Factors of Stream-Entry

So far the dis­cus­sion has focused on those who have reached the high­est stage, of com­plete real­iza­tion of Nib­bā­na. It is wor­thy, how­ev­er, to rec­og­nize the many indi­vid­u­als, espe­cial­ly house­hold­ers, who have ‘entered the stream’ to Nib­bā­na or have caught a glimpse of Nib­bā­na. These indi­vid­u­als often have spous­es and chil­dren, con­duct­ing their lives vir­tu­ous­ly in the wider world.

In mod­ern times, people’s under­stand­ing of and feel­ing for Nib­bā­na and enlight­ened beings has changed con­sid­er­ably. The view held by many peo­ple in the past of Nib­bā­na as a heav­en­ly city of eter­nal bliss has changed into a view of extinc­tion. Hav­ing less con­tact with Bud­dhist teach­ings and being influ­enced more by mate­ri­al­ism has led peo­ple to see Nib­bā­na in a neg­a­tive light, as some­thing to be avoid­ed. At the very least they see Nib­bā­na as some­thing dis­tant and with­out rel­e­vance to their lives. To address this prob­lem, apart from instill­ing a cor­rect under­stand­ing of Nib­bā­na, peo­ple should be encour­aged to take spe­cial inter­est in the first stage of enlightenment—of stream-entry. The impor­tance of stream-entry goes beyond an aca­d­e­m­ic inter­est in Nib­bā­na and enlight­ened beings, but it often gets over­looked. The Bud­dha repeat­ed­ly taught:

Bhikkhus, those for whom you have com­pas­sion and those who are receptive—whether friends or col­leagues, rel­a­tives or kinsmen—these you should exhort, set­tle and estab­lish in the four fac­tors of stream-entry.1

The life of a stream-enter­er does not appear alien or fright­en­ing to con­tem­po­rary peo­ple; rather, it appears admirable. Many of the stream-enter­ers at the time of the Bud­dha were lay dis­ci­ples and were exem­plary peo­ple. They were vir­tu­ous, led con­tent­ed fam­i­ly lives, and were engaged in soci­ety, help­ing their com­mu­ni­ty and the Bud­dhist reli­gion. Although stream-enter­ers have reached a lev­el of real­iza­tion, they still pos­sess a sub­tle degree of defile­ment. They still grieve and lament when encoun­ter­ing separation.2 They still have pref­er­ences and aver­sions like unawak­ened peo­ple, although these are atten­u­at­ed and do not lead to seri­ous mis­con­duct. Their suf­fer­ing is minor com­pared to the suf­fer­ing they have aban­doned. They are firm­ly estab­lished and secure in a hap­py, whole­some and fault­less life.

Promi­nent stream-enter­ers from the Buddha’s time include: Bim­bisāra, King of Mag­a­d­ha, who offered Veḷu­vana, the first Bud­dhist monastery, and who kept the week­ly Obser­vance Day precepts;3 Anāthapiṇḍi­ka, founder of the famous monastery of Jeta­vana and incom­pa­ra­ble bene­fac­tor to the monas­tic com­mu­ni­ty and to the poor;4 Visākhā, fore­most lay-woman sup­port­er, who was renowned in the Kos­ala country—she was very active in pro­mot­ing social wel­fare despite hav­ing twen­ty chil­dren of her own;5 Jīva­ka-Komārab­hac­ca, cel­e­brat­ed physi­cian of King Bim­bisāra, of the Bud­dha, and of the monas­tic com­mu­ni­ty, who is revered by tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine prac­ti­tion­ers to this day;6 Naku­lapitā and Naku­lamātā, hus­band and wife who were utter­ly faith­ful to each oth­er into old age and vowed to meet again in future lifetimes.7

Attributes of Stream-Enterers

The attribute of a stream-enter­er that was men­tioned ear­li­er is the aban­don­ment of the first three fet­ters (saṁy­o­jana)—per­son­al­i­ty-view, doubt, and attach­ment to rules and vows. Free­dom from these fet­ters focus­es on the absence of cer­tain qual­i­ties. There is, how­ev­er, much empha­sis in the scrip­tures on pos­i­tive, active qual­i­ties. There are many of these active qual­i­ties, but essen­tial­ly they can be incor­po­rat­ed into a group of five qual­i­ties: faith (sad­dhā), moral con­duct (sīla), learn­ing (suta), gen­eros­i­ty (cāga), and wis­dom (paññā). Below is a descrip­tion of the attrib­ut­es of stream-enter­ers, both in terms of active, present qual­i­ties and of aban­doned qualities.8

