SUTTA 3

[^51]: MA: The Buddha delivered this sutta because many bhikkhus were becoming elated over the gains and honour accruing to the Sangha, to the neglect of their spiritual training. The Buddha obviously could not lay down a training rule prohibiting the use of the requisites, but he wanted to show the practice of the heirs in Dhamma to those bhikkhus who were earnestly desirous of training.

[^52]: MA explains that these five qualities gradually fulfil all the stages of the practice culminating in arahantship.

[^53]: Elder bhikkhus (thera) are those with more than ten rainy seasons since ordination (upasampadā); middle bhikkhus have between five and nine rains; new bhikkhus less than five rains.

[^54]: The evil qualities mentioned here, and in the sections that follow, are introduced to show the states referred to above (\§6) by the statement: "They do not abandon what the Teacher tells them to abandon." They are also the factors that induce a bhikkhu to become an heir of material things rather than an heir of Dhamma. In MN 7.3 the same sixteen qualities, with "ill will" substituted for "hate," are referred to as "the imperfections that defile the mind" (cittass' upakkilesā).

[^55]: The Noble Eightfold Path is introduced here to show the practice that makes one an "heir in Dhamma." The antithesis between the defilements and the path restates, from a new angle, the contrast between "heirs in material things" and "heirs in Dhamma" with which the Buddha had opened the sutta.