The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [566]
130 Mind-consciousness (manoviññāṇa) comprises all consciousness except the five types of sense consciousness just mentioned. It includes consciousness of mental images, abstract ideas, and internal states of mind, as well as the consciousness in reflection upon sense objects.
131 In the context of the doctrine of dependent origination, formations (sankhārā) are wholesome and unwholesome volitions, or, in short, kamma. The bodily formation is volition that is expressed through the body, the verbal formation volition that is expressed by speech, and the mental formation volition that remains internal without coming to bodily or verbal expression.
132 It should be noted that while ignorance is a condition for the taints, the taints—which include the taint of ignorance—are in turn a condition for ignorance. MA says that this conditioning of ignorance by ignorance should be understood to mean that the ignorance in any one existence is conditioned by the ignorance in the preceding existence. Since this is so, the conclusion follows that no first point can be discovered for ignorance, and thus that saṁsāra is without discernible beginning.
SUTTA 10
133 This is one of the most important suttas in the Pali Canon, containing the most comprehensive statement of the most direct way to the attainment of the Buddhist goal. Virtually the identical sutta is found as well at DN 22, though with an expanded analysis of the Four Noble Truths attached, which accounts for its greater length. The sutta, its commentary, and copious extracts from its difficult but illuminating subcommentary have been presented together in translation by Soma Thera in The Way of Mindfulness. A very readable translation of the sutta, with a modern commentary excelling in clarity and depth, will be found in Nyanaponika Thera, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation.
134 This town is said by some scholars to have been in the vicinity of modern Delhi.
135 The Pali reads ekāyano ayaṁ bhikkhave maggo, and virtually all translators understand this as a statement upholding satipatṭ̣hāna as an exclusive path. Thus Ven. Soma renders it: “This is the only way, O bhikkhus,” and Ven. Nyanaponika: “This is the sole way, monks.” Ñm, however, points out that ekāyana magga at MN 12.37–42 has the unambiguous contextual meaning of “a path that goes in one way only,” and so he rendered the phrase in this passage, too. The expression used here, “the direct path,” is an attempt to preserve this meaning in a more streamlined phrasing. MA explains ekāyana magga as a single path, not a divided path; as a way that has to be walked by oneself alone, without a companion; and as a way that goes to one goal, Nibbāna. Though there is neither canonical nor commentarial basis for this view, it might be maintained that satipaṭṭhāna is called ekāyana magga, the direct path, to distinguish it from the approach to meditative attainment that proceeds through the jhānas or brahmavihāras. While the latter can lead to Nibbāna, they do not do so necessarily but can lead to sidetracks, whereas satipaṭṭhāna leads invariably to the final goal.
136 The word satipaṭṭhāna is a compound term. The first part, sati, originally meant “memory,” but in Pali Buddhist usage it far more frequently bears the meaning of attentiveness directed to the present—hence the makeshift rendering “mindfulness.” The second part is explained in two ways: either as a shortened form of upaṭṭhāna, meaning “setting up” or “establishing”—here,