The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [602]
601 It should be noted that a wrong ascetic practice has less severe consequences when it is undertaken without wrong view than when it is accompanied by wrong view. Although few nowadays will take up the dog-duty practice, many other deviant lifestyles have become widespread, and to the extent that these are justified by a wrong view, their consequences become that much more harmful.
602 Sabyābajjhaṁ kāyasankhāraṁ (vacı̄sankh̄rȧ, manosankhāraṁ ) abhisankharoti. Here an “afflictive bodily formation” may be understood as the volition responsible for the three courses of unwholesome bodily action; an “afflictive verbal formation” as the volition responsible for the four courses of unwholesome verbal action; and an “afflictive mental formation” as the volition responsible for the three courses of unwholesome mental action. See MN 9.4.
603 He is reborn in one of the states of deprivation—hell, the animal kingdom, or the realm of ghosts.
604 Bhūtā bhūtassa upapatti hoti. MA: Beings are reborn through the actions they perform and in ways conforming to those actions. The implications of this thesis are explored more fully in MN 135 and MN 136.
605 Here the volitions responsible for the ten courses of wholesome action, together with the volitions of the jhānas, are intended.
606 He is reborn in a heavenly world.
607 Strictly speaking, no volitional action can be simultaneously both wholesome and unwholesome, for the volition responsible for the action must be either one or the other. Thus here we should understand that the being engages in a medley of wholesome and unwholesome actions, none of which is particularly dominant.
608 MA: This is the volition of the four supramundane paths culminating in arahantship. Although the arahant performs deeds, his deeds no longer have any kammic potency to generate new existence or to bring forth results even in the present existence.
609 MA explains that pabbajjā, the going forth, is mentioned here only in a loose figure of speech. In actual fact, he receives the going forth before the probationary period and then lives on probation for four months before being entitled to receive upasampadā, full admission to the Sangha.
610 MA: The Buddha can decide: “This person must live on probation, this one need not live on probation.”
SUTTA 58
611 Prince Abhaya was a son of King Bimbisāra of Magadha, though not the heir to the throne.
612 Both horns of the dilemma devised by the Niga˚ṭha Nātaputta presupposed that the Buddha would give a one-sided answer. Now that a one-sided answer has been rejected, the dilemma becomes inapplicable.
613 The Buddha does not hesitate to rebuke and admonish his disciples when he sees that such speech will promote their welfare.
614 MA says that dhammadhātu (“element of things”) refers to the Buddha’s knowledge of omniscience. Dhammadhātu here should not be confused with the same term used to signify the element of mind-objects among the eighteen elements, nor does it bear the meaning of an all-embracing cosmic principle that the term acquires in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
SUTTA 59
615 Pañcakanga, the carpenter for King Pasenadi of Kosala, was a devoted follower of the Buddha. He reappears in MN 78 and MN 127.
616 The two kinds of feeling are bodily and mental feeling, or (less commonly) the two mentioned by Pañcakanga in §3. The three kinds are the three mentioned by Udāyin in §3. The five kinds are the faculties of (bodily) pleasure, (mental) joy, (bodily) pain, (mental) grief, and equanimity. The six kinds are the feelings born of contact through the six sense faculties. The eighteen kinds are the eighteen kinds of mental exploration—exploring the six sense objects that are productive of joy, productive of grief, and productive of equanimity (see MN 137.8). The thirty-six kinds are the thirty-six positions of beings—the six kinds of joy, grief, and equanimity each