SUTTA 1
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For a fuller treatment of this important and difficult sutta, see Bhikkhu Bodhi, Discourse on the Root of Existence. This work contains, besides a translation of the sutta, a lengthy analytical study of its philosophical significance and copious extracts from the very helpful commentarial literature that has accumulated around it. Nm's rendering of this sutta in Ms was highly conjectural; thus, while I have retained most of his terminology, I have substituted my own rendering of the syntax to bring out the meaning that accords with the traditional interpretation and that seems warranted by the original Pali text as well. The key passages as Nm rendered them will be given in the Notes.
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MA explains that the Buddha delivered this sutta to dispel the conceit that had arisen in five hundred bhikkhus on account of their erudition and intellectual mastery of the Buddha's teachings. These bhikkhus were formerly brahmins learned in the Vedic literature, and the Buddha's cryptic utterances may well have been intended to challenge the brahmanic views to which they may still have adhered.
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Sabbadhammamülapariyāya. MT explains that the word "all" (sabba) is being used here in the restricted sense of the "all of personality" (sakkāyasabba), that is, with reference to all states or phenomena (dhammā) comprised within the five aggregates affected by clinging (see MN 28.4). Supramundane states - the paths, fruits, and Nibbāna - are excluded. The "root of all things" - that is, the special condition that maintains the continuity of the process of repeated existence - MT explains to be craving, conceit, and views (which are the underlying springs of "conceiving"), and these in turn are underlaid by ignorance, suggested in the sutta by the phrase "he has not fully understood it."
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The "untaught ordinary person" (assutavā puthujjana) is the common worldling, who possesses neither learning nor spiritual accomplishment in the Dhamma of the noble ones, and allows himself to be dominated by the multitude of defilements and wrong views. See Bodhi, Discourse on the Root of Existence, pp. 40-46.
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Paṭhavim paṭhavito sañjānāti. Although perceiving "earth as earth" seems to suggest seeing the object as it really is, the aim of Buddhist insight meditation, the context makes it clear that the ordinary person's perception of "earth as earth" already introduces a slight distortion of the object, a distortion that will be blown up into fullfledged misinterpretation when the cognitive process enters the phase of "conceiving." MA explains that the ordinary person seizes upon the conventional expression "it is earth," and applying this to the object, perceives it through a "perversion of perception" (saññāyipallāsa). The latter is a technjcal expression explained as perceiving the impermanent as permanent, the painful as pleasurable, what is not self as self, and what is foul as beautiful (AN 4:49/ii.52). $\bar{N} m$ reads the ablative suffix -to of the Pali as signifying derivation and translates the phrase: "From earth he has a percept of earth."
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The Pali verb "conceives" (mañatati), from the root man, "to think," is often used in the Pali suttas to mean distortional thinking - thought that ascribes to its object characteristics and a significance derived not from the object itself, but from its own subjective imaginings. The cognitive distortion introduced by conceiving consists, in brief, in the intrusion of the egocentric perspective into the experience already slightly distorted by spontaneous perception. According to the commentaries, the activity of conceiving is governed by three defile- ments, which accounts for the different ways it comes to manifestation - craving (tanhā), conceit (māna), and views (ditthi). MA paraphrases this text thus: "Having perceived earth with a perverted perception, the ordinary person afterwards conceives it - construes or discriminates it through the gross proliferating tendencies (papañca) of craving, conceit, and views, which are here called 'conceivings.'...He apprehends it in diverse ways contrary [to reality]." The four ways of conceiving (maññanā): The Buddha shows that the conceiving of any object may occur in any of four ways, expressed by the text as a fourfold linguistic pattern: accusative, locative, ablative, and appropriative. The primary significance of this modal pattern - enigmatic in the Pali as well - seems to be ontological. I take the pattern to represent the diverse ways in which the ordinary person attempts to give positive being to his imagined sense of egohood by positing, below the threshold of reflection, a relationship between himself as the subject of cognition and the perceived phenomenon as its object. According to the fourfold pattern given, this relationship may be one either of direct identification ("he conceives X"), or of inherence ("he conceives in X"), or of contrast or derivation ("he conceives from X"), or of simple appropriation ("he conceives X to be 'mine'"). But care is needed in interpreting these phrases. The Pali does not supply any direct object for the second and third modes, and this suggests that the process at work in conceiving proceeds from a deeper and more general level than that involved in the forming of an explicit view of self, as described for example at MN 2.8 or MN 44.7. The activity of conceiving thus seems to comprise the entire range of subjectively tinged cognition, from the impulses and thoughts in which the sense of personal identity is still inchoate to elaborate intellectual structures in which it has been fully explicated. Nm, however, understands the implicit object of conceiving to be the percept itself, and accordingly translates: "having had from earth a percept of earth, he conceives [that to be] earth, he conceives [that to be] in earth, he conceives [that to be apart] from earth," etc. The fifth phrase, "he delights in $X$," explicitly connects conceiving with craving, which is elsewhere said to "delight here and there." This, moreover, hints at the danger in the worldling's thought processes, since craving is pointed to by the Buddha as the origin of suffering. MA gives prolific examples illustrating all the different modes of conceiving, and these clearly establish that the intended object of conceiving is the misplaced sense of egoity.
