The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [563]
96 MA: The present section shows the non-returner’s practice of insight meditation aimed at arahantship and the following section his attainment of arahantship. The phrase “there is this” signifies the truth of suffering; “there is the inferior,” the origin of suffering; “the superior,” the truth of the path; and “the escape from this whole field of perception” is Nibbāna, the cessation of suffering.
97 MA: The Buddha used this phrase to arouse the attention of the brahmin Sundarika Bhāradvāja, who was in the assembly and believed in purification by ritual bathing. The Buddha foresaw that the brahmin would be inspired to take ordination under him and would attain arahantship.
98 These are rivers and fords that were popularly believed to give purification.
99 The Pali has phaggu, a day of brahmanical purification in the month of Phagguna (February–March), and uposatha, the religious observance days regulated by the lunar calendar. See n.59.
100 The going forth (pabbajjā) is the formal ordination of entering the homeless life as a novice (s̄maṇera); the full admission (upasampadā) confers the status of a bhikkhu, a full member of the Sangha.
SUTTA 8
101 See n.84.
102 Views associated with doctrines of a self (attavāfapaṭsaṁyuttā ), according to MA, are the twenty types of identity view enumerated at MN 44.7, though they may also be understood to include the more elaborate doctrines about a self discussed in MN 102. Views associated with doctrines about the world (lokavādapaṭisaṁyuttā) are the eight views: the world is eternal, non-eternal, both, or neither; the world is infinite, finite, both, or neither. See MN 63 and MN 72 for the Buddha’s rejection of these views.
103 MA: This question refers to one who has only reached the initial stages of insight meditation without attaining stream-entry. The type of abandonment under discussion is abandoning by eradication, which is effected only by the path of stream-entry. Ven. Mahā Cunda posed this question because some meditators were overestimating their achievement, thinking they had abandoned such views while they had not really eradicated them.
104 MA explains that the word “arise” (uppajjanti) refers here to the arising of views that have not arisen before; “underlie” (anusenti) to their gathering strength through continued adherence to them; and being “exercised” (samudācaanti) to their gaining bodily or verbal expression. The “object” upon which they are based is the five aggregates (khandha) that constitute a person or living being—material form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.
105 By this statement the Buddha shows the means by which these views are eradicated: contemplation of the five aggregates as “not mine,” etc., with the wisdom of insight culminating in the path of stream-entry.
106 MA explains that the Buddha, having answered the Elder’s question, now speaks of another type of overestimator—those who attain the eight meditative attainments and believe that they are practising true effacement (sallekha). The word sallekha, originally meaning austerity or ascetic practice, is used by the Buddha to signify the radical effacing or removal of defilements. Though the eight attainments are elsewhere placed securely within the Buddhist training (see MN 25.12–19, MN 26.34–41), it is here said that they should not be called effacement because the bhikkhu who attains them does not use them as a basis for insight—as described for example in MN 52 and MN 64—but only as a means of enjoying bliss and peace.
107 The forty-four “modes of effacement” to be expounded fall, by and large, into several fixed sets of doctrinal categories