The Connected Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Bodhi

  134 Reading with Se, sakassa bhattu nimittaṃ na uggaṇhāti. Be and Ee have bhattassa, but bhattu is genitive of bhattar, the relevant noun here (not bhatta). I translate literally, even at the cost of awkwardness, to preserve the parallel with the meditating monk.

  135 Spk: He does not know, “This meditation subject of mine has reached up to conformity or change-of-lineage.” He isn’t able to grasp the sign of his own mind.The terms “conformity” (anuloma) and “change-of-lineage” (gotrabhū) denote the final occasions of sense-sphere consciousness before one attains either jhāna or the supramundane path and fruit; presumably the preliminary to jhāna is intended. The phrase cittassa nimittaṃ gahessati is at AN III 423,13, glossed by Mp: cittassa nimittan ti samādhivipassanācittassa nimittaṃ, samādhivipassanākāraṃ; “sign of the mind: sign of the mind of concentration or insight, the mode of concentration or insight.”

  136 This portion of the sutta is quoted at Vism 150-51 (Ppn 4:122). Spk says that satipaṭṭhāna is treated as insight of the preliminary stage.

  137 This incident is recorded in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, at DN II 98-101. Spk assigns the incident to the tenth month before the Master’s demise.

  138 Jīvitasaṅkhāraṃ adhiṭṭhāya. Spk: The life formation is life itself [Spk-pṭ: because of revitalizing the body without letting it fail] as well as fruition attainment, by which life is vitalized, sustained, prolonged. The latter is intended here. The concise meaning is, “I will attain fruition attainment, which is capable of prolonging life.” He entered the attainment with the determination, “Let the pain not arise for another ten months,” and the pain, suppressed by the attainment, did not arise for another ten months.

  139 I follow Se and Ee, which do not include the initial exclamation found in Be, diṭṭho me bhante bhagavato phāsu; the latter, however, is at DN II 99,21. I think Ee is correct in retaining diṭṭhā; in Se and Be the word is taken as a past participle and is represented as neuter diṭṭhaṃ, but here it seems to function idiomatically with the meaning “lucky” or “splendid.” See DN III 73,18: diṭṭhā bho satta jīvasi, “It’s splendid, sir being, that you’re alive.” The lines that follow are at 22:84 (III 106,19-21); see III, n. 149. Here Spk explains dhammā pi nappaṭibhanti as meaning, “The teachings on the establishments of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhānadhammā) are not clear to me.” Possibly the expression means simply, “Things (in general) aren’t clear to me.”

  140 Anantaraṃ abāhiraṃ. Spk: Without making a distinction of inside and outside with respect either to Dhamma or persons. One makes the distinction with respect to Dhamma when one thinks, “I will teach so much Dhamma to others but this much I won’t teach.” One does so with respect to persons when one thinks, “I’ll teach this person but not that one.” The Master did not teach in this way. The “teacher’s closed fist” (ācariyamuṭṭhi) is found among outsiders, who reserve certain teachings for their favourite pupils only when they are lying on their deathbed; but the Tathāgata does not have this.In connection with these two ideas, see Mil 144-45, 159-60.

  141 Readings of this obscure compound vary. Be has vekhamissakena , Se veghamissakena (the reading at Ee DN II 100,14-15), Ee vedhamissakena. In a note Be proposes veṭhamissakena , the actual reading in the gloss given by Spk (both Be and Se). A similar expression occurs at Th 143a, in Ee veghamissena. At EV I, n. to 143, Norman presents the case for veṭha (= Skt veṣṭa, “band, noose”). Gombrich discusses the problem in “Old Bodies Like Carts,” arguing for the reading vedha, “trembling,” but it is hard to see how this sits comfortably in a compound with missakena. Hence I follow Spk and Norman in reading veṭhamissakena.Spk: By a combination of straps: by a combination of straps through being repaired with bands for the arms, bands for the wheels, etc. (bāhābandhacakkabandhādinā paṭisaṅkharaṇena veṭhamissakena). So it seems … keeps going (maññe yāpeti): He shows, “Like an old cart, it seems it is by a combination of straps, i.e., by being strapped with the fruition of arahantship (arahattaphalaveṭhanena), that the body of the Tathāgata assumes the four modes of deportment.”

  It should be noted that this passage would hardly make sense if the commentaries were right in holding that Ānanda was born on the same day as the Bodhisatta, for the Buddha would not need to insist on the frailties of old age if Ānanda too was an old man. See II, n. 296.

