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387 It is puzzling that in the following paragraphs the Bodhisatta is shown engaging in self-mortification after he had here come to the conclusion that such practices are useless for the attainment of enlightenment. This dissonant juxtaposition of ideas raises a suspicion that the narrative sequence of the sutta has become jumbled. The appropriate place for the simile of the fire-sticks, it seems, would be at the end of the Bodhisatta’s period of ascetic experimentation, when he has acquired a sound basis for rejecting self-mortification. Nevertheless, MA accepts the sequence as given and raises the question why the Bodhisatta undertook the practice of austerities if he could have attained Buddhahood without doing so. It answers: He did so, first, in order to show his own exertion to the world, because the quality of invincible energy gave him joy; and second, out of compassion for later generations, by inspiring them to strive with the same determination that he applied to the attainment of enlightenment.

388 This sentence, repeated at the end of each of the following sections as well, answers the second of the two questions posed by Saccaka in §11.

389 MA: During the Bodhisatta’s boyhood as a prince, on one occasion his father led a ceremonial ploughing at a traditional festival of the Sakyans. The prince was brought to the festival and a place was prepared for him under a rose-apple tree. When his attendants left him to watch the ploughing ceremony, the prince, finding himself all alone, spontaneously sat up in the meditation posture and attained the first jhāna through mindfulness of breathing. When the attendants returned and found the boy seated in meditation, they reported this to the king, who came and bowed down in veneration to his son.

390 This passage marks a change in the Bodhisatta’s evaluation of pleasure; now it is no longer regarded as something to be feared and banished by the practice of austerities, but, when born of seclusion and detachment, is seen as a valuable accompaniment of the higher stages along the path to enlightenment. See MN 139.9 on the twofold division of pleasure.

391 This sentence answers the first of the two questions posed by Saccaka in §11.

392 MA explains the “sign of concentration” (sam̄dhinimitta) here as the fruition attainment of emptiness (suññataphalasamāpatti ). See also MN 122.6.

393 This was the question that Saccaka originally intended to ask the Buddha. MA explains that though arahants have eliminated all sloth and torpor, they still need to sleep in order to dispel the physical tiredness intrinsic to the body.

394 MA explains that even though Saccaka did not reach any attainment or even become established in the Three Refuges, the Buddha taught him two long suttas in order to deposit in him a mental impression (vāsānā) that would come to maturity in the future. For he foresaw that at a later time, after the Dispensation became established in Sri Lanka, Saccaka would be reborn there and would attain arahantship as the great arahant, Kā˘a Buddharakkhita Thera.

SUTTA 37

395 MA expands: “Briefly, to what extent is he said to be liberated in the destruction of craving, that is, in Nibbāna, the destruction of craving through the liberatedness of his mind [which occurs] by taking it [Nibbāna] as object. Teach me briefly the preliminary practice of the arahant bhikkhu by means of which he is liberated in the destruction of craving.”

396 MA explains this passage as follows: “Everything” (sabbe dhammā) is the five aggregates, the twelve bases, the eighteen elements. These are “not worth adhering to” by way of craving and views because they turn out in actuality to be different from the way they are grasped: grasped as permanent, pleasurable, and self, they turn out to be impermanent, suffering, and not self. He “directly knows” them as impermanent, suffering, and not self, and “fully understands” them by scrutinising them in the same way. “Contemplating impermanence,” etc., is accomplished by the insight knowledges