[^428]: Ven. Mahā Koṭthita was declared by the Buddha the foremost disciple of those who have attained the analytical knowledges (paṭisambhidā).

[^429]: According to MA, the understanding of the Four Noble Truths being discussed here is penetration by the supramundane path. Thus the lowest type of person to be described as "one who is wise" (paññavā) is the person on the path of stream-entry. The rendering of paññāas "wisdom" (which I substituted for Nm's "understanding") has the disadvantage of severing the tie, evident in the Pali, with the verb pajänäti. To preserve the connection, here and in the preceding paragraph, the verb has been rendered "wisely understand."

[^430]: The Pali phrase defining consciousness uses only the verb, vijänäti vijänäti, and this could as well be understood to mean "One cognizes, one cognizes." Although Nm had translated this phrase without any pronoun, the pronoun has been inserted for greater intelligibility. The renderings of the verb definitions of feeling and perception at §7 and §8 have been similarly augmented by the addition of the pronoun.

[^431]: MA: The question concerns the consciousness with which the person described as "one who is wise" examines formations; that is, the consciousness of insight by which that person arrived (at his attainment), the mind which does the work of meditation. Ven. Sāriputta answers by explaining the meditation subject of feeling, in the way it has come down in the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness (MN 10.32). The Pali construction, sukhan ti pi vijänäti, indicates that the feeling is being treated as a direct object of consciousness rather than as an affective tone of the experience; to show this the words "this is" have been supplied in brackets and the entire phrase set in quotation marks.

[^432]: MA: This statement refers to the wisdom and consciousness on the occasions of both insight and the supramundane path. The two are conjoined in that they arise and cease simultaneously and share a single sense base and object. However, the two are not inseparably conjoined since, while wisdom always requires consciousness, consciousness can occur without wisdom.

[^433]: Wisdom, being the path factor of right view, is to be developed as a factor of the path. Consciousness, being included among the five aggregates that pertain to the noble truth of suffering, is to be fully understood - as impermanent, suffering, and not self.

[^434]: MA says that the question and reply refer to mundane feelings that are the objective range of insight. The Pali construction here, sukham pi vedeti, etc., shows feeling as simultaneously a quality of the object and an affective tone of the experience by which it is apprehended. MA points out that feeling itself feels; there is no other (separate) feeler.

[^435]: MA: The question and reply refer to mundane perceptions that are the objective range of insight.

[^436]: MA: Wisdom has been excluded from this exchange because the intention is to show only the states that are conjoined on every occasion of consciousness.

[^437]: MA: Purified mind-consciousness (parisuddha manoviññāna) is the consciousness of the fourth jhāna. It can know the immaterial attainments insofar as one established in the fourth jhāna is capable of reaching them. The base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception is excluded here because, owing to its subtlety, it does not come into the direct range of contemplation for the attainment of insight.

[^438]: MA: The eye of wisdom (paññācakkhu) is wisdom itself, called an eye in the sense that it is an organ of spiritual vision.

[^439]: For the distinction between direct knowledge (abhiññā) and full understanding (pariññā), see n. 23.

[^440]: MA: "The voice of another" (parato ghosa) is the teaching of beneficial Dhamma. These two conditions are necessary for disciples to arrive at the right view of insight and the right view of the supramundane path. But paccekabuddhas arrive at their enlightenment and fully enlightened Buddhas at omniscience solely in dependence on wise attention without "the voice of another."

[^441]: MA: Right view here is the right view pertaining to the path of arahantship. "Deliverance of mind" and "deliverance by wisdom" both refer to the fruit of arahantship; see n.83. When one fulfils these five factors, the path of arahantship arises and yields its fruit.

[^442]: "Renewal of being in the future" (ayatim punabbhaväbhinibbatti) is rebirth, the continuation of the round. This question and the next may be regarded as synoptic approaches to the entire twelvefold formula of dependent origination laid out in MN 38.17 and 20.

