The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [561]
77 MA: The passage beginning with “let him fulfil the precepts,” repeated for each of the following sections until the end of the sutta, comprises the entire threefold training. The phrase about fulfilling the precepts signifies the training in higher virtue (adhisı̄lasikkhā); the phrase “be devoted to internal serenity of mind, not neglect meditation” indicates the training in concentration or the higher mind (adhicittasikkhā); and the phrase “be possessed of insight” points to the training in the higher wisdom (adhipaññāsikkhā). The phrase “dwell in empty huts” combines the latter two trainings, since one resorts to an empty hut to develop serenity and insight.
78 That is, if the relatives who have been reborn in the realm of ghosts or in some lower deva realm recollect virtuous bhikkhus with confidence, that confidence will become a source of merit for them, protecting them from bad rebirths and becoming a positive condition for the attainment of Nibbāna.
79 These are the four immaterial attainments for which the full formulas are to be found below at MN 8.8–11, MN 25.16–19, etc. MA glosses “body” as “mental body” (nāmakāya).
80 The three fetters destroyed by the stream-enterer are identity view, doubt, and adherence to rules and observances, as mentioned at MN 2.11.
81 In addition to the first three fetters, the non-returner destroys the other two “lower fetters” of sensual desire and ill will. The non-returner is reborn in a special region of the Brahma-world called the Pure Abodes, and there makes an end of suffering.
82 §§14–19 present the six kinds of direct knowledge (abhiññā). See Introduction, p. 37; for details, see Vsm XII and XIII.
83 MA: In this passage “mind” and “wisdom” signify, respectively, the concentration and wisdom associated with the fruit of arahantship. Concentration is called “deliverance of mind” (cetovimutti) because it is liberated from lust; wisdom is called “deliverance by wisdom” (paññāvimutti) because it is liberated from ignorance. The former is normally the result of serenity, the latter the result of insight. But when they are coupled and described as taintless (anāsava), they jointly result from the destruction of the taints by the supramundane path of arahantship.
SUTTA 7
84 For a more thorough treatment of this sutta and the following one, with helpful introductions and lengthy explanatory notes, see Nyanaponika Thera, The Simile of the Cloth and The Discourse on Effacement.
85 An unhappy destination (duggati) is rebirth in the three states of deprivation—hell, the animal kingdom, and the realm of ghosts. A happy destination (sugati), mentioned just below, is rebirth in a superior state among humans and in the heavenly worlds.
86 Cittassa upakkilesā. The word upakkilesā is sometimes used in the sense of blemishes or imperfections of meditative concentration, as at MN 128.27, 30; sometimes in the sense of blemishes or imperfections of insight, as at Vsm XX, 105; and sometimes to signify the minor defilements that arise from the three unwholesome roots—greed, hate, and delusion—either as their modes or their offshoots. Here it is used in this third sense, but to maintain the connection with its first two usages, it has been translated by the phrase “imperfections that defile the mind.”
87 MA offers several tentative distinctions between covetousness (abhijjhā) and unrighteous greed (visamalobha), but then it points out that since, from the standpoint of the higher training, all greed is unrighteous, the two terms can be understood as merely different names for the same mental factor,