1 : Noble Attainments

To appreciate what happens when a person gains a noble attainment while listening to the Dhamma, it’s good first to have an idea of what, in general, the noble attainments entail.

The Pāḷi Canon describes four noble attainments, which differ from one another primarily in terms of the number of lifetimes remaining before the total unbinding (nibbāna) of the person who has attained them. From the lowest to the highest, these levels are:

• stream-entry, which guarantees that rebirth will occur no more than seven more times before total unbinding, and never on a level lower than the human;

• once-return, which guarantees that there will be only one more rebirth, on the human level, before total unbinding;

• non-return, which guarantees rebirth in a Brahmā world, there to gain total unbinding; and

• arahantship, which entails total unbinding here and now, and guarantees absolute freedom from rebirth.

These attainments also differ from one another in terms of the fetters cut at each attainment.

• At stream-entry, three fetters are cut: self-identity views, doubt, and grasping at habits and practices.

• At once-return, no extra fetters are cut, but passion, aversion, and delusion are weakened.

• At non-return, two extra fetters are cut: sensual desire and ill will.

• At arahantship, five extra fetters are cut: passion for form, passion for what is formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance.

In the cases recorded in the Canon, the people who gain a noble attainment while listening to a talk fall into only three of these categories: stream-entry, non-return, and arahantship. So those are the only three attainments we’ll focus on here.

As we’ll see, each of the attainments has its own variations in the path leading there, but they also have certain patterns in common. The next chapter will focus on the variations. This chapter will focus on commonalities.

Each level of attainment follows on the coming together of all the factors of the noble eightfold path:

• right view,

• right resolve,

• right speech,

• right action,

• right livelihood,

• right effort,

• right mindfulness, and

• right concentration.

The path to arahantship adds two further factors:

• right knowledge and

• right release.

A path composed of this many factors may seem like a lot to keep in mind, especially while listening to a Dhamma talk, but in practice, as the path matures, its factors come down to two sorts: attention and intention.

• Attention—the choice of which questions you pay attention to—covers right view (MN 2 [§32]).

• Intention—what you purposefully do in response to an act of attention—covers all the remaining factors.

Right view places the issue of stress and suffering front and center. It’s expressed in the four noble truths of—

• suffering,

• its cause or origination,

• the fact that it can cease, and

• the path of practice leading to its cessation.

For acts of attention to be in line with right view, you have to direct them at understanding the four noble truths—in their definitions, in the overall structure of their interactions, and in their duties—and then at questioning your experience in line with that framework.

The definitions are these:

• Suffering is the act of clinging to the five aggregates: activities of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness.

• Its cause or origination is three types of craving:

  • craving for sensuality—passion and desire for sensual fantasies;

  • craving for becoming (bhava)—passion and desire for an object in a particular world of experience, along with the desire to take on an identity in that world so as to gain that object; and

  • craving for non-becoming—the desire to see a particular becoming destroyed.

• The cessation of suffering is attained through total dispassion for those three types of craving.

• The path of practice leading to the cessation of suffering is the noble eightfold path.

The overall structure of these truths follows a standard problem-solving approach, such as a doctor would take when approaching a disease. You start with the symptoms, find the cause, state the prognosis that the symptoms can be ended by ending the cause, and show the path of action that’s needed to end the cause. One of the Buddha’s most distinctive insights was that the path to the highest spiritual goal, unconditioned happiness, began by approaching the problem of suffering in this way.

To solve the problem of suffering, each of the four truths entails a duty. Suffering is to be comprehended, its origination abandoned, its cessation realized or verified, and the path to its cessation developed.

Notice that the type of attention the Buddha recommends in terms of right view is not bare attention. For him, all attention is selective, and boils down to two types: appropriate, paying attention to questions that help solve the problem of suffering; and inappropriate, paying attention to questions that get in the way of solving that problem.

That’s right view.

The remaining factors of the noble eightfold path carry out the intention to fulfill the duties appropriate to each truth. If you look carefully at those factors, you see that—beginning with right resolve—they all aim at developing right concentration, which the Buddha identifies as the heart of the path, with all the other factors its supports (MN 117).

It’s important to note at the outset, however, that even though right view emphasizes issues of attention, and the remaining factors emphasize intention, these two qualities are not entirely distinct in practice. After all, the Buddha said that his intention in teaching the four noble truths—focused on how to solve the problem of suffering—was to achieve the compassionate aim of helping others to bring their sufferings to an end (SN 56:31). As for the remaining factors of the path, they require that you pay attention to becoming more and more observant of the mind for the purpose of bringing it into concentration. Once the mind is in right concentration, it can observe itself most clearly. This enables right view to see subtle aspects of the four noble truths in action that it wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

This means that right view and right concentration, working together, are the most important factors of the path. They are also the most important factors that need to be brought to the act of listening to the Dhamma, as you learn to adjust and refine your powers of attention and intention to benefit from the act of listening. As we’ll see in Chapter 3, these are precisely two of the three main factors that the Buddha himself identified as essential for gaining the most out of listening to the Dhamma. The third factor, joyful conviction, is what energizes the other two.