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MA states that one who fully understands earth does so by the three types of full understanding: the full understanding of the known (ñātaparī̄̄̄̄) - the definition of the earth element by way of its unique characteristic, function, manifestation, and proximate cause; the full understanding by scrutinization (tīranaparī̄̄̄̄) - the contemplation of the earth element by way of the three general characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and non-self; and the full understanding of abandonment (pahānapariñ̃̃̃ā) - the abandoning of desire and lust for the earth element through the supreme path (of arahantship).
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Bhūtā. MA says that "beings" here signifies only living beings below the heaven of the Four Great Kings, the lowest of the sense-sphere heavens; the higher grades of living beings are covered by the terms to follow. MA exemplifies the application of the three types of conceiving to this situation as follows: When a person becomes attached to beings as a result of sight, hearing, etc., or desires rebirth in a certain class of beings, this is conceiving due to craving. When he ranks himself as superior, equal, or inferior to others, this is conceiving due to conceit. And when he thinks, "Beings are permanent, stable, eternal," etc., this is conceiving due to views.
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MA: The gods of the six sense-sphere heavenly worlds are meant, except for Māra and his retinue in the heaven of the gods who wield power over others' creations. See the account of Buddhist cosmology in the Introduction, pp. 31-33.
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Prajāpati, "lord of creation," is a name given by the Vedas to Indra, Agni, etc., as the highest of the Vedic divinities. But according to MA, Pajapati here is a name for Māra because he is the ruler of this "generation" (pajā) made up of living beings.
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Brahmā here is Mahābrahmā, the first deity to be born at the beginning of a new cosmic cycle and whose lifespan lasts for the entire cycle. The Ministers of Brahmā and the Assembly of Brahmā - the other deities whose position is determined by attainment of the first jhāna - are also included.
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MA: By mentioning these, all beings occupying the plane of the second jhāna - the gods of Limited Radiance and the gods of Immeasurable Radiance - should be included, for all these occupy a single level.
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MA: By mentioning these, all beings occupying the plane of the third jhāna - the gods of Limited Glory and the gods of Immeasurable Glory - should be included.
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These are divinities on the plane of the fourth jhāna.
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Abhibhū. MA says this term is a designation for the nonpercipient realm, called thus because it vanquishes (abhibhavati) the four immaterial aggregates. The identification sounds contrived, especially because the word "abhibh ū " is a masculine singular noun. Elsewhere (MN 49.5) the word appears as part of Baka the Brahmā's claim to theocratic hegemony, yet MA rejects identifying the Abhibhū with Brahmā here as a redundancy.
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This and the next three sections deal with conceiving in relation to the four immaterial planes of existence - the cosmological counterparts of the four immaterial meditative attainments. With §18 the division of conceiving by way of planes of existence is completed.
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In these four sections the phenomena comprising personality are considered as objects of perception classified into the four categories of the seen, heard, sensed, and cognized. Here, sensed (muta) signifies the data of smell, taste, and touch, cognized (viññāta) the data of introspection, abstract thought, and imagination. The objects of perception are "conceived" when they are cognized in terms of "mine," "I," and "self," or in ways that generate craving, conceit, and views.
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In this section and the next, the phenomena comprising personality are treated as twofold - by way of unity and diversity. The emphasis on unity (ekatta), MA informs us, is characteristic of one who attains the jhānas, in which the mind occurs in a single mode on a single object. The emphasis on diversity (nannatta) prevails in the case of the non-attainer who lacks the overwhelming unitive experience of jhānas. Conceivings stressing diversity come to expression in philosophies of pluralism, those stressing unity in philosophies of the monistic type.
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In this section, all phenomena of personality are collected together and shown as singlefold. This idea of totality can form the basis for philosophies of the pantheistic or monistic type, depending on the relation posited between the self and the all.
