| no_author

“ He keeps watch upon his faculty of sight, and he attains to mastery over it. And so, in like manner, when he hears a sound with his ear, or smells an odour with his nose, or tastes a flavour with his tongue, or feels a touch with his body, or when he cognises a phenomenon with his mind he is not entranced in the general appearance or the details of it. ”

“ In generosity, in self-mastery, in control of the senses, in speaking truth there is neither merit, nor increase of merit.” Thus, Lord, did Pūraṇa Kassapa, when asked what was the immediate advantage in the life of a recluse, expound his theory of non-action, [24] just, Lord, as if a man, when asked what a mango was, should explain what a bread fruit is, just so did Pūraṇa Kassapa, when asked what was the fruit, in this present state of being, of the life of a recluse, expound his theory of non-action. ”

“ If a man, who had eyes to see, were to take it into his hand, he would clearly perceive how the one is bound up with the other. [57]
[77] ‘This, O king, is an immediate fruit of the life of a recluse, visible in this world, and higher and sweeter than the last.
85. ‘With his heart thus serene, made pure, translucent, cultured, devoid of evil, supple, ready to act, firm, and imperturbable, he applies and bends down his mind to the calling up of a mental image. ”

“ And neither in question nor answer is there any reference specially to the Buddhist Order. It is taken for granted, alike by the Buddha and the king, that any one who had devoted himself to the religious life, whatever the views or opinions he held, or the association he had joined, would, in accordance with the remarkable tolerance of that age and country, be treated with equal respect and courtesy. And the same note runs all through the Dialogue. The Buddha shows the advantages of the ‘life of a recluse,’ not necessarily of a follower of his own. ”

“ There is, O king, no cause, either ultimate or remote, for the depravity of beings; they become. depraved without reason and without cause. There is no cause, either proximate or remote, for the rectitude of beings; they become pure without reason and without cause. The attainment of any given condition, of any character, does not depend either on one’s own acts, or on the acts of another, or on human effort. There is no such thing as power or energy, or human strength or human vigour. ”

“ When he had thus spoken, a certain minister said to the king: ‘There is, Sire, Pūraṇa Kassapa, the head of an order, of a following, the teacher of a school, well-known and of repute as a sophist, revered by the people, a man of experience, who has long been a recluse, old and well stricken in years. ”

“ With the pure Heavenly Eye [67] , surpassing that of men, he sees beings as they pass away from one form of existence and take shape in another; he recognises the mean and the noble, the well favoured and the ill favoured, the happy and the wretched, passing away according to their deeds:
“Such and such beings, my brethren, in act and word and thought, revilers of the noble ones, holding to wrong views, acquiring for themselves that karma which results from wrong views, they, on the dissolution of the body, after death, are reborn in some unhappy state of suffering or woe. ”

“ Free as the air is the life of him who has renounced all worldly things. How difficult is it for the man who dwells at home to live the higher life in all its fullness, in all its purity, in all its bright perfection! ”

“ King Ajātasattu of Magadha, after pointing out the advantages derived from their occupations by a long list of ordinary people in the world, asks whether the members of the Order, who have given up the world, derive any corresponding advantage, visible in this life, from theirs. The answer is a list of such advantages, arranged in an ascending scale of importance, each one mentioned being said to be better and sweeter than the one just before described. ”

“ No man can call me servant, and I wander— So said the Exalted One— At will, o’er all the earth, on what I find I feel no need of wages, or of gain, So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, tonight. ”

“ Putting away flurry and worry, he remains free from fretfulness, and with heart serene within, he purifies himself of irritability and vexation of spirit. Putting away wavering, he remains as one passed beyond perplexity; and no longer in suspense as to what is good, he purifies his mind of doubt.
69. ‘Then just, O king, as when a man, after contracting a loan [50] , should set a business on foot, and his [\q 83/] business should succeed, and he should not only be able to pay off the old debt he had incurred, but there should be a surplus over to maintain a wife. ”

“ He, by himself, thoroughly knows and sees, as it were, face to face this universe—including the worlds above of the gods, the Brahmas, and the Māras, and the world below with its recluses and Brahmans, its princes and peoples—and having known it, he makes his knowledge known to others. ”

“ Buddhaghosa explains that the karaṇḍa is not a basket (as Burnouf renders it) , but the skin which the snake sloughs off; and that the scabbard is like the sword, whatever the sword’s shape. He adds that of course a man could not take a snake out of its slough with his hand. He is supposed in the simile to do so in imagination.
[61] iddhi, literally ‘well-being, prosperity.’ The four iddhis of a king are personal beauty, length of life, strong health, and popularity (M. Sud. Sutta in my ‘Buddhist Suttas,’ pp. 259-261) . ”

“ So that the power of iddhi, of hearing heavenly sounds and of knowing other people’s thoughts, are apparently supposed to be in common ground between the buddhists and the other sects. they are included in our sutta because they are supposed to be part of the advantage of life in an Order—in any Order, that is, not only the Buddhist. ”

“ There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds. There is no such thing as this world or the next. There is neither father nor mother, nor beings springing into life without them. There are in the world no recluses or Brahmans who have reached the highest point [33] , who; walk perfectly, and who having understood and realised, by themselves alone, both this world and the next, make their wisdom known to others. ”

“ To him who acts, O king, or causes another to act, to him who mutilates or causes another to mutilate, to him who punishes or causes another to punish, to him who causes grief or torment, to him who trembles or causes others to tremble, to him who kills a living creature, who takes what is not given, who breaks into houses, who commits dacoity, or robbery, or highway robbery, or adultery, or who speaks lies, to him thus acting there is no guilt. ”

