The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [603]
617 MA points out that by speaking of the neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling of the fourth jhāna as a kind of pleasure, the Buddha is implicitly endorsing the view put forth by Pañcakanga.
618 MA: Both felt pleasure and unfelt pleasure are found (the latter being the pleasure pertaining to the attainment of cessation). The Tathāgata describes both as pleasure in the sense that they are without suffering (niddukkhabhāva).
SUTTA 60
619 MA: The Buddha began by asking this question because the village of Sālā was situated at the entrance to a forest, and many recluses and brahmins of diverse creeds would stay there overnight, expounding their own views and tearing down the views of their opponents. This left the villagers perplexed, unable to commit themselves to a particular teaching.
620 Apaṇṇakadhamma. MA explains this as a teaching that is uncontradictable, free from ambiguity, definitely acceptable (aviraddho advejjhagāmı̄ ekȧsaḡhiko). The term also occurs at AN 3:16/i.113 and AN 4:71/ii.76.
621 The three views discussed in §§5, 13 and 21 are called wrong views with fixed evil result (niyat̄ micchā diṭṭhi). To adhere to them with firm conviction closes off the prospect of a heavenly rebirth and the attainment of liberation. For a fuller discussion see Bodhi, Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship, pp. 79–83.
The examination of these views unfolds according to the following pattern: The Buddha discloses the wrong view A and its antithesis B. Taking up A for examination first, in A.i he shows the pernicious effect of this view on bodily, verbal, and mental conduct. In A.ii he proceeds from the judgement that the view is actually wrong and elicits additional negative consequences of its adoption. Then in A.iii he shows how a wise person comes to the conclusion that whether or not the view is true, it serves his best interest to reject it.
Next, position B is considered. In B.i the Buddha describes the wholesome influence of this view on conduct. In B.ii he elicits additional positive consequences of adopting such a view. And in B.iii he shows how a wise person comes to the conclusion that, irrespective of its actual veracity, it serves his best interest to conduct his affairs as though the view is true.
622 See n.425 for clarification of several expressions used in the formulation of this view.
623 The Pali terms are susı̄lya and dusı̄lya. Since “corrupt virtue” sounds self-contradictory, “conduct” has been used in my rendering of the latter expression. Ñm had used “unvirtuousness.”
624 He has made himself safe (sotthi) in the sense that he will not be subject to suffering in a future existence. However, he is still liable to the types of suffering to be encountered in this existence, which the Buddha is about to mention.
625 Natthikavāda, lit. “the doctrine of non-existence,” is so called because it denies the existence of an afterlife and of kammic retribution.
626 His undertaking of the incontrovertible teaching “extends only to one side” in the sense that he makes himself safe with regard to the next life only on the presupposition that there is no afterlife, while if there is an afterlife he loses on both counts.
627 Atthikavāda: the affirmation of the existence of an afterlife and of kammic retribution.
628 His undertaking “extends to both sides” since he reaps the benefits of his view affirming the afterlife whether or not an afterlife actually exists.
629 This doctrine of non-doing (akiririyavāda), in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta (DN 2.17/i.52–53), is attributed to Pūra˚a Kassapa. Although on first encounter the view seems to rest on materialist premises, as the previous nihilistic view does, there is canonical evidence that Pūra˚a Kassapa subscribed to a fatalistic doctrine. Thus his moral antinomianism probably follows from the view that all action is predestined in ways that