Yes. The only mistake is “sensed” for muta. In fact this means “thought”.
However, the English prepositions are rendering Pali grammatical cases which by their nature are more ambiguous and might equally well be rendered a number of ways. For example we might have:
- na tena: not with that; not by that; not through that; not because of that
- na tattha: not in that; not in relation to that; not at that; not regarding that
The best approach is always to start with what we know and work from there. The most helpful phrase is the last one:
nevidha na huraṃ na ubhayamantarena
This means “not in this world, i.e. the current life, not in the hereafter, i.e. the world beyond or the next life, and not in between the two, i.e. between the worlds.”
As a teaching on the final end of suffering, this is an idiomatic way of saying that you’ll have escaped from rebirth in any form.
So the sutta proceeds thusly:
- Contemplate the four ways of knowing
- Mysterious passage!
- End rebirth
Okay, so what we do know is that normally what happens is that through right contemplation, you let go of attachments, which leads to the end of rebirth. So presumably the second stage is describing a similar process here.
Note that the phrase nevidha na huraṃ na ubhayamantarena, together with the quatrad including muta, and the context to a new convert, firmly place this passage as a response to the pre-Buddhist philosophies. Thus it is likely that this middle passage is also phrased in a way that is derived from or responds to a pre-Buddhist teaching, which would explain the difficult and obscure idiom. Probably we could find something similar in the Upanishads.
Unfortunately I haven’t done that, so we’ll have to fly blind a little bit. Any interpretation is tentative! But the thing to bear in mind is what I call the “principle of least meaning”. The idea is that in reading ancient texts we tend to over-interpret, reading great significance into tiny details. Instead, we should read passages so that they contribute the least meaning possible, preferring literal over metaphorical readings, and not changing established meaning—unless the passage demands otherwise.
In dependent origination, before rebirth takes place, we have two stages: the defilements (grasping, craving, etc.) and the process of ongoing existence (bhava). I suspect that the two phrases tena and tattha correspond to these.
Thus na tena means “not because of that”, i.e. not because of the causative power of defilements and kamma propelling you into a new life, stimulated by attachment for the ways of knowing. And na tattha means “not in that” i.e. the next life, the ongoing sphere of existence and rebirth.
This would suggest that we might be better off translating na tena as “not because of that”.