  142 The expression used here is animitta cetosamādhi, but this concentration must be different from the one with the same name mentioned at 40:9. Spk explains the latter as deep insight concentration, the present one as fruition attainment (phalasamāpatti). This would then make it identical with the animitta cetovimutti of 41:7 (IV 297,4-6).

  143 The attadīpa exhortation is also at 22:43. Spk explains dhamma in dhammadīpa, dhammasaraṇa as the ninefold supramundane Dhamma (the four paths, four fruits, and Nibbāna). Tamatagge has been much puzzled over in the scholarly literature on the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. Spk (which parallels Sv II 548-49) takes the term as equivalent to tama-agge, with -t- inserted as a euphonic conjunct (padasandhi). It is possible that tamatagge should be understood as equivalent to tamato agge, on the analogy of ajjatagge or daharatagge, but this would still leave the problem of meaning unsolved; “from the darkness on” hardly makes good sense here. Spk is evidently perplexed about the meaning and, without quite admitting uncertainty, wavers between taking tama as the superlative suffix (transposed by metathesis) and as “darkness”: “These are topmost (aggatamā), hence tamataggā. Thus, ‘having cut the entire stream of darkness (tamasotaṃ in both Be and Se, but tamayogaṃ, bond of darkness, in the parallel passage at Sv II 549,1), these bhikkhus of mine will be at the extreme top, in the highest place. They will be at the top of them. Among all those keen on the training, just those whose range is the four satipaṭṭhānas will be at the top.’ Thus he brings the teaching to its culmination in arahantship.” Spkpṭ explains tama-agge: “In the absence of the bond of darkness (tamayoga!), (they will be) at the top of the world with its gods.”The words are not preserved in the fragments of the Turfan Skt version, but the Tibetan and Chinese parallels, probably based on Skt texts, point to a meaning as “the highest.” I have followed suit with “topmost,” though I cannot account for the exact meaning of the original or for the use of the locative. I have also gone along with the commentaries in taking ye keci sikkhākāmā as an implicit genitive.

  144 I read with Be and Se, uḷāraṃ pubbenāparaṃ visesaṃ sañjānanti. Ee reads sampajānanti. Spk explains “successively loftier stages of distinction” by way of the successive stages of wisdom, from the comprehension of the four primary elements through the ascription of the three characteristics to all formations.

  145 Spk: A fever of defilement (kilesapariḷāha) arises having made the body its basis (ārammaṇa). When this happens, one should not let oneself become excited by the defilement but “should then direct the mind to some inspiring sign” (kismiñcideva pasādaniye nimitte cittaṃ paṇidahitabbaṃ), that is, one should place the meditating mind on some object that inspires confidence, such as the Buddha, etc.

  146 Spk: “Let me withdraw it from the inspiring object and redirect it towards the original meditation object.”

  147 Spk explains this to mean that he is “without defiled thought, without defiled examination,” but the absence of vitakka and vicāra seems to imply he has reached the second jhāna. See too MN III 136,20-29, where the four satipaṭṭhānas do service for the first jhāna, and the Buddha also enjoins the practice of the four without thought and examination, hence in the mode of the second jhāna.

  148 Paṇidhāya bhāvanā. Spk glosses ṭhapetvā bhāvanā, “development having put aside.” Development by this method comes about by directing the mind away from its main object towards some other object. Spk compares this to a man carrying a load of sugar to a refinery who pauses from time to time, puts down the load, eats a sugar cane, and then continues on his way.

  149 Spk gives various explanations of “unconstrict
ed after and before” (pacchā pure asaṅkhittaṃ). See 51:20 (V 277,29-278,4) and n. 272 below.

  150 Mahāpurisa. See AN IV 228-35 for the eight thoughts of a great man (aṭṭha mahāpurisavitakkā).

  151 This sutta is included in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta at DN II 81-83 but without the last paragraph; a much more elaborate version makes up DN No. 28. In the former its chronological position seems questionable; see n. 157.

  152 Spk: A bellowing utterance (āsabhī vācā): like (the bellowing) of a chief bull (usabha), unshaking, unwavering. Definitive, categorical (ekaṃso gahito): Not spoken in compliance with oral tradition, etc., but as if it had been penetrated by personal knowledge, thus it is “definitive, categorical.” The meaning is that it is stated as a firm conclusion (sanniṭṭhānakathā va).

