Form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness. These are called the things that should be completely understood. And what is complete understanding? The ending of greed, hate, and delusion.

Even the Stream Enterer and Anāgāmīn understanding of the Aggregates is provisional. Only the Arahant completely understands the Five Aggregates.

Experiencing revulsion, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion his mind is liberated.

The five aggregates are burning.

… the one who is extinguished without extra effort, the one who is extinguished with extra effort, and the one who heads upstream..

A rare sutta, showing ten stages of enlightenment.

However, when the boy has grown up and has enough sense, the nurse would be unconcerned about him.

The Buddha looks after mendicants like a nurse looks after a child until they’ve grown up.

Mahānāma, when a noble disciple has reached the fruit and understood the instructions they frequently practice this kind of meditation.

Friends, even though a noble disciple has abandoned the five lower fetters, still, in relation to the five aggregates subject to clinging, there lingers in him a residual conceit ‘I am,’ a desire ‘I am,’ an underlying tendency ‘I am’ that has not yet been uprooted.

Venerable Khemaka is ill, and some senior mendicants ask Dāsaka to convey their concern to him. There follows a series of exchanges mediated by Dāsaka until eventually Khemaka, despite his illness, goes to see the other mendicants himself.

… freed by not grasping: they are well freed. Those who are well freed are consummate ones. For consummate ones, there is no cycle of rebirths to be found.

How the Four Noble Truths illuminate the Five Aggregates.

What do you think, mendicants? Which is more: the little bit of dirt under my fingernail, or this great earth?

The Buddha explains the fruit of Stream Entry.

… body and mind are impermanent, decaying, and perishing. Someone who has faith and confidence in these teachings is called a follower by faith.

They can’t die without realizing the fruit of stream-entry.

The Buddha defines the two types of “little stream winners”: the faith follower and the dhamma follower.

someone who has gained a footing
and stands on dry land
need not strive

Dāmali the god suggests that a true brahmin must strive to abandon desire. The Buddha disagrees, saying that a true brahmin already has.

… he understands: ‘I feel a feeling terminating with life.’ He understands: ‘With the breakup of the body, following the exhaustion of life, all that is felt, not being delighted in, will become cool right here; mere bodily remains will be left.’

A mendicant (whether enlightened or not!) should thoroughly investigate the causes of their suffering until they see for themselves how it is dependently arisen.

Some suffering ceases with nibbāna, but all with parinibbāna.

When, bhikkhus, a noble disciple has clearly seen with correct wisdom as it really is this dependent origination and these dependently arisen phenomena, it is impossible that he will run back into the past, thinking: ‘Did I exist in the past? Did I not exist in the past? What was I …’

Now on that occasion the following pernicious view had arisen in a bhikkhu named Yamaka: “As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death.”

Convinced by the Venerable Sāriputta that the aggregates are already not-self, Yamaka lets go of his mistaken view and sees the Dhamma.

… what is that due to apart from seeing things as they really are?

The Buddha teaches a householder named Soṇa about the nature of the five aggregates and conceit.

Percipient in this way, too, one is not sensitive to that dimension.

Ānanda exclaims how amazing it is that the Buddha has found a way to freedom while still experiencing the world.

Questioned by the monk Udāyī, Ānanda elucidates that he’s referring to the formless attainments and then goes on to recount a fascinating discussion on the meditation of the enlightened which he had had with the nun Jaṭilagāhiyā.

… four streams of merit, streams of the wholesome, nutriments of happiness—heavenly, ripening in happiness, conducive to heaven…

… could a bhikkhu obtain such a state of concentration that he would have no I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendency to conceit…?

The Buddha instructs Ānanda on taking Nibbāna as an object of meditation.

Greed is that one thing, bhikkhus. Abandon that and I guarantee you non-return.

Abandoning greed is most, though not all, of the path.

For Māra’s stream is breasted now
And nullified, its reeds removed;
Rejoice then, bhikkhus, mightily
And set your hearts where safety lies.

Drawing parallels with a cowherd guiding his herd across a dangerous river, the Buddha presents the various kinds of enlightened disciples who cross the stream of transmigration.

… all fixation is annihilated,
and the mass of darkness destroyed.

I myself believe there is strong evidence in the Nikāyas that the jhānas become an essential factor for those intent on advancing from the stage of once-returning to that of non-returner.

Addressing the deabate of the jhānas’ role in attaining nibbāna, Bhikku Bodhi argues that, while not critical for attaining stream-entry, the jhānas are vital to further attainments.

A bhikkhu who develops and cultivates the Noble Eightfold Path slants, slopes, and inclines towards Nibbāna.

Bhikkhus, just as a pot that has been turned upside down gives up its water and does not take it back…

Take a mendicant who declares enlightenment: ‘I understand: “Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is no return to any state of existence.”’ You should neither approve nor dismiss that mendicant’s statement. Rather, you should question them…

How to reply to someone claiming to be an arahant.

When there is still more to be done, this venerable stopped half-way after achieving some insignificant distinction. But stopping half-way means decline in the teaching and training proclaimed by the Realized One.