Right concentration plays a role in attaining all four levels of the noble attainments, even though it’s not fully mastered until the level of non-return.

As for right view, when it’s based on right concentration, it plays the most decisive role in reaching all the noble attainments. Its level of subtlety is what determines which noble attainment is reached, although the issues it deals with are basically the same on all levels: focused on mastering the duties of the four noble truths.

This is shown by the passages that discuss how appropriate attention is applied in practice. SN 46:51 [§33] explains how appropriate attention functions in starving the hindrances to concentration—in line with the duty of abandoning the causes of suffering—and in feeding the factors for awakening, in line with the duty of developing the path. The hindrances are fully starved at the level of non-return; the factors for awakening, when fully developed, can take the mind all the way to arahantship.

SN 22:122 [§34] is especially clear in showing how appropriate attention functions with regard to each level of noble attainment. It focuses on the duty related to the first noble truth: comprehending suffering in terms of the five clinging-aggregates.

Comprehension is defined in SN 22:23 as knowing something to the point of ending all passion, aversion, and delusion around it. SN 22:5 and 22:26, taken together, show that the discernment needed to put an end to passion involves five steps. Noticing that you have passion for particular fabrications—i.e., any phenomena put together by the mind—you look for the:

1. origination of the fabrications in question—in other words, what events in the mind give rise to them; then you look for their

2. passing away; for their

3. allure; for their

4. drawbacks; and for the

5. escape from them, which is the subduing of desire and passion around them.

Keep this five-step program in mind, because we’ll encounter it frequently in the course of this book. The first two of these steps focus on the fact of fabrication; the last three, on the value of those fabrications. Discerning the origination and passing away of the fabrications in question, you realize that they don’t just happen on their own. You’re involved in the effort of producing them. You also realize that, because they’re assembled by causes, they’ll have to fall apart when those causes end. By comparing their drawbacks with their allure, you come to the value judgment that they’re not worth the effort that goes into them. When this judgment inspires dispassion for that effort, you stop fabricating them. They cease—and when they cease, there’s total release.

The eleven perceptions recommended in SN 22:122 play a role in this five-step program, in the step of focusing on the drawbacks of clinging to the five aggregates. Even though these aggregates may have their positive side, you have to focus on their negative side if you want to be free of the clinging that turns them into suffering (SN 22:60).

The eleven perceptions in SN 22:122 do just that: They focus on the negative side of the aggregates. The eleven are these: seeing the aggregates as “inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self.” The best way to remember them is to regard them as expansions of the three perceptions typically recommended in the Canon for the purpose of developing dispassion:

• inconstant — a dissolution;

• stressful — a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction;

• not-self — alien, an emptiness.

By using any of these perceptions to foster dispassion for the aggregates, you fulfill the duty of comprehending the first noble truth. At the same time, that dispassion inspires you to fulfill two other duties: abandoning the craving that constitutes the second noble truth and realizing the dispassion that constitutes the third.

It’s important to note that SN 22:122 throws light on two points that are specifically relevant to the issue of gaining awakening while listening to the Dhamma.

• First, it recommends applying the same perceptions to the same aggregates regardless of whether you’ve already attained a noble attainment, or—if you have—regardless of what level you’ve already attained.

• Second, it shows how the three perceptions and their variations are used to fulfill the duties of the noble truths. In other words, as we noted in the Introduction, the four noble truths and their duties provide the context for understanding the three perceptions, and not the other way around, as is sometimes assumed.

As we’ll see, both of these points will be reflected in the talks that inspire their listeners to gain a noble attainment while listening: a) None of the talks seem to be aimed at one level of attainment rather another. A talk that inspires stream-entry in one listener can also inspire arahantship in another listener. b) The talks that include the three perceptions are given only to listeners already familiar with the four noble truths.

These are some points that can be gleaned from SN 22:122. However, that sutta gives only a partial picture of how useful the Buddha’s five-step program can be. In actual practice, the program has to be applied not only to the first noble truth, but also to the fourth—the path to the end of suffering—after that path has completed its work. After all, the path is fabricated (Iti 90). If you want to find a happiness free from the drawbacks of fabrication, you can’t allow for there to be any clinging to any fabrication at all. Now, you do have to begin the practice with a sense of passion for the path, because it won’t develop on its own. But once it’s done its work, you have to let go of that passion if you want to be truly free. Because each level of noble attainment involves an experience of the deathless, this letting go has to occur at every level: temporarily at the lower levels, once and for all at the highest.

As we’ll see below, the Canon makes this point quite explicitly in two prominent passages. Unfortunately, it provides no similes to give an idea of how passion for the path is temporarily abandoned at each of the lower levels, only to be fostered again to reach the higher levels. But it does provide a simile for how passion for the path is abandoned once and all at the attainment of arahantship:

It’s as if you’re on the bank of a river. The shore where you find yourself—the five clinging-aggregates—is a place of danger, as is the river itself, which stands for the flood of sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance. The further shore is unbinding, a place of safety, but there’s no bridge or nibbāna yacht to take you across the flood. You have to make a raft from the branches and vines you find on this side of the river—in other words, from the same aggregates that you’ve been clinging to, but now you’re skilled in turning them into the path away from suffering. Then, relying on the raft, you make an effort with your hands and feet to get to the further shore. If you don’t hold on tight to the raft while you’re on the river, you get swept away by the flood. If you don’t let go of the raft when you reach the further shore, you weigh yourself down pointlessly and won’t be free to go where you like (MN 22; SN 35:197).

