138. Also, there was a certain senior elder who was very ill and unable to eat with his own hand. He was writhing smeared with his own urine and excrement. Seeing him, a certain young bhikkhu said, “Oh, what a painful process life is!” The senior elder told him: “If I were to die now, friend, I should obtain the bliss of heaven; I have no doubt of that. But the bliss obtained by breaking this virtue would be like the lay state obtained by disavowing the training,” and he added: “I shall die together with my virtue.” As he lay there, he comprehended that same illness
[with insight], and he reached Arahantship. Having done so, he pronounced these verses to the Order of Bhikkhus:
“I am victim of a sickening disease
That racks me with its burden of cruel pain;
As flowers in the dust burnt by the sun,
So this my corpse will soon have withered up.
“Unbeautiful called beautiful,
Unclean while reckoned as if clean,
Though full of ordure seeming fair
To him that cannot see it clear.
“So out upon this ailing rotting body,
Fetid and filthy, punished with affliction,
Doting on which this silly generation
Has lost the way to be reborn in heaven!” (J-a II 437)
139. It is the virtue of the Arahants, etc., that should be understood as tranquillized purification, because of tranquillization of all disturbance and because of purifiedness. So, it is of five kinds as “consisting in limited purification,” and so on.
140. In the second pentad the meaning should be understood as the abandoning, etc., of killing living things, etc.; for this is said in the Paþisambhidá: “Five kinds of virtue:
(1)In the case of killing living things, (a) abandoning is virtue, (b) abstention is virtue, (c) volition is virtue, (d) restraint is virtue, (e) nontransgression is virtue.
(2) In the case of taking what is not given … (3) In the case of sexual misconduct … (4) In the case of false speech … (5) In the case of malicious speech … (6) In the case of harsh speech … (7) In the case of gossip … [50] (8) In the case of covetousness … (9) In the case of ill will … (10) In the case of wrong view … (11) “Through renunciation in the case of lust, (a) abandoning is virtue … (12) Through non-ill-will in the case of ill-will … (13) Through perception of light in the case of stiffness-and-torpor … (14) Through non-distraction … agitation … (15) Through definition of states (dhamma) … uncertainty … (16) Through knowledge … ignorance … (17) Through gladdening in the case of boredom (18) “Through the first jhána in the case of the hindrances, (a) abandoning is virtue … (19) Through the second jhána … applied and sustained thought … (20) Through the third jhána … happiness … (21) Through the fourth jhána in the case of pleasure and pain, (a) abandoning is virtue … (22) Through the attainment of the base consisting of boundless space in the case of perceptions of matter, perceptions of resistance, and perceptions of variety, (a) abandoning is virtue … (23) Through the attainment of the base consisting of boundless consciousness in the case of the perception of the base consisting of boundless space … (24) Through the attainment of the base consisting of
nothingness in the case of the perception of the base consisting of boundless consciousness … (25) Through the attainment of the base consisting of neither perception nor non-perception in the case of the perception of the base consisting of nothingness … (26) “Through …the contemplation of impermanence in the case of the perception
of permanence, (a) abandoning is virtue … (27) Through the contemplation of pain in the case of the perception of pleasure … (28) Through the contemplation of not-self in the case of the perception of self … (29) Through the contemplation of dispassion in the case of the perception of delighting … (30) Through the contemplation of fading away in the case of greed … (31) Through the contemplation of cessation in the case of originating … (32) Through the contemplation of relinquishment in the case of grasping … (33) “Through the contemplation of destruction in the case of the perception of compactness, (a) abandoning is virtue … (34) Through the contemplation of fall
[of formations] in the case of accumulating [kamma] … (35) Through the contemplation of change in the case of the perception of lastingness … (36) Through the contemplation of the signless in the case of a sign … (37) Through the
contemplation of the desireless in the case of desire … (38) Through the contemplation of voidness in the case of misinterpreting (insistence) … (39) Through insight into states that is higher understanding in the case of misinterpreting (insistence) due to grasping … (40) Through correct knowledge and vision in the
case of misinterpreting (insistence) due to confusion … (41) Through the contemplation of danger in the case of misinterpreting (insistence) due to reliance [on formations] … (42) Through reflection in the case of non-reflection … (43) Through the contemplation of turning away in the case of misinterpreting (insistence) due to bondage … (44) “Through the path of stream-entry in the case of defilements coefficient with [false] view, (a) abandoning is virtue … (45) Through the path of once-return in the case of gross defilements … (46) Through the path of non-return in the case of residual defilements … (47) Through the path of Arahantship in the case of all defilements, (a) abandoning is virtue, (b) abstention is virtue, (c) volition is virtue, (d) restraint is virtue, (e) non-transgression is virtue.
“Such virtues lead to non-remorse in the mind, to gladdening, to happiness, to tranquillity, to joy, to repetition, to development, to cultivation, to embellishment, to the requisite [for concentration], to the equipment [of concentration], to fulfilment, to complete dispassion, to fading away, to cessation, to peace, to direct-knowledge, to
enlightenment, to Nibbána.”38 (Patis I 46–47)
141. And here there is no state called abandoning other than the mere non-arising of the killing of living things, etc., as stated. But the abandoning of a given [unprofitable state] upholds [51] a given profitable state in the sense of providing a foundation for it, and concentrates it by preventing wavering, so it is called “virtue” (sìla) in the sense of composing (sìlana), reckoned as upholding and concentrating as stated earlier (§19)
The other four things mentioned refer to the presence39 of occurrence of will as abstention from such and such, as restraint of such and such, as the volition associated with both of these, and as non-transgression in one who does not transgress such and such. But their meaning of virtue has been explained already. So it is of five kinds as “virtue consisting in abandoning” and so on.
By Bhikkhu Ñānamoli