SUTTA 5

[^69]: MA, picking up on the venerable Sāriputta's use of the word "person" (puggala), explains that the Buddha has a twofold teaching - a conventional teaching (sammutidesanā) expressed in terms of persons, beings, women, and men, etc.; and an ultimate teaching (paramatthadesanā) expressed solely in terms that possess ultimate ontological validity, such as aggregates, elements, sense bases, impermanent, suffering, not self, etc. The Buddha expounds his teaching through whichever approach is best suited to enable the hearer to penetrate the meaning, dispel delusion, and achieve distinction. The use of the word "person," therefore, does not imply a misconception of the person as a self.

[^70]: Subhanimitta: an attractive object that is the basis for lust. The Buddha says that unwise attention to the sign of the beautiful is the nutriment (ähāra) for the arising of unarisen sensual desire and for the growth and increase of arisen sensual desire (SN 46:2/v.64).

[^71]: These are strict ascetic practices. The forest dweller, almsfood eater, house-to-house seeker and refuse-rag wearer are explained in Vsm II.

[^72]: These are "softer" practices than those referred to in §29, generally regarded as signs of a less earnest commitment to exertion for the sake of the goal.

[^73]: The Ājīvakas, or Ājīvikas, were a rival sect whose teaching emphasised severe austerities based on a philosophy bordering on fatalism. See Basham, History and Doctrines of the Äj̈vikas.

[^74]: The possessive pronouns qualifying heart are not in the Pali, but the sense of the phrase has to be understood by consideration of the simile. Just as Samiti planed the faults out of the felloe as if he knew Panduputta's heart with his own heart, so does Sāriputta plane out the faults of the bhikkhus as if he knew Moggallāna's wish to have them removed. MLS (1:40) misses the point by translating: "because he knows their hearts with his heart," taking the first reference to be to the monks rather than to Ven. Moggallāna.

[^75]: Mahānāga. The nāgas are a class of dragonlike beings in Indian mythology believed to inhabit the nether regions of the earth and to be the guardians of hidden treasures. The word comes to represent any gigantic or powerful creature, such as a tusker elephant or a cobra and, by extension, an arahant bhikkhu. See Dhp, ch. 23, Nāgavagga.