MN 2, Sutta 64: Mahā Māluṅkya Sutta

The Five Fetters to the Lower Rebirths

This sutta yields great fruit for anyone interested in becoming a Streamwinner or a Once Returner or a Non-Returner or an Arahant (or why are you reading this?).

In this sutta the Buddha asks if anyone remembers how he taught The Five Fetters Binding to the Lower World. Bhikkhu Māluṅkya replies:

The Pāḷi:^[1]

Sakkāya-diṭṭhiɱ kho ahaɱ bhante Bhagatatā orambhāgiyaɱ saṅyojanaɱ desitaɱ dhāremi ... vicikicchaɱ ... sīlabbataparāmāsaɱ ... kāmacchandam ... vyāpādaɱ.

Horner:^[2]

"I, revered sir, remember that the Lord taught that false^[3] view of own body is a fetter binding to the lower shore ... perplexity ... clinging to rites and customs ... desire for sense-pleasures ... malevolence ..."

Ñanamoli/Bodhi:^[4]

Venerable sir, I remember personality view as a lower fetter^[5] taught by the Blessed One ... doubt ... adherence to rules and observances ... sensual desire ... ill will.

The response of the Buddha:

"And who do you remember telling you this this way, foolish man? How would you, answering this way, deal with the response of wanderers of other views who challenged you with the simile of the infant?

Horner:

For, Malunkyaputta, if there were not 'own body'^[6] for an innocent baby boy lying on his back,
whence could there arise for him the view of 'own body'?
if there were not 'things'^[7]
...whence could there arise...'perplexity';
if there were not 'habits'^[8] ...whence could there arise ... 'clinging to rites and customs';
if there were not 'sense pleasures'^[9]
...whence could there arise ... 'desires for sense pleasures';
if there were not 'beings'^[10]
...whence could there arise ... 'malevolence towards beings'?

Ñanamoli/Bodhi:

For a young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion 'personality,'
so how could personality view arise in him?
... does not even have the notion 'teachings'
... how could 'doubt about the teachings' arise
... does not even have the notion 'rules' (sila)
... how could 'adherence to rules and observances' arise
... does not even have the notion 'sensual pleasure' (kama) ...
how could 'sensual desire' arise
... does not even have the notion 'beings' (satta)
... how could 'ill will towards beings' arise

And then the conclusion of the statement:

Horner:

A leaning to the view
of 'own body' (etc) indeed
lies latent in him.

Ñanamoli/Bodhi:

Yet the underlying tendency
to personality view (etc)
lies within him.

To put it together:

Horner:

For Malunkyaputta, if there were not 'own body' for an innocent baby boy lying on his back,
whence could there arise for him the view of 'own body'?
A leaning to the view
of 'own body' indeed
lies latent in him.

Ñanamoli/Bodhi:

For a young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion
'personality,'
so how could personality view arise in him?
Yet the underlying tendency
to personality view
lies within him.

And the Buddha's concluding remark:

"Would not the wanderers of other views defeat you with this simile of the infant?"

Take a look, friends, does either translation (as radically different from each other as they are) make sense as a rebuttal to Māluṅkya by a wanderer of another view? No! In fact they take the form of arguments Māluṅkya might make in defense of his own statement.

What the Buddha is saying is that the way Māluṅkya is answering, in essence, says that because the problem is view itself, the fetter does not exist when the view does not exist. The Buddha is saying that this is not the right way to see this.

Māluṅkya's answer is wrong because he has put the blame on view alone whereas the blame is to be placed on the obsession with (attachment to, involvement with) view.

The follow up, eagerly requested by Ānanda, reveals all:

"Here, Ānanda ...
the uneducated common man ...
lives with mind
obsessed and dominated by
'own-body view' (etc) and
he does not understand the escape from
'own-body view'
and when such own-body view
has become a habit
that has not been eliminated
it is a fetter.
... whereas the educated student of the aristocrats
does understand.

