Attainment · Arhat’s MasteryPart 1Paper 1 of 8

The Exhaustion of Taints Is Mastery

ARHAT-P01 · v1.0 · 2026-06

Why Freedom Is the Signature of Exhaustion, Not a Power Beyond It

中文主題：漏盡即自在——自在何以是漏盡之簽名

I. The Live Question

Ask about an arhat and most people ask first: what can he do? — fly through the air, recall past lives, read minds? As if the proof of arrival were a few new abilities in hand. The mistake is natural: we are used to measuring "attainment" by counting what has been added.

Yet when the canon records the arhat's own verification, it is a sentence wholly in the register of subtraction: "birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, there is no more coming to any state of being." Not one word says "I have newly gained something"; every word says "here, what was to be exhausted is exhausted, what was to be finished is finished, nothing remains owing." The highest arrival, verifying itself, refuses even the grammar of addition. This forces the Attainment axis's first question: if the arhat's realization lies not in gaining more, what does the word "mastery" (自在) name?

This paper's answer: the arhat is not a person who has finished but a mode of being free — and that freedom is what the exhaustion of taints signs. Once the exhaustion of taints (of sensuality, of being, of ignorance) settles, what stands is not extra powers in hand but the unobstructedness of the twofold liberation of mind and wisdom — burdens laid down, fetters ended, no taint left to bind. Freedom is the signature of exhaustion: to see the freedom is to know the taints are gone, as to see a signature is to know its author was present. It is not a further feat erected alongside exhaustion.

Here the Attainment axis seams to its twin, the Realization axis. This is the seam paper: it reads the same passage on the exhaustion of taints as the Realization axis's "The Approach to the Exhaustion of Taints," two-facedly — Realization reading "the last cut completes," Attainment reading "freedom begins here." Realization writes up to the threshold (how the last cut settles); this paper sets out from it (what existence stands once it has). One instant of exhaustion: looking back, the consummation of subtraction (Realization); looking forward, the inception of freedom (Attainment).

The thesis: the exhaustion of taints is mastery — freedom is what the consummated exhaustion is, not what is gained beyond it. The argument: §II presents the canon and śāstra; §III argues in three layers (two faces of one instant; the co-arising time-structure; mastery as negative freedom, not accumulated power); §IV is deliberately cut; §V corrects the central misreadings (first, "mastery = supernormal powers"); §VI concludes and marks the seam.

II. Canonical Basis

2.1 Exhaustion and Mastery in One Passage: The Seam's Core

The standard scriptural witness for the exhaustion of taints lies in the third of the three knowledges — sensual recollection, the divine eye, and the exhaustion of taints. Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 31:

What is the realization-knowledge of the exhaustion of taints? A noble disciple knows as it really is: this is suffering, its arising, its cessation, the path to its cessation; knowing and seeing thus, the mind is liberated from the taint of sensuality, from the taint of being, from the taint of ignorance, and there is the knowledge of liberation: "Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, one knows there is no more coming to any state of being." This is the realization-knowledge of the exhaustion of taints.¹

This is the core seam passage: the exhaustion of the three taints (the mind liberated from each) and the self-verification 定型句 appear in one and the same passage. This paper and the Realization axis read it together. Realization takes its moving aspect — "the last cut severing" (inside the threshold). This paper takes its mastery aspect: "the mind liberated from the three taints," read positively, is "the mind, with respect to the three taints, free and unbound." One clause, "the mind liberated from the three taints," read by Realization as "the consummation of severance," by Attainment as "the freedom of liberated mind." This paper takes the latter.

A note on the 定型句 at the seam: this core passage (Saṃyukta-āgama) reads "what was to be done is done, one knows there is no more becoming." In its own argumentation this paper adopts the Dīrgha-āgama variant (fascicle 2; see 2.3) as its baseline form of the 定型句; when quoting the Saṃyukta core passage, it reproduces the original wording unchanged. The two forms are synonymous; at the seam, this paper and Realization-axis P09 hold to one baseline.

