Zom wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2017 11:01 am
All right then. MN 64 - here you go. Or, AN 3.94. Or, AN 11.16.
The relevant passage from that list is in AN 11.16:
11.16 wrote:
“There is the case, householder, where a monk, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation . . . . (as below and again for the rest of the jhanas and formless realms)
“Then again, a monk—with the complete transcending of perceptions of [physical] form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not heeding perceptions of diversity, [perceiving,] ‘Infinite space’—enters & remains in the dimension of the infinitude of space. He reflects on this and discerns, ‘This attainment of the infinitude of space is fabricated & intended. Now whatever is fabricated & intended is inconstant & subject to cessation.’ Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the mental fermentations. Or, if not, then—through this very Dhamma-passion, this Dhamma-delight, and from the total wasting away of the first five Fetters—he is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world.
“This too, householder, is a single quality declared by the Blessed One—the one who knows, the one who sees, worthy & rightly self-awakened—where the unreleased mind of a monk who dwells there heedful, ardent, & resolute becomes released, or his unended fermentations go to their total ending, or he attains the unexcelled security from the yoke that he had not attained before.
(Similarly with the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness and the dimension of nothingness.)
It follows that formula for all the jhanas and formless realms, not just the first jhana. There is the potential, the opportunity to waste away the five fetters in any of those jhanas and attain the Pure Abodes; it does not say it is a requirement that it must be so that only the first jhana for the Pure Abodes, it could be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even the formless realms attainments where that happens.
Citta was a householder and along with over 500 other lay people attained the state of non-return.
MN 73 wrote:`Vaccha, not one, not one hundred, not two hundred, not three hundred, not four hundred, not five hundred. There are many more lay disciples of mine, who have destroyed the five lower bonds to the sensual world, and born spontaneously would not proceed,'
`Good, Gotama, wait! Other thanbhikkhus, bhikkhunis and lay disciples of Gotama, who wear white clothes and lead the holy life. Is there a single a lay disciple, who wears white clothes, leads the holy life, while partaking sensual pleasures, and doing the work in the dispensation has dispelled doubts. Has become confident of what should and should not be done, and does not need a teacher any more in the dispensation of the Teacher.
Vaccha, not one, not one hundred, not two hundred, not three hundred, not four hundred, not five hundred. There are many more lay disciples of mine, wearing white clothes leadingthe holy life, while partaking sensual pleasures and doing the work in the dispensation have dispelled doubts Have become confident of what should and should not be done and do not need a teacher any more'