The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Nanamoli

  1314 This statement seems to imply that Channa was an arahant at the time he committed suicide, though the commentary explains otherwise. When the Buddha speaks about the conditions under which one is blameworthy (sa-upavajja), upavajja represents upavadya. Though earlier MA explained the correct sense of upavajjakulāni, here the commentator seems oblivious to the pun and comments as if Channa had actually been at fault for associating too closely with lay people: “The Elder Sāriputta, showing the fault of intimacy with families (kulasaṁsaggadosa) in the preliminary stage of practice, asks: ‘When that bhikkhu had such supporters, could he have attained final Nibbāna?’ The Blessed One answers showing that he was not intimate with families.”

  SUTTA 145

  1315 This Pu˚˚a is a different person from Pu˚˚a Mantā˚iputta of MN 24. He was from a family of merchants residing in the port city of Suppāraka in the Sunāparanta country (present-day Maharashtra). On a business trip to Sāvatthı̄ he heard the Buddha give a discourse and renounced the home life to become a bhikkhu.

  1316 MA explains this instruction as a short teaching on the Four Noble Truths. Delight (nandı̄) is an aspect of craving. Through the arising of delight in regard to the eye and forms there arises the suffering of the five aggregates. Thus in this first part of the instruction the Buddha teaches the round of existence by way of the first two truths—suffering and its origin—as they occur through the six senses. In the second part (§4) he teaches the ending of the round by way of the second two truths—cessation and the path—expressed as the abandoning of delight in the six senses and their objects.

  1317 That is, he expired. Since the Buddha still refers to Pu˚˚a as a clansman (kulaputta), he must have died within a short time after returning to the Sunāparanta country. The texts leave no record of how he died. The version of this sutta at SN 35:88 (iv.60–63) says that he expired during his first rains retreat there.

  SUTTA 146

  1318 One of the eight important rules laid down by the Buddha when he established the Bhikkhunı̄ Sangha stipulated that every fortnight the bhikkhunı̄ should request the bhikkhus to send a bhikkhu for the purpose of giving them an exhortation. According to MA, in a previous life Ven. Nandaka had been a king and those bhikkhunı̄s had been his concubines. He wanted to avoid his turn in advising the bhikkhunı̄s because he thought that another bhikkhu possessing the knowledge of past lives, seeing him giving an exhortation surrounded by the bhikkhunı̄s, would think that he still could not separate himself from his former concubines. But the Buddha saw that Nandaka’s discourse to the bhikkhunı̄s would benefit them and thus he requested him to instruct them.

  1319 MA: They have seen this with the wisdom of insight.

  1320 Tajjaṁ tajjaṁ paccayam paṭcca tajjā tajjā vedanā uppajjanti. The coming together of the eye, forms, and eye-consciousness is eye-contact, and this is the primary condition for the arising of feeling born of eye-contact. With the cessation of the eye, one of the factors responsible for eye-contact is removed. Thus eye-contact ceases, and with its cessation the feeling born of eye-contact also ceases.

  1321 MA: He undertakes this teaching on the enlightenment factors because wisdom is not able to cut away the defilements by itself, but only when accompanied by the other six enlightenment factors (wisdom being equivalent to the investigation-of-states enlightenment factor).

  1322 MA: She who was last in regard to good qualities had become a stream-enterer, but those whose intentions were to become once-returners, non-returners, and arahants each achieved the fulfilment of their intentions. Because of these results, the Buddha named Ven. Nandaka the foremost bhikkhu in instructing the bhikkhunı̄s.

  SUTTA 147

  1323 MA says that this discourse was spoken to Rāhula shortly after his higher ordination, presumably at the age of twenty. The sutta also occurs at SN 35:121/iv.105–7.

  1324 Vimuttiparipācanı̄yā dhammā. MA interprets these as the fifteen qualities that purify the five faculties (faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom), namely, in regard to each faculty: avoiding people who lack the faculty, associating with those endowed with it, and reflecting on suttas that inspire its maturation. MA brings in another set of fifteen qualities: the five faculties again; the five perceptions partaking of penetration, namely, perception of impermanence, suffering, non-self, abandoning, and dispassion; and the five qualities taught to Meghiya, namely, noble friendship, the virtue of the monastic rules, suitable conversation, energy, and wisdom (see AN 9:3/iv.356; Ud 4:1/36).

  1325 MA says that these deities, who came from various celestial realms, had been companions of Rāhula’s during the previous life in which he first made the aspiration to attain arahantship as the son of a Buddha.

  1326 It should be noted that the last four items mentioned are the four mental aggregates. Thus this discourse covers not only the sense bases but also the five aggregates, the aggregate of material form being implied by the physical sense faculties and their objects.

  1327 According to MA, stream-entry was the minimal attainment of those deities, but some attained the higher paths and fruits up to arahantship.

  SUTTA 148

  1328 This string of epithets, usually descriptions of the Dhamma as a whole, here serves to emphasise the importance of the discourse the Buddha is about to deliver.

