Can an Arhat regress?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
santa100
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by santa100 »

Bunks"" wrote:I recently heard a Mahayana teacher state in a talk that an Arhat can regress to the lower realms in the next life?
Any serious Buddhist teacher, whether Mahayana or Theravada or whatever sect would always back up their claim with sutta/sutra references and backup literature. If not, there's no reason for you to believe in what s/he says.
auto
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by auto »

Sam Vara wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:29 am ..
Interpretation of the 'final goal' have produced issues.
Take another Sutta for aid to interpret it,
https://suttacentral.net/mn28/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote:Giving up and getting rid of desire and greed for these five grasping aggregates is the cessation of suffering.’
Yo imesu pañcasu upādānakkhandhesu chandarāgavinayo chandarāgappahānaṁ so dukkhanirodho’ti.
At this point, much has been done by that mendicant.”
Ettāvatāpi kho, āvuso, bhikkhuno bahukataṁ hotī”ti.
an3.34,
https://suttacentral.net/an3.34/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote: Any deed that emerges from contentment—born, sourced, and originated from contentment—is given up when greed is done away with. It’s cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future.
Yaṁ, bhikkhave, alobhapakataṁ kammaṁ alobhajaṁ alobhanidānaṁ alobhasamudayaṁ, lobhe vigate evaṁ taṁ kammaṁ pahīnaṁ hoti ucchinnamūlaṁ tālāvatthukataṁ anabhāvaṅkataṁ āyatiṁ anuppādadhammaṁ.
When unwholesome root(based on what the kamma is produced) is cut off then that kamma is unable to arise in the future. The wholesome deed is the non-action.
The translation of alobha into contentment can be as much tricky as final goal, since one can mistake 'giving food to poor' is non-action.

non-action is the final goal. resting place.

Something similar is with conduct and concentration. Sutta says something like concentration arises when conduct is completed. So how do you know when conduct is completed? its when concentration arises.
Jack19990101
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by Jack19990101 »

I think Mahayana has different definition pertaining word 'arahant'.

If you ask an Mahayana teacher, if a monk who has cut off avijja, greed & hatred,
would he be reborn again. He probably will answer No, same as Theravadin.
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by Coëmgenu »

He will answer "yes," tbh, because according to the Mahāyāna, Āryabodhisattvas have no greed, delusion, or hatred, and they take birth voluntarily due to the power of their Bodhisattva Oaths.

According to the Mahāyāna, Siddhārtha Gautama, as an Āryabodhisattva, was never subject to greed, delusion, and hatred, not once since well before his birth. As an Āryabodhisattva, he had overcome these things aeons ago. In fact, his "material birth" and subsequent "material existence" didn't even happen. The Bodhisattva appeared as an immaterial being who manifested an illusory display of "birth" and "life" and "death" for the sake of his students. That's the traditional dominant Mahāyāna narrative.

Mahāyāna follows extremely different precedents from the early Buddhist sects that those precedents followed by the contemporary Theravāda sect and its ancestors.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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confusedlayman
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by confusedlayman »

No
I may be slow learner but im at least learning...
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cappuccino
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:33 pm Mahāyāna follows extremely different precedents
Enchanted spirituality


I’m sort of that way myself
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mikenz66
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by mikenz66 »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:33 pm The retrogradability of certain classes of Arhats was a doctrine held by Sarvāstivādins, Mahāsāṃghikas, and some other sects that I can't be bothered to look up and find right now. It has never been a Theravādin doctrine AFAIK. Mahāyāna inherits this narrative from those sect who believed in certain classes of Arhats that are subject to possible retrogression.
Here is some discussion that might lead to some good references:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=11630&start=0
Jack19990101
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by Jack19990101 »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:33 pm He will answer "yes," tbh, because according to the Mahāyāna, Āryabodhisattvas have no greed, delusion, or hatred, and they take birth voluntarily due to the power of their Bodhisattva Oaths.

According to the Mahāyāna, Siddhārtha Gautama, as an Āryabodhisattva, was never subject to greed, delusion, and hatred, not once since well before his birth. As an Āryabodhisattva, he had overcome these things aeons ago. In fact, his "material birth" and subsequent "material existence" didn't even happen. The Bodhisattva appeared as an immaterial being who manifested an illusory display of "birth" and "life" and "death" for the sake of his students. That's the traditional dominant Mahāyāna narrative.

Mahāyāna follows extremely different precedents from the early Buddhist sects that those precedents followed by the contemporary Theravāda sect and its ancestors.
very interesting to know, indeed. thanks for explaining to me.
Now it is not meant to argue with you, i do believe you wrote as it is.

just some random thoughts while reading the post -
I notice an in-consistency. In my mind, unfulfilled oath will prevent one from attaining archonship. thus Mahayana's arahant ship with oath to teach, is a breakout from this.
imo, one either attains arahant ship with no oath, or one is not an arahant with oath.

Thus Mahayana's arahant ship is not exact the same as Theravadin arahant in my mind.

Another thing I remembered is from Diamond sutra (a very superficial scanning)
No sentient being for Tathagata to save.
Ant that sutra a sutra on high throne in Mahayana doctrine.

