Attainment · Arhat’s MasteryPart 5Paper 7 of 8

The Doctrine of No-More-Becoming

ARHAT-P07 · v1.0 · 2026-06

Why the Resolution of Birth-and-Death in the Mastery of Exhaustion Departs the Two Extremes of Annihilation and Eternalism

中文主題：不受後有的義理——漏盡之自在於生死了結，何以離斷常二邊

I. The Live Question

The self-verification 定型句 — "Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, no more becoming" — its first three clauses the prior papers have touched (birth exhausted, the holy life lived, what was to be done done); only the last clause, "no more becoming," remains untreated on its own. This paper takes it up, because it is the most easily misunderstood, and the most bound to "how the mastery of exhaustion resolves birth-and-death."

The sharp point of misunderstanding lies in a natural follow-up: the arhat has "no more becoming" — then after the arhat dies, does he exist, or not? If not, is this not annihilation (death is the end, scattered to nothing)? If so, then what does "no more becoming" mean (he plainly still exists)? This follow-up seems reasonable, yet is precisely what scripture judges "unanswered" — whether the Tathāgata / arhat "exists after death, does not exist, both, or neither," the four, the World-Honored One uniformly does not answer, judging them "unanswered" (the set-aside answer, avyākata).

The problem sharpens: why not answer? Does the World-Honored One not know? Scripture plainly says the World-Honored One is "not without knowledge, not without vision" — the not-answering is not from ignorance. Then how to settle this — an arhat self-verifies "no more becoming," and scripture uniformly refuses to answer "existence after death"? What, after all, does "no more becoming" resolve, and what does it not?

The thesis: "no more becoming" is the dimension of the mastery of exhaustion in "the resolution of birth-and-death," and its sense lies solely in departing the two extremes of annihilation and eternalism. It is not annihilationism (after death cut off, nothing at all), nor eternalism (a deathless self surviving after death); both extremes are conceptual proliferation, neither tending to nirvāṇa, and so are set aside and not answered. The not-answering is not from not-knowing but because the question "existence after death" is itself misplaced — it presupposes a "self of the next becoming" whose existence can be asked, while the exhausted, having severed the view of self, is already without this graspable self; to ask "does this self exist after death" is, for the exhausted, like asking "the length of a tortoise's hair" — the subject not standing, the question of existence collapses. What "no more becoming" resolves is "the suffering of receiving further becoming" (the bondage of the continuity of birth-and-death), not a resolution into "the nothing of annihilation." Departing annihilation-and-eternalism is precisely the unobstructedness of mastery in birth-and-death: neither grasping a self that survives (eternalism) nor falling into a self annihilated (annihilation), the bondage of birth-and-death thereby exhausted.

This paper opens Part 5. The argument: §II presents canon and śāstra (the sense of "no more becoming" in the self-verification clause; the fourteen unanswered; the śāstric definition of the set-aside answer; the arrow simile); §III argues in three layers (no-more-becoming as the resolution departing annihilation-and-eternalism; the misplacement of the existence-after-death question; the not-answering as the right answer, only the four truths declared one-pointedly); §IV is cut; §V corrects; §VI concludes.

II. Canonical Basis

2.1 The Sense of "No More Becoming" in the Self-Verification Clause

"No more becoming" is the last clause of the arhat's self-verification 定型句. Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 1 (sūtra 1):

Thus, monk! one liberated in mind, should he wish to verify it for himself, can verify for himself: "Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, one knows for oneself there is no more becoming."¹

This 定型句 recurs through successive sūtras of fascicle 1, the common closing formula of the Saṃyukta. Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 1 (sūtra 2), repeats:

Thus one liberated in mind, should he wish to verify it for himself, can verify for himself: "Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, one knows for oneself there is no more becoming."²

The literal sense of "no more becoming": "becoming" (the continuity of next-life existence, punabbhava) means receiving, after this life ends, a future life's becoming; "no more receiving" means no longer receiving it. So "no more becoming" is: after this life ends, there is no more continuity of birth-and-death in a future life. See clearly the mode of this clause — it is "self-verification" (knowing and verifying for oneself), the exhausted one's inner realization that "my continuity of birth-and-death is exhausted," not a judgment about "what I become after death." It says "there is no more event of receiving becoming" (the bond of the continuity of birth-and-death is severed), not "after death I exist or not" (a proposition about a post-mortem state). This distinction is the key to the next section's "unanswered."

