The second book of the Majjhima Nikāya, the Majjhimapaṇṇāsa, features discourses organized around the individuals involved in the teachings, such as householders, bhikkhus, wanderers, kings, and brahmins. Each of its five chapters (groupings of 10 discourses) presents teachings tailored to these groups, addressing their specific concerns and illustrating the practical application of the Dhamma across diverse contexts.
Majjhimapaṇṇāsa - The Middle Fifty
The Buddha explains to Jīvaka the circumstances in which meat may be consumed and the demerit of slaughtering living beings for the Tathāgata or his disciples.
The Buddha teaches Rāhula about the importance of truthfulness and how to purify one's bodily, verbal and mental conduct by reflecting on the consequences of one's actions.
The Buddha instructs Rāhula on how to regard the five aggregates as not-self which he immediately applies to practice. The Buddha then teaches Rāhula on how to meditate on the elements, the divine abodes, unattractiveness, impermanence, and mindfulness of breathing to abandon unwholesome mental qualities and cultivate wholesome mental qualities.
The Buddha explains the five lower fetters and the way of practice for abandoning them.
The Buddha explains how even small attachments can be strong fetters if not relinquished, using similes of a quail and an elephant, and contrasts between the poor and wealthy. He describes four types of practitioners based on their response to attachment and mindfulness. The discourse also presents gradual refinement of meditative attainments from the first jhāna to the cessation of perception and feeling.
The Buddha starts out by advising the bhikkhus to eat only during the day, without having a meal at night, explaining the interplay of how pleasant, painful and neither-pleasant-nor-painful feelings can lead to furthering of unwholesome or wholesome states. He then shares on the seven kinds of persons and which kinds must act with diligence. The Buddha concludes by describing how final knowledge is attained gradually.
The Buddha has gone beyond all speculative views. He states the spiritual goal with the simile of a fire and explains how the Tathāgata is freed from classification by the aggregates.
The Buddha describes the wholesome and unwholesome states to the wanderer Vacchagotta, and then answers Vacchagotta's questions about the accomplishments of his disciples.
The wanderer Māgaṇḍiya holds the view that sensual indulgence is spiritual growth and harshly criticizes the Buddha for teaching sense restraint, calling him a destroyer of spiritual growth. The Buddha skilfully reveals the true nature of sensual pleasures through vivid similes such as a leper finding relief by scorching himself over burning coals and a blind man mistaking a filthy rag for a spotless white cloth.
The Buddha answers the questions of the reputed brahmin Caṅkī's learned student, who asks the Buddha on how there is preservation of truth, awakening to the truth, final arrival at the truth, and what is most helpful for the final arrival at the truth.
The young brahmin Subha questions the Buddha about whether householders or renunciants are superior and what brings the greatest merit. The Buddha explains that he evaluates actions with discernment, and then teaches the path to companionship with Brahmā through cultivation of the qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity.