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Commentaries [1]

Of all the sets dealing with the path, only the five faculties are analyzed according to gratification, drawback, and escape. This treatment is elsewhere used for the factors under the wisdom analysis of the phenomena of reality, such as the five aggregates and the six senses. This reflects the fact that the “22 faculties” include, as well as the path, also the senses and other phenomena. Thus the category as a whole melds the path (fourth noble truth) with the phenomena of suffering (first noble truth). This is even implicit in the notion of “faculty” as not just something that one might elect to practice, but a potential within each person. Later in the Saṁyutta we see other similar examples, also unique to the faculties, where they are treated according to “origin and disappearance” (SN 48.3) and the four noble truths (SN 48.7).

Translations [16]