Fair enough, thank you 
I remember being struck by the division of the eightfold path into a mundane and transcendental version when I first came across this sutta. It brought out something that wasn’t made clear in other suttas. However, according to this article on Buddha-Vacana.org (who’s the author?) there are several indications that this is a late sutta, having been influenced by commentarial material.
So this division (not the division between worldly and supra-worldly itself, but the two-fold version of the path) probably doesn’t represent what the Buddha taught. I wonder what problem the editors/writers were trying to solve in coming up with this distinction?
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I’ve heard this too, regarding MN 117. Though come to think of it, I’m not sure what difference it makes in practice? I mean, the suttas are clear enough elsewhere that the things that lead to heaven/good karma are not enough for liberation (e.g., SN 35.74). I guess maybe it makes some difference in terms of how one starts their practice, maybe?
Come to think of it, this discussion reminds me of the controversy involving MN 44, discussed on this thread. Basically, there is controversy about whether the wisdom (“paññā”) part of the path is at the very beginning (i.e., right view and right intention) or at the end (after the 8 fold path, with the “right insight” and “right liberation”).
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Thanks for that info and the reference @Bodhipaksa.
yes. … and this can lead to putting less emphasis on generosity and the precepts
I don’t think it does make a difference to traditional Buddhists so much (tho what would I know, because I’m not one). I think it makes a great difference to those (incl myself) who were brought up in materialist Western culture and got taught “how to meditate” without a thorough grounding in generosity and siīa.
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Interesting that that’s been your experience. I started with super mundane right view, basically…a focus on anatta in particular. Then I started meditation, then found that ethics/generosity kinda flowed naturally from that. I would have never started practicing meditation if I had to take precepts first.
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For a lot of Buddhists in Malaysia and Singapore, ask them to keep precepts is far easier than to ask them to go for meditation retreats.
Is it the no alcohol rule?
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Interesting. Yeah, it seems like convert vs. non-convert Buddhists are quite different in this regard. I think a lot of Westerners turn to meditation/Buddhism as a way of “fixing” an underlying psychological issue rather than wanting to adopt a full-fledged lifestyle.
For me, it pretty much was that. Alcohol didn’t really interfere with my meditation at first, and even arguably was conducive to the flow of rapture . But it eventually compromised my development of equanimity and mindfulness. So I quit.
I guess I also stopped squishing bugs after I started meditating w/ metta. I would have laughed at the idea of not squishing bugs before I starting meditating….
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I agree @Gillian, I started out meditating as way to ease the difficulty I was going through in life at the time and later took up the precepts and eventually started practicing the Buddhist path. It’s so nice to see traditional Buddhists have a good grounding in the generosity aspect, that is definitely something I had to work on, and still ongoing 
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I imagine it could. But based on MN 117 I’ve tended to think of paññā as including things like understanding that it’s beneficial to practice generosity and live by the precepts, so that in a way wisdom does come first. But I’m not sure if paññā can legitimately been interpreted that way.
Generally, the way I think of the 8-fold path and three trainings is that they’re not really sequential. The eight-fold path is kind of like an eight-lane highway, with various parts of you in each of the lanes (still connected to each other), so that you need to be working on ethics, meditation, and wisdom more or less at the same time.
Maybe ethics and generosity are akin to the slower lanes. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but to indicate that these factors are foundational. If those aspects of our practice are moving slowly, that puts a limit on our overall progress.
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