“‘He is scorched, he is drenched, alone—
alone in the awe-inspiring forest,
naked, not sitting near a fire,
the sage exerting himself in the search.’
Notes
1. See MN 105.
2. Mahaggataṁ. This term is used, together with “immeasurable / unlimited,” in the standard description of the awareness generated in the practice of the brahmavihāras (SN 42:8). According to Ven. Anuruddha in MN 127, however, an enlarged mind is not immeasurable. Its range of awareness is larger than the body but still measurable, ranging in distance from the shade of a tree to the earth bounded by the ocean.
3. On the various levels of release, see DN 15, MN 43, and AN 9:43–45.
4. The Dhamma wheel. See SN 56:11. This expression also appears in Iti 112.
5. On the eight emancipations, see DN 15.
6. For more on the Buddha’s engagement with the eight assemblies, see DN 16.
7. Ekāyana magga. This term also appears in MN 10 and DN 22, where the four establishings of mindfulness are said to be an ekāyana magga. For decades, this term was translated as “the only way,” but more recently—beginning with Ven. Ñāṇamoli—translators have noted that the phrase ekāyana magga appears in this series of similes where it reveals its idiomatic sense. For the similes to work, ekāyana magga requires the sense, not of an only way, but of a way that goes to only one destination. In other words, an ekāyana magga is a path that doesn’t fork—one that, as long as you follow it, takes you to a single, inevitable goal.
8. This description of the bodhisatta’s extreme emaciation is identical with the description of his extreme emaciation that resulted from engaging in austerities in his last lifetime. See MN 36.
9. This is the teaching of Makkhali Gosāla. See DN 2.
10. For a discussion of the implications of this passage for an understanding of the establishings of mindfulness, see Right Mindfulness, Chapter 8.
11. See Ud 8:7.
Origin URL: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN12.html