Again: Māluṅkya's answer is wrong because he has put the blame on the view alone whereas the blame is to be placed on the obsession with (attachment to, involvement with) the view.

On the important distinction between there being these types of things existing in the world and their being fetters; it is only when obsession with or attachment to things in the ways described by the saṅyojana develops that they become fetters.

The difference is that holding that the thing itself, or the type of attachment itself, is the problem makes the problem impossible to solve: one will never rid the world of own-self view, etc., and to say that one intends by that idea simply "ridding the self" of these things is to assume a self from which these things can be eliminated.

Its like looking at the sky and saying that seeing the sky is a problem and then attempting to get rid of the sight of it by getting rid of the sky. Not only will one not succeed in getting rid of the sky in the world, the individuality will not get rid of seeing it (whether attached to it or not, when the eye of the individual looks at the world, it will see the sky). It is not the sky or the seeing of the sky that is the problem, it is the attachment to seeing the sky as one's own, that is the problem.

This is the subtlety of Mara: that when the individuality comes in contact with some object and sense experience arises the habitual subjective tenancy is to identify with the reaction (desire, etc. arising from attachment) and to overlook the fact that the identification actually took place at the earlier stage (the point of the arising of sense experience). Then, when we strive after self-improvement, (if we fall into Māluṅkya's error, which is likely) we focus on our reactions and not the source of the reaction: a situation that amounts to no more than simply reacting to reaction (the image of Bugs Bunny furiously fighting with himself comes to mind).

What the saṅyojana describe is a variety of classes of sources of reaction to sense experience, and the task for the practitioner is not to get rid of these constructs, but by using these constructs, to identify the areas where one is vulnerable to attachment.

When one can slow down sufficiently (by "not-reacting", which is not the same thing as fighting one's reactions) to see that one is reacting to sense experience because of one or another of these ways to become attached, one is able to move the attention up passed that and focus on the original source (in identification with the sensation): It is at that point that one has "got rid of the attachment to ..." or, in any case, is at least able to focus on the real problem with the predictable outcome that it will be solved soon enough.

A simile found in the suttas describes two cows, one black, one white (sense organ and sense object), with a rope that ties them together (attachment by way of view theory, etc.). It is not that the black cow is attached to the white cow, and it is not that the white cow is attached to the black cow, but it is that the two cows are attached to each other by the rope.

This simile is used to break down the view that the problem is in either the sense organ or in the sense object rather than in the attachment, so to bring this simile into alignment with the idea in the Malunkyaputta Sutta, we would need to add that when the cows becomes untied from the rope they are free, but not because of that is there a need to see that the white cow or black cow or rope has been destroyed — what has been destroyed is the being tied up by the attachment.

^[1] Majjhima Nikāya, II, #64: Mahā Malunkyaputta Sutta

^[2] Majjhima Nikāya, II, #64: Greater Discourse to Malunkyaputta, PTS, Horner trans., pp102

^[3] Horner puts the word 'false' into Malunkyaputta's mouth.

^[4] Majjhima Nikāya, II, #64, Wisdom, Ñanamoli/Bodhi trans., pp537

^[5] Not a lower fetter, but a fetter to the lower realms.

^[6] Sakkayo:

Pāḷi	MO	Horner	Punnaji	Bodhi	Ñanamoli	Rhys Davids	(Mrs)Rhys Davids	Thanissaro	Walshe	Woodward
Sakkāya-ditthi	One True Own-Body View	Own-Body	Personality perspective, self concept	personality view	personality view	delusion of self, error of permanent individual entity	error of permanent individual entity	self-identity views	personality-belief	The view of the individual-group

^[7] Dhammas.

^[8] Sila, conduct; see: The Pāḷi Line, Sila; this is something like Ethical Standards rules regarding conduct based on an idea of the nature of the world.

^[9] Kama

^[10] Satta. See: The Nine Abodes of Beings