The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [624]
934 This passage is brought forth to show the Buddha’s reason for permitting his monks to undertake the ascetic practices (dhutanga): the moderate use of austerities is conducive to overcoming the defilements; but they are not undertaken to wear away old kamma and to purify the soul, as the Jains and other ascetic sects believed. MA says that this passage illustrates the practice of one who progresses on a difficult path with sluggish direct knowledge dukkhapaṭipadā (̣̄ dandh̄bhiññā).
SUTTA 102
935 This sutta is a “middle length” counterpart of the longer Brahmajāla Sutta, included in the Dı̄gha Nikāya and published in translation with its commentaries in Bodhi, Discourse on the All-Embracing Net of Views. Detailed explanations for almost all the views mentioned in this sutta will be found in the Introduction and Part Two of that work. There exists a Tibetan translation of the Pan̄catraya Sūtra, the counterpart of this text belonging to the Mūlasarvāstivāda school, whose collections were preserved in Skt. This text is discussed by Peter Skilling at Mahāsūtras II, pp. 469–511. Skilling highlights the interesting contrasts between this version of the text and the Pali version.
936 Skilling points out that in the Tibetan Pan̄catraya, assertions of Nirvā˚a here and now are not comprised under views about the future but constitute a separate category. The Brahmajāla Sutta places assertions of supreme Nibb̄na here and now among views about the future, but the arrangement in the Tibetan counterpart seems to be more logical.
937 In the Brahmajāla Sutta sixteen varieties of this view are mentioned, the eight given here and two other tetrads: the self as finite, infinite, both, and neither; and the self as experiencing exclusively pleasure, exclusively pain, a mixture of both, and neither. In the present sutta these two tetrads are incorporated under speculations about the past in §14 , but at SN 24:37-44/iii.219-20 they describe the self after death.
938 Evidently, in the above list the views of the self as immaterial, percipient of unity, and percipient of the immeasurable are based on attainment of the base of infinite space. MṬ explains the consciousness-kasi˚a as the base of infinite consciousness, stating that these theorists declare that base to be the self.
939 The perception within the third immaterial meditation—the base of nothingness—is the subtlest and most refined of all mundane perceptions. Although there is still a kind of perception in the fourth immaterial attainment, it is so subtle that it is no longer appropriate to designate it perception.
940 MA paraphrases thus: “All those types of perceptions together with the views are conditioned, and because they are conditioned, they are gross. But there is Nibbāna, called the cessation of formations, that is, of the conditioned. Having known ‘There is this,’ that there is Nibbāna, seeing the escape from the conditioned, the Tathāgata has gone beyond the conditioned.”
941 The second tetrad of §3 is dropped here since the self is conceived as non-percipient. In the Brahmajāla Sutta eight varieties of this view are mentioned, these four plus the finite-infinite tetrad.
942 MA points out that this statement is made with reference to those planes of existence where all five aggregates exist.In the immaterial planes consciousness occurs without the aggregate of material form, and in the non-percipient plane there is material form without consciousness. But consciousness never occurs without the three other mental aggregates.
943 The Brahmajāla Sutta mentions eight varieties of this view, these four plus the finite-infinite tetrad.
944 Sammoha, here obviously having a