• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 6406 0

thus: (i) he does not see his self anywhere; (ii) he does not see a self of his own that can be treated as something belonging to another, e.g., as a brother, friend, assistant, etc.; (iii) he does not see the self of another; (iv) he does not see the self of another that can be treated as something belonging to him. Ms has a note by Ñm: “These expressions [in this paragraph and the next] seem to have been stereotyped slogans or descriptions of the attainments of nothingness and neither-perception-nor-non-perception, primarily non-Buddhist, and sometimes used as a basis for the existing-body [=identity] view.” See Ñm’s note 19 to Vsm XXI, 53 for further discussion and other references.

1017 MA glosses: “If the round of kamma had not been accumulated by me, now there would not be for me the round of results; if the round of kamma is not accumulated by me now, in the future there will not be the round of results.” “What exists, what has come to be” are the five aggregates. The first part of the formula again seems to be a condensed formulation of a view held by non-Buddhists. Several suttas identify it as an expression for the annihilationist view, adapted by the Buddha with new meanings assigned to it. For other occurrences of this formula, see SN iii.55–56, 99, 183, 206; AN iv.69–72, v.63.

MA says that he obtains the equanimity of insight, but from §11 it seems that the equanimity of the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception is also intended.

1018 There is word play here that cannot be successfully reproduced in translation. The verb parinibbāyati, rendered “to attain Nibbāna,” is also applied to the going out of a fire. The attainment of Nibbāna is thus the “going out” of the fires of lust, hatred, and delusion. Upādāna, “clinging,” also designates the fuel which a fire consumes. Thus consciousness continues on in the round of rebirths so long as it is sustained by the fuel of clinging. When the defilements are extinguished, there is no more fuel for consciousness to burn, and thus the bhikkhu without clinging “goes out” by the attainment of Nibbāna. The subtlest object of clinging, thus the subtlest fuel (as the following exchange will show), is the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception.

1019 MA: This is said with reference to the rebirth of one who attains the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. The meaning is that he takes rebirth in the best, the highest, plane of existence.

1020 Nissāya nissāya oghassa nittharaṇā. MA: The Buddha has explained the crossing of the flood for a bhikkhu who uses as the basis (for reaching arahantship) any of the attainments from the third jhāna up to the fourth immaterial attainment.

1021 MA: Ānanda’s question is intended to elicit from the Buddha an account of the practice of the dry-insight meditator (sukkhavipassaka), who attains arahantship without depending on a jhānic attainment.

1022 Esa sakkāyo yāvatā sakkāyo. MA: This is the personal identity in its entirety—the round of the three realms of existence; there is no personal identity outside of this.

1023 MA says that the arahantship of the dry-insight meditator is intended. MṬ adds that arahantship is called “the Deathless” because it has the flavour of the Deathless, being attained on the basis of Nibbāna the Deathless.

SUTTA 107

1024 MA: It is not possible to construct a seven-storied mansion in a single day. Once the site is cleared, from the time the foundation is laid until the paint job is finished there is gradual progress.

1025 Gaṇaka. His name means “Moggallāna the Accountant.”

1026 See MN 65.33.

1027 While the preceding steps of practice are necessary measures for bhikkhus in training to attain arahantship, they are also beneficial to arahants in that they conduce to “a pleasant abiding here and now.” MA identifies this “abiding” with the attainment of the fruit of arahantship, and explains that some arahants can enter fruition easily at any time while others must apply themselves diligently to the steps of practice to enter fruition.