2.2 The Fourteen Unanswered Concerning Existence-After-Death

The arhat has "no more becoming," yet "whether the Tathāgata / arhat exists after death" is "unanswered." Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 5 (sūtra 106, the Anurādha):

[Non-Buddhists asked:] "How is it, venerable! does the Tathāgata exist after death?" Anurādha said: "As the World-Honored One says, this is unanswered." … "Does the Tathāgata not exist after death?" … "This too is unanswered." "Does the Tathāgata both exist and not, neither exist nor not, after death?" … "This too is unanswered."³

Non-Buddhists ask the arhat monk Anurādha the four — the Tathāgata "exists / does not / both / neither" after death — and he answers each "the World-Honored One says this is unanswered." The crucial point is the clarification that follows: the World-Honored One judges this unanswered "not from not-knowing, not from not-seeing" — the unanswered is not because the answer is unknown but because the World-Honored One "sets it aside and does not declare" (deliberately not answering). These four clauses, together with the other views, compose the traditionally so-called "fourteen unanswered." Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 7 (sūtra 168), enumerates them in full:

The world is eternal, not eternal, both, neither; the world has an end, no end, both, neither; the life-principle is the body, the life-principle differs from the body; the Tathāgata exists after death, does not exist after death, both exists and does not, neither exists nor does not.⁴

The four groups of the fourteen unanswered: the world's eternal-or-not (four), the world's having-an-end-or-not (four), the life-principle and body same-or-different (two), the Tathāgata's existence-after-death (four). Note the common structure of these fourteen — all presuppose a fixed, unchanging "entity" (the world, the life-principle, the Tathāgata's self) and ask its property (eternal or not, bounded or not, same as or different from the body, existing after death or not). The śāstra judges this "but to be set aside." Abhidharmakośa, fascicle 19 (the four kinds of answer):

What question is but to be set aside? If one asks: is the world eternal, non-eternal, both, neither? has the world an end, no end, both, neither? does the Tathāgata exist after death, not exist, both, neither? is the life-principle the body, or different from the body? This question is named but-to-be-set-aside.⁵

Among the Kośa's "four kinds of answer" (the one-pointed answer, the analytic answer, the counter-questioning answer, the set-aside answer), it judges "the Tathāgata after death exists / not / both / neither," together with the world's eternal-or-not, the world's bounded-or-not, the life-principle and body same-or-different, as the "but-to-be-set-aside answer" (sthāpanīya, set aside and not answered) class. This is the śāstric classificatory definition of the unanswered question: such a question is not to be addressed, but to be set aside.

2.3 The Arrow Simile: The Not-Answering as the Right Answer · Only the Four Truths Declared One-Pointedly

Why the unanswered is not answered, the most famous witness is the arrow simile. Madhyama-āgama, fascicle 60 (the Arrow Simile, Māluṅkya) first lists the questions Māluṅkyaputta grasped at:

These views the World-Honored One sets aside and casts off, does not fully expound — namely, the world is eternal, the world is not eternal, the world has a bottom, the world has no bottom, the life-principle is the body, the life-principle differs from the body, the Tathāgata ends, the Tathāgata does not end, the Tathāgata both ends and does not, the Tathāgata neither ends nor does not end?⁶

Māluṅkyaputta, on the ground that the World-Honored One does not answer these fourteen (the Madhyama wording: the world eternal / not, with a bottom / not, the life-principle and body same / different, the Tathāgata ends / not), intends to abandon the path and leave. The World-Honored One then tells the poisoned-arrow simile. Madhyama-āgama, fascicle 60:

Just as a man shot by a poisoned arrow, suffering extreme pain because of it; his kin, in pity and care, seeking his benefit and ease, fetch an arrow-doctor. Yet the man thinks: "The arrow may not yet be pulled; I must first know that man's clan, his name, his birth …" … The man, never coming to know, dies in the interval.⁷

The poisoned-arrow simile: one shot by an arrow, if he insists on first knowing "the shooter's name and clan, the bow-and-arrow's material," and all such details, before he will let the arrow be pulled, will surely die in the interval of not-knowing. The figure: one who insists "I must first settle the fourteen unanswered (the Tathāgata's existence after death, and so on) before I will practice the holy life" will likewise die in the interval of not-coming-to-know — the great suffering of birth-and-death is like the poisoned arrow, the urgent task is to pull it (practice the path, sever taints), not to settle first those questions that "do not tend to nirvāṇa." The World-Honored One then explains why he "does not declare one-pointedly." Madhyama-āgama, fascicle 60:

