Five & Three Paā±cattaya Sutta (MN 102) (Excerpt) · 莲华归心开放中文佛学资料库

- suttas - - evening talks - short morning talks - lectures - guided meditations - talk collections - other themes - chants - - - - à¹à¸à¸¢ - Franā§ais - Espaā±ol - - Portuguāªs - Ð ÑÑÑÐºÐ¸Ð¹ - - - Ð£ÐºÑÐ°ÑÐ½ÑÑÐºÐ° Submit Search - Home - Suttas - MN - MN 102 Five & Three ## Browse Suttas Go to Majjhima Nikṅya index MN index Show outline show outline ## Outline - (Top) - Introduction const prefersTocHidden = window.sessionStorage.getItem('user-prefers-toc-hidden') ?? window.localStorage.getItem('user-prefers-toc-hidden') ?? false; if (prefersTocHidden) { const tocToggleButton = document.getElementById("tocToggle"); const bookToc = document.getElementById("bookToc"); bookToc.classList.remove("show"); tocToggleButton.setAttribute("aria-expanded", false); tocToggleButton.querySelectorAll("[data-show-text]").forEach(el => { el.setAttribute("data-hide-text", el.innerText); el.innerText = el.getAttribute("data-show-text"); }); } ## Five & Three Paā±cattaya SuttaÂ Â (MNÂ 102) (Excerpt) ## Introduction This discourse has two striking features. The first is that it seems to contain an interpolation. The introduction summarizes the topic of the discourse: five alternative ways in which a person might theorize or speculate about the future state of a person after death. What seems to be the interpolation begins after the first four ways have been discussed, and there are two reasons for regarding it as a later addition. (1) It announces that all five alternatives mentioned in the summary have been discussed, whereas only four have. (2) It then treats a topic not mentioned in the summary at all: alternatives ways in which a person might speculate about the past. Only when this section is finished does the discourse pick up the fifth alternative mentioned in the introductory summary. Because this apparent interpolation interrupts the flow of the discourse, I have here translated just the remaining parts, to give some sense of how they fit together without the interruption. The second striking feature of the discourse is its resemblance to DNÂ 1 in covering two of the three main topics covered by that discourse: speculations about the future and false views of unbinding here-and-now. This resemblance, in fact, may have been what inspired the apparent interpolation, for the third topic covered by DNÂ 1—speculations about the past—is precisely the topic covered in that passage. Perhaps the monks who collected, organized, and memorized the Majjhima Nikṅya wanted their own discourse treating the same range of topics covered in DNÂ 1, and so inserted the section on speculations about the past here. (This, by the way, is not to say that this section is less authentic than the rest of the discourse; just that its insertion is awkward. The redactors may have simply borrowed an authentic teaching from another Dhamma talk.) At any rate, a comparison of the remaining sections with their parallels in DNÂ 1 shows that the Buddhaâs approach here differs in 3 ways from the approach taken there. 1) To begin with, DNÂ 1 focuses primary attention on the source of the various speculative views about the future, based on ways in which the self is defined in the present. The Buddha then rejects these views, both on the basis of their sources and on the basis of the future destinations that such views, as actions, lead to after death. Here, however, the Buddha focuses on (a) the ways in which people who hold these views refute one anotherâs views; (b) the Buddhaâs own refutation of these views, showing either why they make no sense or why they do not lead to freedom from clinging. 2) In DNÂ 1, speculations about the future and false views of unbinding here-and-now are treated as two separate categories. Here, false views of unbinding here-and-now are treated as a type of speculation about the future. The reason for this may be that the claim of having attained unbinding carries an implicit claim about the future: There is no further birth for that person (see DNÂ 29, quoted in Skill in Questions). 3) The most interesting difference between the two discourses, however, centers on the final claim to unbinding given here. All the views listed in DNÂ 1, and all the preceding theories given in this discourse, are attributed to contemplatives who are not followers of the Buddhaâs teachings. In contrast, this final view could easily be one of a person who has followed the Buddhaâs instructions but has simply misread his/her ability to complete those instructions, mistaking a state that still harbors some clinging for one that is totally free of it. Itâs easy to imagine that the monks listening to this discourse might have been brought up short by this last example. After hearing of the failings of contemplatives outside the Buddhaâs teachings, they are presented with a failing to which they themselves could easily fall prey. This discourse thus contains a useful warning for Buddhist meditators today. *Â *Â * I have heard that on one occasion the Bles