Part of the problem is translating upadana as clinging.
see Upadana? Let go of clinging where I argued:
SN22.79 is quite clear when it says: “a noble disciple who gets rid of things and does not accumulate them, who abandons things and does not take them up [I.e. NOT “cling to them”], who scatters things and does not amass them…”. Accumulating and amassing are synonyms for taking things up, not for clinging. Moreover, this speaks about the sekha, and to say that a sekha does not cling or grasp sounds like he/she is already enlightened (as it does in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation for example). Instead the sekha is not taking up more things as a self and is abandoning them instead.
