frank k wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:42 am
thanissaro's quote:
Now, householders, when an ariyasavaka is endowed with these seven good qualities and these four desirable states, then if he so desires, he himself may state about himself: ‘Hell is ended for me; animal wombs are ended; the state of the hungry ghosts is ended; planes of deprivation, the bad destinations, the lower realms are ended! I am a stream-winner, never again destined for the lower realms, certain, headed for self-awakening!
There's a 'when' right there, if you'd turn off your confirmation bias filter.
Yes, there is a 'when' in the text. But in what part of the text is this 'when' found and what part of the text is this 'when' related to? Because it is in which part of the text this "when" is found, and to which part it is referring, that its meaning will depend.
This sutta essentially has five parts:
1) Introduction
2) Question
3) Explanation
4) The resulting answer to the question
5) Conclusion
If you exclude the supporting parts of the text and leave the essence of the text in the form of the original question and the resulting answer, you get the following text:
2) Quesion:
Master Gotama, we have wishes, desires, & aims like these: May we live at home crowded with children! May we experience Kāsi sandalwood! May we wear garlands, scents, & cosmetics! May we enjoy gold & silver! And with the breakup of the body, after death, may we reappear in a good destination, a heavenly world! May Master Gotama teach the Dhamma to us who have wishes, desires, & aims like these, so that we may live at home crowded with children, we may experience Kāsi sandalwood, we may wear garlands, scents, & cosmetics, we may enjoy gold & silver, and with the breakup of the body, after death, we may reappear in a good destination, a heavenly world!
4) The resulting answer to the question:
Now, householders, when an ariyasavaka is endowed with these seven good qualities and these four desirable states, then if he so desires, he himself may state about himself: ‘Hell is ended for me; animal wombs are ended; the state of the hungry ghosts is ended; planes of deprivation, the bad destinations, the lower realms are ended! I am a stream-winner, never again destined for the lower realms, certain, headed for self-awakening!’
Unlike the third part of the text with explanations, in the fourth part the subject of the text is not ariyasavakas and their qualities, but the original question itself. The "when" we are dealing with refers not to the ariyasavaka but to the essence of the original question.
So what is the essence of the lay people's question to the Buddha? What exactly are they asking him to explain? They are asking for an example of how one can live a fulfilling worldly life and still not be reborn in the lower worlds. And the Buddha gives them the example of a person who can live a fulfilling worldly life and still be free from rebirth in the lower worlds - an ariyasavaka, "endowed with these seven good qualities and these four desirable states".
Thus the Buddha's full answer to the layman's question would be as follows:
Now, householders, this is when such layman is an ariyasavaka, endowed with these seven good qualities and these four desirable states, then if he so desires, he himself may state about himself: ‘Hell is ended for me; animal wombs are ended; the state of the hungry ghosts is ended; planes of deprivation, the bad destinations, the lower realms are ended! I am a stream-winner, never again destined for the lower realms, certain, headed for self-awakening!’
This is not a bias, this is not a nitpicking, this is not a trolling, this is not about ideas - this is only about
reading comprehension skills:
Reading comprehension is the ability to process written text, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows.[1][2][3][4] Comprehension specifically is a "creative, multifaceted process" dependent upon four language skills: phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.[5]
Some of the fundamental skills required in efficient reading comprehension are the ability to:
- know the meaning of words,
- understand the meaning of a word from a discourse context,
- follow the organization of a passage and to identify antecedents and references in it,
- draw inferences from a passage about its contents,
- identify the main thought of a passage,
- ask questions about the text,
- answer questions asked in a passage,
- visualize the text,
- recall prior knowledge connected to text,
- recognize confusion or attention problems,
- recognize the literary devices or propositional structures used in a passage and determine its tone,
- understand the situational mood (agents, objects, temporal and spatial reference points, casual and intentional inflections, etc.) conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining, etc., and
- determine the writer's purpose, intent, and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer (discourse-semantics).[6][7][8]
It is impossible to analyse suttas, or any text for that matter, without first analysing the text lexically. The examples of parsing I have given here should in fact be available to any high school student purely on the basis of knowledge of syntax and semantics of language and the ability to distinguish the subject and the logical structure of the narrative.
By the way, getting back to bias, did you notice that in none of my posts did I infer the meaning of "ariyasavaka" - is it "disciple of the noble" or "noble disciple"? - This is because from the very beginning, the subject of my posts here was not the meaning of "ariyasawaka", but reading comprehension skills.