SUTTA 38

[^402]: According to MA, through faulty reasoning based on the fact of rebirth, Sāti came to the conclusion that a persisting consciousness transmigrating from one existence to another is necessary to explain rebirth. The first part of the sutta (down to §8 ) replicates the opening of MN 22, the only difference being in the view espoused.

[^403]: This is the last of the six views described at MN 2.8. See n.40 .

[^404]: MA: The purpose of the simile is to show that there is no transmigration of consciousness across the sense doors. Just as a log fire burns in dependence on logs and ceases when its fuel is finished, without transmigrating to faggots and becoming reckoned as a faggot fire, so too, consciousness arisen in the eye door dependent on the eye and forms ceases when its conditions are removed, without transmigrating to the ear, etc., and becoming reckoned as ear-consciousness, etc. Thus the Buddha says in effect: "In the occurrence of consciousness there is not even the mere transmigration from door to door, so how can this misguided Sāti speak of transmigration from existence to existence?"

[^405]: Bhūtam idan ti. MA: "This" refers to the five aggregates. Having shown the conditionality of consciousness, the Buddha states this passage to show the conditionality of all the five aggregates, which come into being through conditions, their "nutriment," and pass out of being with the ceasing of those conditions. In the following tadāhārasambhavami, MA takes the tad as a nominative representing the subject ( = tam khandhapañcakami), but it seems more likely that it qualifies ahüra and that both should be taken as ablatives, the subject idam being understood. This interpretation seems confirmed by the third statement, tadāhāranirodhā yam bhutam tam nirodhadhamman. Horner's "This is the origination of nutriment" is clearly wrong.

[^406]: This is said to show the bhikkhus that they should not cling even to the right view of insight meditation. The simile of the raft refers to MN 22.13.

[^407]: On the four nutriments, see n.120. MA: The Buddha states this passage and the following one linking up the nutriments with dependent origination in order to show that he knows not merely the five aggregates but the entire chain of conditions responsible for their being.

[^408]: This is a statement of the abstract principle of dependent origination exemplified by the twelvefold formula. The abstract principle on cessation is stated at §22. Ñm had rendered the principle of arising thus: "That is when this is; that arises with the arising of this." And the principle of cessation: "That is not when this is not; that ceases with the cessation of this."

[^409]: As in MN 2.7. According to MA, this "running back into the past" and "running forward to the future" occur because of craving and views. The next passage drives home the lesson by ensuring that the bhikkhus speak from their own personal knowledge.

[^410]: The following portion of the discourse may be understood as a concrete application of dependent origination - so far expressed only as a doctrinal formula - to the course of individual existence. The passage §§26-29 may be taken to show the factors from consciousness through feeling that result from past ignorance and formations, §40 the causal factors of craving and clinging as they build up a continuation of the samsāric round. The following section ( §§31-40 ), connecting dependent origination to the appearance of the Buddha and his teaching of the Dhamma, shows the practice of the Dhamma to be the means of bringing the round to an end.

[^411]: Gandhabba. MA: The gandhabba is the being to be reborn. It is not someone (i.e., a disembodied spirit) standing nearby watching the future parents having intercourse, but a being driven on by the mechanism of kamma, due to be reborn on that occasion.

[^412]: MA explains that he delights in the painful feeling by clinging to it with thoughts of "I" and "mine." In confirmation of the statement that a worldling may delight in painful feelings, one thinks not only of full-fledged masochism but also of the common tendency of people to put themselves into distressing situations in order to reinforce their sense of ego.

[^413]: MA: An immeasurable mind (appamanacetaso) is a supramundane mind; this means that he possesses the path.

[^414]: This statement reveals that the chain of dependent origination is broken at the link between feeling and craving. Feeling arises necessarily because the body acquired through past craving is subject to the maturation of past kamma. However, if one does not delight in feeling, craving will not have the opportunity to arise and set off reactions of like and dislike that provide further fuel for the round, and thus the round will come to an end.