"The world is eternal" — I do not declare this one-pointedly. Why do I not declare it one-pointedly? This is not joined with the goal, not joined with the Dharma, not the root of the holy life, does not tend to knowledge, to awakening, to nirvāṇa — therefore I do not declare it one-pointedly. … What Dharma do I declare one-pointedly? … suffering, the arising of suffering, the cessation of suffering, the path to the cessation of suffering, I declare one-pointedly … Thus, what is not to be spoken is not spoken, what is to be spoken is spoken.⁸

The World-Honored One explains: the fourteen unanswered are "not joined with the goal, not joined with the Dharma, not the root of the holy life, do not tend to knowledge, to awakening, to nirvāṇa," and so are not declared one-pointedly (set aside, not answered); only "suffering, its arising (origin), its cessation, the path to its cessation" (the four truths) are declared one-pointedly, because they tend to nirvāṇa. This is the principle of the set-aside answer — "what is not to be spoken is not spoken, what is to be spoken is spoken." Not answering the fourteen is not evasion but because those questions do not tend to liberation; the right answer is the four truths (the path tending to nirvāṇa). The not-answering as the right answer lies just here: turning the question from "the proliferation of existence-after-death" back to "the actual practice of the cessation of suffering."

✅ Doctrinally sound: 2.1 (the self-verification clause of no-more-becoming), 2.2 (Anurādha; existence-after-death unanswered; the enumeration of the fourteen), 2.3 (the arrow simile; not declaring one-pointedly; only the four truths declared one-pointedly) are explicit canon; the end of 2.2 (the set-aside answer) is the Kośa's four-answers śāstric classificatory definition. The unanswered is not from not-knowing (the World-Honored One not without knowledge, not without vision) but because the existence-after-death question does not tend to nirvāṇa and presupposes a graspable entity-self, and so is set aside; only the four truths are declared one-pointedly. Canon and śāstra are consistent. The separate philosophical analysis of each of the fourteen (e.g. the cosmological sense of the world's bounded-or-not) lies beyond this paper's theme; the paper takes only the "Tathāgata's existence after death" group to clarify no-more-becoming's departing of annihilation-and-eternalism.

III. Core Argument

3.1 "No More Becoming" Is the Resolution Departing Annihilation-and-Eternalism, Neither Annihilation Nor Eternal Survival

"No more becoming" is most easily read as annihilationism: after the arhat dies, nothing at all, scattered to nothing. The paper first breaks this reading and establishes its right sense — "no more becoming" is the resolution of birth-and-death in the mastery of exhaustion, and its sense is in departing the two extremes of annihilation and eternalism: neither annihilation (after death nothing at all) nor eternal survival (a deathless self surviving on).

The ground is the mode of "no more becoming" (2.1). This clause is "self-verification" — the exhausted one's inner realization that "my continuity of birth-and-death is exhausted," saying "there is no more event of receiving becoming" (the bond of the continuity of birth-and-death is severed), not a judgment about "what I become after death." Annihilationism and eternalism are both, precisely, judgments about "what I become after death": eternalism answers "I survive" (after death an unchanging self), annihilationism answers "I am annihilated" (after death this self goes to nothing). The two are opposite in form, identical in presupposition — both presuppose a "self" (an entity) and dispute its existence after death. "No more becoming" is not on this line: it does not at all judge "the self after death" but says "the bond of receiving becoming is exhausted."

So "no more becoming" departs annihilation-and-eternalism because it dissolves the very subject under dispute. The dispute of eternalism and annihilation presupposes "there is a self, ask its existence after death"; the exhausted has severed the view of self, realized non-self (the prior paper P05's eye of wisdom, seeing into non-self), so that "self whose existence after death could be asked" is from the start unobtainable. To ask "does this self exist after death" is, for the exhausted, like asking "the height of a barren woman's son" — the subject not standing, both the questions of existence collapse for want of a basis. What "no more becoming" resolves is "the suffering of receiving further becoming" (the continuity of birth-and-death driven by ignorance and craving-clinging); it resolves "the continuity of suffering," not a resolution into "the annihilation of a self."

A simile: fire burns in dependence on fuel; the fuel exhausted, the fire goes out. To ask "where does this fire go after going out (east, west, south, north)" is a wrong question — fire is not a thing that moves but a burning-event arisen in dependence on fuel; the fuel exhausted, the burning-event is exhausted, with no "where it goes." The arhat's "no more becoming" is like the fuel exhausted: the fuel of receiving becoming (ignorance, craving-clinging) exhausted, the burning-event of the continuity of birth-and-death is exhausted. To ask "does this arhat exist after death" is like asking "where does the gone-out fire go" — presupposing a "moving fire" (a surviving or annihilated self), while in truth there is no such thing, only "the event ceasing as conditions end." Departing annihilation-and-eternalism lies just here: positing neither a "surviving fire" (eternalism) nor an "extinguished fire" (annihilation), only "the event ceasing as conditions end."

