The Middle Discourses

by Bhikkhu Sujato

The Middle Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya, abbreviated MN) is a collection of 152 discourses in the Pali canon (Tipiṭaka) of the Theravada school of Buddhism. The word “middle” refers to the length of the individual discourses. This is perhaps the most popular collection of early discourses. It contains a wide variety of teachings, many of them presented as narratives between the Buddha and a diverse range of his contemporaries. The collection parallels the Madhyamāgama (MA) of the Sarvāstivāda school, which survives as a translation in the Chinese canon.

1125 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2018

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He dug a large post into the earth and tethered the elephant to it by the neck, so as to subdue its wild behaviors, its wild memories and thoughts, and its wild stress, weariness, and fever, and to make it happy to be within a village, and instill behaviors congenial to humans. He spoke in a way that’s mellow, pleasing to the ear, lovely, going to the heart, polite, likable and agreeable to the people. Spoken to in such a way by the elephant trainer, the wild elephant wanted to listen. It actively listened and tried to understand.

Contrary to a misunderstanding that is unfortunately common even within the Saṅgha, the mentor—called upajjhāya for the monks or pavattinī for the nuns—does not perform the ordination; they are appointed by the Saṅgha to support the new monastics.

The nun Dhammadinnā presents the only discourse by a bhikkhunī in the Majjhima. It seems that the teachings by women in the suttas, while rare, were included because of their unique and striking wisdom. In MN 44 she responds to a series of questions by her former husband, revealing her depth of meditative accomplishment and wisdom.

Saṅgha as a religious term is used in two specific senses: the “monastic order” (bhikkhusaṅgha) and the “community of noble disciples” (sāvakasaṅgha; the expected term ariyasaṅgha only appears in one verse at AN 6.54). The former term refers to those who have taken ordination and practice as a Buddhist mendicant, while the latter refers to someone who has reached one of the stages of awakening, which may, of course, include lay followers.

Note that in the suttas, the term bhikkhu (masculine gender) is used as a generic term to include both monks and nuns. That nuns were included in the generic masculine is clear from such contexts as AN 4.170, where Ānanda begins by referring to “monks and nuns” and continues with just “monks”, or DN 16, which speaks of “monks and nuns” but uses a masculine pronoun to refer to them both. That the default masculine may refer to women is further confirmed by passages such as Thig 16.1, where the lady Sumedhā is called putta by her father. Putta as “son” contrasts with dhītā as “daughter”, but this passage shows it can be used in the generic sense of “child” as well.

Note that when the word vinaya is used in the four nikāyas, it rarely refers to the Vinaya Piṭaka. Normally it is a general term for the practical application of the teaching: dhammavinaya means something like “theory and practice”.

At some point a community of nuns (bhikkhunīs) was set up along the lines of the monks’ order. The traditional account says that this was on the instigation of the Buddha’s stepmother, Mahapajāpatī Gotamī. However, the account as preserved today is deeply problematic both textually and ethically, and cannot be accepted without reservation. In any case, we know that a nuns’ community was established and that it ran on mostly independent grounds.

It is essential for community members to be open to admonition, for otherwise they cannot identify their flaws and heal them (MN 15 Measuring Up, Anumānasutta). But a community cannot be based on sniping and criticism, but on love, generosity, and respect (MN 16 Emotional Barrenness, Cetokhilasutta).

While it is true that certain of the rules as they exist today discriminate against the nuns, other rules protect them; for example, the monks are forbidden from having a nun wash their robes, thus preventing the monks from treating the nuns like domestic servants.

It was in 1992 that I first encountered the Buddha’s words. I was in Chieng Mai, having just completed my very first meditation retreat, a month-long vipassanā intensive in the Mahasi style. During the retreat, the guides at Wat Ram Poeng [...].

I reread the Majjhima Nikāya in other translations. First that by I.B. Horner for the Pali Text Society, which was roughly contemporary to that of Ñāṇamoḷi, but which in publication and language seemed of an earlier generation.