2.2 The Arhat's Mode of Freedom: Burdens Laid Down

That the exhaustion of taints is a mode of freedom the Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 15, states by defining the arhat through the four truths known, abandoned, realized, cultivated:

Such a monk is called an arhat: the taints all exhausted, what was to be done done, the burdens laid down, one's own good attained, the fetters of being all ended, rightly and well liberated by perfect knowledge.²

This is the paper's core witness. It sets "the taints all exhausted" in apposition with a string of marks of freedom: burdens laid down (the load of the five aggregates set down), one's own good attained (the final good one should win, won), the fetters of being all ended (the bonds of the three realms of becoming gone), rightly liberated by perfect knowledge. Read the grammar closely: these are not merit added beyond the exhaustion of taints, but the unfolding description of that very exhaustion — because the taints are exhausted, therefore the burdens are down, the fetters ended, knowledge liberated. Exhaustion is the substance; laying-down-of-burden and ending-of-fetters are its aspect. Mastery is the aspect of exhaustion.

Read against 2.1, the two compose the seam's two faces: 2.1 (the realization-knowledge) renders its completion (the threshold; Realization's concern); 2.2 (burdens laid down) renders its freedom (beyond the threshold; Attainment's concern). One exhaustion — one rendering its consummation, one rendering what it is.

2.3 The Twofold Liberation and the Freedom at the Path's End

The freedom that exhaustion accomplishes is standardly stated as the liberation of mind and the liberation by wisdom together. Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 2:

Exhausting the taints in this Dharma, attaining the taintless, liberated in mind and liberated by wisdom, in this very life knowing and realizing for oneself, dwelling in fullness: "Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, one knows there is no more becoming."³

At the exhaustion of taints, liberation of mind (ceto-vimutti) and liberation by wisdom (paññā-vimutti) are named together; "in this very life knowing and realizing for oneself, dwelling in fullness." The phrase "dwelling in fullness" matters: it is an abiding freedom, not a momentary acquisition.

And the Dīrgha-āgama, fascicle 2, sets the exhaustion of taints at the end of the graduated path of virtue, concentration, wisdom:

Cultivating virtue, one gains concentration, with great fruit; cultivating concentration, one gains wisdom, with great fruit; cultivating wisdom, the mind is purified and one gains the even liberation, exhausting the three taints — of sensuality, of being, of ignorance. Liberated, the knowledge of liberation arises: "Birth and death are exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, there is no more becoming."⁴

This paper's baseline 定型句 form is taken from this Dīrgha passage (held in common with the Realization axis at the seam). "The mind purified, gaining the even liberation" — purity, then liberative attainment, is the very pivot of freedom: purified, it is undefiled; undefiled, it is bound by nothing; and that is mastery.

2.4 Śāstra: The Knowledge-of-Exhaustion Co-arises with the Exhaustion of Taints

For the relation between "the exhaustion of taints" and "the establishment of the arhat-fruit," the Abhidharmakośa, fascicle 24 (Chapter on the Noble Persons), gives a precise account in terms of the graduated path of severing defilement:

The vajra-like concentration is produced as the last uninterrupted path within the severing of defilement; the knowledge-of-exhaustion is the last path of liberation within the severing of defilement; because this path of liberation co-arises, at the first moment, together with the exhaustion of all taints, it is called the knowledge-of-exhaustion. When the knowledge-of-exhaustion has thus arisen, one becomes the adept arhat-fruit, having gained the dharmas of the adept worthy-fruit.⁵

This is the śāstric ground for the paper's time-structure. The vajra-like concentration (the last uninterrupted path) severs the last grade of defilement; the ensuing knowledge-of-exhaustion (the last path of liberation) co-arises, at the first moment, with the exhaustion of all taints — that is, knowledge-of-exhaustion and exhaustion arise together, without before or after; when the knowledge-of-exhaustion arises, the adept arhat-fruit is established at once. On this basis the paper takes co-arising (simultaneity without before-or-after) as the time-structure of "the exhaustion of taints is mastery": freedom is not generated after exhaustion but co-arises with it (see 3.2).