A. Active Qualities:

Faith: stream-enter­ers pos­sess a firm trust in truth, good­ness, and the law of cause and effect. They have con­fi­dence in wis­dom, that it is pos­si­ble for human beings to over­come suf­fer­ing by real­iz­ing the con­di­tioned nature of real­i­ty. They have faith in the vir­tu­ous peo­ple who fol­low this path of wis­dom and have a pro­found respect for the Triple Gem (ratanat­taya).9 Their faith is secure and unshake­able because it is root­ed in true under­stand­ing.

Moral Con­duct: their behav­iour through body and speech is appro­pri­ate and their mode of liveli­hood is hon­est and upright. Their con­duct is ‘free’; it is not enslaved by craving.10 They act in accord with truth to pro­mote virtue, sim­plic­i­ty, dis­pas­sion, peace and con­cen­tra­tion. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, this means fol­low­ing the five pre­cepts, which is con­sid­ered per­fect moral con­duct.

Learn­ing: ‘those learned in spir­i­tu­al knowl­edge’ (suta­vant); they have stud­ied the ‘noble teach­ings’ (ariya-dham­ma).11

Gen­eros­i­ty: they delight in giv­ing and shar­ing; they relin­quish what they have for oth­ers; they are not stingy.

Wis­dom: they pos­sess the knowl­edge of a ‘learn­er’ (sekha): they see clear­ly into the Four Noble Truths, Depen­dent Orig­i­na­tion, and the three char­ac­ter­is­tics; they aban­don all wrong view (mic­chā-diṭṭhi); they have no doubt con­cern­ing the Four Noble Truths; they know the world as it tru­ly is.

Social Action: stream-enter­ers abide by the ‘virtues con­ducive to com­mu­nal life’ (sārāṇīya-dham­ma), which engen­der social uni­ty and con­cord. They do this per­fect­ly because they main­tain the last virtue (of right view, below), which con­nects all the oth­ers. These virtues are as fol­lows:

Phys­i­cal acts of lov­ing-kind­ness (met­tā-kāya-kam­ma); mutu­al assis­tance and respect.

Ver­bal acts of lov­ing-kind­ness (met­tā-vacī-kam­ma); well-inten­tioned advice and instruc­tion; well-man­nered speech.

Thoughts of lov­ing-kind­ness (met­tā-mano-kam­ma); think­ing well of oth­ers; wish­ing to assist oth­ers; cheer­ful demeanour.

Dis­trib­ut­ing law­ful gains with oth­ers (sād­hāraṇa-bhog­itā).12

Pos­sess­ing a sim­i­lar vir­tu­ous con­duct as one’s com­pan­ions (sīla-sāmaññatā); act­ing in an agree­able man­ner.

Shar­ing right, noble views with one’s com­pan­ions (diṭṭhi-sāmaññatā), which lead to the end of suf­fer­ing.

In the scrip­tur­al pas­sages that describe ‘noble views’ (of virtue 6) there are two spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics men­tioned of stream-enter­ers:

If they have trans­gressed the dis­ci­pline (vinaya), it is their nature to con­fess this trans­gres­sion with­out delay to their teacher or wise com­pan­ions and to show restraint in the future. This restraint is sim­i­lar to that shown by a young child who has touched a burn­ing coal and imme­di­ate­ly retracts his hand.

Although stream-enter­ers endeav­our to assist their com­pan­ions with var­i­ous activ­i­ties, they have a keen inter­est for train­ing in the high­er virtue, the high­er mind, and the high­er wis­dom. Just as a cow with a new calf, while she grazes watch­es her calf, so too does a stream-enter­er look to both the col­lec­tive good and to per­son­al progress on the path.13

Hap­pi­ness: stream-enter­ers have begun to expe­ri­ence tran­scen­dent hap­pi­ness, which is pro­found and inde­pen­dent of mate­r­i­al things. They have real­ized ‘noble lib­er­a­tion’ (ariya-vimut­ti).

B. Abandoned Qualities

Three Fet­ters:

Sakkāya-diṭṭhi: the delu­sion in ‘self’; the mis­tak­en belief in a ‘self,’ which leads to self­ish­ness, con­flict and suf­fer­ing.