Like the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima is replete with drama and narrative, while lacking much of its predecessor’s tendency towards imaginative embellishment and profusion of legend. Like the Saṁyutta, it contains some of the profoundest discourses in the Canon, disclosing the Buddha’s radical insights into the nature of existence; and like the Aṅguttara, it covers a wide range of topics of practical applicability. In contrast to those two Nikāyas, however, the Majjhima sets forth this material not in the form of short, selfcontained utterances, but in the context of a fascinating procession of scenarios that exhibit the Buddha’s resplendence of wisdom, his skill in adapting his teachings to the needs and proclivities of his interlocutors, his wit and gentle humour, his majestic sublimity, and his compassionate humanity.

[...] Māra, the lord of deceit and death; and it contains the startling revelation that Moggallāna himself was a Māra in a past life.

From the perspective of early Buddhism, God and the Devil are not so very different.

The Majjhima is perhaps the richest of the early Buddhist collections in matters of doctrine. It contains an extraordinary series of discourses that delve into profound topics with detail and complexity not found elsewhere. It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that such discourses are for advanced students, and fascinating as they are, it is important to get a solid grounding on the fundamental doctrines collected in the Saṁyutta. For this reason, I reserve most doctrinal explanations for my guide to the Linked Discourses and make only a few brief remarks here.
The teachings familiar from the Saṁyutta are all found in the Majjhima, and in several cases, the Majjhima offers more detailed explanations. These discourses are important and deserve close study, but beware of equating length with importance. In Buddhist texts it’s just as likely that length implies, not that it is something the Buddha regarded as important, but that it is a late compilation.
Such is the case with MN 10 Mindfulness Meditation (Satipaṭṭhānasutta), which, together with its expanded version at DN 22, is the most detailed explanation of mindfulness meditation in the canon. Yet critical and comparative analysis reveals that the discourse as found in the Pali has been subject to considerable late development. MN 141 The Analysis of the Truths (Saccavibhaṅgasutta), the most detailed discourse of the four noble truths, is closely related to MN 10—in fact DN 22 is virtually a combination of this and MN 10 [...].

The first truth of suffering is explored in detail in MN 13 and MN 14 on the “Mass of Suffering”.

The second and third noble truths are featured in MN 38, a complex and rewarding discourse on dependent origination [...].

In MN 9, Venerable Sāriputta presents the topic of right view from a diverse range of perspectives. The second path factor, right thought or right intention, is the special subject of MN 19 and MN 20, which give advice from the Buddha’s own experience on how to first purify thought and then let it go entirely.

Moreover, right immersion appears also in other guises, such as the four “divine meditations” (brahmavihāra), where the pure emotions of love, compassion, rejoicing, and equanimity serve as a basis for immersion.

Discourses such as MN 52 The Man From the City of Aṭṭhaka (Aṭṭhakanāgarasutta) combine these three sets of meditations, while advanced texts such as MN 43 The Great Classification (Mahāvedallasutta), MN 44 The Shorter Classification (Cūḷavedallasutta), MN 106 Āneñjasappāyasutta, MN 121 The Shorter Discourse on Emptiness (Cūḷasuññatasutta), and MN 122 The Longer Discourse on Emptiness (Mahāsuññatasutta) deal with rarely-discussed subtleties and refinements pertaining to the most advanced forms of meditation.

The Buddha’s immediate family is mentioned only rarely in the nikāyas. The Buddha’s wife appears only in the Vinaya and Therīgāthā, where she has some verses.

More distant relatives include several well-known monastic and lay figures such as Ānanda, Anuruddha, and Mahānāma.

An alternate account of the going forth is found in the distinctive and early Attadaṇḍa Sutta, where going forth is prompted not by the sight of old age, sickness, and death, but by seeing the unceasing conflict and distress of the world (Snp 4.15).
There follows the story of the six years of striving, divided into three periods. It seems that he first practiced under a Brahmanical tradition, probably following the Upaniṣadic philosophy. MN 26 The Noble Search (Ariyapariyesanasutta, also known as the Pāsarāsisutta) tells of his experience under the famed spiritual guides Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta. Under their tutelage, he realized deep immersion (samādhi) and formless attainments, but he was still unsatisfied, so he left to embark on a more severe ascetic path.

While it might seem as if the night of awakening followed directly from his rejection of austerities, several discourses indicate that this period involved a rather extensive development of meditation. MN 19 Two Kinds of Thought (Dvedhāvitakkasutta), for example, tells of his analysis and training in wholesome thought [...].