3.2 The Misplacement of the Existence-After-Death Question: The Unanswered Is Not from Not-Knowing but Because the Question Presupposes a Graspable Self

3.1 has shown "no more becoming" dissolves the disputed subject; this section further shows why the "existence after death" question is a misplaced question, and so but-to-be-set-aside (unanswered), and why this setting-aside is not from not-knowing.

The key is the clarification of 2.2: the World-Honored One judges "existence after death" unanswered "not from not-knowing, not from not-seeing." The unanswered is not "evading because the answer is unknown" but "this question is itself misplaced, so no answer of existence-or-not should be given." Where is the misplacement? In the common structure of the fourteen (2.2) — all presuppose a fixed entity (the world, the life-principle, the Tathāgata's self) and ask its property. "Does the Tathāgata exist after death" presupposes "there is a Tathāgata-self whose existence after death can be asked"; yet the exhausted is already without this graspable entity-self. For a question that presupposes a non-existent subject, any answer of "exists" or "not" would substantiate that false presupposition: to answer "exists" falls into eternalism (substantiating a surviving self), to answer "not" falls into annihilation (substantiating a self that is annihilated). Only "setting aside, not answering" can avoid both extremes — it refuses the false presupposition itself.

The śāstra's "set-aside answer" (2.2) is precisely this sense. Among the four answers, the one-pointed answer (direct), the analytic answer (answering with distinctions), and the counter-questioning answer (answering by counter-question) are all modes of "answering"; only the set-aside answer is the mode of "not answering" — for a structurally misplaced question, the correct response is not to give an answer of existence-or-not, rather than to force a side. Setting aside is not incapacity but precision: it recognizes that this question cannot be answered by existence-or-not, and so sets it aside.

So "existence after death" being unanswered, and "no more becoming" being self-verified, do not conflict at all: the arhat can self-verify "no more becoming" (the bond of receiving becoming is exhausted — an inwardly realized fact), yet cannot (and should not) answer "existence after death" (a misplaced question presupposing a graspable self). The former is a sure knowledge of "the bondage being exhausted," the latter a vain query about "the property of an entity-self." The mastery of exhaustion includes precisely the freedom of "not being dragged by a misplaced question into the proliferation of annihilation-and-eternalism."

✅ Doctrinally sound: the existence-after-death question presupposes a fixed entity-self and asks its property (the common structure of the fourteen, 2.2); the exhausted is already without this graspable self, so any answer of existence-or-not would substantiate the false presupposition (exists → eternalism, not → annihilation). The set-aside answer (giving no existence-or-not answer) is not from not-knowing (the World-Honored One not without knowledge, not without vision) but from the question's structural misplacement. "No more becoming" (the self-verification that the bond of becoming is exhausted) and "existence after death unanswered" (the setting-aside of a misplaced question) do not conflict.

3.3 The Not-Answering as the Right Answer: Only the Four Truths Declared One-Pointedly · Turning the Question Back to the Cessation of Suffering

Finally, the arrow simile establishes "the not-answering as the right answer," and shows that this is precisely the expression of the mastery of exhaustion in the dimension of birth-and-death — not bound by proliferation, only turned toward the cessation of suffering.

The sharpness of the arrow simile (2.3): one shot by a poisoned arrow, if he insists on first knowing the shooter's name and clan before he will let the arrow be pulled, will die in the interval of not-knowing. The figure: one who insists on first settling "existence after death" before he will practice the path will likewise die, in the interval of not-coming-to-know, within birth-and-death. The World-Honored One's not-answering is not evasion but pulling a person back from "the proliferation of existence-after-death" to "pulling the arrow now" (practicing the path, severing taints). His self-explanation (2.3) is decisive: the fourteen unanswered "do not tend to knowledge, to awakening, to nirvāṇa," and so are not declared one-pointedly; only the four truths "suffering, origin, cessation, path" are declared one-pointedly, because they tend to nirvāṇa. "What is not to be spoken is not spoken, what is to be spoken is spoken" — what is to be spoken is the four truths tending to liberation, what is not to be spoken is the proliferation not tending to liberation.

