SUTTA 9

[^114]: MA: Right view is twofold: mundane and supramundane. Mundane right view is again twofold: the view that kamma produces its fruits, which may be held both by Buddhists and outsiders, and the view that accords with the Four Noble Truths, which is exclusive to the Buddha's Dispensation. Supramundane right view is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths attained by penetrating to the four paths and fruits of sanctity. The question posed by the Ven. Sāriputta concerns the sekha, the disciple in higher training, who possesses supramundane right view leading irreversibly to emancipation. This is implied by the phrase "perfect confidence" and "arrived at this true Dhamma."

[^115]: Here the unwholesome (akusala) is explained by the ten unwholesome courses of action. The first three of these pertain to bodily action, the middle four to verbal action, the last three to mental action. The ten are explained at greater length at MN 41.8-10.

[^116]: These three are called the roots of the unwholesome because they motivate all unwholesome actions. For a thorough and informative textual study of these factors and their opposites, see Nyanaponika Thera, The Roots of Good and Evil.

[^117]: These ten wholesome courses of action are elaborated upon in MN 41.12-14.

[^118]: MA explains the disciple's understanding of these four terms by way of the Four Noble Truths thus: all the courses of action are the truth of suffering; the wholesome and unwholesome roots are the truth of the origin; the nonoccurrence of both actions and their roots is the truth of cessation; and the noble path that realises cessation is the truth of the path. To this extent a noble disciple at one of the first three stages has been described - one who has arrived at supramundane right view but has not yet eliminated all defilements.

[^119]: The passage from "he entirely abandons the underlying tendency to lust" until "he makes an end of suffering" shows the work accomplished by the paths of the nonreturner and of arahantship - the elimination of the most subtle and obstinate defilements and the achievement of final knowledge. Here, the underlying tendencies to sensual lust and aversion are eliminated by the path of the non-returner, the underlying tendency to the view and conceit "I am" and ignorance by the path of arahantship. MA explains that the expression "underlying tendency to the view and conceit 'I am'" (asmī ti ditṭhimānānusaya) should be interpreted to mean the underlying tendency to conceit that is similar to a view because, like the view of self, it occurs apprehending the notion "I am."

[^120]: Nutriment (ähāra) is to be understood here in a broad sense as a prominent condition for the individual lifecontinuity. Physical food (kabalinkāra āhāra) is an important condition for the physical body, contact for feeling, mental volition for consciousness, and consciousness for mentality-materiality, the psychophysical organism in its totality. Craving is called the origin of nutriment in that the craving of the previous existence is the source of the present individuality with its dependence upon and continual consumption of the four nutriments in this existence. For an annotated compilation of the canonical and commentarial texts on the nutriments, see Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Nutriments of Life.

[^121]: The next twelve sections present, in reverse order, a fac-tor-by-factor examination of dependent origination. The principal terms of the formula are explained briefly in the Introduction, pp. 30-31. The detailed exegesis is in Vsm XVII. Here each factor is patterned after the Four Noble Truths.

[^122]: This refers to the five aggregates. See MN 10.38 and MN 44.2.

[^123]: The six bases for contact are enumerated at $\§50$ below.

[^124]: The three kinds of being are explained in the Introduction, pp. 46-48, in the discussion of Buddhist cosmology. Here, by "being" should be understood both the actual planes of rebirth and the types of kamma that generate rebirth into those planes.

[^125]: Clinging to rules and observances is the adherence to the view that purification can be achieved by adopting certain external rules or following certain observances, particularly of ascetic self-discipline; clinging to a doctrine of self is synonymous with personality view in one or another of its twenty forms (see MN 44.7); clinging to views is the clinging to all other types of views except the two mentioned separately. Clinging in any of its varieties represents a strengthening of craving, its condition.

[^126]: Craving for mind-objects (dhammataṇhā) is the craving for all objects of consciousness except the objects of the five kinds of sense consciousness. Examples would be the craving for fantasies and mental imagery, for abstract ideas and intellectual systems, for feelings and emotional states, etc.

[^127]: Contact (phassa) is explained at MN 18.16 as the meeting of sense faculty, its object, and consciousness.

[^128]: Mind-base (manāyatana) is a collective term for all classes of consciousness. One part of this base - the "life continuum" (bhavanga) or subliminal consciousness - is the "door" for the arising of mind-consciousness. See n.130.

[^129]: Mentality-materiality (nāmarūpa) is an umbrella term for the psychophysical organism exclusive of consciousness. The five mental factors mentioned under nāma are indispensable to consciousness and thus pertain to all conscious experience. The four great elements concretely represent matter's essential properties of solidity, cohesion, heat, and distension. The material form derived from the elements includes, according to the Abhidham- ma analysis, the sensitive substance of the five sense faculties; four sense objects - colour, sound, smell, and taste (tangibles being the three elements of earth, fire, and air); the physical life faculty, nutritive essence, sex determination, and other types of material phenomena. See also the Introduction, p. 56.

[^130]: Mind-consciousness (manoviñãana) comprises all consciousness except the five types of sense consciousness just mentioned. It includes consciousness of mental images, abstract ideas, and internal states of mind, as well as the consciousness in reflection upon sense objects.

[^131]: In the context of the doctrine of dependent origination, formations (sankhãrā) are wholesome and unwholesome volitions, or, in short, kamma. The bodily formation is volition that is expressed through the body, the verbal formation volition that is expressed by speech, and the mental formation volition that remains internal without coming to bodily or verbal expression.

[^132]: It should be noted that while ignorance is a condition for the taints, the taints - which include the taint of ignorance - are in turn a condition for ignorance. MA says that this conditioning of ignorance by ignorance should be understood to mean that the ignorance in any one existence is conditioned by the ignorance in the preceding existence. Since this is so, the conclusion follows that no first point can be discovered for ignorance, and thus that samsāra is without discernible beginning.