  1329 The last two clauses in this sequence are also found in the standard formulation of dependent origination, which is thus implicitly incorporated into this discourse on the six sets of six.

  1330 The verb upapajjati (the PTS ed. reading, uppajjati, is an error), normally means “reappears” or “is reborn,” but it also has a special usage in logic to mean “to be tenable, to be acceptable,” as it does here.

  1331 The argument derives the principle of non-self from the verifiable premise of impermanence. The structure of the argument may be briefly set out thus: Whatever is self must be permanent; X is directly perceived to be impermanent, i.e., marked by rise and fall; therefore X is not self.

  1332 The full argument of the previous paragraph is repeated for each of the remaining five terms in each set of six.

  1333 MA explains that this passage is stated to show two noble truths—suffering and its origin—by way of the three obsessions (gāha). The truth of suffering is shown by the term “identity,” elsewhere explicated as the five aggregates affected by clinging (MN 44.2). The three obsessions are craving, conceit, and views, which respectively give rise to the notions “mine,” “I am” and “my self.” The two truths together constitute the round of existence.

  1334 MA: This passage is stated to show the other two noble truths—cessation and the path—by the repudiation of the three obsessions. These two truths constitute the ending of the round.

  1335 MA: This passage shows the round of existence once again, this time by way of the underlying tendencies. On the underlying tendencies and their correlation with the three types of feeling, see MN 44.25–28.

  1336 MA: The first-mentioned ignorance is only the lack of understanding of the origination, etc., of neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. The second-mentioned is the ignorance that is at the root of the round.

  1337 MA: There is nothing wonderful in the fact that sixty bhikkhus attained arahantship when the Buddha first taught this sutta. But each time Sāriputta, Moggallāna, and the eighty great disciples taught it, sixty bhikkhus attained arahantship. In Sri Lanka the Elder Maliyadeva taught this sutta in sixty places, and each time sixty bhikkhus attained arahantship. But when the Elder Tipiṭaka Cū˘anāga taught this sutta to a vast assembly of humans and gods, at the end of the discourse a thousand bhikkhus attained arahantship, and among the gods only one remained a worldling.

  SUTTA 149

  1338 MA: When one does not know and see the eye by way of insight knowledge and path knowledge.

  1339 That is, the craving that arises and settles on the eye and forms, etc., holds to them with clinging, and this produces kamma that can generate a new
set of five aggregates in the next existence.

  1340 When one knows and sees the eye by insight and the path.

  1341 The eight factors of the path mentioned here seem to pertain to the preliminary or mundane portion of the path. MṬ identifies them with the factors possessed by a person at the highest level of insight development, immediately prior to the emergence of the supramundane path. In this stage only the former five path factors are actively operative, the three factors of the morality group having been purified prior to the undertaking of insight meditation. But when the supramundane path arises, all eight factors occur simultaneously, the three factors of the morality group exercising the function of eradicating the defilements responsible for moral transgression in speech, action, and livelihood.

  1342 MA says that this refers to the simultaneous arising of serenity and insight in the supramundane path. The former is present under the heading of right concentration, the latter under the heading of right view.

  1343 These are the four functions exercised by the supramundane path: fully understanding the truth of suffering, abandoning the cause of suffering, realising the cessation of suffering, and developing the path leading to the end of suffering.

  1344 Here serenity and insight represent the entire Noble Eightfold Path.

  1345 MA identifies “true knowledge” with the knowledge of the path of arahantship, “deliverance” with the fruit of arahantship. Here these take the place usually reserved for Nibbāna, the true cessation of suffering.

  1346 This passage and each of the following passages repeat the entire text of §§9–11, the only change being in the sense faculty and object.

  SUTTA 151

  1347 MA: The arahant’s fruition attainment of voidness. See n.458 and n.1144.

  1348 MA: This is the abiding of such great men (mahāpurisa) as Buddhas, paccekabuddhas, and the great disciples of the Tathāgatas.

  1349 Among the five terms, desire and lust are synonymous as are hate and aversion.

  1350 Beginning with this section a sequence of development may be discerned. The abandoning of the five cords of sensual pleasure is the preliminary step for developing the jhānas, and the abandoning of the five hindrances (§10) the immediate antecedent to the attainment of the first jhāna. The full understanding of the five aggregates (§11) indicates the insight wisdom necessary to attain the path of stream-entry, and the sections on the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment (§§12–18) the cultivation of the factors needed to arrive at the intermediate stages of sanctity. The section on serenity and insight (§19), though applicable to all stages, can be seen as fully actualised by the non-returner striving for arahantship. Finally, the section on true knowledge and deliverance signifies the attainment of the path and fruit of arahantship.

  1351 Although the arahant, who has fully realised true knowledge and deliverance, has no need for further training, he continues to cultivate serenity and insight in order to enter into the bliss of the jhānas, the fruition attainment of arahantship, and the cessation of perception and feeling.

