The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [92]
9. That is what the Blessed One said. Having said this, the Sublime One rose from his seat and went into his dwelling.
10. Then, soon after the Blessed One had gone, the bhikkhus considered: “Now, friends, the Blessed One has risen from his seat and gone into his dwelling after giving a summary in brief without expounding the detailed meaning. Now who will expound this in detail?” Then they considered: “The venerable Mahā Kaccāna is praised by the Teacher and esteemed by his wise companions in the holy life.230 He is capable of expounding the detailed meaning. Suppose we went to him and asked him the meaning of this.”
11. Then the bhikkhus went to the venerable Mahā Kaccāna and exchanged greetings with him. When this courteous and amiable talk was finished, they sat down to one side and told him what had taken place, [111] adding: “Let the venerable Mahā Kaccāna expound it to us.”
12. [The venerable Mahā Kaccāna replied:] “Friends, it is as though a man needing heartwood, seeking heartwood, wandering in search of heartwood, thought that heartwood should be sought for among the branches and leaves of a great tree standing possessed of heartwood, after he had passed over the root and the trunk. And so it is with you, venerable sirs, that you think that I should be asked about the meaning of this, after you passed the Blessed One by when you were face to face with the Teacher. For knowing, the Blessed One knows; seeing, he sees; he is vision, he is knowledge, he is the Dhamma, he is the holy one;231 he is the sayer, the proclaimer, the elucidator of meaning, the giver of the Deathless, the lord of the Dhamma, the Tathāgata. That was the time when you should have asked the Blessed One the meaning. As he told you, so you should have remembered it.”
13. “Surely, friend Kaccāna, knowing, the Blessed One knows; seeing, he sees; he is vision…the Tathāgata. That was the time when we should have asked the Blessed One the meaning. As he told us, so we should have remembered it. Yet the venerable Mahā Kaccāna is praised by the Teacher and esteemed by his wise companions in the holy life. The venerable Mahā Kaccāna is capable of expounding the detailed meaning of this summary given in brief by the Blessed One without expounding the detailed meaning. Let the venerable Mahā Kaccāna expound it without finding it troublesome.”
14. “Then listen, friends, and attend closely to what I shall say.”—“Yes, friend,” the bhikkhus replied. The venerable Mahā Kaccāna said this:
15. “Friends, when the Blessed One rose from his seat and went into his dwelling after giving a summary in brief without expounding the detailed meaning, that is: ‘Bhikkhu, as to the source through which perceptions and notions [born of] mental proliferation beset a man: if nothing is found there to delight in, welcome, and hold to, this is the end of the underlying tendency to lust…this is the end of resorting to rods and weapons…here these evil unwholesome states cease without remainder,’ I understand the detailed meaning of it to be as follows:
16. “Dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as condition there is feeling. What one feels, that one perceives. [112] What one perceives, that one thinks about. What one thinks about, that one mentally proliferates. With what one has mentally proliferated as the source, perceptions and notions [born of] mental proliferation beset a man with respect to past, future, and present forms cognizable through the eye.232
“Dependent on the ear and sounds…Dependent on the nose and odours…Dependent on the tongue