[^443]: The five outer sense faculties each have their own unique object - forms for the eye, sounds for the ear, etc. - but the mind faculty is able to experience the objects of all five sense faculties as well as the mental objects exclusive to itself. Hence the other five faculties have mind as their resort (manopatisaranam).

[^444]: MA identifies vitality (ayu) with the life faculty (j̃vitindriya), which has the function of maintaining and vitalising the other material phenomena of the living body.

[^445]: Heat (usma) is the kamma-born heat intrinsic to the living body.

[^446]: "Vital formations" (ayusankharā), according to MA, denotes vitality itself. They cannot be states of feeling because they are required to keep the body of a bhikkhu alive when he has attained to the cessation of perception and feeling. This special meditative attainment, in which all mental activity ceases, is accessible only to nonreturners and arahants who also have mastery over the eight attainments on the side of serenity. For a brief discussion see the Introduction, p. 28, and for the full scholastic account, Vsm XXIII, 16-52. The cessation of perception and feeling will be taken up again in MN 44.

[^447]: That is, dead. The departure of consciousness from the body is not sufficient to constitute death; vitality and the vital heat must also perish.

[^448]: The bodily formations are in-and-out breathing, the verbal formations are applied thought and sustained thought, the mental formations are perception and feeling - see MN 44.14-15. MA says that the faculties during the ordinary course of life, being impinged upon by sense objects, are afflicted and soiled like a mirror set up at a crossroads; but the faculties of one in cessation become exceptionally clear like a mirror placed in a case and deposited in a box.

[^449]: MA: The "signless deliverance of mind" (animitta cetovimutti) is the attainment of fruition; the "signs" are objects such as forms, etc.; the "signless element" is Nibbāna, in which all signs of conditioned things are absent.

[^450]: MA identifies this suññatā cetovimutti with insight into the voidness of selfhood in persons and things.

[^451]: As above, the signless deliverance of mind is identified by MA with the attainment of fruition. Of the four deliverances of mind mentioned in §30, this one alone is supramundane. The first three - the brahmavihäras, the third immaterial attainment, and insight into the voidness of formations - all pertain to the mundane level.

[^452]: Lust, hate, and delusion may be understood as "makers of measurement" (pamānakarana) in that they impose limitations upon the range and depths of the mind; MA, however, explains this phrase to mean that the defilements enable one to measure a person as a worldling, a stream-enterer, a once-returner, or a non-returner.

[^453]: MA: There are twelve immeasurable deliverances of mind: the four brahmavihäras, the four paths, and the four fruits. The unshakeable deliverance of mind is the fruit of arahantship. The statement that this unshakeable deliverance is void of lust, hate, and delusion - repeated at the end of §36 and §37 as well - also identifies it as the supramundane deliverance of mind through voidness.

[^454]: The word kiñcana is explained by MA as meaning "impediment" or "obstacle." Ñm rendered it as "owning." I have gone back to the original meaning "something" to maintain coherence with the statement that its abandonment issues in deliverance of mind through nothingness.

[^455]: MA: There are nine deliverances of mind through nothingness: the base of nothingness and the four paths and fruits.

[^456]: MA interprets the phrase "maker of signs" (nimittakarana) to mean that lust, hate, and delusion brand a per- son as a worldling or a noble one, as lustful, hating, or deluded. But it may also mean that these defilements cause the mind to ascribe a false significance to things as being permanent, pleasurable, self, or beautiful.

[^457]: MA: There are thirteen signless deliverances of mind: insight, because it removes the signs of permanence, pleasure, and self; the four immaterial attainments, because they lack the sign of material form; and the four paths and fruits, because of the absence of the sign of defilements.

[^458]: All the four deliverances of mind are one in meaning in that they all refer to the fruition attainment of arahantship. MA also points out that the four deliverances are one in meaning because the terms - the immeasurable, nothingness, voidness, and the signless - are all names for Nibbāna, which is the object of the fruition attainment of arahantship.