The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [633]
1078 These are defined at Vbh §180/85–86. The pleasure and pain elements are bodily pleasant and painful feeling; the joy and grief elements are mental pleasant and painful feeling; the equanimity element is neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. MA says that ignorance is brought in because of its apparent similarity to the equanimity element.
1079 Vbh §183/86–87 defines these as the six corresponding types of applied thought (vitakka); see MN 19.2.
1080 MA explains the sense-sphere element as the five aggregates pertaining to the sense-sphere (kāmāvacara), the fine-material element as the five aggregates pertaining to the fine-material sphere (rūpāvacara), and the immaterial element as the four aggregates pertaining to the immaterial sphere (arūpāvacara).
1081 MA: the conditioned element includes everything produced by conditions and is a designation for the five aggregates. The unconditioned element is Nibbāna.
1082 The twelve bases are defined at Vbh §§155–167/70–73 and explained at Vsm XV, 1–16. The mind base includes all types of consciousness, and thus comprises all seven elements that exercise the function of consciousness. The mind-object base is identical with the mind-object element.
1083 On the terms in the formula of dependent origination, see Introduction, pp. 30–31.
1084 MA: A person possessing right view (diṭṭsampanno) is one possessing the view of the path, a noble disciple at the minimal level of a stream-enterer. “Formation” here is to be understood as a conditioned formation (sankhatasankhāra ), i.e., anything conditioned.
1085 MA points out that a noble disciple below the level of arahantship can still apprehend formations as pleasurable with a mind dissociated from wrong view, but he cannot adopt the view that any formation is pleasurable. Although perceptions and thoughts of formations as pleasurable arise in him, he knows reflectively that such notions are mistaken.
1086 In the passage on self, sankhāra, “formation,” is replaced by dhamma, “thing.” MA explains that this substitution is made to include concepts, such as a kasi˚a sign, etc., which the ordinary person is also prone to identify as self. However, in view of the fact that Nibb̄na is described as imperishable (accuta) and as bliss (sukha), and is also liable to be misconceived as self (see MN 1.26), the word sankhāra may be taken to include only the conditioned, while dhamma includes both the conditioned and the unconditioned. This interpretation, however, is not endorsed by the commentaries of Ācariya Buddhaghosa.
1087 This section distinguishes the ordinary person and noble disciple in terms of the five heinous crimes. MA points out that a noble disciple is in fact incapable of intentionally depriving any living being of life, but the contrast is made here by way of matricide and patricide to stress the dangerous side of the ordinary person’s condition and the strength of the noble disciple.
1088 That is, could acknowledge anyone other than the Buddha as the supreme spiritual teacher.
1089 MA: The arising of another Buddha is impossible from the time a bodhisatta takes his final conception in his mother’s womb until his Dispensation has completely disappeared. The problem is discussed at Miln 236–39.
1090 This statement asserts only that a Fully Enlightened Buddha always has the male sex, but does not deny that