The Buddha’s awakening is told from several different perspectives. In MN 4 Bhayabherava, after describing how he overcame his fears, the Buddha tells how he developed the absorptions and gained the three higher knowledges. In MN 14 The Shorter Discourse on the Mass of Suffering (Cūḷadukkhakkhandha) he speaks of the escape from suffering by letting go of sensual pleasures; see too SN 35.117. Several discourses employ the stock framework of understanding the three aspects of gratification, drawback, and escape, applying this to the five aggregates (SN 22.26), the elements (SN 14.31), feelings (SN 36.24), or the world (AN 3.101). Elsewhere awakening is seen as a result of understanding dependent origination (SN 12.10, DN 14). Other contexts depict awakening as emerging from different practices, such as the four kinds of mindfulness meditation (SN 47.31), the four bases of psychic powers (SN 51.9), or the abandoning of thoughts (MN 19).

The period after the awakening is told in some detail, recounting the Buddha’s journeys, various encounters along the way, his first conversions, and setting up the Sangha. However the detailed account of this is in the Vinaya (Kd 1), and only portions of these events are found in the nikāyas, such as the first three sermons (SN 56.11, SN 22.59, SN 35.28).

MN 116 At Isigili also refers to the so-called “Buddhas awakened for themselves” (paccekabuddha), a mysterious kind of sage who has realized the same truths as the “fully awakened Buddha” (sammāsambuddha) but does not establish a religious movement.

Letting go of three fetters (saṁyojana)—doubt, misapprehension of precepts and vows, and any views that identify a self with the aggregates—one reaches the first stage of awakening, known as “stream entry”.

Such analyses are one of the primary inspirations behind the later development of the Abhidhamma texts, and Sāriputta is rightly regarded as one of the fathers of the Abhidhamma.

The monastic community was established shortly after the Buddha’s awakening, as told in the first chapter of the Vinaya Khandhakas, known as the Mahākkhandhaka or the Pabbajjakkhandhaka (Kd 1). Portions of that narrative appear in the suttas, but the entire story should really be read.

No Saṅgha member has the right to force anyone to do anything, and if a senior Saṅgha member, even one’s mentor or teacher, tells one to do something that is against the Dhamma or Vinaya, one is obligated to disobey. As an example of how the mendicants were to make decisions, MN 17 Jungle Thickets (Vanapatthasutta) gives some guidelines for whether a mendicant should stay in a monastery or leave; there is no question of being ordered to go to one place or the other.

The monastics are far from the only people we meet. In his wide wanderings across the Ganges plain, the Buddha interacted with a wide cross-section of the local peoples: learned brahmins and simple villagers; kings and slaves; priests and prostitutes; women and men; children and the elderly; the devout and the skeptical; the sick and the disabled; those seeking to disparage and those sincerely seeking the truth.

The Majjhima Nikāya was edited by V. Trenckner (vol. 1) and Robert Chalmers (vols. 2 and 3) based on manuscripts in Sinhalese, Burmese, and Thai scripts, and published in Latin script by the Pali Text Society from 1888 to 1899. The first translation into English followed in 1926–7 by Robert Chalmers under the title Further Dialogues of the Buddha.
Rapid improvements in understanding of Pali and Buddhism during the early 20th century soon made it clear that an improved translation was needed. This was undertaken in the 1950s by I.B. Horner and was published by the PTS as The Book of Middle Length Sayings in 1954–9.
Her translation, while a significant improvement on Chalmers’, was soon eclipsed by that of Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoḷi. Ñāṇamoḷi’s extraordinary career as a Pali scholar and translator was tragically cut short by his early death, and his Majjhima Nikāya translation remained as an unfinished hand-written manuscript. Nevertheless, its value was so clear that it was published, first as a selection of 90 discourses edited by Bhikkhu Khantipalo and published in Bangkok in 1976 as A Treasury of the Buddha’s Words, then as a fully edited and updated version by Bhikkhu Bodhi in 1995 under the title The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. The latter version reached a peak of accuracy, consistency, and readability that has become the standard to which all later translations of the nikāyas have aspired.