Awakening

Sāriputta on liberation

In SN 38.1, the wanderer Jambukhādaka asks Sāriputta what nibbāna means. Sāriputta answers:

“The ending of passion, the ending of aversion, the ending of delusion: This is called unbinding.”

Asked whether there is a path to its realization, he names the Noble Eightfold Path: view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

A Question About Extinguishment · SN 38.1

Four stages in the early discourses

AN 3.88 relates degrees of accomplishment in ethical conduct, concentration and wisdom to stages of liberation. Its account includes the traditional consequences for rebirth.

Stream-entry

The first three fetters are abandoned. The discourse describes different kinds of stream-enterer, with at most seven further lives among humans and devas.

Once-returning

The first three fetters are abandoned, and greed, hatred and delusion are weakened. One further return to this world remains.

Non-returning

The five lower fetters are abandoned. The practitioner is reborn spontaneously and attains final liberation there, without returning to this world.

Arahantship

The effluents are ended, and liberation of mind and liberation by wisdom are directly realized in this life.

Training (2nd) · AN 3.87

What is abandoned?

AN 10.13 names five lower fetters: self-identification views, doubt, grasping at habits and practices, sensual desire, and ill will. The five higher fetters are desire for form existence, desire for formless existence, conceit, restlessness and ignorance.

The first three are the fetters abandoned at stream-entry; sensual desire and ill will complete the five lower fetters. These accounts concern enduring changes in bondage, rather than simply describing a pleasant or unusual meditative experience.

AN 10.13 · Fetters · Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

SN 22.89 adds a distinction: even after the five lower fetters have ended, the residual conceit “I am” can remain. Khemaka describes its ending through observing the arising and passing of the aggregates.

SN 22.89 · Khemaka

The Lotus Sūtra’s Buddha vehicle

The Lotus Sūtra presents the one Buddha vehicle through teachings and parables. Its account includes the burning house and its three carts, the lost son, and the phantom city. These stories explain the Buddha’s use of skillful means in leading beings toward Buddhahood.

Chapter 16 presents Śākyamuni as having attained awakening in the distant past; chapter 25 describes Avalokiteśvara’s compassionate activity. BDK’s complete translation by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama makes all twenty-eight chapters available in English.

The Lotus Sūtra

Sōtō Zen: practice and realization

Sōtōshū’s explanation of practice-realization presents zazen as the actualization of Buddhahood. Practice is not treated merely as a means of obtaining realization at a later time: the sitting itself expresses realization.

The teaching uses the story of Nanyue polishing a tile while Mazu sits in meditation. Nanyue’s question challenges Mazu’s attempt to use sitting as a means of becoming a Buddha. The article extends this account of wholehearted, non-gaining practice into everyday life.

Practice and Realization Are One · Sōtōshū