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MA understands "Nibbāna" here to refer to the five kinds of "supreme Nibbāna here and now" included among the sixty-two wrong views of the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1.3.19-25/i.36-38), that is, Nibbāna identified with the full enjoyment of sense pleasures or with the four jhānas. Enjoying this state, or yearning for it, he conceives it with craving. Priding himself on attaining it, he conceives it with conceit. Holding this imaginary Nibbāna to be permanent, etc., he conceives it with views.
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The sekha, the disciple in higher training, is one who has reached any of the three lower planes of sanctity -stream-entry', once-returning, or non-returning - but must still train further in order to reach the goal, arahantship, the supreme security from bondage. MN 53 is devoted to expounding the training he must undertake. The arahant is sometimes described as asekha, one beyond training, in the sense that he has completed the training in the Noble Eightfold Path. Nim rendered sekha as "initiate" and asekha as "adept," which have been changed here to avoid their "esoteric" connotations.
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It should be noted that, whereas the ordinary man is said to perceive each of the bases, the one in higher training is said to directly know them (abhijanäti). MA explains that he knows them with distinguished knowledge, knows them in accordance with their real nature as impermanent, suffering, and non-self. Nim rendered: "From earth he has direct knowledge of earth."
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The disciple in higher training is urged by the Buddha to refrain from conceiving and delight because the dispositions to these mental processes still remain within him. With his attainment of stream-entry he eradicated the fetter of personality view and thus can no longer conceive in terms of wrong views. But the defilements of craving and conceit are only uprooted by the path of arahantship, and thus the sekha remains vulnerable to the conceivings to which they are capable of giving rise. Whereas direct knowledge (abhiñña) is the province of both the sekha and the arahant, full understanding (pariñña) is the province exclusively of the arahant, as it involves the full abandoning of all defilements.
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This is the stock description of the arahant, repeated in many suttas.
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When ignorance has been abolished by the attainment of full understanding, the subtlest dispositions to craving and conceit are also eradicated. Thus the arahant can no longer engage in conceiving and delight.
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This section and the following two are stated to show that the arahant does not conceive, not only because he has fully understood the object, but because he has eradicated the three unwholesome roots - lust (or greed), hate, and delusion. The phrase "free from lust through the destruction of lust" is used to stress that the arahant is not merely temporarily without lust, but has destroyed it at the most fundamental level. Similarly with hate and delusion.
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On this word, the epithet the Buddha uses most often when referring to himself, see the Introduction, p. 24. The commentaries give a long detailed etymology, into which they try to compress virtually the entire Dhamma. The passage has been translated in Bhikkhu Bodhi, Discourse on the All-Embracing Net of Views, pp. 331-44.
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Pariññātantam tathāgatassa. So BBS and SBJ eds. and MA, though PTS ed. reads simply pariññātañ. MA glosses: "fully understood to the conclusion, fully understood to the limit, fully understood without remainder." It explains that while Buddhas and disciple-arahants are alike in abandoning all defilements, there is a distinction in their range of full understanding: whereas disciples can attain Nibbāna after comprehending with insight only a limited number of formations, Buddhas fully understand all formations without exception.
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This sentence gives a highly compressed statement of the formula of dependent origination (pațicca samuppāda), usually expounded in twelve factors (as in MN 38). As interpreted by MA, "delight" is the craving of the previous life that brought into being the "suffering" of the five aggregates in the present life, "being" the kammically determinative aspect of the present life that causes future birth, followed by future ageing and death. This passage shows the cause for the Buddha's elimination of conceiving to be his penetration of dependent origination on the night of his enlightenment. The mention of "delight" (nandt) as the root of suffering links up with the sutta's title; moreover, by referring to the earlier statement that the ordinary person delights in earth, etc., it shows suffering to be the ultimate consequence of delight.
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MA explains the sequence of ideas thus: The Tathāgata does not conceive earth and does not delight in earth because he has understood that delight is the root of suffering. Further, by understanding dependent origination, he has completely abandoned the craving here called "delight" and has awakened to supreme full enlightenment. As a result he does not conceive earth or delight in earth.
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The bhikkhus did not delight in the Buddha's words, apparently because the discourse probed too deeply into the tender regions of their own conceit, and perhaps their residual brahmanic views. At a later time, MA tells us, when their pride had been humbled, the Buddha expounded to these same bhikkhus the Gotamaka Sutta (AN 3:123/i.276), in the course of which they all attained arahantship.