The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [645]
1243 MA says that previously worldly equanimity was discussed, but here the contrast is between the equanimity in differentiated sense experience and the equanimity of the meditative attainments.
1244 MA paraphrases: “By the equanimity of the immaterial attainments, abandon the equanimity of the fine-material attainments; by insight into the immaterial sphere, abandon insight into the fine-material sphere.”
1245 MA says that non-identification (atammayatā—see n.1066) here refers to “insight leading to emergence,” i.e., the insight immediately preceding the arising of the supramundane path; for this effects the abandonment of the equanimity of the immaterial attainments and the equanimity of insight.
1246 Satipaṭṭhāna here obviously has a different meaning than usual, as the sequel will make clear. The “Noble One” is the Buddha.
1247 This is one of the nine epithets of the Buddha in the usual enumeration of the Buddha’s qualities.
1248 These “eight directions” are the eight liberations, on which see n.764.
SUTTA 138
1249 It is strange that the Buddha, having announced that he will teach a summary and an exposition, should recite only the summary and leave without giving the exposition. Although elsewhere the Buddha departs suddenly after making an enigmatic statement (e.g., in MN 18) , on those occasions he had not previously declared his intention to give an exposition. MA offers no explanation.
1250 MA: Consciousness is “distracted and scattered externally,” i.e., among external objects, when it occurs by way of attachment towards an external object.
1251 MṬ: The form itself is called the sign of form (rūpanimitta) in that it is the cause for the arising of defilements. One “follows after it” by way of lust.
1252 MA: The mind is “stuck internally” by way of attachment to an internal object. The text of the sutta itself makes the shift from viññāṇa in the Buddha’s summary to citta in Mahā Kaccāna’s exposition.
1253 All known editions of the Pali text of MN 138 read here anupādā paritassanā, literally “agitation due to non-clinging,” which obviously contradicts what the Buddha consistently teaches: that agitation arises from clinging, and ceases with the removal of clinging. However, this reading apparently predates the commentaries, for MA accepts anupādā as correct and offers the following explanation: “In what sense is there agitation due to non-clinging? Through the non-existence of anything to cling to. For if there existed any formation that were permanent, stable, a self, or the belonging of a self, it would be possible to cling to it. Then this agitation would be agitation due to clinging (something to cling to). But because there is no formation that can be clung to thus, then even though material form, etc., are clung to with the idea ‘material form is self,’ etc., they are not clung to (in the way they are conceived). Thus, what is here called ‘agitation due to non-clinging’ is in meaning agitation due to clinging by way of views.” Ñm had followed this reading, and on the basis of MA’s explanation, had rendered the phrase “anguish [agitation] due to not finding anything to cling to.” He did not discuss the problem in his notes.
A sutta in the Saṁyutta Nikāya (SN 22:7/iii, 16) is virtually identical with this passage of MN 138, except that here it reads, as we should expect, upādā paritassanā, “agitation due to clinging.” From the Saṁyutta text we may safely infer that the Majjhima reading is an ancient error that should be discounted. My rendering here is based on the reading of SN 22:7. Horner too follows the latter text in MLS.
1254 MA explains the unusual phrase paritassanā dhammasamuppādā as “the agitation of craving and the arising of (other) unwholesome states.”
1255 The agitation thus results from the lack of any permanent essence in things that could provide a refuge from the suffering precipitated by their change and instability.
1256