SUTTA 37

[^395]: MA: Sakka asks about the preliminary practice of the arahant bhikkhu, by which he becomes liberated by the destruction of craving.

[^396]: MA explains this passage as follows: "Everything" (sabbe dhamma) is the five aggregates, the twelve bases, the eighteen elements. These are "not worth adhering to" by way of craving and views because they turn out in actuality to be different from the way they are grasped: grasped as permanent, pleasurable, and self, they turn out to be impermanent, suffering, and not self. He "directly knows" them as impermanent, suffering, and not self, and "fully understands" them by scrutinising them in the same way. "Contemplating impermanence," etc., is accomplished by the insight knowledges of rise and fall and of destruction and disappearance. "He does not cling" to any formation by way of craving and views, does not become agitated because of craving, and personally attains Nibbāna by the extinguishing of all defilements.

[^397]: A personal name of Sakka, meaning "the owl."

[^398]: The gods and titans (asura) are depicted in the Pali Canon as being perpetually in a state of war with each other. See especially the Sakkasamyutta (SN i.216-28).

[^399]: One of the Four Great Kings, the ruler of the yakkhas, his kingdom being in the north.

[^400]: MA: He did this by entering into meditation on the water-kasina and then resolving: "Let the foundation of the palace be like water."

[^401]: Sakka can refer to Ven. Mahā Moggallāna as a "companion in the holy life" because he himself had earlier attained to stream-entry (DN 21.2.10/ii.289) and was thus a noble disciple bound for the same deliverance that Mahā Moggallāna had already achieved.