Right View: The
Sammaditthi Sutta
and its Commentary
Translated from
the Pali by
Bhikkhu Nanamoli
Edited and
Revised by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Bhikkhus, just as the dawn is the forerunner and
first indication of the rising of the sun, so is right
view the forerunner and first indication of wholesome
states.
For one of right view, bhikkhus, right intention
springs up. For one of right intention, right
speech springs up. For one of right speech,
right action springs up. For one of right
action, right livelihood springs up. For one
of right livelihood, right effort springs up.
For one of right effort, right mindfulness springs
up. For one of right mindfulness, right
concentration springs up. For one of right
concentration, right knowledge springs up.
For one of right knowledge, right deliverance springs up.
Anguttara Nikaya 10:121
Introduction
The Sammaditthi Sutta, the Discourse on Right View, is the
ninth sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, the Collection of Middle
Length Discourses. Its expositor is the Venerable
Sariputta Thera, the Buddha's chief disciple and the foremost
of the Master's bhikkhu disciples in the exercise of the
faculty of wisdom. The Buddha declared that next
to himself, it was the Venerable Sariputta who excelled in
turning the incomparable Wheel of the Dhamma, in expounding
in depth and in detail the Four Noble Truths realized with
the attainment of enlightenment. In the
Sammaditthi Sutta the great disciple bears ample testimony to
the Buddha's words of praise, bequeathing upon us a discourse
that has served as a primer of Buddhist doctrine for
generations of monks in the monasteries of South and
Southeast Asia.
As its title suggests, the subject of the Sammaditthi
Sutta is right view. The analysis of right view
undertaken in the sutta brings us to the very core of the
Dhamma, since right view constitutes the correct
understanding of the central teachings of the Buddha, the
teachings which confer upon the Buddha's doctrine its own
unique and distinctive stamp. Though the practice
of right mindfulness has rightly been extolled as the crest
jewel of the Buddha's teaching, it cannot be stressed
strongly enough that the practice of mindfulness, or any
other approach to meditation, only becomes an effective
instrument of liberation to the extent that it is founded
upon and guided by right view. Hence, to confirm
the importance of right view, the Buddha places it at the
very beginning of the Noble Eightfold Path.
Elsewhere in the Suttas the Buddha calls right view the
forerunner of the path (pubbangama), which gives
direction and efficacy to the other seven path factors.
Right view, as explained in the commentary to the
Sammaditthi Sutta, has a variety of aspects, but it might
best be considered as twofold: conceptual right
view, which is the intellectual grasp of the principles
enunciated in the Buddha's teaching, and experiential right
view, which is the wisdom that arises by direct penetration
of the teaching. Conceptual right view, also
called the right view in conformity with the truths (saccanulomika-sammaditthi),
is a correct conceptual understanding of the Dhamma arrived
at by study of the Buddha's teachings and deep examination of
their meaning. Such understanding, though
conceptual rather than experiential, is not dry and
sterile. When rooted in faith in the Triple Gem
and driven by a keen aspiration to realize the truth embedded
in the formulated principles of the Dhamma, it serves as a
critical phase in the development of wisdom (panna),
for it provides the germ out of which experiential right view
gradually evolves.
Experiential right view is the penetration of the truth of
the teaching in one's own immediate experience.
Thus it is also called right view that penetrates the truths
(saccapativedha-sammaditthi). This type of
right view is aroused by the practice of insight meditation
guided by a correct conceptual understanding of the
Dhamma. To arrive at direct penetration, one must
begin with a correct conceptual grasp of the teaching and
transform that grasp from intellectual comprehension to
direct perception by cultivating the threefold training in
morality, concentration and wisdom. If conceptual
right view van be compared to a hand, a hand that grasps the
truth by way of concepts, then experiential right view can be
compared to an eye -- the eye of wisdom that sees directly
into the true nature of existence ordinarily hidden from us
by our greed, aversion and delusion.
The Discourse on Right View is intended to elucidate the
principles that are to be comprehended by conceptual right
view and penetrated by experiential right view.
The Venerable Sariputta expounds these principles under
sixteen headings: the wholesome and the
unwholesome, the four nutriments of life, the Four Noble
Truths, the twelve factors of dependent arising, and the
taints as the condition for ignorance. It will be
noted that from the second section to the end of the sutta,
all the expositions are framed in accordance with the same
structure, which reveals the principle of conditionality as
the scaffolding for the entire teaching. Each
phenomenon to be comprehended by right view is expounded in
terms of its individual nature, its arising, its cessation,
and the way leading to its cessation. The grasp
of this principle thus makes it clear that any entity taken
for examination is not an isolated occurrence with its being
locked up in itself, but part of a web of conditionally
arisen processes that can be terminated by understanding and
eliminating the cause that gives it being.
