The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [556]
28 Pariññātantaṁ tathāgatassa. So BBS and SBJ and MA, though PTS reads simply pariññātaṁ. MA glosses: “fully understood to the conclusion, fully understood to the limit, fully understood without remainder.” It explains that while Buddhas and disciple-arahants are alike in abandoning all defilements, there is a distinction in their range of full understanding: whereas disciples can attain Nibbāna after comprehending with insight only a limited number of formations, Buddhas fully understand all formations without exception.
29 This sentence gives a highly compressed statement of the formula of dependent origination (paṭicca samuppāda), usually expounded in twelve factors (as in MN 38). As interpreted by MA, “delight” is the craving of the previous life that brought into being the “suffering” of the five aggregates in the present life, “being” the kammically determinative aspect of the present life that causes future birth, followed by future ageing and death. This passage shows the cause for the Buddha’s elimination of conceiving to be his penetration of dependent origination on the night of his enlightenment. The mention of “delight” (nandı̄) as the root of suffering links up with the sutta’s title; moreover, by referring to the earlier statement that the ordinary person delights in earth, etc., it shows suffering to be the ultimate consequence of delight.
30 MA explains the sequence of ideas thus: The Tathāgata does not conceive earth and does not delight in earth because he has understood that delight is the root of suffering. Further, by understanding dependent origination, he has completely abandoned the craving here called “ delight ” and has awakened to supreme full enlightenment. As a result he does not conceive earth or delight in earth.
31 The bhikkhus did not delight in the Buddha’s words, apparently because the discourse probed too deeply into the tender regions of their own conceit, and perhaps their residual brahmanic views. At a later time, MA tells us, when their pride had been humbled, the Buddha expounded to these same bhikkhus the Gotamaka Sutta (AN 3:123/i.276), in the course of which they all attained arahantship.
SUTTA 2
32 The taints (̄sava), a category of defilements existing at the deepest and most fundamental level, are discussed in the Introduction, p. 38. MA explains that restraint (saṁvara ) is fivefold: through virtue, mindfulness, knowledge, energy, and patience. In the present sutta, restraint through virtue is illustrated by avoiding unsuitable seats and resorts (§19); restraint through mindfulness, by restraining the sense faculties (§12); restraint through knowledge, by the repeated phrase “reflecting wisely”; restraint through energy, by the removing of unwholesome thoughts (§20); and restraint through patience, by the passage on enduring (§18).
33 Wise attention (yoniso manasikāra) is glossed as attention that is the right means (upāya), on the right track (patha). It is explained as mental advertence, consideration, or preoccupation that accords with the truth, namely, attention to the impermanent as impermanent, etc. Unwise attention (ayoniso manasikāra) is attention that is the wrong means, on the wrong track (uppatha), contrary to the truth, namely, attention to the impermanent as permanent, the painful as pleasurable, what is not self as self, and what is foul as beautiful. Unwise attention, MA informs us, is at the root of the round of existence, for it causes ignorance and craving to increase; wise attention is at the root of liberation from the round, since it leads to the development of the Noble Eightfold Path. MA sums up the point of this passage thus: the destruction of the taints is for one who knows how to arouse wise attention and who sees to it that unwise attention does not arise.
34 Six of these—omitting the taints to be abandoned by seeing—are mentioned in the catechism on the taints in AN 6:58/iii.387–90.
35 The word “seeing” (dassana) here refers