The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [635]
1105 MA explains this as the right view of insight which understands right intention by way of its function and by clearing away confusion. It seems, though, that a more elementary discrimination of the two kinds of intention is the issue.
1106 This is the standard definition of right intention as a factor of the Noble Eightfold Path; see MN 141.25.
1107 In this definition, the factor of intention (sankappa) is identified with applied thought (vitakka), which is further specified as the factor responsible for absorption by fixing and directing the mind upon its object. For applied thought as “verbal formation,” see MN 44.15.
1108 MA: This statement refers exclusively to the co-existent factors accompanying supramundane right intention. In the preliminary phase of the practice, the three mundane right intentions arise separately, but at the moment of the supramundane path, a single right intention arises cutting off the threefold wrong intention. Thus the supramundane right intention may also be described as the intention of renunciation, non-ill will, and non-cruelty. The same method applies to right speech, etc.
1109 Whereas mundane right speech is exercised in four different modes according to the type of wrong speech from which there is abstinence, on the occasion of the supramundane path, the single factor of right speech exercises the fourfold function of cutting off the tendencies towards the four kinds of wrong speech. The same principle applies to right action.
1110 These are wrong means for bhikkhus to acquire their requisites; they are explained at Vsm I, 61–65. MA says that those mentioned in the sutta are not the only kinds of wrong livelihood, which include any mode of earning one’s living that involves transgression of the precepts. At AN 5:177/iii.208, the Buddha mentions five kinds of wrong livelihood for lay people: dealing in arms, beings, meat, intoxicants, and poisons.
1111 MA explains that for one having the right view of the path, the right intention of the path comes into being; similarly, for one having the right view of the fruit, the right intention of the fruit comes into being. Similarly, the following factors except the last two also refer to the supramundane path.
1112 The additional two factors possessed by the arahant are right knowledge, which can be identified with his reviewing knowledge that he has destroyed all the defilements, and right deliverance, which can be identified with his experience of liberation from all defilements.
1113 The twenty factors on the wholesome side are the ten right factors and the wholesome states that originate from each; the twenty factors on the unwholesome side are the ten wrong factors and the unwholesome states that originate from each. Hence the name “The Great Forty.”
1114 MA says only that these two were individuals who lived in the country of Okkala. Otherwise their identity is unknown.
SUTTA 118
1115 The Pavāra˚ā is the ceremony that concludes the rains residence, at which each bhikkhu invites all the others to admonish him for his transgressions.
1116 Komudı̄ is the full-moon day of the month of Kattika, the fourth month of the rainy season; it is called by this name because the white water-lily (kumuda) is said to bloom at that time.
1117 Explanatory notes for the first tetrad will be found at nn.140–142. MN 10.4 differs from this passage only by the addition of the simile. Since Ācariya Buddhaghosa has commented on the four tetrads on mindfulness of breathing in the Visuddhimagga, in MA he merely refers the reader to the latter work for explanation. Notes 1118–21 are drawn from Vsm VIII, 226–37, also included by Ñm in his Mindfulness of Breathing.
1118 One experiences rapture in two ways: by attaining one of the lower two jhānas in which rapture is present, one experiences rapture in the mode of serenity; by emerging from that jhāna and contemplating that rapture