✅ Doctrinally sound: 2.1–2.3 are explicit canon (the realization-knowledge; the arhat's mode of freedom; the twofold-liberation 定型句; the exhaustion of the three taints at the path's end). 2.4 is śāstric precision (Kośa, Noble Persons); the paper takes from it the single point that "the knowledge-of-exhaustion co-arises with the exhaustion of taints" to fix the time-structure, marking it as śāstra. The systematic three-taint / four-flood divergence (Kośa, Latent Dispositions, T29n1558_p0107b21) the paper marks as-is without unfolding it — its detail belongs to the treatise on latent dispositions, beyond this opening paper's theme.

III. Core Argument

3.1 Two Faces of One Instant: Realization Reads Completion, Attainment Reads Freedom

The exhaustion of taints and mastery are two faces of one passage. 2.1 (the realization-knowledge) and 2.2 (burdens laid down) are not two events: the former renders exhaustion's completed aspect (the three taints liberated; the 定型句), the latter its mastery aspect (burdens laid down, fetters ended, knowledge liberated). One "exhaustion of taints": looking back, "the last wall taken down" (Realization's reading, the consummation of the moving aspect); looking forward, "no wall left to obstruct" (Attainment's reading, the opening of the resting aspect).

Why one and the same? Because in 2.2, "the taints all exhausted" and "rightly liberated by perfect knowledge" stand within one sentence. Scripture does not say "after the taints are exhausted, liberation is separately gained"; it says, the taints being exhausted, therefore "burdens laid down, one's own good attained, fetters of being ended, rightly liberated." Mastery is the predicate of exhaustion, not its sequel. As with setting down a heavy load: the moment the load is down, ease is present — "setting down" and "ease" are not two events queuing in sequence; the completion of setting-down is the inception of ease. Exhaustion is to mastery as setting-down is to ease — two faces of one motion.

So the division of labor between this paper and the Realization axis is not a division of two stretches of time (Realization the first half, Attainment the second), but a division of two faces of one instant: Realization writes "how the last wall is taken down" (inside the threshold, the journey), Attainment writes "what unobstructedness the wall's removal is" (beyond the threshold, freedom). This paper does not re-narrate Realization's severing — that is Realization's charge; it only takes up the freedom that severing is.

★ Seam marker: This paper and the Realization axis's "The Approach to the Exhaustion of Taints" read the core passage of 2.1 in common (T02n0099_p0223c01 — the three taints liberated + the self-verification 定型句). One passage, one clause: Realization reads "the last cut completes," Attainment reads "freedom begins here." The two readings do not conflict; they are two faces of one instant of exhaustion: the last step of subtraction and the first step of freedom are one step. Realization-axis SRAMANA-P09 has completed the Realization-face reading; this paper completes the Attainment-face. The two papers meet at one passage of exhaustion without occluding each other — this is the seam of the twin axes. ★

3.2 The Time-Structure of "One Instant": Co-arising, Without Before-or-After

If 3.1 says exhaustion and mastery are "two faces of one instant," we must press further: what is the time-structure of that "one instant"? Is severance and freedom a simultaneity without before-or-after, or is there a sub-momentary sequence of "first severance, then freedom arising"? This is the shared seam question flagged in Realization-axis P09's §VI, fit to be adjudicated at the seam. Following the Kośa's śāstric precision, this paper takes co-arising (simultaneity without before-or-after).

The ground is 2.4: the knowledge-of-exhaustion (the last path of liberation) "co-arises, at the first moment, with the exhaustion of all taints." "Co-arising" means arising together, without before or after. When the knowledge-of-exhaustion arises, the taints are exhausted; when the taints are exhausted, the knowledge-of-exhaustion arises — not a causal sequence but two senses of one instant of severing defilement. Accordingly, "exhaustion" and "mastery" likewise co-arise: mastery is not a second event arising after exhaustion, but the freedom-face of the one event co-temporal with exhaustion. The consummation of severance is the inception of freedom, with no hair's-breadth gap between.

