Sutra: Going Along with the Stream

SUTRA: Going Along with the Stream

How can we rise above?

(AN 4.5) “Meditators, there are four kinds of people found in the world. What are these four? There is:

1. the person who goes along with the stream;
2. the one who goes against the stream;
3. the one who is inwardly firm; and
4. the one who has crossed over and gone beyond, the [worthy one] who stands on high ground.

(1) “Who is the person who goes along with the stream? Here, one indulges in sensual pleasures and performs unskillful deeds (karma). This is called 'the person who goes along with the stream.'

Could I rise above and overcome ignorance?

(2) “Who is the person who goes against the stream? Here, one refrains from indulging in sensual pleasures, refrains from performing unskillful deeds. Even with pain and dejection, weeping with a tearful face, one lives the complete and purified spiritual life. This is called 'the person who goes against the stream.'

(3) “Who is the person who is inwardly firm? Here, with the utter destruction of the five lower fetters, some person is of spontaneous rebirth [in some superior world or other], due to attain final nirvana (nibbāna) there without ever returning from that world. This is called 'the person who is inwardly firm.'

Blissful and at ease

(4) “And who is the one who has crossed over and gone beyond, the noble one who stands on high ground? Here, with the destruction of the taints, some person has realized for oneself with direct knowledge, in this very life, the taintless liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, and having entered in it, one dwells in it. This is called 'the person who has crossed over and gone beyond,' the noble person who stands on high ground.

“These, meditators, are the four kinds of persons found in the world.”

Those people who are unrestrained in [pursuing] sense pleasures,

not free of lust, indulging in sense pleasures here,

repeatedly coming back to rebirth and old age again,

immersed in craving, are “the ones who go along with the stream.”

Therefore, a wise person with mindfulness established,

not resorting to sense pleasures and unskillful deeds,

gives up sense pleasures even if it is painful to do so:

they call this person “one who goes against the stream.”

One who has abandoned five defilements,

a fulfilled trainee, unable to fall back,

attained to mind’s mastery, with faculties composed:

this person is called “one inwardly firm.”

One who has comprehended things high and low,

burned them up, so they are done and exist no more:

that sage who has lived the supreme spiritual life,

reached the end of the world (samsara), is called

“one who has gone beyond.”

• Do our companions matter? Samseva
• Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), suttacentral.net, edited by Dhr. Seven, Aṅguttara Nikāya, Numerical Discourses, The Book of the Fours (AN 4.5), Wisdom Quarterly