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application of the simile and has thus “corrected” the text to read sa-upādiseso ti jānamāno. I followed this reading in the first edition, but now believe it was a mistake on the part of BBS to alter the received text; strict parallelism in the application of the simile need not be expected. SBJ follows BBS in reading sa-upādiseso, but retains maññamāno, which verges on incoherence. All eds. have janamāno as the participle in the contrasting version of the simile found below. Where PTS has alañ just below, we should read analañ with BBS and SBJ, also supported by the gloss in MA.

1004 Any offence of the two classes, pārājika and sanghādisesa; see n.987. The analogy is difficult to apply with complete precision, since if craving and ignorance had truly been removed from him with only a trace left behind, the bhikkhu would be a sekha; yet it is inconceivable that a sekha would abandon the training or commit a defiled offence. It seems that in this case the analogy must be applied loosely, and the bhikkhu should be understood as one who falsely imagines that craving and ignorance have been removed from him.

1005 See MN 66.17. MA: The arahant, liberated in Nibbāna, the destruction of craving [by taking it] as object, would never divert his body or arouse his mind to indulge in the five cords of sensual pleasure.

1006 As at MN 46.19. I follow BBS and SBJ, which include rasasampanno, missing in PTS.

SUTTA 106

1007 See n.1000. Here, too, the term “imperturbable” seems to comprise only the fourth jhāna and the two lower immaterial attainments.

1008 MA says both objective sensual pleasures and sensual defilements are intended.

1009 MA glosses: “having transcended the sense-sphere world and having determined with a mind that has jhāna as its objective.”

1010 MA explains the phrase “his mind acquires confidence in this base” to mean that he attains either insight aimed at reaching arahantship or the access to the fourth jhāna. If he gains access to the fourth jhāna, this becomes his basis for attaining “the imperturbable,” i.e., the fourth jhāna itself. But if he gains insight, then “he resolves [upon it] with wisdom” by deepening his insight in order to reach arahantship. The expression “resolution with wisdom” may explain why so many of the following sections of this sutta, though culminating in attainments along the scale of concentration, are expressed in phrasing appropriate to the development of insight.

1011 MA explains that this passage describes the rebirth process of one who could not realise arahantship after reaching the fourth jhāna. The “evolving consciousness” (saṁvattanikaṁ viññāṇaṁ) is the resultant consciousness by which this person is reborn, and this has the same imperturbable nature as the kammically formative consciousness that attained to the fourth jhāna. Since it is the fourth-jhāna consciousness that determines rebirth, this person will be reborn in one of the exalted realms corresponding to the fourth jhāna.

1012 MA says that this is the reflection of one who has attained the fourth jhāna. Since he includes material form among the things to be transcended, if he attains to the imperturbable he reaches the base of infinite space, and if he does not attain arahantship he is reborn in the plane of infinite space.

1013 MA says that this is the reflection of one who has attained the base of infinite space. If he attains to the imperturbable, he reaches the base of infinite consciousness and is reborn in that plane if he does not reach arahantship.

1014 This is the reflection of one who has attained the base of infinite consciousness and aims at attaining the base of nothingness.

1015 MA calls this two-pointed voidness—the absence of “I” and “mine”—and says that this teaching of the base of nothingness is expounded by way of insight rather than concentration, the approach taken in the previous section. At MN 43.33, this contemplation is said to lead to the deliverance of mind through voidness.

1016 MA calls this four-pointed voidness and explains