Vici­kic­chā: doubts and uncer­tain­ties con­cern­ing, for exam­ple, the Bud­dha, the Dham­ma, the Sang­ha, and the train­ing. These doubts pre­vent the mind from rous­ing ener­gy and advanc­ing on the path.

Sīlab­ba­ta-parāmāsa: the mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of moral pre­cepts, rules, obser­vances, and tra­di­tions; these rules are not used as they are intend­ed, as tools for devel­op­ing such qual­i­ties as tran­quil­li­ty and con­cen­tra­tion. Instead, they are taint­ed by crav­ing and fixed views, by seek­ing per­son­al reward, enhanc­ing self-stature, or blind­ly fol­low­ing oth­ers.

Five Kinds of Self­ish­ness (mac­cha­riya):14

Pos­ses­sive­ness in regard to one’s dwelling (āvāsa-mac­cha­riya).

Pos­ses­sive­ness in regard to one’s fam­i­ly, group, insti­tu­tion, etc.; par­ti­san­ship (kula-mac­cha­riya).

Pos­ses­sive­ness in regard to one’s wealth and good for­tune (lāb­ha-mac­cha­riya); pre­vent­ing oth­ers from shar­ing these gains.

Jeal­ousy about one’s rep­u­ta­tion and social stand­ing (vaṇṇa-mac­cha­riya); dis­plea­sure when some­one else com­petes for one’s gain or beau­ty; intol­er­ance when hear­ing praise for oth­ers.

Pos­ses­sive­ness in regard to the truth (dham­ma-mac­cha­riya): pos­ses­sive­ness of knowl­edge and attain­ments; a fear that oth­ers will gain knowl­edge or attain real­iza­tions that match or excel one’s own.15

Four Bias­es (agati):16

Bias caused by desire (chandā­gati).

Bias caused by aver­sion (dosā­gati).

Bias caused by delu­sion or stu­pid­i­ty (mohā­gati).

Bias caused by fear (bhayā­gati).17

Defile­ment: they have aban­doned coarse or acute greed (rāga), hatred (dosa), and delu­sion (moha), which lead to an unhap­py exis­tence; stream-enter­ers do not com­mit any seri­ous mis­deeds which would lead to perdi­tion; they are secure from rebirth in ‘states of woe’ (apāya).18

Suf­fer­ing: they have quelled men­tal suf­fer­ing and mis­for­tune aris­ing from trans­gres­sions of the five pre­cepts; the suf­fer­ing remain­ing for stream-enter­ers is minor.19

The active qual­i­ties and the aban­doned qual­i­ties are two sides of the same coin. The aban­don­ment of per­son­al­i­ty-view occurs with a pro­found under­stand­ing of the con­di­tioned nature of real­i­ty. With the aris­ing of this under­stand­ing, doubt van­ish­es and a sol­id con­fi­dence based on wis­dom remains. At the same time, moral pre­cepts are observed appro­pri­ate­ly, lead­ing to ‘con­duct pleas­ing to awak­ened beings’ (ariyakan­ta-sīla). The attach­ment to rules and obser­vances ends. When a per­son devel­ops gen­eros­i­ty, self­ish­ness wanes. Wis­dom weak­ens the force of greed, hatred and delu­sion, which in turn frees a per­son from bias and cling­ing. The reduc­tion of cling­ing leads to a release from suf­fer­ing and an expe­ri­ence of great joy.

Stream-enter­ers are endowed with virtue and hap­pi­ness. There is ade­quate virtue to ensure that they will not cause dan­ger, dis­tress or harm to any­one; on the con­trary, their behav­iour will ben­e­fit both them­selves and oth­ers. This virtue is secure because it stems from thor­ough knowl­edge, which leads to a new way of see­ing the world. As for hap­pi­ness, stream-enter­ers have encoun­tered a pro­found inner hap­pi­ness that is of tremen­dous val­ue. Although they still expe­ri­ence sen­su­al or mun­dane plea­sure, they are not car­ried away by this coars­er form of hap­pi­ness; they will not sac­ri­fice the refined hap­pi­ness to increase mun­dane hap­pi­ness. Mun­dane hap­pi­ness is bal­anced by tran­scen­dent hap­pi­ness. This tran­scen­dent hap­pi­ness is both a con­se­quence of and a sup­port­ing fac­tor for virtue; it is con­fir­ma­tion that a per­son will not regress and it sup­ports fur­ther spir­i­tu­al growth.