  SUTTA 152

  1352 The expression “the development of the faculties” (indriyabhāvanā) properly signifies the development of the mind in responding to the objects experienced through the sense faculties. The more rudimentary aspect of this practice, the restraint of the sense faculties (indriyasaṁvara ), involves controlling the mind in such a way that one does not grasp at the “signs and features” of things, their distinctive attractive and repulsive attributes. The development of the faculties carries this process of control through to the point where, by an act of will, one can immediately set up insight even in the course of sense perception. At the highest level one acquires the ability to radically transform the subjective significance of perceptual objects themselves, making them appear in a mode that is the very opposite of the way they are normally apprehended.

  1353 MA explains that when a desirable form comes into range of the eye, an agreeable state (manāpa) arises; when an undesirable form appears, a disagreeable state (amanāpa) arises; and when an indifferent form appears, a state that is both agreeable and disagreeable arises. It should be noted that though these three terms are ordinarily used to qualify the sense objects, here they also seem to signify subtle states of liking, aversion, and dull indifference that arise due to the influence of the underlying tendencies. MṬ identifies “the agreeable” with wholesome and unwholesome states of mind associated with joy, “the disagreeable” with unwholesome states of mind associated with grief (displeasure), and “the agreeable and disagreeable” with states of mind associated with equanimous feeling.

  1354 MA: This equanimity is the equanimity of insight (vipassan’upekkhā ). The bhikkhu does not allow his mind to be overcome by lust, hate, or delusion, but comprehends the object and sets up insight in the neutral state. MṬ explains this to mean that he enters into equanimity regarding formations (sankhār’upekkhā), a particular stage of insight knowledge (see Vsm XXI, 61–66).

  1355 MṬ: The noble development of the faculties is the suppression of lust, etc., arisen through the eye, and the establishment of the equanimity of insight.

  1356 The same simile appears at MN 66.16.

  1357 Although the sekha has already entered upon the way to final deliverance, he is still prone to subtle states of liking, aversion, and dull indifference in regard to sense objects. He experiences these, however, as impediments to his progress, and thus becomes repelled, humiliated, and disgusted by them.

  1358 Ariya bhāvitindriya: the arahant is meant.

  1359 Since the arahant has eradicated all the defilements along with their underlying tendencies, in this passage the three terms—the agreeable, etc.—must be understood simply as the feelings that arise through contact with sense objects, and not as the subtle traces of liking, aversion, and indifference relevant to the preceding passage.

  1360 The Paṭisambhidāmagga calls this practice “the noble supernormal power” (ariya iddhi) and explains it thus (ii.212): To abide perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive, one pervades a repulsive being with loving-kindness, or one attends to a repulsive object (either animate or inanimate) as a mere assemblage of impersonal elements. To abide perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive, one pervades a (sensually) attractive person with the idea of the foulness of the body, or one attends to an attractive object (either animate or inanimate) as impermanent. The third and fourth methods involve the application of the first and second contemplations to both repulsive and unrepulsive objects, without discrimination. The fifth method involves the avoidance of joy and sorrow in response to the six sense objects, thus enabling one to abide in equanimity, mindful and fully aware.Although this fivefold contemplation is ascribed to the arahant as a power perfectly under his control, elsewhere the Buddha teaches it to bhikkhus still in training as a way to overcome the three unwholesome roots. See AN 5:144/iii.169–70; and for a thoughtful commentary on that sutta, see Nyanaponika Thera, The Roots of Good and Evil, pp. 73–78.

  Pali-English Glossary

  THIS GLOSSARY INCLUDES only (a) important doctrinal terms, and (b) words and meanings not found in the PTS’s Pali-English Dictionary. The latter, compiled by Ven. Ñā˚amoli in a section of his manuscript, are here marked by an asterisk and are followed by references to the Majjhima passage where they occur. All terms are defined only by way of the meanings they bear in the Majjhima Nikāya, and no account is taken of meanings they may have in other Buddhist texts. The Pali words are listed here in Indian alphabetical order.

  PALIENGLISH

  ak̄lika immediately effective

  akiriyav̄da doctrine of non-doing

  akuppa unshakeable

  akusala unwholesome

  *akkhāyati to be plain (evident) (11.13)

  anga factor

  angaṇa blemish

  *accādāya overlapping (39.10; 53.10; 107.6; 125.18)

  *accokkaṭṭha too low (91.19)

  ajjhatta internal(ly)r />
  ajjhosāna holding

  aññā final knowledge

  aṭṭhāna impossibility

  *atammayatā non-identification (113.21; 137.20)

  *atināmeti to exceed (the right amount) (91.14)

  *atinijjhāyitatta excessive meditation (128.26)

  *atipāteti to shoot across (12.62)

  atimāna arrogance

  attakilamatha self-mortification

  attabhāva individuality

  att̄ self

  attha (1) meaning; (2) purpose; (3) good

  atthangama disappearance

  adukkhamasukha neither-painful-nor-pleasant

  adosa non-hate

  *adduva knee (91.10)

  adhikaraṇa litigation

  adhicitta higher mind

  adhiṭṭhāna (1) decision; (2) foundation

  adhimāna overestimation