In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [234]
2 Note that while the previous dangers in sensual pleasures were called “a mass of suffering in this present life” (sandiṭṭhiko dukkhakkhandho), this one is called “a mass of suffering in the life to come” (samparāyiko dukkhakkhandho).
3 Vohārasamuccheda. Vohāra can mean business transactions, designation, speech, and intentions. Ps says all four are relevant, since he thinks he has given up the business, designation, speech, and intentions of a householder.
4 Ps explains the “equanimity that is diversified, based on diversity” as that related to the five cords of sensual pleasure; the “equanimity that is unified, based on unity” as that based on the fourth jhāna.
5 Māgandiya was a philosophical hedonist who held that one should allow the five senses to enjoy their respective objects. He criticized the Buddha for advocating restraint and control of the senses. The Buddha is about to demonstrate the defects in sensual enjoyment.
6 Ps glosses nippurisa, “none male,” as meaning that they were all women. Not only the musicians, but all posts in the palace, including the door-keepers, were filled by women. His father had provided him with three palaces and the entourage of women in hopes of keeping him confined to the lay life and distracting him from thoughts of renunciation.
7 Ps: This is said referring to the attainment of the fruit of arahantship (arahattaphala-samāpatti ) based on the fourth jhāna.
8 The “Grove of Delight” in the Tāvatiṃsa heaven.
9 The expression viparītasaññā alludes to the “distorted perception” of perceiving pleasure in what is really painful. AN 4:49 speaks of four distortions of perception (saññāvipallāsa): perceiving the unattractive as attractive, the impermanent as permanent, the painful as pleasurable, and the selfless as a self. Sensual pleasures are painful because they arouse the painful defilements and because they bring painful fruits in the future.
10 What is intended here by wrong view (micchā diṭṭhi) are views that deny the foundations of morality, especially those views that reject a principle of moral causation or the efficacy of volitional effort.
11 Forest-dwelling and the rest are among the ascetic practices permitted by the Buddha. On the ten fetters, see pp. 374–75. Spk says that some among them were stream-enterers, some once-returners, and some nonreturners. None were worldlings, and none were arahants.
12 This means the attainment of arahantship.
CHAPTER VII: THE PATH TO LIBERATION
1 Among these ten views, those that entertain ideas about the world (loka) are also implicitly entertaining similar ideas about the self (attā). Thus the first pair is the antithesis of eternalism and annihilationism. The view that the soul is the same as the body is materialism, a type of annihilationism; the view that the soul and the body are different is eternalism. The view that a Tathāgata—a liberated person—exists after death is eternalism; the view that he does not exist after death is annihilationism. The view that he both exists and does not exist is a syncretic doctrine combining features of eternalism and annihilationism; the view that he neither exists nor does not exist is skepticism or agnosticism, which denies that we can determine his condition after death. All these views, from the Buddhist perspective, presuppose that the Tathāgata presently exists as a self. They thus begin with an erroneous premise and differ only in so far as they posit the fate of the self in different ways.
2 Those who have always wondered about the fate of the monk who almost left the Buddha to satisfy his metaphysical curiosity will be relieved to know that in his old age Māluṅkyāputta received a brief discourse on the six sense bases from the Buddha, went into retreat, and attained arahantship. See SN 35:95.
3 Devadatta was the Buddha’s ambitious cousin, who attempted to kill the Buddha and usurp control of the Saṅgha. When these attempts failed, he broke away and tried to establish his own sect with himself at the head. See Ñāṇamoli, Life of the Buddha,