Samyutta Nikaya: Mahavagga: Iddhipadasamyutta (51)

 

1: Bases for spiritual power:

1) Concentration due to desire and volitional formations of striving

2) Concentration due to energy and volitional formations of striving

3) Concentraiton due to mind and volitional formations of striving

4) Concentration due to investigation and volitional formations or striving

 

2: Repeat of #1, but makes clear that neglecting these is neglecting the noble path itself.

 

3: Makes unambiguous that the development and cultivatino of these bases leads to the complete destruction of suffering.

 

4: These powers lead to revulsion, dispassion, cessation, peace, direct knowledge, enlightenment, Nirvana.

 

5 – 9: Lists the advatnages of these bases as leading to liberation, including that of the Buddha.

 

10: Repeats the story of the Buddha at the Capala Shrine, being urged by Mara to pack it in now—but the Buddha says his parinirvana will occur in three months.

 

11: See notes on #20 for the various terms here used for energy in meditation. Then this becomes an exposition of the miraculous powers that can result.

 

13: Here “desire” is a very positive force, the enrgy to move forward, to gain mental strength.

 

Volitional formations of striving:

 

1) Nonarising of unarisen evil unwholesome states

2) Abandoning of arisen evil unwholesome states

3) Arising of unarisen wholesome states

4) Maintenance of arisen wholesome states

 

14: This one’s kind of fun: Moggallana makes the Mansion of Migara’s Mother tremble, in order to stir up a group of slacker monks.

 

15: The Brahmin’s logic is a bit weird here: you cannot abandon desire by means of desire itself. I suppose that the desire to end desire is itself a desire.

 

Ananda seems to be indicating that there is a subsidence of the wish to do something once that something has been done. Thus, we can desire not to be so enmeshed in desire, and as the desires lessen—they all lessen. We no longer need the desire to end desire, so it lessens and eventually vanishes.

 

20: The meditational energies:

 

1) too slack: a bit of torpor

2) too tense: a bit of restlessness

3) constricted internally: sloth

4) constricted externally: distraction

5) So before, so after: being consistent throughout a sitting

6) So above, so below: maintaining mindfulness of the body

7) By day, by night: being consistent all the time

 

These each apply to the four bases.

 

22: This “mind-made body” appears to be a creation of the fourth jhana.

 

86: Cultivation of these, five higher fetters are broken.