Bhante Sujato — Encounters With The Buddha's Words — 2019 Buddhist Library Sydney

[waiyin]

The stuff mentioned in relation to MN23 (Tbe Ant-Hill) are:

Set of 4 perspectives

1. Literal – [is]
2. Moral - practical — [ought]
3. Metaphorical - creative — [maybe]
4. Transcendant — [?]

kumārakassapa - KN:Thag2.41, AN1.217, DN23 (Parallel: The Story of Paesi (Paesi-kahanayam): Soul and Body in Ancient India: A Dialogue on Materialism; Text, Translation, Notes and Glossary; Article in Journal of the American Oriental Society 123(4):913 · October 2003 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272928381_The_Story_of_Paesi_Paesi-kahanayam_Soul_and_Body_in_Ancient_India_A_Dialogue_on_Materialism_Text_Translation_Notes_and_Glossary)), Vin:(Pli-Tv-)Kd1 (62 Gabbhavīsūpasampadānujānana)

Ant-hills are worshiped in Hinduism

The Vammika Sutta (MN 23) has a rather unique and tantalizing structure. Typically suttas will explain their main message in explicit terms, then use a simile for illustration. But this sutta, framed as a riddle presented to the monk Kumāra Kassapa, places the obscure riddles front and center, and only then does the Buddha draw out the Dhammic implications. Following the Upanishadic precedent, the Buddha makes an explicit and direct connection between each point in the sutta and a particular po…

• WY: Casket as a translation for caṅgavāra is cool! Also a memory of how I used to build metaphorical bunkers to protect my own feelings. (Bhante Sujato: “It’s okay to feel pain, as you learn in meditation.” 20190715 Thank you!)

maṃsapesi - MN54
-WY: lump of meat being a symbol for nandīrāga has the additional features of it being anicca (meat rots; one’s desires changes, often when one has that which one desires in hand, it is no longer wanted).

satthaṃ ādāyā - WY: in addition to sattha being a symbol for wisdom, does anyone else see a relation to satthaharaka? E.g. How wisdom can be a danger, when not tampered by kindness & compassion? (Thank you for the reminder that there are “sharks” (danger, though not MN67) in the ocean (which I feel is reading suttas in Pāli akin to as opposed to reading the English translation “a small pool”), thankfully there are many rafts (like modern day teachers of Early Buddhist Texts and MN22).

Apologies for putting so much of my own thoughts here.

PS - Mirkwood is awesome!

Links to DN21:
Part 1 (Part 7 of series): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676FhnkqwSA
Part 2 (Part 8 of series): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAuIEpOiFY4
mp3 files (downloaded them as mp3, edited using Audacity, export as .flac, lame -b 16 -1 --resample 11 --lowpass 5 -X3 *.flac output.mp3 as suggested by Musiko, thank you; established when we were editing sutta readings from Ajahn Brahmali’s retreats):
Part 1: https://scdd.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/original/3X/8/0/800f38345ba2fb909967d02405fa346587e90924.mp3
Part 2: https://scdd.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/original/3X/c/2/c2af8298fe5f5d0699227aba48c141a6e0e6b998.mp3

On Soṇa and tuning instruments

In the famous story of Soṇa, the former musician, we hear the Buddha giving a simile based on the tuning of an instrument. The story appears in AN 6.55 and its various parallels: Pi Tv Kd 5, SA 254, EA 23.3, Zh Mi Kd 6, Zh Dg Kd 5, MA 123, and in various Sanskrit fragments, and probably other Vinaya passages. The instrument is the vīṇā, which is usually translated as “lute”, but in fact it was more likely to be something in the arched harp family. They’re an instrument that remains quite close …

papañcasaññasaṅkhā
ekantavāda ekantasīlā ekantachandā ekanta ājjhosāna
taṇhāsaṅkhayavimutta (MN37)

Thank you.