Here is what I've heard:
The Fortunate One, on this occasion, was living in the Sakyan country at Kapilavatthu in Nigrodha's Park.
When it was morning, he dressed, and, taking his bowl and outer robe, went into Kapilavatthu for alms. When he returned from his almsround and had eaten his single meal for the day, he went to the Great Wood for the day's abiding and sat down at the base of a bilva tree sapling to meditate.
Now Daṇḍapāni the Sakyan, while taking his morning constitutional, also entered the Great Wood, and he approached the Bilva tree where the Fortunate One sat and exchanged greetings with him. Then, leaning on his stick, he confronted the Buddha, "So you are the famous recluse. What doctrine do you assert; what proclamation do you make?"
"Friend, I assert and proclaim the sort of doctrine, where one does not keep quarrels brewing—not with anyone in the cosmos, with all its devas, Maras, & Brahmas, with its contemplatives & priests, its royalty & commonfolk; the sort [of doctrine] where perceptions no longer obsess the follower who remains dissociated from sensual pleasures, free from perplexity, his uncertainty cut away, devoid of craving for becoming & non-becoming. Such is my doctrine, such is what I proclaim."
After which Daṇḍapāni shook his head, wagged his tongue, raised his eyebrows until his forehead was furrowed in three lines, and went away, swinging his stick.
That evening, the Buddha reported this exchange to the bhikkhus, and one of them asked him what he'd meant by his answer to Daṇḍapāni.
"Monk, with regard to how the concepts and analyses of proliferation take over a person's mind, if nothing is there to relish, welcome, or remain fastened to, then that is the end of obsessions: the obsessions of passion, the obsessions of resistance, the obsessions of views, the obsessions of uncertainty, the obsessions of conceit, the obsessions of passion for becoming, & the obsessions of ignorance. That is the end of taking up clubs & swords, of arguments, quarrels, disputes, accusations, divisive tale-bearing, & false speech. That is where these evil, unskillful things cease without remainder."
And then he retired to his dwelling.
The bhikkhus stared at one another; none could figure out what the Buddha had meant by that cryptic discourse.
So a little later, admitting their puzzlement, the bhikkhus asked the Venerable Mahā Kaccāna to explain the Buddha's meaning. After chiding them for their failure to ask the Buddha himself before he left, Mahā Kaccāna went on to elaborate. This is what he told them:
"Dependent on the eye and on visible forms, the consciousness of vision arises. The meeting of the three is contact - seeing in this case. With seeing as its essential condition, there are affective feelings. What we notice, we perceive/look at. What we perceive occupies our mind. And what occupies our mind proliferates. As our thoughts proliferate, the concepts and analyses created by proliferation take control, and we are trapped in imaginings about the past, future and present nature and dynamics of visible forms that we see with our eyes.
"Dependent on the ear and on audible events, the consciousness of sound arises. The meeting of the three is contact, hearing in this case. With hearing as its essential condition, there are affective feelings. What we notice, we perceive/listen to. What we perceive occupies our mind. And what occupies our mind proliferates. As our thoughts proliferate, the concepts and analyses created by proliferation take control, and we are trapped in imaginings about the past, future and present nature and dynamics of audible events that we hear with our ears.
"Dependent on the nose and on odors, the consciousness of scent arises. The meeting of the three is contact, smelling in this case. With smelling as its essential condition, there are affective feelings. What we notice, we perceive/smell. What we perceive occupies our mind. And what occupies our mind proliferates. As our thoughts proliferate, the concepts and analyses created by proliferation take control, and we are trapped in imaginings about the past, future and present nature and dynamics of odors that we smell with our noses.
"Dependent on the tongue and on flavorful substances, the consciousness of taste arises. The meeting of the three is contact, tasting in this case. With tasting as its essential condition, there are affective feelings. What we notice, we perceive/savor. What we perceive occupies our mind. And what occupies our mind proliferates. As our thoughts proliferate, the concepts and analyses created by proliferation take control, and we are trapped in imaginings about the past, future and present nature and dynamics of flavorful substances that we taste with our tongues.
"Dependent on tactile sensors and on physical forms, the consciousness of touch arises. The meeting of the three is contact, tactile sensations in this case. With touch as its essential condition, there are affective feelings. What we notice, we perceive/feel as touch. What we perceive occupies our mind. And what occupies our mind proliferates. As our thoughts proliferate, the concepts and analyses created by proliferation take control, and we are trapped in imaginings about the past, future and present nature and dynamics of physical forms that we touch with our tactile sensors.
