The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [555]
18 In this section and the next, the phenomena comprising personal identity are treated as twofold—by way of unity and diversity. The emphasis on unity (ekatta),MA informs us, is characteristic of one who attains the jhānas, in which the mind occurs in a single mode on a single object. The emphasis on diversity (nānatta) prevails in the case of the non-attainer who lacks the overwhelming unitive experience of jhānas. Conceivings stressing diversity come to expression in philosophies of pluralism, those stressing unity in philosophies of the monistic type.
19 In this section, all phenomena of personal identity are collected together and shown as singlefold. This idea of totality can form the basis for philosophies of the pantheistic or monistic type, depending on the relation posited between the self and the all.
20 MA understands “Nibbāna” here to refer to the five kinds of “supreme Nibbāna here and now” included among the sixty-two wrong views of the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1.3.19–25/i.36–38), that is, Nibbāna identified with the full enjoyment of sense pleasures or with the four jhānas. Enjoying this state, or yearning for it, he conceives it with craving. Priding himself on attaining it, he conceives it with conceit. Holding this imaginary Nibbāna to be permanent, etc., he conceives it with views.
21 The sekha, the disciple in higher training, is one who has reached any of the three lower planes of sanctity—stream-entry, once-returning, or non-returning—but must still train further in order to reach the goal, arahantship, the supreme security from bondage. MN 53 is devoted to expounding the training he must undertake. The arahant is sometimes described as asekha,one beyond training, in the sense that he has completed the training in the Noble Eightfold Path. Ñm rendered sekha as “initiate” and asekha as “adept,” which have been changed here to avoid their “esoteric” connotations.
22 It should be noted that, whereas the ordinary man is said to perceive each of the bases, the one in higher training is said to directly know them (abhijānāti). MA explains that he knows them with distinguished knowledge, knows them in accordance with their real nature as impermanent, suffering, and non-self. Ñm rendered: “From earth he has direct knowledge of earth.”
23 The disciple in higher training is urged by the Buddha to refrain from conceiving and delight because the dispositions to these mental processes still remain within him. With his attainment of stream-entry he eradicated the fetter of identity view and thus can no longer conceive in terms of wrong views. But the defilements of craving and conceit are only uprooted by the path of arahantship, and thus the sekha remains vulnerable to the conceivings to which they are capable of giving rise. Whereas direct knowledge (abhiñña) is the province of both the sekha and the arahant, full understanding (pariññā) is the province exclusively of the arahant, as it involves the full abandoning of all defilements.
24 This is the stock description of the arahant, repeated in many suttas.
25 When ignorance has been abolished by the attainment of full understanding, the subtlest dispositions to craving and conceit are also eradicated. Thus the arahant can no longer engage in conceiving and delight.
26 This section and the following two are stated to show that the arahant does not conceive, not only because he has fully understood the object, but because he has eradicated the three unwholesome roots—lust (or greed), hate, and delusion. The phrase “free from lust through the destruction of lust” is used to stress that the arahant is not merely temporarily without lust, but has destroyed it at the most fundamental level. Similarly with hate and delusion.
27 On this word, the epithet the Buddha uses most often when referring to himself, see the Introduction, p. 24. The commentaries give a long detailed etymology, into which they try to compress virtually the entire Dhamma. The passage has been