Nibbāna 31—Instant Enlightenment
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2021-06-06

This video is classified Vivartha-vāda | Rāja-yoga | Suśupti | Ājñā-cakra

How is it possible that even Stream-entry can reveal the complete qualities of Nibbāna? Or that certain monks attained to Arahant by hearing even a short sermon by the Buddha? To illustrate, consider this legend connected with the history of Sri Lanka. Once when King Gajabāhu invaded India, Nīla, one of his soldiers who had Herculean strength, parted the seawater by striking it with a huge iron bar to make way for the king and his army. 

How is this legend relevant to Path realization? When the transcendental Path arises in the mind, intentional thought is as powerful as the blow of Nīla’s iron bar. Even with the first blow the seawater parted, so that one could see the bottom. Similarly when the transcendental Path arises in the mind, the sea of influxes is parted for a moment, enabling one to see the very bottom, Nibbāna. In other words, all saṅkhārā (fabrications) are stilled for a moment, enabling one to experience saṅkhārā-nirodho, cessation of fabrications. 

Nīla’s iron bar is one metaphor, and there is a Dhammapada verse that comes closer to it: 

chinda sotaṃ parakkamma,
kāme panuda brāhmaṇa,
saṅkhārānaṃ khayaṃ ñatvā,
akataññū’si brāhmaṇa

“Strive forth and cut off the stream;Discard sense-desires, O brāhmaṇa.Having known the destruction of fabrications, Become a knower of the unmade, O brāhmaṇa.” —Dhammapada, Brāhmaṇavagga 383

This clearly indicates what the knowledge of the Path does when it arises. Just as Nīla leapt forward and cut a path through the seawater, so Path-realization cuts off, at least for a moment, the fabrications connected with craving. Thereby one realizes saṅkhārānaṃ khayaṃ ñatvā: “knowledge of the destruction of fabrications.” 
Like the seawater parted by the blow of the iron bar, Path-knowledge parts fabrications for a moment to reveal the very bottom, which is asaṅkhata: the unfabricated. Akata, the unmade, is asaṅkhata, the unfabricated. So one who realizes First Path has a momentary vision free from fabrications. Of course, after that experience, influxes flow in again. But one kind of influxes, namely diṭṭhāsavā, influxes of views, are gone for good and will never flow in again. 

The story of Sāriputta’s attaining stream-entry is instructive in this regard. He approached Venerable Assaji, inquiring about the Buddha’s teaching. Assaji answered with short verse:

ye dhammā hetuppabhavā, 
tesaṁ hetuṁ tathāgato āha; 
tesañca yo nirodho, 
evaṁvādī mahāsamaṇo

“Whatever phenomena arise from cause—their cause and their cessation.Such is the teaching of the Tathāgata,the great contemplative.”— Vinaya, Mahāvagga 1.23
Immediately upon hearing the first line, Sāriputta attained stream-entry. He went on to become one of the chief disciples of the Buddha.

It is also possible that just one such experience of Nibbāna can lead to full enlightenment: Arahant or Fourth Path. The renunciant Bāhiya sought out the Buddha and begged him to teach the Dhamma. Buddha was on his alms-round and at first demurred, but Bāhiya insisted: “One never knows, Sir, when life is at risk, either the Buddha’s or my own. Let the Blessed One teach me the Dhamma!” The Buddha accepted, and taught Bāhiya:

“You should train like this: ‘In the seen will be merely the seen; in the heard will be merely the heard; in the thought will be merely the thought; in the known will be merely the known.’ That’s how you should train. When you have trained in this way, you won’t be ‘by that’. When you’re not ‘by that’, you won’t be ‘in that’. When you’re not ‘in that’, you won’t be in this world, or the world beyond, or in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering.”

Due to the Buddha’s brief Dhamma teaching, Bāhiya’s mind was immediately freed from grasping, the cause of defilements. When the Buddha had given Bāhiya this brief advice, he left. But soon after the Buddha left, a cow protecting her calf charged Bāhiya and took his life. When the Buddha heard about that, he said:

“Bāhiya was astute. He practiced in line with the teachings, and did not trouble me about the teachings. Bāhiya of the Bark Cloth has become fully extinguished.
“Where water and earth, fire and air find no footing: there no star does shine, nor does the sun shed its light; there the moon glows not, yet no darkness is found.
“And when a sage, a brāhmaṇa, finds understanding through their own sagacity, then from forms and formless, from pleasure and pain, they are released.”— Bāhiyasutta (Udāna 1.10)

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