In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [247]
1 The terminology of “path” and “fruition” is a commentarial way of drawing the distinction. The suttas themselves do not use the scheme of four “paths” but speak only of one path, the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the cessation of suffering. This is also called the arahattamagga, the path to arahantship, but in a broad sense, as the path to the highest goal, not in the narrow sense of the path preceding the fruit of arahantship. However, the suttas do make a distinction between the person practicing for the attainment of a particular fruit (phala-sacchikiriyāya paṭipanna) and the person who has attained the stage that results from this practice (see Text X,1(1)). Based on this distinction, the commentarial terminology of path and fruit is useful as a concise way of referring to the two phases of the Nikāya scheme.
2 My explanation of the once-returner’s attenuation of lust, hatred, and defilements is based on the commentaries. Apart from the standard formula, the suttas themselves say very little about the once-returner.
3 It is also important to note that the suttas imply that the dhammānusārī and saddhānusārī remain thus for an extended period of time. The position of the suttas seems to contradict the commentarial idea that a path-attainer is such only for a single mind-moment. If the latter were the case, this would mean that a dhammānusārī and saddhānusārī are such for only a single mind-moment, and this seems hard to square with sutta statements to the effect that they receive gifts, resort to lodgings in the forest, etc.
4 The commentarial method of explanation stipulates that the meditator emerges from the jhāna attainment and practices insight contemplation with a mind made sharp and supple by the jhāna. However, the suttas themselves say nothing about emerging from the jhāna. If one reads the suttas alone, without the commentaries, it seems as if the meditator examines the factors within the jhāna itself.
5 As the arahants have achieved liberation from the round of existence, it is impossible to point to any place within the round where they might appear; hence they have no future round for manifestation.
6 The “five lower fetters” (pañc’ orambhāgiyāni saṃyojanāni) are: identity view, doubt, grasping of rules and observances, sensual lust, and ill will. Those who are spontaneously reborn (opapātika) take rebirth without dependence on a mother and father.
7 The “three fetters” are the first three of the five fetters, just above. “Fixed in destiny” (niyata) means that the stream-enterer is bound to reach liberation in at most seven more lives passed either in the human world or in celestial realms. Enlightenment (sambodhi) is the arahant’s full and final knowledge of the Four Noble Truths.
8 On the distinction between these two types, see below, Text X,1(5) §§20–21 and Text X,2(2).
9 Ps says that this refers to persons devoted to the practice of insight who have not reached any supramundane realization but possess strong conviction in the truth of the Dhamma. The words saddhāmattaṃ pemamattaṃ might have been translated “mere faith, mere love,” but such qualities could not guarantee a rebirth in heaven. It thus seems necessary to take the suffix–matta as implying a sufficient amount of these qualities, not simply their mere existence.
10 The Buddha is here speaking with the wanderer Vacchagotta (see Text IX,5(6)). Ps says that Vacchagotta thought the Buddha may have been the only one within his community to have attained the final goal.
11 This question and the one in §11 concern the nonreturner. Note that nonreturners observe celibacy.
12 This question and the one in §12 concern stream-enterers and once-returners. Since they are described as enjoying sensual pleasures, this means that they are not obliged to observe celibacy.
13 Ubhatobhāgavimutta. Ps: He is liberated in both ways because he is liberated from the form body by the formless attainments and from the mental body by the path of arahantship. The dual liberation of the “both-ways-liberated” arahant should not