Meaning of the Rooted Sutta

Each of these Western translators is certainly incorrect, here. Kaṭukurunde Ñāṇananda & Piya Tan can be added to this list of incorrect translators of AN 10.58.

The word 'dhamma' here means (supramundane) 'skilful qualities' or 'path factors'; as confirmed by many other suttas. Refer to discussion topic at Sutta Central: All things are rooted in desire, particularly posts by Deele and Piotr, who complete an extensive cross-referencing of other suttas.

Most translators appear bent by their doctrinal belief that Nibbana is the end of reincarnations, therefore they wish to impute Nibbana is the end of all things. Kaṭukurunde Ñāṇananda appears stuck in his usual 'solipsism'.

These incorrect translations show how much the belief in Hindu reincarnation and Vedanta (solipsism) pervert the True Dhamma.

The Buddha said:

Open are the doors to the Deathless to those with ears.

MN 26

The Buddha did not say: "Open are the doors to the Deathless to all things".

What are "things" or "phenomena" in this context?

This is all dhamma (sabbe dhammā).

Please explain the whole paragraph

mūla: Literally, "root." The fundamental conditions in the mind that determine the moral quality — skillful (kusala) or unskillful (akusala) — of one's intentional actions (see kamma). The three unskillful roots are lobha (greed), dosa (aversion), and moha (delusion); the skillful roots are their opposites. See kilesa (defilements).

A Glossary of Pali and Buddhist Terms

This says all things (dhamma) has desire (lobha) as a root (mula). The rest is self-evident from this quoted paragraphs. Explanation is as follows:

Attention produces phenomena. Contact is the origin of phenomena. Feeling is produced due to contact, which intern gives arise to rooted phenomena. Though concentration one can suppress the phenomena. Mindfulness prevent their arising. Wisdom helps to go beyond phenomena by achieving Nirvana. Nirvana is also a Dharma and is at its core. The climax of phenomena when one nears Nirvana is deathlessness. They are extinguishment by realising Nirvana which is the end and final state.

First of all, when it is said eg 'All dhamma have feeling as their meeting place', if we assert that the meaning of 'dhamma' there is the same as 'aggregates' as comy pins it , we have to be very careful not to become confused because feeling is an aggregate and we can't say 'all feelings have feeling as their meeting place'.

As i see it, it should be read with mn22 in mind;

"Both formerly and now, monks, I declare only stress and the cessation of stress."

The Dhamma can be spoken of as that which The Buddha taught in general sense; or something particular among the Dhamma.

I will cross reference and comment.

All phenomena come into play through attention.

Attention is spoken of in the Sutta as appropriate & inappropriate.

All phenomena have contact as their origination.

These six are classes of contact: eye-contact, ear-contact, nose-contact, tongue-contact, body-contact, intellect-contact. This is called contact.

"Dependent on the ear & sounds there arises ear-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact...

Dependent on the nose & aromas there arises nose-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the tongue & flavors there arises tongue-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the body & tactile sensations there arises body-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the intellect & mental qualities there arises intellect-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact.

All phenomena have feeling as their meeting place.

From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. With contact as condition, feeling comes to be;

"And which are the six feelings? A feeling born of eye-contact, a feeling born of ear-contact... nose-contact... tongue-contact... body-contact... intellect-contact. These are the six feelings.

All phenomena have concentration as their presiding state.

All states are presided over by concentration in as far as one has to concentrate on any task in order not to become distracted and to maintain the state to which attention was applied. Not everything is right-concentration but all percipience requires concentration.

All phenomena have mindfulness as their governing principle.

All states are governed by mindfulness in as far as one has to stay mindful of every task in order not to lose focus & becoming oblivious of the task & the goal.

All phenomena have discernment as their surpassing state.

This can be understood in the same way one can understand that neutral feelings are pleasant when they are connected to discernment. When the things that are present are grasped with discernment, that is in itself pleasant and then appropriate attention can be expected resulting in a surpassing state.

All phenomena have release as their heartwood.

In the sense that only suffering is taught & it's cessation. All that is not cessation in a definitive sense becomes suffering and having grasped any of these with discernment, there comes to be a directing to a surpassing state of cessation through appropriate attention. Therefore all things can be seen to have release [from them] for heartwood.

All phenomena gain their footing in the deathless.

In the Sutta gaining footing is used also in the sense of one crossing to the other shore would be gaining a footing.

Deathless is here used as a term denoting the seeing with wisdom associated with cessation of perception & feeling by which there is a destruction of taints such that is attained by Ariya attained to vision (not faith & dhamma-follower), in Mahavagga Ven. Sariputta proclaimed attainment of the Deathless as a penetrating to the asoka state.

This attainment is a release that is unsurpassed in principle and is only superseeded as to the purity of one who enters & emerges from it. One can emerge as one attained to view, once returner, Anagami or Arahant and all by attaining to the principal cessation of perception & feeling.

An Arahant can continue to enter & emerge from the cessation of perception & feeling but it is then not spoken of as a destruction of taints for him because of the purity of one who enters & emerges from it.

Therefore when it is said that all phenomena gain their footing in the deathless, it can be explained that this is something that one should see with intellect when grasping phenomena with discernment such that development can be directed to the attainment of the immediacy leading to the destruction of taints.

There is also an explaination where one would say that the unconditioned is the ground of all and not included in it. This can be disagreeable in meaning or agreeable depending on how it is interpreted.

All phenomena have Unbinding as their final end.

Final & complete extinguishment is the same extinguishment principal of release, nibbananirodhadhatu, a cessation of perception & feeling complemented by a breaking up of the body & faculties. Therefore one can't say that the Arahant is seeing with wisdom after death as if wisdom departed the Arahant.

This final end of all phenomena is something one show see with intellect when grasping signs with discernment, it's like the meaning of signs and something one should know when thinking about this or that dhamma, that one does for the giving of appropriate attention leading to an attainment of the final goal through a progressive extinguishment.

Not to miss the forest for the trees: the sequence is saying that the natural (VERY longterm over many lifetimes perhaps) arc is toward freedom. Eventually we recognize 5, that we are focusing on that; it isn’t just happening from the environment. Then 6, that mindfulness chooses what we focus on. Then 7, 8, 9, 10.

This is what Sujato has to say;

No, “gain a footing” is incorrect. Amatogadha is a common term, frequently used alongside amatapariyosāna and amataparāyana in the sense of ‘culminate, climax, finish’.

The basic meaning of ogadha is to be grounded or gain a footing, but here it clearly has an idiomatic sense. I think the root of the metaphor may lie with a boat crossing a river: when it reaches the far shore (parāyana) it is beached or grounded. Perhaps we could translate something like “gains a safe harbor in the deathless”.

Which is imho not much of substantiation.

As for your inquiry it is somewhat noteworthy that 8 out of 10 points from 10.58 appear in AN 8.83 (which covers the first eight of the ten questions), commentary to the Sutta has it that "all phenomena" (sabbe dhamma) there means the five aggregates. This is important because it comes into play when people express their interpretations where some might say that sabbe dhamma refers to only "wholesome qualities" for example, this has happened.

This is not the only place where this disagreement between translators plays out, there is also AN7.48 wherein the amatogadhā amatapariyosānā occurs as well as sn48.44. It is the same disagreement however if one looks at Bodhi's translations one will see that he has previously translated it as footing for sn48.44.