Stream-entry is of great val­ue to the per­son who has real­ized it and to soci­ety. The Bud­dha assigned stream-entry to the first stage of enlight­en­ment; it is the point where life as an awak­ened being begins. Stream-enter­ers are ‘true dis­ci­ples’; they are part of the ‘noble com­mu­ni­ty’ (ariya-saṅgha), which is the ‘cru­cible’ in which human­i­ty is refined.

The Bud­dha great­ly empha­sized the impor­tance of stream-entry and urged his dis­ci­ples to set it as a goal for their lives. He said that the real­iza­tion of stream-entry is bet­ter than going to heav­en, being an emper­or, or attain­ing jhā­na. A teacher who is free from sen­su­al lust due to the pow­er of con­cen­tra­tive attain­ments and who leads his many dis­ci­ples to ‘merge with Brah­mā’ in heav­en is con­sid­ered excel­lent, but he is sur­passed by the stream-enter­er who still has sen­su­al lust.20

Bet­ter than rul­ing the whole world, bet­ter than going to heav­en, bet­ter than lord­ship over the uni­verse, is reach­ing the stream of awak­en­ing [the fruit of stream-entry].21

Those peo­ple who feel that Nib­bā­na is too dis­tant to reach, too eso­teric, too des­o­late or ethe­re­al, should use the state of stream-entry as a bridge for under­stand­ing, because stream-entry is clos­er to their expe­ri­ence and eas­i­er to under­stand. At the same time, stream-entry is direct­ly linked to Nib­bā­na, as it is an entry into the ‘stream lead­ing to Nib­bā­na’ or is a ‘first glimpse’ (paṭhama-das­sana) of Nibbāna.22 This approach with dou­ble ben­e­fit is appro­pri­ate for con­tem­po­rary peo­ple and still accords with the Buddha’s prin­ci­ples. Stream-entry should be the goal of indi­vid­ual prac­ti­tion­ers and of the Bud­dhist com­mu­ni­ty as a whole. In the mean­time, one can reach an inter­me­di­ate stage, as either a ‘faith-devo­tee’ (sad­dhānusārī) or a ‘truth-devo­tee’ (dham­mānusārī),23 whose mem­bers are con­sid­ered to ‘have approached stream-entry,’ ‘dwell in the Path,’ and ‘progress with­out falling back,’ and are some­times includ­ed as ‘noble’ (ariya) or ‘true dis­ci­ples’ (sāva­ka-saṅgha).

Those who hes­i­tate or for some rea­son are delayed can dwell in the prepara­to­ry stages of ‘vir­tu­ous per­son’ (kalyāṇa-puthu­j­jana),24 ‘pos­sess­ing beau­ti­ful qualities,’25 or ‘learned noble dis­ci­ple’ (sutavā ariya-sāva­ka).26 These indi­vid­u­als have stud­ied the ‘noble teach­ings’ (ariya-dham­ma); they have respond­ed to the ‘call’ of the truth. They have escaped from the ‘jun­gle’ (of con­fu­sion) and rec­og­nized the start­ing point of the path. Although they may still fal­ter, they pos­sess the nec­es­sary fac­tors to begin the jour­ney. At the out­set, these vir­tu­ous per­sons, whose faith, moral con­duct, gen­eros­i­ty and wis­dom is not yet tru­ly secure, can gen­er­ate the qual­i­ty of ‘learn­ing’ (suta)—of hav­ing ‘lis­tened,’ of seek­ing knowledge—until they reach the stage of ‘great learn­ing’ (bahus­su­ta), of being stead­fast in knowl­edge.

It is pre­cise­ly this learn­ing (suta) that helps in the devel­op­ment of the noble path, begin­ning with a recog­ni­tion of where the path begins.27 Indeed, cor­rect under­stand­ing leads to faith, moral con­duct, gen­eros­i­ty and wis­dom, because faith springs from such an under­stand­ing, fol­lowed by the ener­gy to cul­ti­vate oth­er virtues. These five qualities—learning, faith, moral­i­ty, gen­eros­i­ty and wisdom—are called the five mun­dane ‘accom­plish­ments’ (sam­padā)28 or the five mun­dane ‘trea­sures’ (vaḍḍhi).29 With the attain­ment of stream-entry, these five accom­plish­ments or trea­sures become tran­scen­dent qual­i­ties.