"Dependent on the brain and on ideas, the consciousness of mind arises. The meeting of the three is contact, cognition in this case. With cognition as its essential condition, there are affective feelings. What we notice, we perceive/think about. What we perceive occupies our mind. And what occupies our mind proliferates. As our thoughts proliferate, the concepts and analyses created by proliferation take control, and we are trapped in imaginings about the past, future and present nature and dynamics of the ideas that we think about with our brains.
"Now when there is the eye, when there are visible forms, when there is the consciousness of vision, it is possible to distinguish a distinct process of contact [seeing, in this case]. From that, it is possible to distinguish a distinct process of feeling. From that, it is possible to distinguish a distinct process of perception, and from that, to distinguish a distinct process of thinking. Once thinking is distinguished [from similar and related processes], it's possible to distinguish how one can be trapped by the concepts and analyses created by proliferation.
"Similarly with the ear, audible events, and the consciousness of sound; with the nose, odors, and the consciousness of smell; with the tongue, flavorful substances, and taste; with tactile sensors, physical forms, and touch; with the brain, ideas, and the consciousness of mind: When these various clusters of phenomena come together, it is possible to distinguish a distinct process of contact associated with each; from that, to distinguish feeling; from that perception; from that, thinking or cognition. And once thinking is clearly distinguished [from the processes leading up to it and conditioning it], it's possible to see how one can be trapped in the proliferation of concepts and analyses.
"When there is no eye, no visible forms, no consciousness of vision, it is impossible to distinguish a distinct process of contact. Detached from contact, it is impossible to distinguish a distinct process of feeling. Detached from feeling [that is, instinctive, habitual, or emotional response arising from the process of seeing], it is impossible to distinguish a distinct process of perception; with no perception, no cognition. And without distinguishable cognitive processes, i.e. thinking, it is impossible to distinguish how one can be trapped by the concepts and analyses created by proliferation.
"[Similarly with the other sense bases - the base of sound, of odor, of taste, of touch, of mind. When these triplets of associated phenomena are not seen as distinct and separate processes, then it is impossible to distinguish a distinct process of contact.] Detached from contact, it is impossible to distinguish a distinct process of feeling. Detached from feeling [that is, instinctive, habitual, or emotional response arising from the process of seeing], it is impossible to distinguish a distinct process of perception; with no perception, no cognition. And without distinguishable cognitive processes, i.e. thinking, it is impossible to distinguish how one can be trapped by the concepts and analyses created by proliferation.
"Friends, when the Fortunate One rose from his seat and went into his dwelling after giving a summary in brief without expanding the detailed meaning, he said this—'Monk, with regard to how the concepts and analyses of proliferation take over a person's mind, if nothing is there to relish, welcome, or remain fastened to, then that is the end of obsessions: the obsessions of passion, the obsessions of resistance, the obsessions of views, the obsessions of uncertainty, the obsessions of conceit, the obsessions of passion for becoming, & the obsessions of ignorance. That is the end of taking up clubs & swords, of arguments, quarrels, disputes, accusations, divisive tale-bearing, & false speech. That is where these evil, unskillful things cease without remainder.' I've just told you what I think that all means, in detail. Now friends, if you wish, go to the Fortunate One and ask him what it means; whatever he tells you, that is how you should remember it."
And when the bhikkhus did as Mahā Kaccāna suggested and repeated for the Buddha the teaching that Mahā Kaccāna had given, the Buddha told them:
"Mahā Kaccāna is wise bhikkhus. Mahā Kaccāna has great wisdom. If you had asked me the meaning of my words, I would have explained it to you just as he did. His words explain the detailed meaning of what I said, and that is how you should remember it."
When this was said, the venerable Ananda said to the Fortunate One: "Master, if a man exhausted by hunger and thirst were to come upon a honeyball, wherever he should taste it, he would find a sweet delectable flavor. Just so, any mindful bhikkhu, whatever he focusses on in this discourse on the Dhamma, he would find his mind satisfied and calmed. Master, what should we call this discourse on the Dhamma?"
"As to that, Ananda, you may remember this discourse on the Dhamma as 'The Honeyball Discourse'"
That is what the Fortunate One said. And the venerable Ananda was satisfied and delighted in the Fortunate One's words.
Notes
The name Daṇḍapāni means "golden stick"; the commentaries tell us that Daṇḍapāni was something of a dandy, a young man who affected a walking stick made of gold. He was a friend of Devadatta, the cousin of the Buddha who had tried to wrest control of the sangha from the Buddha, and had even tried, several times to kill him. It's clear that Daṇḍapāni had come to the Great Wood with a single purpose, to bait the Buddha and entice him into an argument over doctrine; when the Buddha refused to accept the bait, Daṇḍapāni went off in a snit.
