The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [643]
SUTTA 133
1219 Down to §12, as at MN 18.10–15.
1220 MA: In the two previous suttas and in the one to follow the Buddha set up the outline and analysis by way of the five aggregates, but here he set it up so that it could be analysed by way of the twelve sense bases. Understanding the Buddha’s intention, Ven. Mahā Kaccāna spoke as he did, and because of his skill in grasping the method even when it was not explicitly shown, the Buddha appointed him the foremost disciple in explaining in detail a teaching stated in brief.
SUTTA 134
1221 According to the commentary to Thag, Ven. Lomasakangiya had been a bhikkhu in the time of the Buddha Kassapa. After the Buddha Kassapa had taught the Bhaddekaratta Sutta, a certain bhikkhu spoke about it to Lomasakangiya. Unable to understand it, he exclaimed: “In the future, may I be able to teach you this sutta!” The other answered: “May I ask you about it!” In the present age Lomasakangiya was born into a Sakyan family at Kapilavatthu, while the other bhikkhu became the god Candana.
1222 MA explains that this occurred in the seventh year after the Buddha’s enlightenment, at the time when he spent the three months of the rainy season in the heaven of the Thirty-three teaching the Abhidhamma to the gods who had assembled from ten thousand world-systems.
SUTTA 135
1223 See MN 99. According to MA, his father, the brahmin Todeyya, was reborn as a dog in his own house because of his extreme stinginess. The Buddha identified him to Subha by getting the dog to dig up some hidden treasure Subha’s father had buried before his death. This inspired Subha’s confidence in the Buddha and moved him to approach and inquire about the workings of kamma.
1224 If the kamma of killing directly determines the mode of rebirth, it will produce rebirth in one of the states of deprivation. But if a wholesome kamma brings about a human rebirth—and rebirth as a human being is always the result of wholesome kamma—the kamma of killing will operate in a manner contrary to that of the rebirth-generative kamma by causing various adversities that may eventuate in a premature death. The same principle holds for the subsequent cases in which unwholesome kamma comes to maturity in a human existence: in each case the unwholesome kamma counteracts the wholesome kamma responsible for the human rebirth by engendering a specific type of misfortune corresponding to its own distinctive quality.
1225 In this case the wholesome kamma of abstaining from killing may be directly responsible for either the heavenly rebirth or the longevity in a human existence. The same principle applies in all the passages on the maturation of wholesome kamma.
SUTTA 136
1226 MA says that Potaliputta did not actually hear this personally from the Buddha, but had heard a report that these statements were made by the Buddha. The former is a distorted version of the Buddha’s declaration at MN 56.4 that mental action is the most reprehensible of the three types of deeds for the performance of evil action. The latter derives from the Buddha’s discussion of the cessation of perception in the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta (DN 9). MA glosses the word “vain” by “fruitless.”
1227 This statement is made by the Buddha at SN 36:11/ iv.216, with reference to the suffering inherent in all formations by reason of their impermanence. Though the statement itself is true, Samiddhi seems to have misinterpreted it to mean that all feeling is felt as suffering, which is patently false.
1228 MA: This section is not the expounding of the Tathāgata’s knowledge of the great exposition of action, but the setting up of the outline for the purpose of presenting that exposition.
1229 MA: This too is not the expounding of the knowledge of the great exposition of action, but is still the setting up of the outline. The purpose here is to show what can be accepted and what should be rejected in the claims of the outside recluses and brahmins. Briefly put, the propositions that report their direct observations can be accepted, but the generalisations they