Meditation Trainees and Stream-Winners

Trainings (Sikkha Sutra, AN 3.89) Wisdom Quarterly translation by Dharmachari Seven

Mural of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, Vancouver, BC (Romila Barryman/Flickr.com)

 

"There are three trainings: training in higher virtue, in higher mind (concentration), in higher wisdom.

"What is the training in higher virtue (sila)? Here a practitioner is virtuous, dwells restrained adhering to the training rules [the direct path to liberation], well conducted.

"One trains oneself, having undertaken the training rules, seeing danger even in the slightest fault. This is the training in higher virtue.

"What is the training in higher mind (samma samadhi, right concentration)? Here a practitioner -- withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful states of mind/heart -- enters and remains in the first meditative absorption (jhana):

• with rapture and happiness born of withdrawal, accompanied by applied and sustained attention.

"With the stilling of applied and sustained attention, one enters and remains in the second absorption:

• with rapture and happiness born of concentration, single-minded, free of applied and sustained attention, with internal assurance.

"With the fading of rapture, one remains equanimous, mindful, and alert, sensing pleasure with the body. One enters and remains in the third absorption of which the Noble Ones declare:

• 'Equanimous and mindful one has a pleasant abiding.'

"With the abandoning of both pleasure and pain, as with the earlier disappearance of gladness and sadness, one enters and remains in the fourth absorption:

• with purity of equanimity and mindfulness beyond pleasure and pain.

"This is called the training in higher mind.

"What is the training in higher wisdom? Here a practitioner, through the overcoming of the mental taints, enters and remains in the taintless release of mind, liberation by wisdom, having known-and-seen for oneself here and now. This is called the training in higher wisdom (liberating insight).

"These are the three trainings."

Higher virtue, higher mind (concentration), higher wisdom: persistent, balanced, steadfast, absorbed in meditation, mindful, with senses guarded one practices these three -- in front, behind, below, above, by day, by night, conquering all directions with limitless concentration.

This is called the practice of training,as well as the higher way of life.[By such practice] one is self-awakened in the world,enlightened, taken the path to completion.With the cessation of the constituents of conditioned existence there is release from all suffering with the cessation of craving and the liberation of mind/heart like a flame released from its constituent factors.

The Stream-Winner

How many rebirths remain for a stream-winner, one who has gained stream entry, having entered the first stage of enlightenment?

Before realizing full enlightenment [or at least before becoming a once-returner or a non-returner], the great Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa distinguishes three levels of attainment within the first stage, listed here from highest to lowest:

1. "With the destruction of the three fetters, [some] are 'one-seeders' (eka-bijin): after taking rebirth only one more time on the human plane, they will put an end to all suffering.
2. "Or not breaking through to that attainment, not penetrating that far, with the destruction of the three lower fetters they are 'born among noble families-ers' (kolan-kola): after wandering on through two or three more families (according to the commentary, this phrase should be interpreted as 'through two to six more states of becoming'), they will put an end to all suffering.
3. "Or not breaking through to that attainment, not penetrating that far, with the destruction of the three lower fetters they are 'seven-times-at-most-ers' (sattakkhattuparama): after wandering on among devas and human beings, they will put an end to all suffering."