This is profound for the axis. The expression of the mastery of exhaustion in the dimension of birth-and-death is precisely the union of "no more becoming" and "not answering existence after death": on the one hand self-verifying that the bond of birth-and-death is exhausted (no more becoming), on the other not being dragged by the proliferation of "existence after death" (unanswered, set aside). These two together are mastery in birth-and-death — not "being at ease because one knows what comes after death" (still seeking ease within proliferation) but "having no need to ask what comes after death because the bond of birth-and-death is exhausted" (the bond exhausted, the question ceases of itself). The ordinary person is not free in birth-and-death precisely because he cannot put down the anxiety of "how I will be after death" (dreading annihilation, or hoping for permanence); the arhat's freedom is that this anxiety, together with the self it presupposes, ceases altogether — so he can turn only toward the cessation of suffering (the four truths), not toward the proliferation of after-death.

So, holding to P01's frame: "no more becoming" is the signature of the mastery of exhaustion in the dimension of the resolution of birth-and-death. What it resolves is "the suffering of receiving further becoming" (the continuity of birth-and-death), not a resolution into "the nothing of annihilation"; it departs annihilation-and-eternalism precisely because exhaustion (ignorance exhausted, craving-clinging exhausted) has dissolved the self disputed by annihilation-and-eternalism. One free in birth-and-death posits neither a surviving self (eternalism) nor an annihilated self (annihilation), only the event ceasing as conditions end — the bond of birth-and-death thereby exhausted, and exhausted without remainder, beyond further asking, which is precisely the freedom of this dimension.

⚠️ A note on level: this paper's judgment that "no more becoming = the resolution of birth-and-death departing annihilation-and-eternalism; existence after death but-to-be-set-aside" argues from the unanswered teaching of the Āgamas and the Kośa and from this axis's frame of mastery. It does not claim the nature of the nirvāṇa-realm (nirvāṇa-without-remainder) can be wholly settled by this paper — whether nirvāṇa-without-remainder "is" some realm neither-annihilated-nor-eternal, and its precise relation to "no more becoming," the schools and the Mahāyāna develop variously, beyond the range of this paper's Āgama-and-Kośa unanswered teaching. The paper establishes only: by what the Āgamas say, the sense of "no more becoming" is in departing annihilation-and-eternalism and resolving the bond of birth-and-death, existence after death set aside and not answered; the fine adjudication of the nature of the nirvāṇa-realm is not what this paper settles, and is marked as-is.

IV. Interdisciplinary Convergence

(This paper deliberately omits the interdisciplinary section; the reason is given in §VI. The line of thought "refusing a misplaced question, dissolving the disputed subject" does resemble modern philosophy's diagnosis of the "pseudo-problem" or linguistic analysis's exposure of the "category mistake"; yet these are therapies on the plane of language and logic, while "no more becoming, departing annihilation-and-eternalism" involves the soteriological categories peculiar to Buddhism — non-self, dependent arising, nirvāṇa — its "dissolving the subject" not stopping at linguistic diagnosis but bound to the realization of non-self and the severing of craving-clinging as an attainment of the path. To force "pseudo-problem" upon "the unanswered" would lead the reader to take the unanswered for a purely logical linguistic trick, losing its soteriological context of "the exhausted, realizing non-self, therefore not falling into annihilation-and-eternalism." Better to leave it out.)

V. Madhyamaka Corrections

❌ Misreading one: "no more becoming = annihilation (after the arhat dies, nothing at all, scattered to nothing)." 3.1 breaks this. "No more becoming" is the self-verification that "the bond of receiving becoming is exhausted," not the judgment "after death I go to nothing." Annihilationism presupposes "there is a self that goes to nothing after death," precisely one of the clauses the unanswered breaks (the Tathāgata "does not exist" after death, also unanswered, falling into annihilation). To take no-more-becoming for annihilation mistakes "the exhaustion of the bond of the continuity of birth-and-death" for "the extinction of an entity-self" — while the exhausted is already without this entity-self to be extinguished. The fire simile: the fuel exhausted, the fire goes out, not "the fire extinguished into nothing."

❌ Misreading two: "beyond no-more-becoming, there must be a deathless self (a true self, a subtle consciousness) surviving on." 3.1, 3.2 break this. This is eternalism, also one of the clauses the unanswered breaks (the Tathāgata "exists" after death, also unanswered, falling into eternalism). "No more becoming" posits no surviving self after death; to posit a deathless true self to carry "no more becoming" is to vainly install a self upon non-self, falling into the eternalist view. To depart annihilation-and-eternalism is to depart both extremes — positing annihilation is wrong, positing eternalism is wrong too.