A notable fea­ture of stream-enter­ers is that they are not pos­ses­sive of their mate­r­i­al wealth:

(Stream-enter­ers) dwell at home with a mind devoid of the stain of stingi­ness, freely gen­er­ous … delight­ing in giv­ing and shar­ing…. What­ev­er there is in their fam­i­ly that is suit­able for giv­ing, all that they share unre­served­ly among those who are vir­tu­ous and of good char­ac­ter.30

Because of this unbound­ed gen­eros­i­ty, stream-enter­ers grow in virtue but may dimin­ish in mate­r­i­al wealth, and the Bud­dha even estab­lished a train­ing rule as a result of this trait. If the bhikkhu sang­ha sees that mem­bers of a fam­i­ly have increas­ing faith but dimin­ish­ing wealth, it can for­mal­ly assign them the title of sekha (‘learn­er’), regard­less of whether they are actu­al­ly enlight­ened or not. (It is usu­al­ly not pos­si­ble to deter­mine the lev­el of real­iza­tion in anoth­er. Here, behav­iour is used as the stan­dard.) If a monk who is not ill and has not been pre­vi­ous­ly invit­ed goes to mem­bers of this fam­i­ly and eats their food, he trans­gress­es one of the train­ing rules.31

From this, one can dis­cern two impor­tant prin­ci­ples. First, this train­ing rule focus­es on and declares a person’s inner, spir­i­tu­al qual­i­ties for the ben­e­fit of the com­mu­ni­ty, by dic­tat­ing a stan­dard of behav­iour suit­able to the cir­cum­stances. Sec­ond, it reveals how those peo­ple who are endowed with cer­tain qualities—whose faith is cor­rect­ly aligned with the Bud­dhist teach­ings, or who have real­ized the Dham­ma as stream-enterers—do not seek reward for their good deeds. They do not chase after plea­sur­able sense objects for grat­i­fi­ca­tion. These ques­tions do not arise for them: ‘I have done good; why don’t good things come back to me?’ or: ‘I have been gen­er­ous; why am I not rich? I haven’t got what I want­ed.’

They pos­sess not only the phys­i­cal eye, which sees mate­r­i­al things, but they have devel­oped the ‘eye of Dham­ma’ (dham­ma-cakkhu)32 or the ‘wis­dom eye,’ which sees clear­ly into the truth. Stream-enter­ers have com­plete con­fi­dence in the pow­er of good­ness, a con­fi­dence that can nev­er be shak­en regard­less of unfavourable mate­r­i­al cir­cum­stances. When they have clear­ly seen the truth and walked the vir­tu­ous path, no one includ­ing devas can tempt them to devi­ate. They are stead­fast in virtue. The com­men­taries use the exam­ple of Anāthapiṇḍi­ka to show the degree of a stream-enterer’s rectitude.33 They can­not be enticed or intim­i­dat­ed by devas; on the con­trary, devas pay respect to them.

***

1 S. V. 364–5; the ‘four fac­tors of stream-entry’ (sotā­pat­tiyaṅ­ga) refer in some cas­es to the fac­tors that bring about stream-entry and in oth­er cas­es to the qual­i­ties of a stream-enter­er.

2 For exam­ple, the sto­ry of Visākhā at: Ud. 91–2; UdA. 417; DhA. III. 278.

3 Impor­tant sources at: Vin. I. 35–9; PvA. 209. (Trans­la­tor: the Obser­vance Day pre­cepts include celiba­cy and fast­ing after mid­day.)

4 Impor­tant sources at: Vin. II. 154–9; A. I. 25–6; AA. I. 384.

5 Impor­tant sources include: Vin. I. 290–4; A. I. 26; AA. I. 404; DhA. I. 384.

6 Impor­tant sources at: Vin. I. 71–2, 267–82; Vin. II. 119; A. I. 25–6; AA. I. 398.

7 Impor­tant sources at: A. I. 25–6; A. II. 61–2; A. III. 295–6; A. IV. 268–9; S. III. 1; S. IV. 116; AA. I. 399.

8 Unlike the Pali, which first lists the absent, aban­doned qual­i­ties, I list here the pos­i­tive, active qual­i­ties first, which is a more con­tem­po­rary for­mat. In any case, the absent and active qual­i­ties are direct­ly linked with one anoth­er.

