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247

Thanks, fixed.

Yes, I think I got them all, also in the Udāna version of the same passage.

I must be missing something, because I don’t get the difference.

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248

Thank you, Bhante. I saw your PR yesterday.

I think you missed my earlier message on the title of MN60 being named Guaranteed in the book.

I think this is the line that causes the inconsistency:

249

Well maybe I’m missing something :laughing: :pray: But let me try and restate my thoughts.

In the Pāli, it talks about not getting stuck “majjhe.”

One interpretation of this at AN 6.61 is that “sakkāyanirodha” is what is “majjhe.” Another interpretation is that “consciousness” is what is “majjhe.”

These, to me, seem to rest on two different readings of the word “majjhe.” In the first, it refers to something transcendent which the Buddha doesn’t really say not to cling to, because it would be the result of someone relinquishing attachment. The latter is a worldly condition that we should relinquish attachment to.

What reading of “majjhe” makes both of these possible?

If I say “I’m stuck between A and C,” that could mean one of two things to me.

  1. I’m caught in the duality of A and C, unable to find escape from these two things.
  2. I’m caught in a middle option B.

Both make sense to me, and both use the word ‘between,’ but in a slightly different sense. The first is like the Buddha’s “middle teaching” which emerges only for those who people relinquish being stuck between eternalism and mortalism. The other is like “the present,” which is between the past and future, but still something you can get stuck on.

To me, this is what the AN 6.61 interpretations do with ‘majjhe.’ Some interpreted it as the transcendent option that people don’t see because they are caught in a duality tied together by craving. Others interpret it as another dhamma that people attach to between two extremes.

I found these differences really confusing in the text until it dawned on me through conversation with another monastic a while ago that they had a different relationship to the word. Then it seemed there were two possible meanings.

250

So I’ve been poking around in Sīlakkhandhavagga and found only two so far, teensy punctuation typos.

DN 2:45.3 space before period at the end of the line

DN 5:22.0 (before DN 5:22.1) section title ends in a period

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251

The Bimbisāra dictionary page said «mirdered by his own son», should be «murdered».

252

There is a set of titles used on the whole site (even for untranslated texts) and then translators are free to give whatever title they want. That is what you are seeing. It’s a feature not a bug.

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253

But it’s inconsistent. In one place, it is translated as Guaranteed but elsewhere it’s translated as Unfailing. Anyway, I think I’ll just drop it.

254

ud3.6:4.3

He doesn’t addresses the mendicants as ‘lowlifes’ out of hate.

It should be

He doesn’t address

255

I was reading AN 6.104, and this bit was interesting to me:

asādhāraáč‡ena ca ñāáč‡ena samannāgato bhavissāmi
I will have unshared knowledge.

I thought this was a curious translation, as it seems to go against “I have no secret teaching”. Reading other examples of asādhāraáč‡ena in MN48, it seems “not common with other people’s teaching” - “others don’t share this view/knowledge”.

But I think in English it feels like “Hoho, I know something I won’t share with you!” When I think it means something like “Extraordinary knowledge” or “Unique knowledge” - is that right Bhante @sujato ?

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256

Thanks, fixed. Hmm, just this morning I got an email from an old friend about this exact same sutta.

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yeah. problem is getting the different contexts straight. In MN 48 we have:

This is the first knowledge they have achieved that is noble and transcendent, and is not shared with ordinary people.

“unique” or “extraordinary” are not correct. perhaps “not held in common with”?

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257

Would it be more clear if it was

not shared by ordinary people

?

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258

Does “uncommon” work for that?

259

FWIW that’s exactly what popped into my head.

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260

Bodhi has “not shared with”. Problem is “not shared with” implies that the aryan (chooses) to not share with someone. “not shared by” implies the opposite, that the non-aryan (chooses) to not share with the aryan.

Hmm, maybe go with “distinct from”.

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261

The blurb on DN31

The Buddha encounters a young man who honors his dead parents by performing rituals.

I thought his father who passed away, not sure about his mum. So, perhaps, dead father is more fitting. Or dead dad to make it rhyme.

262

Bhante @sujato in your MN Guide there is a broken link to Bi Pc 33 (“pc-33” should be “pc33”).

Also wanted to ask about the phrasing of “studied the texts” in that sentence. Since you’re talking about the early Bhikkhuni order, there were no “texts” at that time. Perhaps “studied the teachings” or “recited the teachings” fits better.

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263

Thanks, fixed.

Awesome, fixed.

We normally use “texts” as in “early buddhist texts” to mean just the scriptures or whatever you want to call them, with no implication that they are written. It’s kind of a convention of the field.

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264

DN16

“And what about me, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha at present? Have you comprehended my mind to know that I have such ethics, or such teachings, or such wisdom, or such meditation, or such freedom?”

In the other repetitions in the same passage it has “qualities”.

265

In DN16 you have

at Bhoga City, where he stayed at the Ānanda shrine.

But in AN4.180 you have

near the city of Bhoga, at the Ānanda Tree-shrine.

266

Use Bhoga City (because as I learned subsequent to the AN translation, it is in fact the “city of the Bhogans”, not the “City of Bhoga”).

As for the shrines, I try to use Tree-shrine where necessary to clarify what it is, but in DN 16 it’s used a lot, so I often just say shrine.

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