  153 Spk explains evaṃdhammā as samādhipakkhā dhammā, “the states pertaining to concentration,” and says evaṃvihārino is added in order to include the attainment of cessation.

  154 Api ca dhammanvayo vidito. Spk: Inferential knowledge (anumānañāṇa) has arisen in accordance with the implications of his personal knowledge of the Dhamma; the methodology (nayaggāha) has been understood. He says, “Standing just upon the knowledge of a disciple’s perfections, I know from this angle, O Blessed One.”

  155 Spk: Here the establishments of mindfulness are insight, the enlightenment factors are the path, and unsurpassed perfect enlightenment is arahantship. Or else the enlightenment factors are mixed (both insight and the path).

  156 This conclusion also comes at the end of DN No. 28, at DN III 116, following the much more effusive praise of the Buddha found there.

  157 The event related in this sutta poses a problem for the traditional chronology of the Buddha’s life. In the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, Sāriputta’s lion’s roar (just above) takes place during what appears to be the Buddha’s final journey along the route from Rājagaha to Vesālī. From Vesālī the Buddha heads towards Kusinārā without ever returning to Sāvatthī, some 200 km to the west. Yet the present sutta shows the Buddha residing at Sāvatthī when he receives the news of Sāriputta’s death. To preserve the traditional chronology, the commentaries (Spk here, and Sv II 550) have the Buddha make an additional side trip to Sāvatthī following his rains retreat at Beluvagāmaka (see DN II 98-99), an excursion not mentioned in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. Sāriputta accompanies him on this trip to Sāvatthī, later takes his leave, and returns to his native village Nālakagāma, where he falls ill and dies. For the commentarial story of Sāriputta’s death, see Nyanaponika, “Sāriputta: The Marshal of the Dhamma,” in Nyanaponika and Hecker, Great Disciples of the Buddha, pp. 47-59.

  158 Spk identifies this Cunda as Sāriputta’s younger brother and says, improbably, that because the bhikkhus used to address him as “novice Cunda” before his higher ordination they continued to address him thus even when he was an elder.

  159 Spk says that here dhammā signifies the condensed and catechistic teachings (uddesaparipucchā dhammā). The expression also occurs at 22:84 and 47:9; see n. 139 above and III, n. 149.

  160 These are the five “aggregates of Dhamma” (dhammakkhandha ) possessed in full only by arahants; see 6:2. The ascription to Ānanda of the last two aggregates (liberation, and the knowledge and vision of liberation) seems puzzling, as he is still a trainee and thus not yet fully liberated. Such anomalies, however, do occasionally occur in the texts, as at 55:26 (V 384,1-12) where right knowledge and right liberation, usually unique attributes of the arahant, are ascribed to the stream-enterer Anāthapiṇḍika.

  161 Be and Ee include otiṇṇo between ovādako and viññāpako. The word is not in Se or SS.

  162 The commentaries assign the death of Moggallāna to a fortnight after that of Sāriputta. Sāriputta expired on the full-moon day of the month Kattika (October-November), Moggallāna on the following new-moon day. For an account of his death, see Hecker, “Moggallāna: Master of Psychic Power,” in Nyanaponika and Hecker, Great Disciples of the Buddha, pp. 100-5.

  163 I translate on the basis of the Se reading: asuññā me sā bhikkhave parisā hoti. Be differs only in omitting sā, but Ee brings parinibbutesu Sāriputta-Moggallānesu into this sentence and then reads suññā me bhikkhave parisā hoti, “Now that Sāriputta and Moggallāna have attained final Nibbāna, this assembly, bhikkhus, has become empty.” Spk gives no help in resolving the ambiguity.

  164 The “four assemblies” are bhikkhus, bhikkhunīs, male lay followers, and female lay followers.

  165 As at 47:3.

  166 As at 6:1, 6:2.

  167 The name is a feminine (meaning “frying pan”), but Spk says the name is given in the feminine gender (itthiliṅgavasena laddhanāmaṃ), presumably to a boy. The passage contains no pronouns that might establish the gender.

  168 From Spk’s description, it seems that the master places the lower end of the bamboo pole over the base of his throat or forehead (galavāṭake vā nalāṭe), and the pupil then climbs via his shoulders to the top of the pole. Though in the sutta the master speaks as if they both descend from the pole, this may be only a figure of speech. Spk: The master protects himself when he holds the pole firmly, moves with his apprentice, and looks constantly at the top of the pole. The apprentice protects himself when he keeps his body straight, balances himself against the wind, sets up steady mindfulness, and sits down motionless.