❌ Misreading three: "the unanswered is because the Buddha did not know (or the Buddha evaded a hard problem)." 3.2 breaks this. Scripture plainly says the World-Honored One judges this unanswered "not from not-knowing, not from not-seeing" (2.2). The unanswered is not from ignorance but because the "existence after death" question is structurally misplaced (presupposing a graspable entity-self), un-answerable by existence-or-not; setting aside and not answering is precision (recognizing this question cannot be answered by existence-or-not), not evasion. The arrow simile shows: the not-answering is to keep a person from being trapped in proliferation and to practice the path swiftly (pull the arrow) — compassion, not evasion.

⚠️ Correction four: this paper is confined to the unanswered teaching of the Āgamas and the Kośa on "no more becoming" and does not settle the nature of the nirvāṇa-realm. This paper, on the Āgamas and the Kośa, establishes "no more becoming = departing annihilation-and-eternalism; existence after death set aside"; as to whether the nirvāṇa-without-remainder realm has some nature neither-annihilated-nor-eternal, how the "realm" of the arhat after entering the remainderless is to be spoken of, the schools (e.g. the Sarvāstivāda's cessation-through-discernment as unconditioned) and the Mahāyāna develop variously, beyond this paper's range. This paper establishes only the Āgama sense (departing annihilation-and-eternalism, resolving the bond of birth-and-death, existence after death set aside), not the fine adjudication of nirvāṇa's nature, marked as-is, lest the reader take this paper as having settled everything.

VI. Conclusion

Restatement. "No more becoming" is the dimension of the mastery of exhaustion in the resolution of birth-and-death, and its sense lies solely in departing the two extremes of annihilation and eternalism. It is the self-verification that "the bond of receiving becoming is exhausted" (2.1), not a judgment about "existence after death" — both annihilationism (after death to nothing, falling into annihilation) and eternalism (a deathless self surviving on, falling into eternalism) presuppose a graspable entity-self, while the exhausted is already without this self (3.1). So the "existence after death" question is structurally misplaced, but-to-be-set-aside (unanswered), and this setting-aside is not from not-knowing but because the question presupposes a non-existent subject (3.2). The arrow simile shows the not-answering as the right answer: one who insists on settling this question before practicing will die in the interval of not-knowing; only the four truths are declared one-pointedly (because they tend to nirvāṇa); one free in birth-and-death is not bound by the proliferation of after-death, turned only toward the cessation of suffering (3.3). Holding to P01's frame: "no more becoming" is the signature of the mastery of exhaustion in the dimension of birth-and-death, resolving the suffering of receiving further becoming, departing annihilation-and-eternalism while the bond of birth-and-death is exhausted.

Practice guidance. What the practitioner should understand about "no more becoming" is not the anxiety "I must clarify whether there is existence or not after death before I can be at ease" (which falls precisely into the proliferation of the fourteen unanswered, censured by the arrow simile), nor the false reckonings "annihilation after death, so enjoy now" (falling into annihilation) or "a deathless true self, so practice to preserve it" (falling into eternalism). The right understanding: the great suffering of birth-and-death is like a poisoned arrow in the body, the urgent task is to pull the arrow (practice the path by the four truths, sever ignorance and craving-clinging), not to settle first those questions that do not tend to nirvāṇa. In one's own practice, one should work toward the cessation of "the bond of receiving becoming" (severing craving-clinging, exhausting ignorance) — the bond exhausted, the anxiety of "how I will be after death," together with the self it presupposes, ceases, and freedom in birth-and-death manifests of itself. Do not vainly install a self upon non-self (eternalism); do not take the bond's exhaustion for a self's extinction (annihilation); departing these two extremes is to accord with the reality of "no more becoming."

Carrying the axis forward. This paper opens Part 5, taking the dimension of the mastery of exhaustion in "the resolution of birth-and-death" (no more becoming, departing annihilation-and-eternalism), to be viewed with the prior four parts: Parts 2 (the two liberations), 3 (the three knowledges and six powers), and 4 (cessation-attainment) argue from the arhat's mastery's inner faces, while this paper argues from its dimension of "birth-and-death, after-death" — and the conclusion is consistent: every face turns about the pivot of exhaustion, and "no more becoming" too is a dimension of the mastery of exhaustion (the bond of birth-and-death exhausted), not a separate thing. This opens onto the part's closing paper, P08, "The Worthy: The Social Legibility of Mastery": the first seven papers all treat the arhat's mastery's "inner" and "doctrinal" faces, while P08 turns to its dimension of "being legible to the world" — how the mastery of exhaustion becomes the world's unsurpassed field of merit, the worthy of offerings, closing the division. This paper's "no more becoming" (the inner realization that the bond of birth-and-death is exhausted) continues into P08's "the worthy" (the field-of-merit signature of liberation legible to the world): one is the inward resolution of mastery (birth-and-death), the other the outward legibility of mastery (the field of merit).

