The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [646]
SUTTA 139
1257 This is substantially identical with the proclamation with which the newly enlightened Buddha opened his first discourse to the five bhikkhus, before teaching them the Four Noble Truths.
1258 This is a more complicated expression for the pursuit of sensual pleasure.
1259 MA: It is “beset by suffering, vexation,” etc., through the suffering and vexation, etc., of its results and the suffering and vexation, etc., of its attendant defilements.
1260 This is craving for being. Just below we should read again bhavasaṁyojanaṁ (with BBS and SBJ) as against PTS vibhavasaṁyojanaṁ.
1261 That is, extolling and disparaging come about when one frames one’s statements in terms of persons, some of whom are praised and others blamed. One teaches “only the Dhamma” when one frames one’s statements in terms of the state (dhamma)—the mode of practice—without explicit references to persons.
1262 This problem of “insistence on local language” must have been particularly acute in the Sangha, when the bhikkhus lived a life of constant wandering and had to pass through many localities each with their distinct dialects.
1263 Ven. Subhūti was the younger brother of Anāthapi˚ḍika and became a bhikkhu on the day Jeta’s Grove was offered to the Sangha. The Buddha appointed him the foremost disciple in two categories—those who live without conflict and those who are worthy of gifts.
SUTTA 140
1264 According to MA, Pukkusāti had been the king of Takkasilā and had entered into a friendship with King Bimbisāra of Magadha through merchants who travelled between the two countries for purposes of trade. In an exchange of gifts Bimbisāra sent Pukkusāti a golden plate on which he had inscribed descriptions of the Three Jewels and various aspects of the Dhamma. When Pukkusāti read the inscription, he was filled with joy and decided to renounce the world. Without taking formal ordination, he shaved his head, put on yellow robes, and left the palace. He went to Rājagaha intending to meet the Buddha, who was then in Sāvatthı̄, about 300 miles away. The Buddha saw Pukkusāti with his clairvoyant knowledge, and recognising his capacity to attain the paths and fruits, he journeyed alone on foot to Rājagaha to meet him. To avoid being recognised, by an act of will the Buddha caused his special physical attributes such as the marks of a Great Man to be concealed, and he appeared just like an ordinary wandering monk. He arrived at the potter’s shed shortly after Pukkusāti had arrived there intending to leave for Sāvatthı̄ the next day in order to meet the Buddha.
1265 Pukkusāti, unaware that the new arrival is the Buddha, addresses him by the familiar appellation “āvuso.”
1266 MA: The Buddha asked these questions merely as a way to start a conversation, as he already knew that Pukkusāti had gone forth on account of himself.
1267 MA: Since Pukkusāti had already purified the preliminary practice of the path and was able to attain the fourth jhāna through mindfulness of breathing, the Buddha began directly with a talk on insight meditation, expounding the ultimate voidness that is the foundation for arahantship.
1268 MA: Here the Buddha expounds the non-truly existent by way of the truly existent; for the elements are truly existent but the person is not truly existent. This is meant: “That which you perceive as a person consists of six elements. Ultimately there is no person here. ‘Person’ is a mere concept.”
1269 As at MN 137.8.
1270 Paññạ̄dhiṭṭhāna, saccādhiṭṭhāna,cāgādhiṭṭāna, upasamādhiṭṭhāna . Ñm, in Ms, had first rendered adhiṭṭāna as “resolve,” and then replaced it with “mode of expression,” neither of which seems suitable for this context. MA glosses the word with patiṭṭhā, which clearly means foundation, and explains the sense of the statement thus: “This person who consists of the six elements, the six bases of contact, and the eighteen kinds of mental approach—when he turns away from these and attains