Taking "co-arising" rather than "sub-momentary sequence" matters doctrinally. On a sequence reading (first severance, then freedom), freedom becomes the effect of exhaustion (exhaustion the cause, freedom the effect), and so falls under "the gained" — addition again (one freedom gained after exhaustion). Only on the co-arising reading is freedom the aspect of exhaustion (the freedom-face of one event), not its effect. The whole argument of this axis — that freedom is the signature of exhaustion, not something gained beyond it — rests on this co-arising: a signature and what it signs are one stroke set down, not a name added after the signing.

✅ Doctrinally sound: following the Kośa's "the knowledge-of-exhaustion co-arises with the exhaustion of taints" (T29n1558_p0126c24), exhaustion and mastery are taken as co-arising without before-or-after. Mastery is the freedom-face of the one event co-arising with exhaustion, not an effect arising after it. This co-arising is the time-structural basis for "mastery is the signature (aspect) of exhaustion, not something gained (effect) beyond it."

3.3 Mastery as Negative Freedom, Not Accumulated Power

Now to answer the opening question directly: what does "mastery" name? This paper's answer: the arhat's mastery is a negative freedom (freedom-from), not a positive multi-competence (power-to).

The witness is the grammar of the self-verification 定型句. The whole 定型句 is the language of subtraction: "birth and death exhausted" (the fuel of birth exhausted), "no more becoming" (no further existence taken up) — both ends are negative finishings. "The holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done," though they look affirmative, still mean "what was to be practised is practised through, what was to be done is done" — a completion-declaration, not an accumulation-declaration of "having gained a new state." The whole 定型句 is a settled account (the debt of saṃsāra cleared), not an acquisition list (what I newly hold). The highest fruit, verifying itself, refuses even the grammar of addition.

A second witness is the mode of freedom in 2.2: burdens laid down (what was borne, removed), fetters of being ended (what bound, removed), rightly liberated by perfect knowledge (what defiled, removed and released) — each headed by removal, each an unobstructedness of "nothing left to bind." Mastery's substance is "nothing left to obstruct," not "one more ability." As with a prisoner's freedom on release: it lies in "no more walls and locks," not in "a treasure issued outside the cell"; so the freedom of exhaustion lies in "no taint left to bind," not in powers gained beyond exhaustion.

From this the most common misreading can be broken (see §V): taking the supernormal powers (the five abhijñā shared with non-Buddhist meditators) for the arhat's mastery. The powers are "competence" (power-to, a positive increment); mastery is "unbondage" (freedom-from, a negative liberation) — categorially distinct. Among the three knowledges, only the knowledge-of-exhaustion is the arhat's own and is where mastery lies; the rest — recollection, the divine eye, the first five of the six powers — non-Buddhist meditators also attain, and cannot sign the exhaustion of taints. So mastery's signature is not in flight or knowing-at-a-distance, but in "the taints exhausted, the mind liberated, nothing left to bind." One who can fly is not thereby free; one whose taints are exhausted is necessarily free — the name "mastery" hangs on exhaustion, not on powers.

⚠️ A note on level: rendering the arhat's mastery as "negative freedom (freedom-from)" argues from the liberative sense of exhaustion (burdens laid down, fetters ended, undefiled); it does not claim the arhat has no positive merit. The positive functioning of the three knowledges and six powers (including the power of the exhaustion of taints) is indeed recorded in the canon, but belongs to the later papers (the three knowledges and six powers, P04–05); this opening paper establishes only that "mastery's substance is the unobstructedness of exhaustion (negative freedom); powers are not where mastery lies," setting the axis's keynote. The discrimination of power from mastery is treated in full by P05, "Supernormal Powers Are Not Mastery."

IV. Interdisciplinary Convergence

(This paper deliberately omits the interdisciplinary section; the reason is given in §VI. "Mastery as unbound freedom" does resemble the psychological notion of "freedom from compulsion" or the philosophical notion of "negative liberty" (Berlin); yet both argue from a conditioned mind or a social situation, and only superficially resemble the freedom of exhaustion (unconditioned, the taints forever ceased, no more becoming). Negative liberty still presupposes a bound subject awaiting release, whereas the freedom of exhaustion has exhausted even "the bound subject" (the view of self, the fetters of being). To force the convergence would falsify; better to leave it out, and should a genuinely convergent deep structure appear in a later paper, treat it there in its own section.)

