Reading guide
The same content, a bare frame
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse's own explanatory content — the four bases named, the detailed method given for enthusiasm and inquiry, the sixfold list of results compressed by ellipsis, arahantship named last — is essentially identical to SN 51.14's own account, but the entire narrative scene (the stilt longhouse, the restless mendicants, Moggallāna's own toe) is simply absent.
A now-familiar deferral
This project's own cross-reference: the mendicants' own reply, “our teachings are rooted in the Buddha. He is our guide and our refuge...,” is the same deferral formula this project has now met four times in this vagga (SN 51.14, SN 51.28, SN 51.30, and here) — a stock response mendicants give when the Buddha directs a question at them.
Two discourses, one underlying teaching
This project's own observation: comparing SN 51.14 and this discourse directly shows the same core teaching — Moggallāna's own power traced to the four bases — can be delivered either as a vivid narrative occasion (Vagga 2) or as a bare doctrinal restatement (Vagga 3), without changing the doctrinal content itself.
Key terms
The text
§1There the Buddha addressed the mendicants: “What do you think, mendicants? What things has the mendicant Moggallāna developed and cultivated so as to have such power and might?”
§2“Our teachings are rooted in the Buddha. He is our guide and our refuge. …” “The mendicant Moggallāna has become so powerful and mighty by developing and cultivating the four bases of psychic power.
§3What four? Moggallāna develops the basis of psychic power that has immersion due to enthusiasm, and active effort. He thinks: ‘My enthusiasm won’t be too lax or too tense. And it’ll be neither constricted internally nor scattered externally.’ And he meditates perceiving before and behind: as before, so behind; as behind, so before; as below, so above; as above, so below; as by day, so by night; as by night, so by day. And so, with an open and unenveloped heart, he develops a mind that’s full of radiance. He develops the basis of psychic power that has immersion due to energy … mental development … inquiry, and active effort. He thinks: ‘My inquiry won’t be too lax or too tense. And it’ll be neither constricted internally nor scattered externally.’ … And so, with an open and unenveloped heart, he develops a mind that’s full of radiance. The mendicant Moggallāna has become so powerful and mighty by developing and cultivating these four bases of psychic power.
§4And by developing and cultivating these four bases of psychic power, the mendicant Moggallāna wields the many kinds of psychic power: multiplying himself and becoming one again … controlling the body as far as the realm of divinity. And by developing and cultivating these four bases of psychic power, the mendicant Moggallāna realizes the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And he lives having realized it with his own insight due to the ending of defilements.”
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