9 The Bud­dha, the Dham­ma and the Sang­ha.

10 ‘Free’ con­duct is con­duct from which one does not wish for per­son­al gain, say world­ly plea­sure or a heav­en­ly birth. Note that good con­duct always includes right liveli­hood (sam­mā-ājī­va)—see: VbhA. 88 = Vism. 511. Of the many Pali words describ­ing the moral con­duct of stream-enter­ers, there are two words in par­tic­u­lar that have been intro­duced into the Thai lan­guage: ariyakan­ta-sīla: con­duct cher­ished or praised by enlight­ened beings; and aparā­maṭṭha-sīla: con­duct that has not been ‘grasped onto’; con­duct untaint­ed by crav­ing and fixed views; con­duct that springs nat­u­ral­ly from virtue—one need not attach to this con­duct since no impu­ri­ties exist that would lead to its trans­gres­sion.

11 The teach­ings of the noble ones; vir­tu­ous qual­i­ties. On ‘learned ones’ (suta­vant), ‘noble dis­ci­ples’ (ariya-sāva­ka), and the ‘noble Dham­ma’ (ariya-dham­ma), see Appen­dix 3.

12 (Trans­la­tor: As this teach­ing was giv­en to bhikkhus, this virtue refers to shar­ing alms and oth­er dona­tions, which can be a source of con­flict and dishar­mo­ny.)

13 These spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics are attrib­ut­es of right-view, which fall under the head­ing of wis­dom, but due to their detailed expla­na­tions I have cre­at­ed a sep­a­rate head­ing. The Bud­dha gave this ser­mon (M. I. 320–25) in ref­er­ence to bhikkhu stream-enter­ers, but it is applic­a­ble to lay stream-enter­ers as well. For trans­gres­sions of the Vinaya, see: A. I. 231–4. The Bud­dha said that even ara­hants are sub­ject to minor trans­gres­sions. Enlight­ened beings of all stages of enlight­en­ment, how­ev­er, are inca­pable of trans­gress­ing fun­da­men­tal rules of the holy life, and their minor trans­gres­sions are unin­ten­tion­al. See Vin. V. 117, and see exam­ples of trans­gres­sions at AA. II. 348.

14 Also trans­lat­ed as ‘stingi­ness,’ ‘nar­row-mind­ed­ness,’ and ‘envy.’

15 A. III. 272–3 (while pos­sess­ing these five kinds of self­ish­ness, even the first jhā­na is unreach­able); Vism. 683, 685.

16 Also trans­lat­ed as ‘mis­con­duct.’

17 Vin. II. 285; Vism. 683, 685.

18 S. III. 225; A. III. 438.

19 S. II. 133–40; S. V. 388, 441–2, 457–65.

20 A. III. 371–4; cf.: A. IV. 135–6.

21 Dh. verse 178.

22 E.g.: MA. I. 74; SA. III. 55; KhA. 188; SnA. I. 193; PsA. I. 282; DhsA. 43; for sotā­pat­ti-mag­ga referred to as das­sana, see, e.g.: M. I. 7–8; Dhs. 182, 220.

23 See the ear­li­er sec­tion describ­ing faith- and truth-devo­tees. Lat­er, the term ‘small stream-enter­er’ (cūḷa-sotā­pan­na) was coined, refer­ring to those dis­ci­ples who had great love for and faith in the Bud­dha but whose wis­dom was not yet devel­oped (see: M. I. 141–2). The com­men­taries say this refers to those prac­ti­tion­ers who have devel­oped insight and reached ‘knowl­edge of recog­ni­tion’ (ñāta-par­iññā) and the ‘puri­ty of tran­scend­ing doubts’ (kaṅkhāvi­taraṇa-visud­dhi), and who have attained an ease and sense of secu­ri­ty. See: MA. II. 120; VbhA. 254; Vism. 606; Vis­mṬ.: Kaṅkhāvi­taraṇa-visud­dhi-nid­de­sa-vaṇṇanā, Pac­caya­parig­ga­ha-kathā-vaṇṇanā. See also the dis­cus­sion on ‘set­tled con­fi­dence’ (okap­panā-sad­dhā) at: DA. II. 529; DA. III. 1029; MA. III. 326; AA. III. 257.

