1077 The eighteen elements are defined at Vbh §§183–84/ 87–90 and are explained in detail at Vsm XV, 17–43. Briefly, the mind element (manodhātu), according to the Abhidhamma, includes the consciousness that adverts to the five sense objects impinging on the five sense faculties (pañcadvārāvajjana-citta) and the consciousness that receives the object after it has been cognized through the senses (sampaṭicchanạ-citta). The mind-consciousness element (manoviññāṇadhātu) includes all types of consciousness except the five sense consciousnesses and the mind-element. The mind-object element (dhammadhātu) includes the types of subtle material phenomena not involved in sense cognition, the three mental aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations, and Nibbāna. It does not include concepts, abstract ideas, judgements, etc. Though these latter are included in the notion of mind-object (dhamm̄rammaṇa), the mind-object element includes only things that exist by their own nature, not things constructed by the mind.
1078 These are defined at Vbh §180/85–86. The pleasure and pain elements are bodily pleasant and painful feeling; the joy and grief elements are mental pleasant and painful feeling; the equanimity element is neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. MA says that ignorance is brought in because of its apparent similarity to the equanimity element.
1079 Vbh §183/86–87 defines these as the six corresponding types of applied thought (vitakka); see MN 19.2.
1080 MA explains the sense-sphere element as the five aggregates pertaining to the sense-sphere (kāmāvacara), the fine-material element as the five aggregates pertaining to the fine-material sphere (rūpāvacara), and the immaterial element as the four aggregates pertaining to the immaterial sphere (arūpāvacara).
1081 MA: the conditioned element includes everything produced by conditions and is a designation for the five aggregates. The unconditioned element is Nibbāna.
1082 The twelve bases are defined at Vbh §§155–167/70–73 and explained at Vsm XV, 1–16. The mind base includes all types of consciousness, and thus comprises all seven elements that exercise the function of consciousness. The mind-object base is identical with the mind-object element.
1083 On the terms in the formula of dependent origination, see Introduction, pp. 30–31.
1084 MA: A person possessing right view (diṭṭsampanno) is one possessing the view of the path, a noble disciple at the minimal level of a stream-enterer. “Formation” here is to be understood as a conditioned formation (sankhatasankhāra ), i.e., anything conditioned.
1085 MA points out that a noble disciple below the level of arahantship can still apprehend formations as pleasurable with a mind dissociated from wrong view, but he cannot adopt the view that any formation is pleasurable. Although perceptions and thoughts of formations as pleasurable arise in him, he knows reflectively that such notions are mistaken.
1086 In the passage on self, sankhāra, “formation,” is replaced by dhamma, “thing.” MA explains that this substitution is made to include concepts, such as a kasi˚a sign, etc., which the ordinary person is also prone to identify as self. However, in view of the fact that Nibb̄na is described as imperishable (accuta) and as bliss (sukha), and is also liable to be misconceived as self (see MN 1.26), the word sankhāra may be taken to include only the conditioned, while dhamma includes both the conditioned and the unconditioned. This interpretation, however, is not endorsed by the commentaries of Ācariya Buddhaghosa.
1087 This section distinguishes the ordinary person and noble disciple in terms of the five heinous crimes. MA points out that a noble disciple is in fact incapable of intentionally depriving any living being of life, but the contrast is made here by way of matricide and patricide to stress the dangerous side of the ordinary person’s condition and the strength of the noble disciple.
1088 That is, could acknowledge anyone other than the Buddha as the supreme spiritual teacher.
1089 MA: The arising of another Buddha is impossible from the time a bodhisatta takes his final conception in his mother’s womb until his Dispensation has completely disappeared. The problem is discussed at Miln 236–39.
1090 This statement asserts only that a Fully Enlightened Buddha always has the male sex, but does not deny that a person who is now a woman may become a Fully Enlightened Buddha in the future. To do so, however, at an earlier point she will have had to be reborn as a man.
1091 In this passage the phrase “on that account, for that reason” (tannidānā tappaccayā) is of prime importance. As the Buddha will show in MN 136, a person who engages in evil conduct may be reborn in a heavenly world and a person who engages in good conduct may be reborn in a lower world. But in those cases the rebirth will be caused by some kamma different from the kamma in which the person habitually engages. Strict lawfulness applies only to the relation between kamma and its result.
1092 The “four cycles” are the elements, the bases, dependent origination, and the possible and the impossible.
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1093 In Sri Lanka this sutta is regularly recited as a protective discourse and is included in the medieval compilation, Mahā Pirit Pota, “The Great Book of Protection.”
1094 This and the following are mountains surrounding Rājagaha.
1095 A paccekabuddha is one who attains enlightenment and liberation on his own, without relying on the Dhamma taught by the Buddha, but is not capable of teaching the Dhamma to others and establishing the Dispensation. Paccekabuddhas arise only at a time when no Dispensation of a Buddha exists in the world. For a fuller study of the subject see Ria Kloppenborg, The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic.