V. Madhyamaka Corrections

❌ Misreading one: "the arhat's mastery = supernormal powers (flight, recollection, mind-reading, and so on)." This the paper breaks in full. Mastery is "unbondage" (freedom-from, a negative liberation); the powers are "competence" (power-to, a positive increment) — categorially distinct (3.3). Among the three knowledges and six powers, only the knowledge-of-exhaustion / the power-of-exhaustion is the arhat's own and is where mastery lies; recollection, the divine eye, the first five powers, non-Buddhist meditators also attain, and cannot sign the exhaustion of taints. Taking powers for mastery mistakes "the unobstructedness beyond the threshold" for "a treasure issued beyond the threshold" — falling into addition and into subject-object. One who can fly is not thereby free; one whose taints are exhausted is necessarily free. (The discrimination of power from mastery: see P05.)

❌ Misreading two: "the arhat is 'a person who has finished' (an individual who has met the mark)." The axis breaks this at its opening. "Finishing" is Realization's word (the last cut settled); Attainment's word is "a mode of being free." Reading the arhat as "a person who finished" still takes "person / individual" as real, in direct conflict with "birth exhausted, the fetters of being all ended" (the view of self and the fetters of being, exhausted). The arhat is not "the self that met the mark" but "the unobstructed mode in which the view of self is exhausted" — a mode of existence, not a subject who attained.

⚠️ Correction three: this paper halts at exhaustion-as-mastery (the Attainment face) and does not re-narrate exhaustion-as-completion (the Realization face). One instant of exhaustion, two faces: Realization reads completion (the last cut), Attainment reads freedom (the threshold's opening). This paper, opening the Attainment axis, takes up only the freedom that severance is; "how the last cut settles" (how severance reaches exhaustion; the journey) belongs to Realization-axis SRAMANA-P09 and is not stated here, nor should be. The self-verification 定型句 is read here as "the attestation of freedom" (its "declaration of finishing" face belongs to Realization). Do not take this paper as having said all of the exhaustion of taints — it states "the freedom after settling," not "how it settles."

⚠️ Correction four: the choice of "co-arising" is a shared seam adjudication, not a unilateral ruling. This paper takes "exhaustion and mastery co-arise (without before-or-after)" (3.2), following the Kośa's "the knowledge-of-exhaustion co-arises with the exhaustion of taints" (T29n1558_p0126c24). This adjudicates the shared seam question flagged in Realization-axis P09's §VI, held in common by both axes. The "sub-momentary sequence" reading (first severance, then freedom arising) is not adopted: on the sequence reading freedom falls to "the effect of exhaustion" and becomes addition, against this axis's keynote that "mastery is the signature (aspect) of exhaustion, not something gained (effect) beyond it." The ground for the choice is set out in 3.2 and marked as a seam adjudication.

VI. Conclusion

Restatement. The exhaustion of taints is mastery: freedom is what the consummated exhaustion is, not what is gained beyond it. Exhaustion and mastery appear in one passage (2.1 the realization-knowledge ∥ 2.2 burdens laid down), two faces of one instant — Realization reading completion, Attainment reading freedom (3.1). The time-structure of that instant, following the Kośa's "the knowledge-of-exhaustion co-arises with the exhaustion of taints," is taken as co-arising without before-or-after: mastery is the freedom-face of the one event co-arising with exhaustion, not an effect arising after it (3.2). And mastery's substance is the negative freedom of "nothing left to obstruct" (burdens laid down, fetters ended, undefiled, the twofold liberation), not the accumulation of powers (3.3).