24 This term is used fre­quent­ly in the com­men­taries and is paired (con­trast­ed) with and­habāla-puthu­j­jana. In the Pali Canon it is found at: Nd. I. 131, 138, 232, 313–4, 477–8. In some loca­tions it is spelled puthu­j­jana-kalyāṇa­ka, e.g.: Ps. I. 176; Ps. II. 190, 193. In the Pali Canon and­habāla-puthu­j­jana is only found at: S. III. 140 & Thag. verse 575; more often the term assu­tavā puthu­j­jana is used, mean­ing ‘unlearned, ordi­nary per­son,’ e.g.: M. I. 1; Nd. II. 44; Ps. I. 149; Dhs. 182; Vbh. 364, 368, 375; this term is fre­quent­ly used as a pair with sutavā ariya-sāva­ka. The com­men­taries include these ‘vir­tu­ous per­sons’ (kalyāṇa-puthu­j­jana)—espe­cial­ly those who make great effort in their spir­i­tu­al prac­tice and whose virtues indi­cate they will attain stream-entry imminently—as ‘trainees’ (sekha), along with the oth­er sev­en kinds of (awak­ened) trainees; these vir­tu­ous per­sons are includ­ed in this clas­si­fi­ca­tion from the lev­el of faith-devo­tees and truth-devo­tees (see: VinA. I. 242; MA. I. 40; VbhA. 329; AA. II. 147; ItA. I. 60; VinṬ.: Pārājikakaṇḍaṃ, Bhikkhu­pad­ab­hā­janīya-vaṇṇanā, and com­pare with the ‘small stream-enter­er’ men­tioned in the pre­vi­ous foot­note.

25 A. I. 74.

26 For learned noble dis­ci­ples who are kalyāṇa-puthu­j­jana, see: M. I. 8; MA. I. 72; for those who are stream-enter­ers or high­er, see below.

27 In ref­er­ence to the two fac­tors for right view, learn­ing (suta) is knowl­edge derived from oth­ers (paratoghosa)—it relies on wise and trust­wor­thy com­pan­ions. This learn­ing leads to faith and wise reflec­tion (yon­iso-man­asikāra).

28 A. III. 53.

29 A. III. 53; these five trea­sures are also known as the five noble trea­sures (ariya-vaḍḍhi), although the more com­mon group of noble trea­sures con­tains two more qual­i­ties, of moral shame (hiri) and fear of wrong-doing (ottap­pa), e.g.: D. III. 251; A. IV. 5–6.

30 S. V. 351–2.

31 Vin. IV. 180; even if he vis­its their house and they offer food, he should not receive it, not to men­tion going and ask­ing for food as this is an offence under any cir­cum­stance (except with rel­a­tives or one who has giv­en a for­mal invi­ta­tion); see: Vin. I. 45; Vin. IV. 87, 193. It is the same with the oth­er three req­ui­sites (see: Vin. III. 148, 212, 256; Vin. IV. 102–3). See also: D. III. 224–5; S. II. 195; A. II. 27–8; A. III. 108–9; Nd. I. 495; Nd. II. 59; Vism. 39–42.

32 See, e.g.: Vin. I. 12, 16; in most cas­es the Dham­ma eye refers to knowl­edge result­ing in stream-entry (sotā­pat­timag­ga-ñāṇa), e.g.: VinA. V. 973; DA. I. 278; AA. II. 356; AA. IV. 102; UdA. 283; Nd2A. 8. Some­times the term includes the path of once-return­ing and the path of non-return­ing, e.g.: VinA. III. 537; DA. I. 237; PsA. I. 77; DhsA. 306. Some­times it refers to the three paths and the three fruits, e.g.: SA. III. 297. And in some places it refers to all four paths and all four fruits, includ­ing the fruit of ara­hantship, e.g.: NdA. 83; MA. III. 92; MA. V. 99; SA. II. 392; VinṬ.: Mahākhand­hakaṃ, Dham­macakkap­pa­vat­tana­sut­ta-vaṇṇanā. One pas­sage in the Pali Canon refers to two occa­sions for the aris­ing of the Dham­ma eye; the first is the path of stream-entry and the sec­ond the path of non-return­ing (A. I. 242).

33 DhA. III. 9; J. I. 226.