Sn 4.9
Magandiya Sutta
To Magandiya
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro BhikkhuPTS: Sn 835-847
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1994 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1994
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
[Magandiya offers his daughter to the Buddha, who replies:]
On seeing [the daughters of Mara]
— Discontent, Craving, & Passion —
there wasn't even the desire for sex.
So what would I want with this,
filled with urine & excrement?
I wouldn't want to touch it
even with my foot.
Magandiya:
If you don't want
this gem of a woman, coveted
by many kings,
then for what sort of viewpoint,
precept, practice, life,
attainment of [further] becoming
do you argue?
The Buddha:
'I argue for this'
doesn't occur to one
when considering what's grasped
among doctrines.
Looking for what is ungrasped
with regard to views,
and detecting inner peace,
I saw.
Magandiya:
Sage, you speak
without grasping
at any preconceived judgments.
This 'inner peace':
what does it mean?
How is it,
by an enlightened person,
proclaimed?
The Buddha:
He doesn't speak of purity
in connection with view,
learning,
knowledge,
precept or practice.
Nor is it found by a person
through lack of view,
of learning,
of knowledge,
of precept or practice.1
Letting these go, without grasping,
at peace,
independent,
one wouldn't long for becoming.
Magandiya:
If he doesn't speak of purity
in connection with view,
learning,
knowledge,
precept or practice.
and it isn't found by a person
through lack of view,
of learning,
of knowledge,
of precept or practice,
it seems to me that this teaching's
confused,
for some assume a purity
in terms of
— by means of —
a view.
The Buddha:
Asking questions
dependent on view,
you're confused
by what you have grasped.
And so you don't glimpse
even
the slightest
notion
[of what I am saying].
That's why you think
it's confused.
Whoever construes
'equal,'
'superior,' or
'inferior,'
by that he'd dispute;
whereas to one unaffected
by these three,
'equal,'
'superior,'
do not occur.
Of what would the brahman say 'true'
or 'false,'
disputing with whom:
he in whom 'equal,' 'unequal' are not.
Having abandoned home,
living free from society,
the sage
in villages
creates no intimacies.
Rid of sensual passions, free
from yearning,
he wouldn't engage with people
in quarrelsome debate.2
Those things
aloof from which
he should go about in the world:
the great one
wouldn't take them up
& argue for them.
As the prickly lotus
is unsmeared by water & mud,
so the sage,
an exponent of peace,
without greed,
is unsmeared by sensuality &
the world.
An attainer-of-wisdom isn't measured
made proud3
by views or what's thought,
for he isn't fashioned of them.
He wouldn't be led
by action,4 learning;
doesn't reach a conclusion
in any entrenchments.
For one dispassionate toward perception
there are no ties;
for one released by discernment,
no
delusions.
Those who grasp at perceptions & views
go about butting their heads
in the world.
Notes
1. The Pali of the first sentence puts the words for "view, learning, knowledge,
precept, & practice" in the instrumental case. This case stands for the
relationship "by means of" or "because of" but it also has an idiomatic meaning:
"in terms of." (To keep the translation neutral on this point, I have translated
with the idiom, "in connection with," which can carry both possibilities.) The
second sentence puts the words for lack of view, etc., in the ablative case,
which carries the meaning "because of" or "from."
If we assume that the instrumental case in the first sentence is meant in the
sense of "by means of," then we are dealing — as Magandiya asserts — with plain
nonsense: the first sentence would say that a person cannot achieve purity by
means of views, etc., while the second sentence would be saying that he cannot
achieve purity by means of no view, etc. The fact that the two sentences place
the relevant terms in different grammatical cases, though, suggests that they
are talking about two different kinds of relationships. If we take the
instrumental in the first sentence in the sense of "in terms of," then the
stanza not only makes sense but also fits in with teachings of the rest of the
Pali discourses: a person cannot be said to be pure simply because he/she holds
to a particular view, body of learning, etc. Purity is not defined in those
terms. The second sentence goes on to say that a person doesn't arrive at purity
from a lack of view, etc. Putting the two sentences together with the third, the
message is this: One uses right views, learning, knowledge, precepts, &
practices as a path, a means for arriving at purity. Once one arrives, one lets
go of the path, for the purity of inner peace, in its ultimate sense, is
something transcending the means by which it is reached.
In the stanza immediately following this one, it's obvious that Magandiya has
not caught this distinction.
For further illustrations of the role of Right View in taking one to a dimension
beyond all views, see AN 10.93, AN 10.96, and MN 24. (The analogy of the relay
coaches in MN 24 actually seems more tailored to the issues raised by the
Buddha's remarks in this discourse than it does to the question it addresses in
that discourse.) See also sections III/H and III/H/i in The Wings to Awakening.
2. An explanation of this stanza, attributed to Ven. Maha Kaccana, is contained
in SN 22.3.
3. "Measured... made proud" — two meanings of the Pali word manameti.
4. "Action" here can mean either kamma in its general sense — i.e., the
attainer-of-wisdom has gone beyond creating kamma — or in a more restricted
sense, as ritual action. According to Nd.I, it refers to the factor of
"fabrication" (sankhara) in the analysis of dependent co-arising (see SN 12.2).
See also: SN 1.1; Sn 5.7.
0 comments:
Post a Comment