SUTTA 115

[^1077]: The eighteen elements are defined at Vbh §§183-84/ 87-90 and are explained in detail at Vsm XV, 17-43. Briefly, the mind element (manodhātu), according to the Abhidhamma, includes the consciousness that adverts to the five sense objects impinging on the five sense faculties (pañcadvārāvajjana-citta) and the consciousness that receives the object after it has been cognized through the senses (sampaticchana-citta). The mind-consciousness element (manoviññānadhātu) includes all types of consciousness except the five sense consciousnesses and the mindelement. The mind-object element (dhammadhātu) includes the types of subtle material phenomena not involved in sense cognition, the three mental aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations, and Nibbāna. It does not include concepts, abstract ideas, judgements, etc. Though these latter are included in the notion of mind-object (dhammārammana), the mind-object element includes only things that exist by their own nature, not things constructed by the mind.

[^1078]: These are defined at Vbh $\S 180 / 85-86$. The pleasure and pain elements are bodily pleasant and painful feeling; the joy and grief elements are mental pleasant and painful feeling; the equanimity element is neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. MA says that ignorance is brought in because of its apparent similarity to the equanimity element.

[^1079]: Vbh $\S 183 / 86-87$ defines these as the six corresponding types of applied thought (vitakka); see MN 19.2.

[^1080]: MA explains the sense-sphere element as the five aggregates pertaining to the sense-sphere (kāmāvacara), the fine-material element as the five aggregates pertaining to the fine-material sphere (rüpāvacara), and the immaterial element as the four aggregates pertaining to the immaterial sphere (arūpāvacara).

[^1081]: MA: the conditioned element includes everything produced by conditions and is a designation for the five aggregates. The unconditioned element is Nibbāna.

[^1082]: The twelve bases are defined at Vbh $\S \S 155-167 / 70-73$ and explained at Vsm XV, 1-16. The mind base includes all types of consciousness, and thus comprises all seven elements that exercise the function of consciousness. The mind-object base is identical with the mind-object element.

[^1083]: On the terms in the formula of dependent origination, see Introduction, pp. 30-31.

[^1084]: MA: A person possessing right view (ditthisampanno) is one possessing the view of the path, a noble disciple at the minimal level of a stream-enterer. "Formation" here is to be understood as a conditioned formation (sankhatasankhāra), i.e., anything conditioned.

[^1085]: MA points out that a noble disciple below the level of arahantship can still apprehend formations as pleasurable with a mind dissociated from wrong view, but he cannot adopt the view that any formation is pleasurable. Although perceptions and thoughts of formations as pleasurable arise in him, he knows reflectively that such notions are mistaken.

[^1086]: In the passage on self, sankhāra, "formation," is replaced by dhamma, "thing." MA explains that this substitution is made to include concepts, such as a kasiṇa sign, etc., which the ordinary person is also prone to identify as self. However, in view of the fact that Nibbāna is described as imperishable (accuta) and as bliss (sukha), and is also liable to be misconceived as self (see MN 1.26), the word sankhāra may be taken to include only the conditioned, while dhamma includes both the conditioned and the unconditioned. This interpretation, however, is not endorsed by the commentaries of Ācariya Buddhaghosa.

[^1087]: This section distinguishes the ordinary person and noble disciple in terms of the five heinous crimes. MA points out that a noble disciple is in fact incapable of intentionally depriving any living being of life, but the contrast is made here by way of matricide and patricide to stress the dangerous side of the ordinary person's condition and the strength of the noble disciple.

[^1088]: That is, could acknowledge anyone other than the Buddha as the supreme spiritual teacher.

[^1089]: MA: The arising of another Buddha is impossible from the time a bodhisatta takes his final conception in his mother's womb until his Dispensation has completely disappeared. The problem is discussed at Miln 236-39.

[^1090]: This statement asserts only that a Fully Enlightened Buddha always has the male sex, but does not deny that a person who is now a woman may become a Fully Enlightened Buddha in the future. To do so, however, at an earlier point she will have had to be reborn as a man.

[^1091]: In this passage the phrase "on that account, for that reason" (tannidana tappaccaya) is of prime importance. As the Buddha will show in MN 136, a person who engages in evil conduct may be reborn in a heavenly world and a person who engages in good conduct may be reborn in a lower world. But in those cases the rebirth will be caused by some kamma different from the kamma in which the person habitually engages. Strict lawfulness applies only to the relation between kamma and its result.

[^1092]: The "four cycles" are the elements, the bases, dependent origination, and the possible and the impossible.