Although the Canon provides this simile only for the attainment of arahantship, it does—as we mentioned—state clearly that the Buddha’s five-step program for abandoning passion has to be applied to the path with each of the noble attainments. The following two passages make this point with reference to stream-entry and arahantship. The other attainments are implied. In each case, you apply the program to the five faculties, which are equivalent to the factors of the noble eightfold path:

“When a disciple of the noble ones discerns, as they have come to be, the origination, the passing away, the allure, the drawbacks, and the escape from these five faculties, he is called a disciple of the noble ones who has attained the stream: never again destined for the lower realms, certain, headed for self-awakening.” — SN 48:3

“When—having discerned, as they have come to be, the origination, the passing away, the allure, the drawbacks, and the escape from these five faculties—a monk is released from lack of clinging/sustenance, he is called an arahant whose effluents [āsava] are ended, who has reached fulfillment, done the task, laid down the burden, attained the true goal, laid to waste the fetter of becoming, and who is released through right gnosis.” — SN 48:4

In this case, the allure of the faculties lies both in the pleasures they provide as you develop them—such as the pleasures of concentration—and in the fact that, when they’re fully developed, they lead to an experience of the deathless. Their drawbacks lie in the fact that they’re fabricated: a fact established by discerning their origination and passing away. The escape from them is dispassion for them—when you see, after they’ve done their work, that there’s no reason to keep fabricating them.

This dispassion allows for the cessation of the faculties and on to an all-around cessation of all things subject to origination. That cessation, in turn, allows for an experience of unbinding. The following passage makes this point with regard to a stream-enterer. The same point implicitly applies to the higher noble attainments, too.

“And further, the disciple of the noble ones… discerns that, ‘When I cultivate, develop, and pursue this view, I personally obtain tranquility, I personally obtain unbinding.’ This is the second knowledge attained by him that is noble, transcendent, not held in common with run-of-the-mill people.” — MN 48

Here the important term is “unbinding.” In ordinary Pāḷi usage, “unbinding” was used to describe the extinguishing of a fire. To understand why the Buddha would borrow this term to describe the goal of the practice, we have to understand his description of how fire worked.

Individual fires, he said, were caused by provoking the fire property, which existed, to a greater or lesser degree, in a calm, latent state in all things. When you provoked it—say, by using a fire-starter—it would grab hold and cling to the fuel that would sustain it. (Here, for fuel, the Buddha used the word upādāna, the same word for clinging that he used in the definition of suffering in the first noble truth. The term also means sustenance.) As long as the fire burned, it was trapped in a state of heat and agitation. When it went out, it let go of its fuel, grew calm, and was released.

The Buddha used the term “unbinding” for the goal both to indicate that it was a state of freedom and calm, and also to suggest how to get there. Just as fuel doesn’t cling to the fire, it’s not the case that the aggregates cling to you. You’re the one clinging to them. You gain freedom by letting them go, just as a fire goes out and is released when it lets go of its fuel.

The main difference between the unbinding of a fire and the unbinding experienced by the mind is that the fire property can be provoked repeatedly and so give rise to other fires. The full and final release of the mind, though, is said to be unprovoked (MN 29). Because this release is uncaused, there’s no reason for it to end. At the same time, nothing can provoke the mind into clinging to anything ever again.

The Buddha also used the metaphor of an extinguished fire to make the point that the person who has gained release can’t be described. Just as a fire, when it goes out, can’t be described as going east, west, north, or south, in the same way, a person fully released can’t be described as existing, not existing, both, or neither (MN 72; SN 44:1). That’s because people are measured and defined as beings in terms of their attachments. When they have no more attachments, they can’t be defined, and so can’t be properly described (SN 22:36; SN 23:2).

This means that when you no longer define yourself as a being in this way, you’re not bringing about annihilation. Instead, you’re no longer limited by attachments. You’re free.

So these are some of the features that all the noble attainments have in common:

• The factors of the noble eightfold path, with an emphasis on the factors of attention and intention—right view and right concentration—all come together.

• The discernment of right view is developed through the Buddha’s five-step program for developing dispassion, fulfilling—partially, on the lower levels, and completely on the highest—the duties of the first three noble truths.

• The same five-step program is then applied to the purpose of developing dispassion for the fourth noble truth.

• And there’s an experience of unbinding—again, partial on the lower levels, total on the level of arahantship.

Those are the main features that all the noble attainments have in common. Where they differ is in the level of concentration and discernment you bring to the Buddha’s five-step program for inducing dispassion. The more solid your concentration and the more all-around your discernment, then the more all-around the resulting dispassion—and the more all-around the resulting release.

So, keeping in mind the larger patterns of commonalities and differences among the attainments, we can look at the differences in more detail.