SUTTA 44

[^459]: Visākha was a wealthy merchant of Rājagaha and a nonreturner. Dhammadinnā, his former wife in lay life, had attained arahantship soon after her ordination as a bhikkhunī. She was declared by the Buddha the foremost bhikkhunī disciple in expounding the Dhamma.

[^460]: MA explains the compound pañc'upādānakkhandhā as the five aggregates that become the condition for clinging (MT: as its objects). Since these five aggregates are, in brief, the entire noble truth of suffering (MN 9.15; 28.3), it will be seen that the first four questions pose an inquiry into the Four Noble Truths expressed in terms of personality rather than suffering.

[^461]: MA: Because clinging is only one part of the aggregate of formations (as defined here, greed), it is not the same as the five aggregates; and because clinging cannot be altogether disconnected from the aggregates, there is no clinging apart from the aggregates.

[^462]: These are the twenty kinds of personality view. MA quotes Pts i.144-45 to illustrate the four basic modes of personality view in regard to material form. One may regard material form as self, in the way the flame of a burning oil-lamp is identical with the colour (of the flame). Or one may regard self as possessing material form, as a tree possesses a shadow; or one may regard material form as in self, as the scent is in the flower; or one may regard self as in material form, as a jewel is in a casket.

[^463]: The word khandha here has a different meaning than in the more common context of the five aggregates affected by clinging. It here refers to a body of training principles, the three divisions of the Noble Eightfold Path into virtue (silla), concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (pañña).

[^464]: The four foundations of mindfulness are the basis of concentration (samadhiniwitto) in the sense of being its condition (MA). Here it would seem incorrect to translate nimitta as "sign," in the sense of either distinguishing mark or object. The four right kinds of striving are explained at MN 77.16.

[^465]: MA: Dhammadinnā anticipated Visākha's intention to ask about the formations that cease when one enters the attainment of cessation. Thus she explained the three formations in this way rather than as wholesome and unwholesome volitions of body, speech, and mind, the meaning relevant within the context of dependent origination.

[^466]: MA explains further that the bodily formation and the mental formation are said to be formations "bound up" with the body and the mind in the sense that they are formed by the body and by the mind, while the verbal formation is a formation in the sense that it forms speech. The verb form vitakketvä vicāretvä has been rendered in a way that maintains consistency with the rendering of the nouns vitakka and vicära as "applied thought" and "sustained thought."

[^467]: Cessation can be attained only by a non-returner or an arahant with mastery over the eight jhānic attainments. The meditator enters each attainment in turn, emerges from it, and contemplates it with insight as impermanent, suffering, and not self. After completing this procedure with the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, and attending to certain preliminaries, the meditator determines to be without mind for a particular length of time. His determination, backed by his previous accomplishments and preparations, leads him into the attainment of cessation. See Vsm XXIII, 32-43.

[^468]: Applied and sustained thought cease first in the second jhāna; in-and-out breathing cease next in the fourth jhāna; and perception and feeling cease last in the attainment of cessation itself.

[^469]: When the time decided upon by the determination for the attainment has lapsed, by reason of that prior determination the meditator spontaneously emerges from the attainment of cessation and the mind-process resumes.

[^470]: MA: When one emerges from cessation, the consciousness of fruition attainment arises first, and the perception and feeling associated with that are the mental formation that arises first. Then, with the subsequent descent into the life continuum, the bodily formation, i.e., breathing, recommences. And subsequently, when the meditator resumes his ordinary activity, the verbal formation arises.

[^471]: The first state of consciousness to arise on emerging from cessation is that of fruition attainment, which is called voidness, the signless, and the desireless because of its own inherent quality and because of its object, Nibbāna. Here these three names for fruition are assigned to the contact associated with fruition.

[^472]: MT: Nibbāna, the object of the fruition consciousness that arises on emerging from cessation, is called seclusion (viveka) because it is secluded from all conditioned things.

[^473]: MT: The three defilements are called anusaya, underlying tendencies, in the sense that they have not been abandoned in the mental continuum to which they belong and because they are capable of arising when a suitable cause presents itself.

[^474]: MA explains that the bhikkhu suppresses the tendency to lust and attains the first jhāna. Having made the tendency to lust well suppressed by the jhāna, he develops insight and eradicates the tendency to lust by the path of the non-returner. But because it has been suppressed by the jhāna, it is said "the underlying tendency to lust does not underlie that."

[^475]: MA identifies "that base" (tadayatana), as well as "the supreme liberations," with arahantship. The grief that arises because of that longing is elsewhere called "the grief based on renunciation" (MN 137.13). MA explains that one does not actually abandon the tendency to aversion by means of that grief; rather, spurred on by the longing for the supreme liberations, one takes up the practice with firm determination and eradicates the tendency to aversion by attaining the path of the non-returner.

[^476]: MA: The bhikkhu suppresses the tendency to ignorance with the fourth jhāna, makes it well suppressed, and then eradicates the tendency to ignorance by attaining the path of arahantship.

[^477]: The word "counterpart" (patibhāga) is used to express the relationships of both opposition and supplementation.

[^478]: Ignorance is its counterpart because neither-painful-norpleasant feeling is subtle and difficult to recognise.

[^479]: MT: Nibbāna does have an opposite counterpart, namely, conditioned states. But in the strict sense it has no supplementary counterpart, for how can there be anything to supplement Nibbāna, the unconditioned?

[^480]: MA: By saying this, the Buddha makes this sutta Word of the Conqueror, stamped as it were with the seal of the Conqueror.