Once-Returning, Non-Returning, and the Five Lower Fetters
The path of cultivation's own graded progress through once-returning and non-returning: nine levels of affliction bound to the desire realm, severed level by level, and the treatise's own account of why non-returning is named for only five fetters rather than the full set of affliction actually left behind at that point.
1. Approaching and Attaining Once-Returning and Non-Returning
何等一來向補特伽羅？謂於修道中已斷欲界五品煩惱安住彼道。何等一來果補特伽羅？謂於修道中已斷欲界第六品煩惱安住彼道。何等不還向補特伽羅？謂於修道中已斷欲界第七第八品煩惱安住彼道。何等不還果補特伽羅？謂於修道中已斷欲界第九品煩惱安住彼道。
What is the person approaching once-returning? One who, within the path of cultivation, has already severed the first five grades of affliction bound to the desire realm, and stands within that path. What is the person of the fruit of once-returning? One who has already severed the sixth grade, and stands within that path. What is the person approaching non-returning? One who has already severed the seventh and eighth grades, and stands within that path. What is the person of the fruit of non-returning? One who has already severed the ninth and final grade, and stands within that path.
T1606 confirms that this fourfold progression tracks a single continuous ladder of nine graded levels of desire-realm affliction, severed one after another by the path of cultivation following the path of seeing already examined in Part 87. Reaching the fifth grade marks approach to once-returning; completing the sixth marks its actual fruit, since the sixth grade's own path of severing is what brings this particular cutting to its full completion. Severing the seventh and eighth grades marks approach to non-returning; and severing the ninth and final grade — the very last remnant of desire-realm affliction — marks non-returning's own fruit. Each fruit, in other words, names the point at which one specific grade's own severing has been brought fully to completion, not merely begun.
2. Why Non-Returning Is Named for Five Fetters
若已永斷一切見道所斷煩惱，及已永斷欲界修道所斷一切煩惱得不還果，何故但言永斷五順下分結得不還果？最勝攝故。何故最勝？能為下趣下界勝因故。
If the fruit of non-returning is attained by the permanent severing of every affliction belonging to the path of seeing together with every affliction bound to the desire realm belonging to the path of cultivation, why is it said only that the fruit of non-returning is attained by the permanent severing of the five fetters that bind one to the lower portion? Because these five are comprehended as the most excellent among them. Why are they the most excellent? Because they are able to serve as the decisive cause of falling into the lower destinies and the lower realm.
T1606 identifies which five fetters make up this set — the same self-view, attachment to rules and rituals, and doubt already examined in Part 87's account of stream-entry, together with craving and hatred, now grouped together as what specifically binds a being to "the lower" in two distinct senses at once. The lower destinies are the three unfortunate rebirths of hell, the animal realm, and the realm of hungry ghosts, and it is precisely self-view, attachment to rules and rituals, and doubt that serve as the decisive cause preventing beings from ever rising above these lower destinies. The lower realm is the desire realm itself, and it is precisely craving and hatred that serve as the decisive cause keeping beings bound within it, unable to rise into the form and formless realms above. Though every other affliction belonging to both the path of seeing and the desire-realm portion of the path of cultivation is, in strict fact, equally severed by the time non-returning is reached, it is these five specifically — because they alone are what most decisively bars a being from rising out of the lowest destinies and the lowest realm — that the treatise singles out to define this particular fruit, exactly as three fetters alone were singled out to define stream-entry before it.
Part 88 Complete
Once-returning, non-returning, and the rationale for the five lower fetters are now examined. Part 89 turns to the fourth and final classic pair, arhatship, and the treatise's own parallel account of why this final fruit is named for five different fetters — the five that bind a being upward, toward the higher realms, rather than downward.
Continue to Part 89 — Arhatship, and the Five Upper Fetters →