Ten qualities which tell you that someone isn’t an arahant.

In the same way, a noble disciple has experiential confidence in the Buddha…

Like rain falling on the mountain top, the four factors of stream-entry flow on to the ending of defilements.

Tied by the yoke of sensuality & the yoke of becoming, monks, one is a returner, returning to this state…

… when that bhikkhu is developing and cultivating the Noble Eightfold Path, it is impossible that he will give up the training and return to the lower life.

… they do not look up at the face of another ascetic or brahmin, thinking: ‘This worthy is surely one who really knows, who really sees.’ For what reason? Because, bhikkhus, they have clearly seen the Four Noble Truths.

One who has not seen the Dhamma is fickle and easily misled.

Suppose a tree were leaning toward the east… When its root is cut, which way would it fall?

Mahānāma the Sakyan expresses his fear that if he dies unmindful he may be reborn into a lower realm. The Buddha tells him not to worry, as he will definitely go to a good place, having established the four factors of stream-entry.

… though I have clearly seen as it really is with correct wisdom, ‘Nibbāna is the cessation of existence,’ I am not an arahant

Venerable Saviṭṭha questions Venerable Musīla about his attainments, and mistakenly concludes his answer implies he’s an arahant. Venerable Nārada steps in to explain for his (and our!) benefit.

There are these nine people who, dying with something left over, are exempt from hell, the animal realm, and the ghost realm.

Sāriputta visits some wanderers, who claim that only perfected ones are free from bad rebirth. Sāriputta has no opinion on this, but asks the Buddha, who replies that even stream-enterers are freed from lower rebirths.

… mendicants, gaining these four continents is not worth a sixteenth part of gaining these four things.

Even a universal monarch may have a bad rebirth, but someone who has attained Stream Entry is freed from such unfortunate destinies.

You can see that every moment is birth and death. There is nothing you can keep, and there is nothing you can hold on to, because things are arising and passing away so quickly.

A series of eleven, informal Dhamma talks on the insight knowledges delivered to a group of meditators in Australia.

If you sincerely desire to develop contemplation and attain insight in your present life, you must give up worldly thoughts and actions during training…

A straightforward description of Mahasi’s Vipassanā technique, along with the insight knowledges.

In the Nikāyas and Āgamas, dependent origination serves as the portal to the first breakthrough to the Dhamma. […] When the Susīma-sutta states that “the knowledge of the persistence of principles” precedes “the knowledge of nibbāna”, the intention may well have been the same as that of the other versions, namely, that knowledge of the arising sequence of dependent origination precedes knowledge of the cessation sequence.

A sequel to Bhikkhu Bodhi’s previous study of the Susīma Sutta, attempting a reconstruction of the sutta’s history from its parallels and giving a master class on comparitive hermeneutics.

For the likes of you, the qualities of the path
Will go on increasing

Well, Reverend Anuruddha, when you say: ‘With clairvoyance that is purified and surpasses the human, I survey the entire galaxy,’ that’s your conceit.

Anuruddha receives a sharp teaching.

Bhikkhus, there are these ten fetters.

Five lower and five higher.

This treatise explains the progress of insight, together with the corresponding stages of purification. It has been written in brief for the benefit of meditators who have obtained distinctive results in their practice, so that they may more easily understand their experience.

There are only two things you need to realize the path: the first is to start practicing and the second is to not stop.

A short talk on Stream Entry and the stages of Awakening, and on having faith without expectations.

The magga, then, is not a ‘path’ as a series of steps, but a particular way of approach, a way of operating, an orientation that is fully equipped only when it has eight factors. It can then do its work of perfecting noble sīla, then noble samādhi and then noble paññā.

… the Noble Eight-factored Magga is neither the general practice of Buddhism, including ordinary levels of samatha and vipassanā meditation, nor, as in the developed Abhidhamma-cum-commentarial view, only the instant prior to stream-entry. It is a specific eight-factored way of approach, or skilful method that can arise when the mind is free of the five hindrances, especially during a sermon on the four ariya-saccas or when there is samatha and strong vipassanā into the three marks

I rejoice, great seer,
in that supreme peace

How can one become freed of all doubts? How does one continue to advance even after stream-entry?

The book includes detailed descriptions of the qualia of the different stages of enlightenment, along with the insights and practices relevant to each stage. Far from a technical manual though, this book is a hugely inspiring and approachable series of straightforward conversations. A beginning practitioner will benefit immensely from hearing how possible enlightenment is, but it is the most advanced practitioners (think: sakadāgāmī / anāgāmī already) who will reap the highest reward from Arahattamagga: Arahattaphala.

Tucked away in the Samyutta Nikāya among the “connected sayings on causality” is a short formalized text entitled the Upanisa Sutta, the “Discourse on Supporting Conditions.” Though at first glance hardly conspicuous among the many interesting suttas in this collection, this little discourse turns out upon repeated examination to be of tremendous doctrinal importance.

The lotus is rooted and grows in the slimy mud at the bottom of a pond. As it moves upward and blossoms forth, the white lotus is untainted by the mud of the Earth. Likewise, the successful monk emerges clean and purified of the world