1096 Ayaṁ pabbato ime isı̄ gilati: a word play is involved here. The gili in Isigili is certainly a dialectical variant of giri, hill, but the text connects it to the verb gilati, to swallow, and to gala, throat, gullet.
1097 Tagarasikhin is referred to at Ud 5:4/50 and SN 3:20/i.92.
1098 Ñm remarks in Ms that without the aid of the commentary it is extremely difficult to distinguish the proper names of the paccekabuddhas from their descriptive epithets.
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1099 Ariyaṁ sammā samādhiṁ sa-upanisaṁ saparikkhāraṁ. MA explains “noble” here as supramundane, and says that this is the concentration pertaining to the supramundane path. Its “supports and requisites,” as will be shown, are the other seven path factors.
1100 Pubbangamā, lit. “the forerunner.” MA says that two kinds of right view are forerunners: the right view of insight, which investigates formations as impermanent, suffering, and non-self; and the right view of the path, which arises as a consequence of insight and effects the radical destruction of defilements. The right view of insight as the forerunner seems to be shown in §§4, 10, 16, 22 and 28; the right view of the path as forerunner in §§34 and 35.
1101 This statement suggests that in order to acquire right view about the nature of reality, one must first be able to distinguish between wrong and right teachings on the nature of reality. MA says that this is the right view of insight which understands wrong view as an object by penetrating its characteristics of impermanence, etc., and which understands right view by exercising the function of comprehension and by clearing away confusion.
1102 This is mundane right view, a meritorious factor that conduces to a favourable rebirth but does not by itself transcend conditioned existence. The expression upadhivepakka is glossed by MA to mean that it gives results consisting in the acquisitions [MṬ: = the continuity of the five aggregates].
1103 This definition defines supramundane right view as the wisdom (paññā) found among the aids to enlightenment as a faculty, power, enlightenment factor, and path factor. The definition is formulated by way of the cognitive function rather than the objective content of right view. Elsewhere (MN 141.24) the right view of the path is defined as knowledge of the Four Noble Truths. We may understand that the conceptual comprehension of the four truths falls under mundane right view, while the direct penetration of the truths by realising Nibbāna with the path cons
titutes supramundane right view.
1104 MA: They accompany right view as its co-existents and precursors. Right effort and right mindfulness are co-existent with supramundane right view; the right view of insight is the precursor of supramundane right view.
1105 MA explains this as the right view of insight which understands right intention by way of its function and by clearing away confusion. It seems, though, that a more elementary discrimination of the two kinds of intention is the issue.
1106 This is the standard definition of right intention as a factor of the Noble Eightfold Path; see MN 141.25.
1107 In this definition, the factor of intention (sankappa) is identified with applied thought (vitakka), which is further specified as the factor responsible for absorption by fixing and directing the mind upon its object. For applied thought as “verbal formation,” see MN 44.15.
1108 MA: This statement refers exclusively to the co-existent factors accompanying supramundane right intention. In the preliminary phase of the practice, the three mundane right intentions arise separately, but at the moment of the supramundane path, a single right intention arises cutting off the threefold wrong intention. Thus the supramundane right intention may also be described as the intention of renunciation, non-ill will, and non-cruelty. The same method applies to right speech, etc.
1109 Whereas mundane right speech is exercised in four different modes according to the type of wrong speech from which there is abstinence, on the occasion of the supramundane path, the single factor of right speech exercises the fourfold function of cutting off the tendencies towards the four kinds of wrong speech. The same principle applies to right action.
1110 These are wrong means for bhikkhus to acquire their requisites; they are explained at Vsm I, 61–65. MA says that those mentioned in the sutta are not the only kinds of wrong livelihood, which include any mode of earning one’s living that involves transgression of the precepts. At AN 5:177/iii.208, the Buddha mentions five kinds of wrong livelihood for lay people: dealing in arms, beings, meat, intoxicants, and poisons.
1111 MA explains that for one having the right view of the path, the right intention of the path comes into being; similarly, for one having the right view of the fruit, the right intention of the fruit comes into being. Similarly, the following factors except the last two also refer to the supramundane path.
1112 The additional two factors possessed by the arahant are right knowledge, which can be identified with his reviewing knowledge that he has destroyed all the defilements, and right deliverance, which can be identified with his experience of liberation from all defilements.
1113 The twenty factors on the wholesome side are the ten right factors and the wholesome states that originate from each; the twenty factors on the unwholesome side are the ten wrong factors and the unwholesome states that originate from each. Hence the name “The Great Forty.”
1114 MA says only that these two were individuals who lived in the country of Okkala. Otherwise their identity is unknown.
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1115 The Pavāra˚ā is the ceremony that concludes the rains residence, at which each bhikkhu invites all the others to admonish him for his transgressions.
1116 Komudı̄ is the full-moon day of the month of Kattika, the fourth month of the rainy season; it is called by this name because the white water-lily (kumuda) is said to bloom at that time.