Open questions. First, this paper is confined to the unanswered teaching of the Āgamas and the Kośa and does not settle the nature of the nirvāṇa-without-remainder realm (how a realm neither-annihilated-nor-eternal is to be spoken of); this touches the Sarvāstivāda's cessation-through-discernment as unconditioned and the Mahāyāna's doctrines of nirvāṇa, awaiting a special study of nirvāṇa. Second, this paper cuts §IV (the unanswered is only superficially like the pseudo-problem / category mistake); whether "realizing non-self, therefore not falling into annihilation-and-eternalism," distinct in kind from the purely linguistic diagnosis of the "pseudo-problem," admits a positively constructible deep structure, is left to a later paper. Third, the relation of "no more becoming"'s departing annihilation-and-eternalism to cessation-attainment's "entry by the resolute conviction of nirvāṇa here-and-now" (P06) — whether cessation-attainment's "nirvāṇa here-and-now" is a here-and-now foretaste of the nirvāṇa toward which "no more becoming" tends — this paper only takes up P06's suspended question without finely settling it, to be viewed together in a special study of nirvāṇa.

Notes

References

Primary Buddhist Sources

Saṃyukta-āgama (雜阿含經). Trans. Guṇabhadra. T02, no. 0099. (Fasc. 1, the self-verification clause of no-more-becoming; fasc. 5, the Anurādha, existence-after-death unanswered; fasc. 7, the enumeration of the fourteen unanswered.)
Madhyama-āgama (中阿含經). Trans. Gautama Saṅghadeva. T01, no. 0026. (Fasc. 60, the Arrow Simile, the poisoned-arrow simile, not declaring one-pointedly, only the four truths declared one-pointedly.)
Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (阿毘達磨俱舍論). By Vasubandhu, trans. Xuanzang. T29, no. 1558. (Fasc. 19, the four kinds of answer, the classificatory definition of the set-aside answer.)

Modern Scholarship

(This paper cites no modern scholarship; its argument rests entirely on the Buddhist canon, in the open-source spirit of "returning to the source." The interdisciplinary section having been cut, there is no associated modern literature.)

Sūtra & Śāstra Index

Citation	Source	CBETA id
The self-verification clause · no more becoming (the mind liberated verifies for itself)	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 1 (sūtra 1)	T02n0099_p0001a13
The self-verification clause repeated (the common closing formula)	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 1 (sūtra 2)	T02n0099_p0001a24
The Tathāgata's four after-death clauses all unanswered (Anurādha · not without knowledge or vision)	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 5	T02n0099_p0032c08
The full enumeration of the fourteen unanswered	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 7	T02n0099_p0045b09
The śāstric classificatory definition of the set-aside answer (the four answers)	Kośa, fasc. 19	T29n1558_p0103c23
The Arrow Simile · Māluṅkyaputta lists the fourteen, intending to abandon the path	Madhyama-āgama, fasc. 60	T01n0026_p0804a25
The poisoned-arrow simile proper (insisting on settling first, one dies in the interval)	Madhyama-āgama, fasc. 60	T01n0026_p0804c24
The reason for not declaring one-pointedly · only the four truths declared · tending to nirvāṇa	Madhyama-āgama, fasc. 60	T01n0026_p0805b22

