which the path arises. The path takes cessation (Nibbāna) as its object, but its function is to penetrate all conditioned states as subject to arising and cessation.

  589 The “Dhamma” referred to here is the Four Noble Truths. Having seen these truths for himself, he has cut off the fetter of doubt and now possesses the “view that is noble and emancipating and (which) leads the one who practises in accordance with it to the complete destruction of suffering” (MN 48.7).

  590 MA: Upāli says this referring to the path of stream-entry he had penetrated earlier.

  591 See MN 16.3–7.

  592 PTS and SBJ read vessantarassa; the BBS ed. of text and MA read vesamantarassa; Ṃ supports the former reading. MA explains: “He has transcended the unrighteous state (visama) of lust, etc.”

  593 Monapattassa. The “silence” is wisdom, related to muni, silent sage.

  594 The “banner” is the conceit “I am.” See MN 22.35.

  595 Nippapañcassa. See n.229.

  596 Isisattamassa. MA interprets this to mean “the seventh seer”—in line with the brahmanic conception of the seven rishis—and takes it as referring to Gotama’s status as the seventh Buddha since Vipassı̄ (see DN 14.1.4/ii.2). It is more probable, however, that sattama here is the superlative of sad, and thus that the compound means “the best of seers.” The expression isisattama occurs at Sn 356, and the commentary to that verse allows both interpretations, offering uttama as a gloss on sattama.

  597 This refers to the absence of attachment and repulsion.

  598 Ñm translates from a Siamese v.l. appabhı̄tassa, pointing out that PTS’s appahı̄nassa does not make good sense here.

  599 MA: A heavy sorrow arose in him because of the loss of his lay supporter, and this produced a bodily disorder that resulted in his vomiting hot blood. After vomiting hot blood, few beings can survive. Thus they brought him to Pāvā on a litter, and shortly thereafter he passed away.

  SUTTA 57

  600 MA: Pu˚˚a wore horns on his head, tied a tail to his backside, and went about eating grass together with the cows. Seniya performed all the actions typical of a dog.

  601 It should be noted that a wrong ascetic practice has less severe consequences when it is undertaken without wrong view than when it is accompanied by wrong view. Although few nowadays will take up the dog-duty practice, many other deviant lifestyles have become widespread, and to the extent that these are justified by a wrong view, their consequences become that much more harmful.

  602 Sabyābajjhaṁ kāyasankhāraṁ (vacı̄sankh̄rȧ, manosankhāraṁ ) abhisankharoti. Here an “afflictive bodily formation” may be understood as the volition responsible for the three courses of unwholesome bodily action; an “afflictive verbal formation” as the volition responsible for the four courses of unwholesome verbal action; and an “afflictive mental formation” as the volition responsible for the three courses of unwholesome mental action. See MN 9.4.

  603 He is reborn in one of the states of deprivation—hell, the animal kingdom, or the realm of ghosts.

  604 Bhūtā bhūtassa upapatti hoti. MA: Beings are reborn through the actions they perform and in ways conforming to those actions. The implications of this thesis are explored more fully in MN 135 and MN 136.

  605 Here the volitions responsible for the ten courses of wholesome action, together with the volitions of the jhānas, are intended.

  606 He is reborn in a heavenly world.

  607 Strictly speaking, no volitional action can be simultaneously both wholesome and unwholesome, for the volition responsible for the action must be either one or the other. Thus here we should understand that the being engages in a medley of wholesome and unwholesome actions, none of which is particularly dominant.

  608 MA: This is the volition of the four supramundane paths culminating in arahantship. Although the arahant performs deeds, his deeds no longer have any kammic potency to generate new existence or to bring forth results even in the present existence.

  609 MA explains that pabbajjā, the going forth, is mentioned here only in a loose figure of speech. In actual fact, he receives the going forth before the probationary period and then lives on probation for four months before being entitled to receive upasampadā, full admission to the Sangha.

  610 MA: The Buddha can decide: “This person must live on probation, this one need not live on probation.”

  SUTTA 58

  611 Prince Abhaya was a son of King Bimbisāra of Magadha, though not the heir to the throne.

  612 Both horns of the dilemma devised by the Niga˚ṭha Nātaputta presupposed that the Buddha would give a one-sided answer. Now that a one-sided answer has been rejected, the dilemma becomes inapplicable.

  613 The Buddha does not hesitate to rebuke and admonish his disciples when he
sees that such speech will promote their welfare.

  614 MA says that dhammadhātu (“element of things”) refers to the Buddha’s knowledge of omniscience. Dhammadhātu here should not be confused with the same term used to signify the element of mind-objects among the eighteen elements, nor does it bear the meaning of an all-embracing cosmic principle that the term acquires in Mahāyāna Buddhism.

  SUTTA 59

  615 Pañcakanga, the carpenter for King Pasenadi of Kosala, was a devoted follower of the Buddha. He reappears in MN 78 and MN 127.

  616 The two kinds of feeling are bodily and mental feeling, or (less commonly) the two mentioned by Pañcakanga in §3. The three kinds are the three mentioned by Udāyin in §3. The five kinds are the faculties of (bodily) pleasure, (mental) joy, (bodily) pain, (mental) grief, and equanimity. The six kinds are the feelings born of contact through the six sense faculties. The eighteen kinds are the eighteen kinds of mental exploration—exploring the six sense objects that are productive of joy, productive of grief, and productive of equanimity (see MN 137.8). The thirty-six kinds are the thirty-six positions of beings—the six kinds of joy, grief, and equanimity each based either on the household life or on renunciation (see MN 137.9–15). The hundred and eight kinds are the previous thirty-six considered as referring to the past, present, and future.