SUTTA 118

[^1115]: The Pavāraṇā is the ceremony that concludes the rains residence, at which the bhikkhus invite each other to admonish them for their transgressions.

[^1116]: Komudī is the full-moon day of the month of Kattika, the fourth month of the rainy season; it is called by this name because the white water-lily (kumuda) is said to bloom at that time.

[^1117]: Explanatory notes for the first tetrad will be found at nn.140-142. MN 10.4 differs from this passage only by the addition of the simile. Since Ācariya Buddhaghosa has commented on the four tetrads on mindfulness of breathing in the Visuddhimagga, in MA he merely refers the reader to the latter work for explanation. Notes 1118-21 are drawn from Vsm VIII, 226-37, also included by Nm in his Mindfulness of Breathing.

[^1118]: One experiences rapture in two ways: by attaining one of the lower two jhānas in which rapture is present, one experiences rapture in the mode of serenity; by emerging from that jhāna and contemplating that rapture as subject to destruction, one experiences rapture in the mode of insight.

[^1119]: The same method of explanation as in n. 1118 applies to the second and third clauses, except that the second comprises the three lower jhānas and the third all four jhānas. The mental formation is perception and feeling (see MN 44.14), which is tranquillised by the development of successively higher levels of serenity and insight.

[^1120]: "Experiencing the mind" is to be understood by way of the four jhānas. "Gladdening the mind" is explained either as the attainment of the two jhānas containing rapture or as the penetration of those jhānas with insight as subject to destruction, etc. "Concentrating the mind" refers either to the concentration pertaining to the jhāna or to the momentary concentration that arises along with insight. "Liberating the mind" means liberating it from hindrances and grosser jhānic factors by successively higher levels of concentration, and from the cognitive distortions by way of insight knowledge.

[^1121]: This tetrad deals entirely with insight, unlike the previous three, which deal with both serenity and insight. "Contemplating fading away" and "contemplating cessation" can be understood both as the insight into the impermanence of formations and as the supramundane path realising Nibbāna, called the fading away of lust (i.e., dispassion, virāga) and the cessation of suffering. "Contemplating relinquishment" is the giving up of defilements through insight and the entering into Nibbāna by attainment of the path.

[^1122]: MA: In-and-out breathing is to be counted as the air element among the four elements making up the body. It should also be included in the base of tangibles among bodily phenomena (since the object of attention is the touch sensation of the breath entering and leaving the nostrils).

[^1123]: MA explains that close attention (sādhuka manasikāra) is not itself actually feeling, but is spoken of as such only figuratively. In the second tetrad the actual feeling is the pleasure mentioned in the second clause and also the feeling comprised by the expression "mental formation" in the third and fourth clauses.

[^1124]: MA: Although the meditating bhikkhu takes as his object the sign of in-and-out breathing, he is said to be "contemplating mind as mind" because he maintains his mind on the object by arousing mindfulness and full awareness, two factors of mind.

[^1125]: MA: Covetousness and grief signify the first two hindrances, sensual desire and ill will, and thus represent the contemplation of mind-objects, which begins with the five hindrances. The bhikkhu sees the abandoning of the hindrances effected by the contemplations of impermanence, fading away, cessation, and relinquishment, and thus comes to look upon the object with equanimity.

[^1126]: MA says that the above passage shows the enlightenment factors existing together in each mind-moment in the practice of insight meditation.

[^1127]: See n. 48.

[^1128]: MA: The mindfulness that comprehends breathing is mundane; the mundane mindfulness of breathing perfects the mundane foundations of mindfulness; the mundane foundations of mindfulness perfect the supramundane enlightenment factors; and the supramundane enlightenment factors perfect (or fulfil) true knowledge and deliverance, i.e., the fruit and Nibbāna.