Series Cross-Reference Index

ARHAT-P01, "The Exhaustion of Taints Is Mastery" §3.3: this paper holds to P01's frame — "no more becoming" is the signature of the mastery of exhaustion in the dimension of birth-and-death, resolving the suffering of receiving becoming (the bond of birth-and-death), departing annihilation-and-eternalism rather than annihilation. Every dimension of mastery turns about the pivot of exhaustion, and the resolution of birth-and-death (no more becoming) is one of them.
ARHAT-P05, "Supernormal Powers Are Not Mastery" §3.3 (the eye of wisdom, seeing into non-self): this paper's 3.1 and 3.2, "the exhausted has severed the view of self, is already without a graspable entity-self, and so the existence-after-death question is misplaced," directly continue P05's eye of wisdom seeing into non-self — the realization of non-self is precisely the ground of departing annihilation-and-eternalism (positing neither a surviving self nor an annihilated self).
ARHAT-P06, "Cessation-Attainment" §3.3, §VI: this paper's §V and §VI take up P06's suspended question — the relation of cessation-attainment's "entry by the resolute conviction of nirvāṇa here-and-now" to the nirvāṇa toward which "no more becoming" tends (whether a here-and-now foretaste); both papers suspend the fine adjudication of the nature of the nirvāṇa-realm, awaiting a special study of nirvāṇa.
ARHAT-P08, "The Worthy: The Social Legibility of Mastery" (the part's closing paper): this paper treats the inward resolution of mastery (no more becoming, the bond of birth-and-death exhausted), P08 the outward legibility of mastery (the worthy, the world's field of merit). The taint-exhausted arhat's "crossing birth-and-death, no more becoming" is precisely the cause of P08's "being the world's field of merit, worthy of offerings" (Ekottarika C1: being the world's field of merit because of no-more-becoming and the exhaustion of greed-hatred-delusion) — this paper's inner realization is the ground of P08's social signature.

Paper: ARHAT-P07 · 不受後有的義理 · The Mastery of the Arhat · Part 5 · The Worthy and No-More-Becoming Author: 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing) · Project: 指月 / Pointing-at-the-Moon · Series: The Attainment Signatures（證自在簽名） License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 CBETA collation: 全文引用均依 CBETA 電子佛典核校（《雜阿含經》T0099、《中阿含經》T0026、《阿毘達磨俱舍論》T1558）。Pāli 引文採 PTS reference 雙軌標示（vault 未收者俟後補）。 Repository: https://github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/attainment-signatures

Footnotes

Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 1 (sūtra 1), T02n0099_p0001a13. "One liberated in mind, should he wish to verify it for himself, can verify for himself: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, one knows for oneself there is no more becoming.'" The self-verification 定型句, no more becoming. Trans. Guṇabhadra. ↩
Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 1 (sūtra 2), T02n0099_p0001a24. The same 定型句 repeated, the common closing formula of the Saṃyukta. "Knowing for oneself there is no more becoming" = the self-verification that one no longer receives a future life. ↩
Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 5 (sūtra 106, the Anurādha), T02n0099_p0032c08. Non-Buddhists ask the four "the Tathāgata exists / does not / both / neither after death"; Anurādha answers each "as the World-Honored One says, this is unanswered"; the sequel clarifies the World-Honored One is "not without knowledge, not without vision." Cf. SN 44.2 Anurādha (⚠ Pāli awaiting vault verification). ↩
Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 7 (sūtra 168), T02n0099_p0045b09. The full enumeration of the fourteen unanswered (the world eternal-or-not, four; the world bounded-or-not, four; the life-principle and body same-or-different, two; the Tathāgata's existence after death, four). ↩
Abhidharmakośa, fascicle 19 (the four kinds of answer), T29n1558_p0103c23. "What question is but to be set aside? If one asks: is the world eternal, non-eternal …? does the Tathāgata exist after death, not exist, both, neither? is the life-principle the body, or different? This question is named but-to-be-set-aside." The śāstric classificatory definition of the set-aside answer (sthāpanīya). By Vasubandhu, trans. Xuanzang. ↩
Madhyama-āgama, fascicle 60 (the Arrow Simile, MĀ 221), T01n0026_p0804a25. Māluṅkyaputta lists the fourteen the World-Honored One "sets aside and casts off, does not fully expound" (the Madhyama wording: the world eternal / not, with a bottom / not, the life-principle and body same / different, the Tathāgata ends / not), intending to abandon the path. Cf. MN 63 Cūḷamālunkya (⚠ Pāli awaiting vault verification). ↩
Madhyama-āgama, fascicle 60 (the Arrow Simile), T01n0026_p0804c24. The poisoned-arrow simile: one shot insists on first knowing the shooter's name and clan before letting the arrow be pulled, and dies in the interval of not-knowing; the figure for one who insists on settling the unanswered before practicing. ↩
Madhyama-āgama, fascicle 60 (the Arrow Simile), T01n0026_p0805b22. The World-Honored One explains "not declaring one-pointedly": the fourteen unanswered are "not joined with the goal, not joined with the Dharma, not the root of the holy life, do not tend to knowledge, to awakening, to nirvāṇa," and so are not declared; only the four truths "suffering, origin, cessation, path" are declared one-pointedly. "What is not to be spoken is not spoken, what is to be spoken is spoken." ↩