  169 Spk: The bhikkhu who gives up frivolous activity and pursues, develops, and cultivates his basic meditation subject day and night attains arahantship. Then, when others see him and gain confidence in him, they become destined for heaven. This one protects others by protecting himself.

  170 The four terms are khantiyā avihiṃsāya mettatāya anudayatāya . Spk takes the last three as respectively compassion, lovingkindness, and altruistic joy, and explains this maxim from a narrowly monastic perspective thus: “The bhikkhu develops the jhānas based on the brahmavihāra, then uses the jhāna as a basis for insight and attains arahantship. This one protects himself by protecting others.” For a broader and profounder treatment of this maxim, see Nyanaponika, Protection through Satipaṭṭhāna.

  171 This sutta is related in the introduction to Ja No. 96 (I 393-401), which concludes with a verse that alludes back to the sutta:Samatittikaṃ anavasesakaṃ

  telapattaṃ yathā parihareyya

  evaṃ sacittam anurakkhe

  patthayāno disaṃ agatapubbaṃ.

  As one might carry a bowl of oil

  Full to the brim without spilling a drop,

  So should one protect one’s own mind,

  Yearning for the quarter not reached

  before (i.e., Nibbāna).

  172 From the Pāli it cannot be determined whether the crowd gathers because they have heard “The most beautiful girl of the land!” being announced or gathers exclaiming “The most beautiful girl of the land!” I take it in the former way. Spk says such a girl is devoid of six physical defects (too tall or too short, too thin or too stout, too dark or too fair) and endowed with five kinds of beauty (of skin, flesh, sinews, bones, and age). The expression paramapāsāvinī nacce, paramapāsāvinī gīte seems to be unique to this text. PED explains pāsāvin as “bringing forth,” but see MW, s.v. pra-sava (2) > pra-savin, derived from pra-sūti (1) and meaning “impelling, exciting.” Spk: “In dancing and singing her presentation is supreme, her performance is the best; she dances and sings supremely well.”

  173 Modelled on 45:18. “Wholesome virtues” (kusalāni sīlāni), just below, are identified by Spk with the fourfold purification of virtue. See n. 33.

  174 Sahassaṃ lokaṃ abhijānāmi. Spk: This is stated by way of his constant dwelling. For after rising in the morning and washing his face, the elder sits in his dwelling and recollects a thousand aeons in the past and a thousand aeons in the future (sic; no comment from Spk-pṭ). In regard to the thousandfold world system in the present, he follows its course just by adverting to it. Thus with the divine eye he directly knows the thousandfold world
.

  175 This passage extends to each of the four establishments of mindfulness the general formula for reviewing the truth of the path in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (see 56:11; V 422,23-30).

  176 This practice is described at MN III 124,10-20 (as a wonderful quality of the Buddha); at AN II 45,15-20 (as a development of concentration, also at DN III 223,9-17); at AN IV 32,24-33,2 (as a factor leading to the four paṭisambhidās ); and at AN IV 168,12-15 (as a practice of mindfulness and clear comprehension). Paṭis I 178-80 treats this practice in relation to mindfulness of breathing. Spk explains the feelings, thoughts, and perceptions as those that occur in relation to the sense bases and objects comprehended in developing insight.

  177 Here the singular is used and the preferred sense would be “the establishing of mindfulness.”

  178 This practice is called satipaṭṭhānabhāvanā presumably because it carries the practice of contemplation to a deeper level than the basic exercise. In the basic exercise the task set for the meditator is to contemplate the particular establishment chosen according to the prescribed pattern. At this stage, however, one gains insight into the arising and vanishing of the object, which prepares the way for the deeper insight knowledges to emerge.The expression samudayadhammānupassī kāyasmiṃ viharati is usually translated “he abides contemplating in the body its arising factors” (as at MLDB, p. 149), on the assumption that the compound contains a plural, samudayadhammā. A plural sense, however, is not mandatory, and it is more consistent with the use of the suffix -dhamma elsewhere to take it as meaning “subject to” or “having the nature of” here as well. At 22:126 (III 171-72) samudayadhamma, vayadhamma, and samudayavayadhamma serve as bahubbīhi (adjectival) compounds in apposition to each of the five aggregates, and it seems that in this passage too the terms should be understood in the same sense, as singulars meaning “subject to origination,” etc.