The right view arrived at by penetrating any of the
sixteen subjects expounded in the sutta is discussed in terms
of two aspects, both aspects of supramundane
penetration. The first is the initial penetration
of the supramundane path that transforms a person from a
worldling (puthujjana) into a stream-enterer (sotapanna),
a noble disciple who has entered irreversibly upon the stream
to liberation. This aspect of right view is
indicated by the words that open each section, "(one)
who has perfect confidence in the Dhamma and has arrived at
this true Dhamma." These qualities are
attributes only of the stream-enterer and those of higher
attainment along the path. The description thus
applies to the trainee (sekha), the disciple who has
entered the path but has not yet reached its end.
The words signify right view as a transformative vision which
has revealed the ultimate truths underlying our existence,
but which must still be developed further to complete the
full transformation it is capable of effecting.
The second aspect of supramundane right view is indicated
by the closing words of each section, from "he entirely
abandons the underlying tendency to lust" to "he
here and now makes an end of suffering."
This description is fully applicable only to the Arahant, the
liberated one, and thus indicates that the right view
conceptually grasped by the wise worldling, and transformed
into direct perception with the attainment of stream-entry,
reaches its consummation with the arrival at the teaching's
final goal, the attainment of complete emancipation from
suffering.
The translation of the Sammaditthi Sutta and its
commentary presented here has been adapted from manuscripts
left behind by Bhikkhu Nanamoli. The translation
of the sutta has been adapted from Ven. Nanamoli's complete
translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. The version
used has been taken from the edition of the complete Majjhima
Nikaya translation that I prepared for publication by Wisdom
Publications in the United States. This version,
tentatively scheduled for release in late 1992, employs
extensive substitution of Ven. Nanamoli's own technical
terminology with my own preferred renderings of Pali
doctrinal terms.
The commentary to the Sammaditthi Sutta is from the
Papancasudani, Acariya Buddhaghosa's complete commentary (atthakatha)
to the Majjhima Nikaya. The translation of the
commentary has also been adapted from a rendering by Ven.
Nanamoli, contained in a notebook of his that was discovered
only a few years ago at Island Hermitage. The
terminology used in the notebook version suggests that it was
one of Ven. Nanamoli's earliest attempts at translation from
the Pali; it certainly preceded his translation of the
Visuddhimagga, The Path of Purification, first completed at
the end of 1953. In adapting the translation, I
have naturally replaced the technical terminology used in the
notebook version with that used in the sutta. In
places I also decided to translate directly from the Pali
text rather than adhere to Ven. Nanamoli's rendering, which
sometimes tended to be literal to the point of
awkwardness. A few passages from the commentary
that are concerned solely with linguistic clarification have
been omitted from the translation.
Passages in the commentarial section enclosed in square
brackets are taken from the subcommentary to the Sammaditthi
Sutta, by Acariya Dhammapala. Passages in
parenthesis are additions either by Ven. Nanamoli or by
myself. The paragraph numbering of the
commentarial section follows that of the sutta.
The phrases of the sutta that are selected for comment have
been set in boldface. The backnotes are entirely
my own.
Bhikkhu
Bodhi
The Wheel Publication No.
377/379, ISBN 955-24-0079-1,
Buddhist Publiccation Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1991
About the Translator:
Bhikkhu Nanamoli was born in England in 1905 and graduated
from Exeter College, Oxford. In 1948 he came to
Sri Lanka, where he was ordained the following year at the
Island Hermitage near Dodanduwa. During his 11
years in the Sangha Ven. Nanamoli translated into lucid
English some of the most difficult texts of Theravada
Buddhism. In 1960, on one of his rare outings
from the Hermitage, he suddenly passed away due to heart
failure.
About the Editor:
Bhikkhu Bodhi is a Buddhist monk of American nationality,
born in New York City in 1944. After completing a
doctorate in philosophy at Claremont Graduate School, he came
to Sri Lanka in 1972, and was ordained the same year under
the eminent scholar-monk, Ven. Balangoda Ananda
Maitreya. Since 1984 he has been Editor for the
Buddhist Publication Society, and its President since 1988.
[Part One: The Sutta] [Part Two: The Commentary]
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