In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [244]
32. The sutta offers two “arguments” for the thesis of nonself. The first contends that the aggregates are nonself on the ground that we cannot exercise mastery over them. Since we cannot bend the aggregates to our will, they are all “subject to affliction” and therefore cannot be considered our self. The second argument, introduced just below, posits the characteristic of nonself on the basis of the other two characteristics. Whatever is impermanent is in some way bound up with suffering; whatever is impermanent and bound up with suffering cannot be identified as our self.
33. Spk explains at length how form (i.e., the body) is like a lump of foam (pheṇapiṇḍa). I give merely the highlights: As a lump of foam lacks any substance (sāra), so form lacks any substance that is permanent, stable, a self; as the lump of foam is full of holes and fissures and the abode of many creatures, so too form; as the lump of foam, after expanding, breaks up, so does form, which is pulverized in the mouth of death.
34. Spk: A bubble (bubbuḷa) is feeble and cannot be grasped, for it breaks up as soon as it is seized; so too feeling is feeble and cannot be grasped as permanent and stable. As a bubble arises and ceases in a drop of water and does not last long, so too with feeling: billions of feelings arise and cease in the time of a fingersnap. As a bubble arises in dependence on conditions, so feeling arises in dependence on a sense base, an object, the defilements, and contact.
35. Spk: Perception is like a mirage (marīcikā) in the sense that it is insubstantial, for one cannot grasp a mirage to drink or bathe or fill a pitcher. As a mirage deceives the multitude, so does perception, which entices people with the idea that the colorful object is beautiful, pleasurable, and permanent.
36. Spk: As a banana trunk (kadalikkhandha) is an assemblage of many sheaths, each with its own characteristic, so the aggregate of volitional formations is an assemblage of many phenomena, each with its own characteristic.
37. Spk: Consciousness is like a magical illusion (māyā) in the sense that it is insubstantial and cannot be grasped. Consciousness is even more transient and fleeting than a magical illusion. For it gives the impression that a person comes and goes, stands and sits, with the same mind, but the mind is different in each of these activities. Consciousness deceives the multitude like a magical illusion.
38. This sutta, sometimes called “The Fire Sermon,” is the third discourse recorded in the narrative of the Buddha’s ministry, at Vin I 34–35. According to this source, the thousand monks to whom the sutta was addressed had formerly been fire-worshipping ascetics, and thus the Buddha used this theme because it corresponded with their background. For an account of how the Buddha converted them, see Ñāṇamoli, The Life of the Buddha, pp. 54–60, 64–69.
39. The Buddha is speaking to Pukkusāti, a monk who had gone forth out of faith in the Buddha without ever having seen him before. When the sutta opens, the Buddha arrives at a potter’s shed, intending to spend the night there. Pukkusāti has already been lodging in the shed and greets the Buddha in a friendly way, unaware that this is his master. Without revealing his identity to Pukkusāti, the Buddha initiates a conversation, which turns into a discourse on the development of wisdom.
40. Ps: This is the sixth element, which “remains” in that it has yet to be expounded by the Buddha and penetrated by Pukkusāti. Here it is explained as the consciousness that accomplishes the work of insight contemplation on the elements. Under the heading of consciousness, the contemplation of feeling is also introduced.
41. This passage shows the conditionality of feeling and its impermanence through the cessation of its condition.
42. Idappaccayatā. The word is a compound of idaṃ, this, with paccaya, condition, augmented by the abstract noun termination