Good to know all this - guess I have dramatically under estimated the gap between the two schools.
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by auto »

BrokenBones wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 1:40 pm Utter nonsense... he wasn't an Arahant until the end. Why bother peddling Mahayana adhamma on a Theravada site?
i thought you have this kind of reaction only for nimittas, but it seem general issue of yours.
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by auto »

JamesTheGiant wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:41 am
asahi wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:48 am
Venerable Godhika .... reached temporary liberation of mind, but he fell away from that temporary liberation of mind
https://suttacentral.net/sn4.23/en/bodhi
Venerable Godhika attained nibbãna only in the moment he used the knife and killed himself.
He wasn't an Arhat until then.

As far as I remember, "temporary liberation of mind" is not nibbãna, it's jhana or the brahmaviharas.
keeping it short as possible
https://suttacentral.net/iti44/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote:And what is the element of extinguishment with something left over?
It’s when a mendicant is a perfected one,
..
So long as their senses have not gone they continue to experience the agreeable and disagreeable, to feel pleasure and pain.

The ending of greed, hate, and delusion in them
is called the element of extinguishment with something left over.
Liberation of mind is the ending of greed, hate and delusion. Temporary can mean that the mind isn't liberated during the time when the senses operate.
auto
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by auto »

Jack19990101 wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:30 pm I think Mahayana has different definition pertaining word 'arahant'.

If you ask an Mahayana teacher, if a monk who has cut off avijja, greed & hatred,
would he be reborn again. He probably will answer No, same as Theravadin.
Astute person(completed..) can be hindered by ignorance even if that ignorance has been given up
https://suttacentral.net/sn12.19/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote:For an astute person hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, this body has been produced. But the astute person has given up that ignorance and finished that craving.
Yāya ca, bhikkhave, avijjāya nivutassa paṇḍitassa yāya ca taṇhāya sampayuttassa ayaṁ kāyo samudāgato, sā ceva avijjā paṇḍitassa pahīnā, sā ca taṇhā parikkhīṇā.
Why is that?
Taṁ kissa hetu?
The astute person has completed the spiritual journey for the complete ending of suffering.
Therefore, when their body breaks up, the astute person is not reborn in another body.
Not reborn in another body doesn't mean that there can't be produced a body because of ignorance what hinders.
iddhi
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by iddhi »

Technically, no. Dukkha is modeled as a fire fueled by hatred, greed, and delusion. Once a fire is extinguished, it will not spontaneously restart. The Buddhist "treatment plan" is to starve the fire by not adding fuel to it. Once it goes out, then it is gone and cannot come back. Note: Nibbana=extinction (the noun form of to extinguish). This is how it is supposed to work in theory. In practice, who knows if the fire really dies?
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Jack19990101 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:41 amIn my mind, unfulfilled oath will prevent one from attaining archonship. thus Mahayana's arahant ship with oath to teach, is a breakout from this.
imo, one either attains arahant ship with no oath, or one is not an arahant with oath.

Thus Mahayana's arahant ship is not exact the same as Theravadin arahant in my mind.
Certainly not (referring to the second paragraph quoted). Also, the Sarvāstivādin notion of Arhathood is at variance with both Mahāyāna and Theravāda. The Kāśyapīyas believed that the stream-entrant had 14 subsequent births, not 7, and they are at variance with plenty. This is just another random example of very divergent beliefs among the early schools of Buddhism.

The early Mahāyāna seems to have thought of bodhisattvas as on a path distinctly different from that of the śrāvakas. It is only in middle and late-stage Mahāyāna (AFAIK) where you get things like śāstras that try to harmonize the 10 Bodhisattva bhūmis and the 20 Āryans with the stages of the path in śrāvakayāna (i.e. the "four persons" of the path: stream-entrant, once-returner, non-returner, Arhat; also the 37 factors of Bodhi, etc.) and the classes of Arhats in Sarvāstivādin Buddhism.

The differences go even deeper than this. Mahāyāna follows the Mahāsāṃghikas and Sarvāstivādins (its odd when they agree) in claiming that the path to Bodhi is fivefold. Theravāda doesn't have a fivefold path, and the fivefold path is rejected in the Kathāvatthu.

A lot of the things that make up "the doctrines of the Mahāyāna" are not believed in Theravāda not out of sectarianism, but because these things are literally impossible according to the Abhidhamma (and suttas) of the Theravāda sect. According to "the Dhamma," by which I mean Theravādin orthodoxy, it is completely impossible for one whose taints have utterly ended, who has fulfilled the Holy Life, to reappear in the triple world. It's absolutely impossible. Mahāyāna disagrees, but there is no common ground for a debate, because Mahāyāna has different scriptures, and the EBTs that proto-Mahāyāna is theoretically based on are not the EBTs transmitted by the Theravādins or Sarvāstivādins. There's almost no trace of the "original" Mahāsāṃghika recension(s) of the buddhavacana.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
BrokenBones
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by BrokenBones »

auto wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:04 pm
BrokenBones wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 1:40 pm Utter nonsense... he wasn't an Arahant until the end. Why bother peddling Mahayana adhamma on a Theravada site?
i thought you have this kind of reaction only for nimittas, but it seem general issue of yours.
No, just nonsense peddled as Buddha Dhamma.
auto
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Re: Can an Arhat regress?

Post by auto »

BrokenBones wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 9:35 pm
auto wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:04 pm
BrokenBones wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 1:40 pm Utter nonsense... he wasn't an Arahant until the end. Why bother peddling Mahayana adhamma on a Theravada site?
i thought you have this kind of reaction only for nimittas, but it seem general issue of yours.
No, just nonsense peddled as Buddha Dhamma.
Ok, non compos mentis.
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