Mahā Kaccāna was known within the sangha as the foremost interpreter of the Buddha's words, and a number of the suttas within the Pali Canon record discourses that he delivered. Mahā Kaccāna was, you might recall, among the group of five bhikkhus to whom the Buddha delivered his first discourse, and it was Mahā Kaccāna who caught the full meaning of that discourse and achieved enlightenment. It was that enlightenment that set the Wheel of the Dharma in Motion.
What was so puzzling about the Buddha's brief discourse was the phrase papañca-saññā-sankhā, translated above as "the concepts and analyses of proliferation". It's that phrase, and the term papañca (proliferation) itself, that Mahā Kaccāna's discourse deals with. And it's the concept of papañca that makes this sutta particularly important.
In an introductory note to his fine translation of the Madhupindika Sutta, at Access to Insight, Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains that "the word papañca has had a wide variety of meanings in Indian thought, with only one constant: in Buddhist philosophical discourse it carries negative connotations, usually of falsification and distortion. The word itself is derived from a root that means diffuseness, spreading, proliferating. The Pali Commentaries define papañca as covering three types of thought: craving, conceit, and views. They also note that it functions to slow the mind down in its escape from saṁsāra. And, as our analysis has shown, it functions to create baneful distinctions and unnecessary issues." Thanissaro Bhikkhu translates the term as "complication" and the term papañca-saññā-sankhā as "the perceptions & categories of complication". That has the unfortunate effect of using the term "perception" in a slightly different sense from the sense that it had a couple of sentences earlier, and it seems to me that it misses the implication of cognition in the Pali term sañña, an implication that I've tried to indicate with the term "concept".
This is what Bhikkhu Bodhi has to say about Mahā Kaccāna's elaboration of the notion of papañca:
"The interpretation of this cryptic passage hinges on the word papañca and the compound papañca-sañña-sankha. Ñm [Ñaṇamoli] had translated the former as 'diversification' and the latter as 'calculations about perceptions of diversification.' it seems, however, that the primary problem to which the term papañca points is not 'diversification,' which may be quite in place when the sensory field itself displays diversity, but the propensity of the worldling's imagination to erupt in an effusion of mental commentary that obscures the bare data of cognition. In a penetrative study, 'Concept and Reality in Early Buddhism', Bhikkhu Ñaṇananda explains papañca as 'conceptual proliferation,' and I follow him in substituting 'proliferation' for Ñm's 'diversification.' The commentaries identify the springs of this proliferation as the three factors—craving, conceit, and views—on account of which the mind 'embellishes' experience by interpreting it in terms of 'mine,' 'I' and 'my self.' Papañca is thus closely akin to maññanā, 'conceiving,' in MN1 (…)
"The compound papañca-saññā-sankhā is more problematic. Ven. Ñaṇananda interprets it to mean 'concepts characterized by the mind's prolific tendency,' but this explanation still leaves the word saññā out of account. MA glosses sankhā by koṭṭhāsa, 'portion,' and says that saññā is either perception associated with papañca or papañca itself. I go along with ñaṇananda in taking sankhā to mean concept or notion (Ñm's 'calculation' is too literal) rather than portion. My decision to treat saññā-sankhā as a dvanda compound, 'perceptions and notions,' may be questioned, but as the expression papañca-saññā-sankhā occurs but rarely in the Canon and is never verbally analysed, no rendering is utterly beyond doubt. On alternative interpretations of its components, the expression might have been rendered 'notions [arising from] proliferation.'
"The sequel will make it clear that the process of cognition is itself 'the source through which perceptions and notions [born of] mental proliferation beset a man.' If nothing in the process of cognition is found to delight in, to welcome, or to hold to, the underlying tendencies of the defilements will come to an end."
"The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha", Bhikkhu Bodhi & Bhikku Ñaṇamoli, Note 229, pp 1204-1205.
This is my attempt to render the Pali idiom phassapaññattiṃ paññāpessati. Bhikkhu Bodhi, in the notes to his translation of this sutta, points out that such an idiom, "in which the verb takes an object derived from itself, is difficult." He points out that Bhikkhu Ñaṅamoli originally rendered the phrase as "that one will describe a description of contact." Bhikkhu Bodhi uses a much less literal rendering, "to point out a manifestation". I feel that the phrase "distinguish a distinct process" captures the meaning, as I understand it, and it also echoes the recursive nature of the original.
