Sagathavagga: Devaputtasamyutta

 

1:         Clear up this point yourself: seems to be a rendering of ‘work it out for yourself’ or something along those lines.

 

Exercise of an ascetic I take to mean meditation; perhaps vipassana as compared to samatha, which would be the concluding line.

 

2:         If he desires the heart’s attainment: that means arhantship, enlightenment.

 

3:         The verse here is similar to earlier ones. Slaying anger is the one good form of killing. One would assume that the slaying of ignorance would be another.

 

4:         I’ve also seen this verse before, in the Anguttara Nikaya. Sun, moon, and fire are fine, but the Buddha is the unsurpassed light. Certainly I take this as the buddha-nature dwelling within, that all share, in our shared potential for awakening. The actual Theravada may not think that we’re all Buddhas, but in some ways I get a bit of that here.

 

5:         brahmin here means arahant. Not that the arahant need not strive any longer, for he has reached the end of birth and death.

 

I can see this (and what it stands for) as a sticking point in the development of Buddhism. The bodhisattva most emphatically does continue to strive—there is no path to follow with an end in sight.

 

6:         According to the commentary, the deva had been an ascetic but, due to very powerful defilements, found the life very difficult. He finds the path impassable and uneven and the Buddha points out that it is quite passable and even for the noble ones. Meditation is neither easy nor difficult: these distinctions lie only in the mind.

 

7:         The Book of the Nines, Pancalananda Chapter (IV 449-51) is a longer version of this. In Ananda’s analysis, the confinement is the five cords of sense desire and the opening the first jhana. There remain confinements then, which are broken by each of the jhanas, then successively by the four formless realms, with the final asavas to be destroyed and thus the achievement of complete escape.

 

Pancalananda had achieved the first jhana in a previous existence. Here the Buddha is teaching him that this is only one step along the way (provided we are reading in the context of A 449-51) and that further effort is needed.

 

8:         Even though Tayana was not a disciple, his practice bore fruit given that he was reborn well. Note the difference here between this attitude and that of other religions which invariably place non-adherents in hell, à la Dante. Tayana does recognize the excellence of the Buddha’s teachings, and warns against the unfounded spiritual life.

 

9:         Candima seized by Rahu: a lunar eclipse. Thus the metaphor of a lunar eclipse: the asuras remove the moon’s brightness. The Buddha claims that the moon has taken refuge and is therefore released—the eclipse passes.

 

10:       Here we have Suriya, the sun, in eclipse. In both this and #9, Rahu is a demon who stands in the path of sun or moon, and takes them into his mouth; since they keep moving on (karma) he must let them go or they will break through the back of his head.

 

11:       Interesting about deer in a mosquito-infested marsh: would the mosquitoes be sufficient to actually kill the deer? Or had they made the connection already between mosquitoes and disease?

 

12:       Ventu could be the prototype of Vishnu.

 

13:       Such a simple sutra and yet so fine! A meditator is the one liberated in mind; this is the practice.

 

Having known the world’s rise and fall: not only the external world, but also his world—the fathom-long body.

 

14:       Here is an excellent description of the arahant: the taint-destroyer bearing his final body.

 

15:       This sutra has strong bearing to the very first one. Also see Sutta Nipata 173-175 for the same question and reply with nuances.

 

12:38 – 40: intention is the support for the maintenance of consciousness.

 

Sensual perception: the five lower fetters

Fetter of form: the five higher fetters

Delight in existence: three kinds of karmic volitional formations (negative, positive, neutral.)

 

16:       The metaphor/simile of one’s head on fire: always striking. Here applied to sensual lust and identity view.

 

17:       The mind is always agitated
About unarisen problems
And about arisen ones.

 

The unarisen problems are listed first, I daresay because they are more common. Amazing how we can get into a stew over—nothing.

 

The Buddha’s answer is quite unequivocal: enlightenment and austerity, restraint of the sense faculties, relinquishing all: there is no way around this. The path is the path.

 

18:       Delight comes to one who is miserable,
Misery to one filled with delight.

 

Here is something addressed in the prajnaparamita literature. We can conceive of any lakshana on in its negation: to see that lakshana ‘x’ appears, we must also see that lakshana ‘not-x’ also appears, for how can we conceive a notion without conceiving the non-existence of the same notion?

 

19:       This is a repeat of Devatasamyutta 3 (1:3).

 

20:       I seem to recall that Anathapindika had a special relationship with Sariputta. This verse is a repeat of 1:48 up to the end of the verse. After this, the Buddha repeats the verse to the sangha and Ananda figures the devaputta must have Anathapindika.

 

21:       This one is essentially a repeat of 1:31, although in the earlier version various devas of the Satullapa host recite the individual quatrains.

 

22:       Usually we talk respectfully about other religions. But there are the 62 wrong views as outlined in the Brahmajala Sutra (D 1:1). These lead us to woe—especially, as here, if we start on the Dhamma road and then move off. However, note that this isn’t eternal damnation. Your rebirth may not wind up as good as hoped, but there’s always another chance.

 

23:       This begins as a repeat of 1:43. But then we get a story. The critical thing here is that there is no limit to the merit acquired through giving. The Perfection of Wisdom tradition takes this farther by stating that if one has a notion (lakshana) or merit, then there is no merit.

 

24:       Repeat of 1:50. I have notes on Ghatikara in my notes on that.

 

25:       Become just like the dead: that is, the dead don’t receive teachings from the masters, the dead don’t practice, the dead don’t do giving as compassion, etc.

 

26:       This is the companion sutra to my all-time favorite in the Anguttara Nikaya, Nines #38. Also see S iv, 93 (IV:116(3)). I’ll be doing some kind of commentary on this group of “End of the World” sutras, in particular using the commentary by Nananada, once it arrives.

 

27:       This is a repeat of 1:4, with the substitution of the young deva Nanda for the certain devata of the previous version.

 

28:       Repeat of 1:29, again with a substitution of a young deva for a devata.

 

29:       …the young deva Susima, accompanied by a great assembly of young devas, approached the Blessed One. This has the same grandiloquent sound to it as the Mahayana sutras often have.

 

This is all the more apparent in the following paragraphs in which the young devas intensify their colors, in a series of lovely metaphors.

 

30:       Although other teachers may have taught other systems, they taught karma and thus their disciples may well have been reborn as devas.

 

This in some ways is a condensed version of the Samanaphalla Sutra--#2 in the Digha Nikaya, which covers the teachings of the other teachers of the Buddha’s day.