The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [558]
43 If abandonment of the taints is understood in the strict sense as their ultimate destruction, then only two of the seven methods mentioned in the sutta effect their abandonment—seeing and development—which between them comprise the four supramundane paths. The other five methods cannot directly accomplish the destruction of the taints, but they can keep them under control during the preparatory stages of practice and thereby facilitate their eventual eradication by the supramundane paths.
44 The primary factor responsible for exercising this restraint over the sense faculties is mindfulness. A fuller formula for sense restraint is given in many other suttas—e.g., MN 27.15—and analysed in detail at Vsm I, 53–59. MA explains “fever” (pariḷaha) in the above passage as the fever of defilements and of their (kammic) results.
45 The passages that follow here have become the standard formulas that bhikkhus use in their daily reflections upon the four requisites of the holy life. They are explained in detail at Vsm I, 85–97.
46 Unsuitable seats are the two kinds mentioned in the Pātimokkha—sitting with a woman on a screened seat convenient for sexual intercourse, and sitting alone with a woman in a private place. Various kinds of unsuitable resort are mentioned at Vsm I, 45.
47 The first three types of unwholesome thought—of sensual desire, ill will, and cruelty—constitute wrong thought or wrong intention, the opposite of the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. The three types of wrong thought and their opposites are dealt with more fully in MN 19.
48 These are the seven enlightenment factors (satta bojjhangā) included among the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment, and treated more extensively below at MN 1 0 . 4 2 and MN 118.29–40.The present section explains the seven enlightenment factors specifically as aids for developing the three higher supramundane paths, by which the taints that escaped eradication by the first path will be eradicated. The terms “seclusion” (viveka ), “dispassion” (virāga), and “cessation” (nirodha) may all be understood as referring to Nibbāna. Their use in this context signifies that the development of the enlightenment factors is directed to Nibbāna as its goal during the preparatory stages of the path, and as its object with the attainment of the supramundane paths. MA explains that the word vossagga, rendered as “relinquishment,” has the two meanings of “giving up” (pariccāga), i.e., the abandonment of defilements, and “entering into” (pakkhandana), i.e., culminating in Nibbāna.
49 The taint of sensual desire is eradicated by the path of non-returning, the taints of being and of ignorance only by the final path, that of arahantship.
50 The ten fetters that must be destroyed to gain full deliverance have been enumerated in the Introduction, pp. 42–43. Conceit, at the most subtle level, is the conceit “I am,” which lingers in the mental continuum until the attainment of arahantship. The “penetration of conceit” (mānābhisamaya) means seeing through conceit and abandoning it, which are both accomplished simultaneously by the path of arahantship. The bhikkhu has “made an end of suffering” in the sense that he has put an end to the suffering of the round of saṁsāra (vaṭṭadukkha).
SUTTA 3
51 MA: The Buddha delivered this sutta because many bhikkhus were becoming elated over the gains and honour accruing to the Sangha, to the neglect of their spiritual training. The Buddha obviously could not lay down a training rule prohibiting the use of the requisites, but he wanted to show the practice of the heirs in Dhamma to those bhikkhus who were earnestly desirous of training.
52 MA explains that these five qualities gradually fulfil all the stages of the practice culminating in arahantship.
53 Elder bhikkhus (thera) are those with more than ten rainy seasons since ordination (usampadā); middle bhikkhus have between five and nine rains; new bhikkhus less