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< - In the Buddha’s Words Summary, Notes and Highlights

In the Buddha’s Words An Anthology of Discources from the Pali Canon Chapter 10. The Planes of Realization

Author: Bhikku Bodhi Publisher: Wisdom Publications. Somerville, MA. Publish Date: 2005-6-28 Review Date: 2022-5-12 Status:📚

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6431 The Nikāyas stipulate a fixed series of stages through which a person passes on the way toward the attainment of Nibbāna.

  • Highlight - Location 6435 On entering the irreversible path to the attainment of Nibbāna, one becomes a noble person (ariyapuggala), the word “noble” (ariya) here denoting spiritual nobility.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6436 There are four major types of noble persons. Each stage is divided into two phases: the path (magga) and its fruition (phala).1 In the path phase, one is said to be practicing for the attainment of a particular fruition, which one is bound to realize within that same life; in the resultant phase, one is said to be established in that fruition. Thus the four major types of noble persons actually comprise four pairs or eight types of noble individuals. As enumerated in Text X,1(1), these are: (1) one practicing for the realization of the fruit of stream-entry, (2) the stream-enterer, (3) one practicing for the realization of the fruit of once-returning, (4) the once-returner, (5) one practicing for the realization of the fruit of nonreturning, (6) the nonreturner, (7) one practicing for arahantship, (8) the arahant.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6655 “Monks, these eight persons are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutations, the unsurpassed field of merit for the world. (Anguttara Nikaya 8:59; IV 292)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6657 “The stream-enterer, the one practicing for the realization of the fruit of stream-entry; the once-returner, the one practicing for the realization of the fruit of once-returning; the nonreturner, the one practicing for the realization of the fruit of the nonreturning; the arahant, the one practicing for arahantship. (Anguttara Nikaya 8:59; IV 292)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6442 Text X,1(2) grades these eight according to the relative strength of their spiritual faculties, so that those at each subsequent stage possess stronger faculties than those at the preceding stage.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6662 “Monks, there are these five faculties. What five? The faculty of faith, the faculty of energy, the faculty of mindfulness, the faculty of concentration, the faculty of wisdom. (Samyutta Nikaya 48:18; V 202)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6664 “One who has completed and fulfilled these five faculties is an arahant. If they are weaker than that, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of arahantship; if still weaker, one is a nonreturner; if still weaker, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of nonreturning; if still weaker, one is a once-returner; if still weaker, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of once-returning; if still weaker, one is a stream-enterer; if still weaker, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of stream-entry. (Samyutta Nikaya 48:18; V 202)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6444 The first seven persons are collectively known as sekhas, trainees or disciples in the higher training; the arahant is called the asekha, the one beyond training.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6445 The four main stages themselves are defined in two ways: (1) by way of the defilements eradicated by the path leading to the corresponding fruit; and (2) by way of the destiny after death that awaits one who has realized that particular fruit.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6448 The Nikāyas group the defilements abandoned into a set of ten fetters

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6449 The stream-enterer abandons the first three fetters: identity view (sakkāyadiṭṭhi), … doubt (vicikicchā) … and the wrong grasp of rules and observances (sīlabbataparāmāsa ), the belief that mere external observances, particularly religious rituals and ascetic practices, can lead to liberation.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6452 The stream-enterer is assured of attaining full enlightenment in at most seven more existences, which will all take place either in the human realm or the heavenly worlds.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6833 since there is a maximum of seven more lives. Of such great benefit, monks, is the breakthrough to the Dhamma, of such great benefit is it to obtain the vision of the Dhamma.”22 (Samyutta Nikaya 13:1; II 133–34)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6455 The once-returner (sakadāgāmī) does not eradicate any new fetters. He or she has eliminated the three fetters that the stream-enterer has destroyed and additionally attenuates the three unwholesome roots—lust, hatred, and delusion—so that they do not arise often and, when they do arise, do not become obsessive.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6458 As the name implies, the once-returner will come back to this world only one more time and then make an end to suffering.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6459 The nonreturner (anāgāmī) eradicates the five “lower fetters.” That is, in addition to the three fetters eliminated by the stream-enterer, the nonreturner eradicates two additional fetters, sensual lust and ill will.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6463 The nonreturner, however, is still bound by the five “higher fetters”: desire for existence in the form realm, desire for existence in the formless realm, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6461 Because nonreturners have eradicated sensual lust, they have no ties binding them to the sensual realm of existence. They thus take birth in the form realm (rūpadhātu), generally in one of five planes called the “pure abodes” (suddhāvāsa) reserved exclusively for the rebirth of nonreturners. They attain final Nibbāna there, without ever returning to the sensual realm.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6465 Those who cut off the five higher fetters have no more ties binding them to conditioned existence. These are the arahants, who have destroyed all defilements and are “completely liberated through final knowledge.”

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6672 those monks who are arahants with taints destroyed—who have lived the spiritual life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached their own goal, utterly destroyed the fetters of existence, and are completely liberated through final knowledge—have no round for manifestation.5 (from Majjhima Nikaya 22: Alagaddūpama Sutta; I 140–42)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6690 “When a monk has abandoned craving, cut it off at the root, made it like a palm stump, done away with it so that it is no longer subject to future arising, that monk is an arahant with taints destroyed, one who has lived the spiritual life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached his own goal, utterly destroyed the fetters of existence, and is completely liberated through final knowledge.” (from Majjhima Nikaya 73: Mahāvacchagotta Sutta; I 490–93)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6696 not only one hundred, or two or three or four or five hundred, but far more monks, my disciples, who by realizing it for themselves with direct knowledge, in this present life enter upon and dwell in the liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, that is taintless with the destruction of the taints.” (from Majjhima Nikaya 73: Mahāvacchagotta Sutta; I 490–93)

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6597 The section is titled “The Tathāgata,” the word the Buddha used when referring to himself in his archetypal role as the discoverer and bringer of liberating truth.

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6598 The word can be resolved in two ways: taken as tathā āgata, “Thus Come,” it implies that the Buddha has come in accordance with an established pattern (which the commentaries interpret to mean the fulfillment of the ten spiritual perfections—the pāramīs—and the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment);

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 6600 taken as tathā gata, “Thus Gone,” it implies that he has gone in accordance with an established pattern (which the commentaries interpret to mean that he has gone to Nibbāna by the complete practice of serenity, insight, the paths, and the fruits).

  • Highlight(pink) - Location 7220 “The Tathāgata, monks, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, is the originator of the path unarisen before, the producer of the path unproduced before, the declarer of the path undeclared before. He is the knower of the path, the discoverer of the path, the one skilled in the path. And his disciples now dwell following that path and become possessed of it afterward. “This, monks, is the distinction, the disparity, the difference between the Tathāgata, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, and a monk liberated by wisdom.” (Samyutta Nikaya 22:58; III 65–66)

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