Dhammarakkhito wrote: ↑Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:59 pmdoesnt say those are 6 defining criteria, just that sotāpanna wouldnt do them
But why would the Buddha iterate and emphasize exactly these specific impossibilities - including just three specific impossible cases of killing (one's own mother, one's own father, or an arahat)? Why would he not simply say instead that it is impossible for a sotapanna to intentionally kill
any living being? It would have been much shorter and much clearer, with no room for doubt or speculation about other specific instances of killing.
There are a number of locations where these and other impossibilities (
aṭṭhāna) are enumerated within the suttas. Here is one: Suttas AN 1.268 to AN 1.275 list altogether 9 things which a person of right view is incapable of thinking or doing. AN 1.271 to AN 1.273 are about impossible instances of killing:
AN 1.271-273 wrote:271. "Bhikkhus, it is impossible that a person who came to right view should destroy the life of his mother. It is possible that an ordinary person should destroy the life of his mother.
272. "Bhikkhus, it is impossible that a person who came to right view should destroy the life of his father. It is possible that an ordinary person should destroy the life of his father.
273. "Bhikkhus, it is impossible that a person who came to right view should destroy the life of an arahant. It is possible that an ordinary person should destroy the life of an arahant.
The same (or parts thereof) occurs also somewhere in
AN 6.7, and in
MN 115, and maybe elsewhere.
Why reiterate several times these specific instances of killing (among other things), if it would have been much shorter, clearer and easier to remember to simply say: "Sotapannas are incapable of killing living beings"?
Here this reasoning was contradicted by an abhidhammika (
theY) who states that it is categorically impossible for a sotapanna to intentionally kill any living being, and at first I found it convincing. But I don't know from where he draws that certainty. (
Here this understanding was questioned before,
here it was stated again by Bhikkhu Pesala (the abhidhammika view: sotapanna cannot kill), ... looks like there have been quite a number of discussions with largely unmoved viewpoints about this here over time.)
On the other hand, as Circle5 mentioned:
Circle5 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 13, 2018 11:24 pmThere is no sutta claiming a stream enterer would not kill anyone, such as an Arahant would not do.
, there are such impossibilities about arahats listed in the suttas as well. And they
do include the impossibility of intentionally killing
any living being.
I would draw the conclusion from that that this is a difference between sotapannas and arahats: the degree of unwholesome actions they are still capable of doing, including a difference in possibilities of killing (arahat can't kill any living being intentionally, sotapanna cannot kill some special class of beings). Because why else would the enumerations in the suttas of impossibilities regarding killing differ between sotapanna and arahat?