“ It is therefore impossible to be sure what is the simile that underlies the use of the word in its secondary, ethical sense. Perhaps after all it is the idea of overwhelming intoxication, and not of flood or taint or ooze, that we ought to consider.
Subhūti in quoting the above passage from Buddhaghosa (in the Abhidhāna Padīpikā Sūci, P. 43) reads pārivās throughout for pārivās’.
[71] ‘Kamāsavā, with special reference to the taint of hankering after a future life in the sensuous plane (kāma loka) ; that is, in the world. ”

“ The stress is upon separation from the world, taking ‘world’ in the sense of all the hindrances to spiritual progress, and especially of the five chief hindrances (Nīvaraṇā) just above set out. Buddhaghosa has nothing here, but compare Asl. 166.
[53] Ekodibhāva. Compare Asl. 169, Senart in Mahāvastu I, 554, and the notes in J. P. T. S., 1884, P. 32 foll.
[54] Upekhako, literally ‘looking on,’ that is, looking on rival mental states with equal mind. Imperturbable, impartial, tolerant, unsusceptible, stoical, composed, are all possible renderings, and all unsatisfactory. ”

“ Penetrating with his own heart the hearts of other beings, of other men, he knows them. He discerns —
The passionate mind to be passionate, and the calm mind calm; [80] The angry mind to be angry, and the peaceful mind peaceful; The dull mind to be dull, and the alert mind alert; [\q 90/] The attentive mind to be attentive, and the wandering mind wandering; The broad mind to be broad, and the narrow mind narrow ”

“ All animals, all creatures (with one, two, or more senses) , all beings (produced from eggs or in a womb) , all souls (in plants) [27] are without force and power and energy of their own. They are bent this way and that by their fate, by the necessary conditions of the class to which they belong, by their individual nature: and it is according to their position in one or other of the six classes that they experience ease or pain. ”

“ The word abhiññā is used in the divisions containing the Fives and Sixes exclusively in its ordinary sense (III, 277, 451; comp. IV, 348) . And this is the more instructive as what were afterwards called the six abhiññās are actually given in full (IV, 17-19, Section 6-11) in the same words as in the Ākaṅkheyya Sutta (No. 6 of the Majjhima, translated in my ‘Buddhist Suttas’) , and very nearly as in our Sutta, here under discussion. But they are not called abhiññās.
[8] Compare also A. I, 100s; 11, 249; III, 3, 9, 277.
[9] For a list of twenty-one laymen Arahats see A. III, 451 ”

“ It should be mentioned here, however, that Burnouf has missed the whole point of the dialogue by misunderstanding the constantly repeated phrase sandiṭṭhikaṃ sāmañña-phalaṃ. from which this title is taken. He renders it throughout as meaning ‘foreseen and general fruit’ which is grammatically impossible as regards sandiṭṭhikaṃ, and rests on a false derivation as regards sāmañña. This last word means, of course, ‘samaṇaship, being a samaṇa, living as a samaṇa, a recluse, a religieux.’
[16] Jīvakassa komārabhaccassa. ”

“ Several whole Dialogues are devoted to it, and various Suttas in others of the oldest texts. Buddhaghosa has many pages upon it here, and deals with it also at length in the Visuddhi Magga and elsewhere. What is above added in brackets explains the principal points of what is implied, according to the Piṭakas, in this famous passage—the Buddhist analogue to St. Paul’s: ‘Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God’ (I Cor. x. 31) .
By the real fact underlying any action is meant that, in the Buddhist theory, behind the action (going, seeing, &c.) ”

“ A human being is built up of the four elements. When he dies the earthy in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the windy to the air, and his faculties [34] pass into space. ”

“ Iṇaṃ ādāya. Neumann has ‘oppressed by debt,’ but Buddhaghosa (p. 212) says ‘taking goods on interest’; and this is confirmed by Jāt. IV, 256, V, 436.
[51] From the beginning of Section 68 the text, though here split up into paragraphs for the convenience of the reader, is really one long sentence or paragraph of much eloquence and force in the Pāli; and the peroration, leading on to the jhānas, is a favourite passage recurring M. I, 71; Vin. I, 294; Mil. 84. The five similes are to be taken, in order, as referring to the Five Hindrances (Nīvaraṇā) given in Section 68. ”

“ In the Ambaṭṭha the point is as to caste. The Kshatriya caste is the most honourable, but wisdom and conduct are higher still. What then is the right conduct, what the right [\q 60/] wisdom? The conduct (caraṇa) is all the above paragraphs from 2-9 inclusive ”

“ As he was an Arahat it follows that the possession of the Heavenly Eye was not a necessary consequence of Arahatship. Buddhaghosa adds (p. 224) that the sphere of vision of the Heavenly Eye did not extend to the Formless Worlds. On the dhamma-cakkhu, ‘the Eye for the Truth.,’ see below, p. 110, Section 21 of the text.
[69] Vītisañcarante is Buddhaghosa’s reading. The Siamese has Vithiṃ. Compare M. I, 279.
[70] Āsavas, Deadly Floods, another untranslatable term. Neumann has Illusion (Wahn) ; Burnouf has defilement (souillures) . ”

“ The power of being content with little, with simplicity of life; Section 66.
7. The emancipation of heart from the Five Hindrances to self-mastery—covetousness, ill-temper, laziness, worry and flurry, and perplexity ”