Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The stages of attainment have recognized varieties within them, and how far a person gets still depends on how many of the three trainings are fulfilled.
Three kinds of stream-enterer
Sattakkhattuparama, the seven-times-at-most: they will transmigrate at most seven times among gods and humans and then make an end of suffering.
Kolaṅkola, family-to-family: they will transmigrate between two or three families and then make an end.
Ekabījī, the one-seeder: reborn just one time in a human existence, then make an end.
The three are ordered from slowest to fastest and all three have the same qualification — the ending of three fetters. So the difference between them is not what has been abandoned but how quickly the rest follows.
The word ekabījī, one-seeder, connects to AN 3.76, twelve discourses earlier: if consciousness is the seed and craving the moisture, somebody with one planting left has almost run out of water.
Five kinds of non-returner
The five are given in a fixed order which this discourse presents in reverse: heading upstream to the Akaniṭṭha realm; extinguished with extra effort; extinguished without extra effort; extinguished upon landing; extinguished between one life and the next.
The standard order runs the other way, from the quickest to the slowest, and the terms are among the most disputed in the canon. Antarāparinibbāyī, extinguished between one life and the next, has been read as meaning within the first part of the next life, or in an intermediate state between lives — and the two readings correspond to a doctrinal disagreement about whether there is such an intermediate state at all, which the Theravāda and the Sarvāstivāda answered differently.
That disagreement is worth naming rather than smoothing over, because a reader who consults two sources will find them disagreeing and should know why. What can be said flatly is that all five have the same qualification, the ending of the five lower fetters, and all five reach the same place.
It is also worth saying plainly that these categories cannot be checked from outside and were not meant to be. They are a description of how the last stretch varies, offered to people already on it.
What has not changed from AN 3.86
Everything structural. The three trainings still map onto the stages the same way: ethics fulfilled produces stream-entry and once-returning, ethics plus immersion produces non-returning, all three produce freedom in this life. The mendicant in every case still breaks lesser and minor rules and is restored. The closing rule of proportion is identical.
So the pair works like the other paired discourses of this collection: a fixed frame with one element expanded. Here what has been expanded is the result rather than the reason.
That is worth pointing out because it tells a reader what the discourse thinks is variable. The trainings do not subdivide. The attainments do.
How to teach a technical passage honestly
There is a temptation with material like this either to present it as settled doctrine or to skip it as scholastic. Both are worse than the honest option.
What can be said with confidence: the canon recognizes stages of awakening; it recognizes varieties within the stages; the varieties differ in speed rather than in what has been abandoned; and the whole scheme is correlated with the three trainings in a way that makes the first two stages available without meditative attainment.
What should be flagged as uncertain: the precise meaning of several of the non-returner terms, which the traditions read differently and which depend on a cosmological question the early texts do not settle.
And what should be said about use: none of this is a diagnostic. There is no procedure in the canon by which a person determines which of the eight categories they occupy, and the discourse offers none. It is a map of the territory ahead, not a form to fill in.
Using it
For most classes this is a discourse to read rather than to work through, and the reading should be framed: here is what the tradition’s technical vocabulary of attainment looks like when it is all in one place.
The one detail worth stopping on is the correlation, because it is genuinely surprising and it is the same in both discourses: a stream-enterer and a once-returner are described as having limited immersion and wisdom. Whatever else the typology does, it says that the first two irreversible attainments belong to people whose ethics is complete and whose meditation is not.
Key terms
The text
All of them included in three
§1“Mendicants, each fortnight over a hundred and fifty training rules come up for recitation, in which gentlemen who desire self-knowledge train. These are all included in the three trainings. What three? The training in the higher ethics, the higher mind, and the higher wisdom. These are the three trainings that include them all.
Ethics fulfilled
§2Take the case of a mendicant who has fulfilled their ethics, but has limited immersion and wisdom. They break some lesser and minor training rules, but are restored. Why is that? Because I don’t say they’re incapable of that. But they’re constant and steady in their precepts regarding the training rules that are fundamental, befitting the spiritual life. They keep the rules they’ve undertaken. With the ending of three fetters they have at most seven rebirths. They will transmigrate at most seven times among gods and humans and then make an end of suffering. With the ending of three fetters, they go from family to family. They will transmigrate between two or three families and then make an end of suffering. With the ending of three fetters, they’re a one-seeder. They will be reborn just one time in a human existence, then make an end of suffering. With the ending of three fetters, and the weakening of greed, hate, and delusion, they’re a once-returner. They come back to this world once only, then make an end of suffering.
Ethics and immersion fulfilled
§3Take another case of a mendicant who has fulfilled their ethics and immersion, but has limited wisdom. They break some lesser and minor training rules, but are restored. Why is that? Because I don’t say they’re incapable of that. But they’re constant and steady in their precepts regarding the training rules that are fundamental, befitting the spiritual path. They keep the rules they’ve undertaken. With the ending of the five lower fetters they head upstream, going to the Akaniṭṭha realm. With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished with extra effort. With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished without extra effort. With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished upon landing. With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished between one life and the next.
All three fulfilled
§4Take another case of a mendicant who has fulfilled their ethics, immersion, and wisdom. They break some lesser and minor training rules, but are restored. Why is that? Because I don’t say they’re incapable of that. But they’re constant and steady in their precepts regarding the training rules that are fundamental, befitting the spiritual path. They keep the rules they’ve undertaken. They realize the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements.
§5So, mendicants, if you practice partially you succeed partially. If you practice fully you succeed fully. But in any case, these training rules are not barren, I say.”
Self-check quiz
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