1117 Explanatory notes for the first tetrad will be found at nn.140–142. MN 10.4 differs from this passage only by the addition of the simile. Since Ācariya Buddhaghosa has commented on the four tetrads on mindfulness of breathing in the Visuddhimagga, in MA he merely refers the reader to the latter work for explanation. Notes 1118–21 are drawn from Vsm VIII, 226–37, also included by Ñm in his Mindfulness of Breathing.
1118 One experiences rapture in two ways: by attaining one of the lower two jhānas in which rapture is present, one experiences rapture in the mode of serenity; by emerging from that jhāna and contemplating that rapture as subject to destruction, one experiences rapture in the mode of insight.
1119 The same method of explanation as in n.1118 applies to the second and third clauses, except that the second comprises the three lower jhānas and the third all four jhānas. The mental formation is perception and feeling (see MN 44.14), which is tranquillised by the development of successively higher levels of serenity and insight.
1120 “Experiencing the mind” is to be understood by way of the four jhānas. “Gladdening the mind” is explained either as the attainment of the two jhānas containing rapture or as the penetration of those jhānas with insight as subject to destruction, etc. “Concentrating the mind” refers either to the concentration pertaining to the jhāna or to the momentary concentration that arises along with insight. “Liberating the mind” means liberating it from hindrances and grosser jhānic factors by successively higher levels of concentration, and from the cognitive distortions by way of insight knowledge.
1121 This tetrad deals entirely with insight, unlike the previous three, which deal with both serenity and insight. “Contemplating fading away” and “contemplating cessation” can be understood both as the insight into the impermanence of formations and as the supramundane path realising Nibbāna, called the fading away of lust (i.e., dispassion, virāga) and the cessation of suffering. “Contemplating relinquishment” is the giving up of defilements through insight and the entering into Nibbāna by attainment of the path.
1122 MA: In-and-out breathing is to be counted as the air element among the four elements making up the body. It should also be included in the base of tangibles among bodily phenomena (since the object of attention is the touch sensation of the breath entering and leaving the nostrils).
1123 MA explains that close attention (s̄dhuka manasikāra) is not itself actually feeling, but is spoken of as such only figuratively. In the second tetrad the actual feeling is the pleasure mentioned in the second clause and also the feeling comprised by the expression “mental formation” in the third and fourth clauses.
1124 MA: Although the meditating bhikkhu takes as his object the sign of in-and-out breathing, he is said to be “contemplating mind as mind” because he maintains his mind on the object by arousing mindfulness and full awareness, two factors of mind.
1125 MA: Covetousness and grief signify the first two hindrances, sensual desire and ill will, and thus represent the contemplation of mind-objects, which begins with the five hindrances. The bhikkhu sees the abandoning of the hindrances effected by the contemplations of impermanence, fading away, cessation, and relinquishment, and thus comes to look upon the object with equanimity.
1126 MA says that the above passage shows the enlightenment factors existing together in each mind-moment in the practice of insight meditation.
1127 See n.48.
1128 MA: The mindfulness that comprehends breathing is mundane; the mundane mindfulness of breathing perfects the mundane foundations of mindfulness; the mundane foundations of mindfulness perfect the supramundane enlightenment factors; and the supramundane enlightenment factors perfect (or fulfil) true knowledge and deliverance, i.e., the fruit and Nibbāna.
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1129 §§4–17 of this sutta is identical with MN 10.4–30, except that here the refrain on insight has been replaced by the refrain that begins “As he abides thus diligent.” This change indicates a shift in emphasis from insight in MN 10 to concentration in the present sutta. This shift reappears in the passage on the jhānas at §§18–21 and the passage on the direct knowledges at §§37–41, both of which distinguish this sutta from MN 10.
1130 The similes for the jhānas are also found at MN 39.15–18 and MN 77.25–28.
1131 Vijjābhāgiyā dhammā. MA explains these states as the eight types of knowledge expounded at MN 77.29–36.
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1132 Although I have attempted to render sankhārā consistently throughout as “formations,” here it seemed that the content required a di
fferent rendering to bring the intended meaning to light. Ñm had used “determinations,” his own consistent choice for sankhārā. MA initially explains sankhārupapatti as meaning either reappearance (i.e., rebirth) of mere formations, not of a being or person, or reappearance of the aggregates in a new existence through a meritorious kamma-formation. However, in subsequent passages, MA glosses sankhārā with patthanā, a word unambiguously meaning aspiration.
1133 MA: “The way” is the five qualities beginning with faith, together with the aspiration. One who has either the five qualities without the aspiration, or the aspiration without the qualities, does not have a fixed destination. The destination can only be fixed when both factors are present.
1134 MA explains that there are five kinds of pervasion: pervasion of mind, i.e., knowing the thoughts of the beings throughout a thousand worlds; pervasion of the kasi˚a, i.e., extending the kasi˚a image to a thousand worlds; pervasion of the divine eye, i.e., seeing a thousand worlds with the divine eye; pervasion of light, which is the same as the previous pervasion; and pervasion of body, i.e., extending one’s bodily aura to a thousand worlds.
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