Practice guidance. What the practitioner should understand about mastery is not the expectation "after exhaustion, I will gain several supernormal abilities" (that takes mastery for a treasure issued beyond the threshold — addition, subject-object), but the recognition that "mastery just is unbondage — the unobstructedness in which no taint is left to bind." The work that tends toward mastery is not "cultivating a mastery" (mastery is no thing to be sought outside), but "exhausting the taints" — the taints exhausted, mastery shows of itself, as the wall removed, unobstructedness is of itself, with no need to seek a separate freedom beyond the wall's removal. And especially: do not take flight or distant-knowing for the proof of arrival; the true signature of arrival is "the mind liberated from the three taints, nothing left to bind." To seek powers as one seeks a thing only becomes a new bond; only the unobstructedness of exhaustion is a mastery none can take away.

Opening the axis (and marking the seam). This paper opens The Mastery of the Arhat and sets the axis's frame: the arhat is a mode of being free, signed by the exhaustion of taints; mastery is the aspect of exhaustion, not something gained beyond it. On this frame the later papers unfold mastery's faces in turn: the unshakeability and discrimination of the twofold liberation (P02–03); the three knowledges and six powers pivoting on the exhaustion of taints (P04–05, breaking "powers = mastery"); the freedom within cessation (P06, the freedom of concentration); no-more-becoming and worthiness as socially legible (P07–08, closing the axis). The axis holds throughout to one sense: the arhat's mastery is the signature of exhaustion — arrival is freedom.

As the seam paper, it meets the Realization axis's "The Approach to the Exhaustion of Taints" at the threshold of exhaustion: one passage (2.1), read by Realization as "the last cut completes," by Attainment as "freedom begins here." The last step of subtraction and the first step of freedom are two faces of one step. Realization wrote out "how one walks to the threshold"; this paper sets out from the threshold to write "the freedom beyond it." Realization writes up to the threshold, Attainment sets out from it; the two axes hand over at one instant of exhaustion, each completing its own face.

Open questions. First, this paper takes "co-arising" to fix the time-structure of exhaustion and mastery (3.2); yet whether the "co-" of "co-arising" admits finer analysis at the moment-level (the sameness or difference of the knowledge-of-exhaustion and the knowledge-of-non-arising at the instant of exhaustion) the Kośa and the Mahāvibhāṣā still finely debate — beyond this opening paper, to be revisited in the papers on the freedom of concentration and the severing of defilement. Second, this paper cuts §IV (mastery and negative liberty are only superficially alike); whether the freedom that "has exhausted even the bound subject" admits a positively constructible deep structure, distinct in root from all subject-presupposing theories of freedom, is left to a later paper. Third, how mastery's "negative freedom" (freedom-from) and the "positive functioning" of the three knowledges and six powers (power-to) coexist in one arhat without conflict — this paper sets the keynote (mastery lies in the unobstructedness of exhaustion; powers are not where mastery lies); its detail belongs to P04–05, here only raised.

Notes

References

Primary Buddhist Sources

Saṃyukta-āgama (雜阿含經). Trans. Guṇabhadra. T02, no. 0099. (Fasc. 31, the realization-knowledge / seam core; fasc. 15, the arhat's mode of freedom; fasc. 2, the twofold-liberation 定型句.)
Dīrgha-āgama (長阿含經). Trans. Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian. T01, no. 0001. (Fasc. 2, virtue-concentration-wisdom exhausting the three taints; baseline form of the 定型句.)
Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (阿毘達磨俱舍論). By Vasubandhu, trans. Xuanzang. T29, no. 1558. (Chapter on the Noble Persons, fasc. 24, the knowledge-of-exhaustion co-arising with the exhaustion of taints; Chapter on the Latent Dispositions, fasc. 20, the three taints.)

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
Realization-knowledge of the exhaustion of taints · three taints liberated · self-verification 定型句 (seam core)	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 31	T02n0099_p0223c01
Arhat's mode of freedom · burdens laid down · one's own good attained · fetters of being ended · rightly liberated	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 15	T02n0099_p0104c06
Twofold-liberation 定型句 · liberation of mind and wisdom · realizing in this very life, dwelling in fullness	Saṃyukta-āgama, fasc. 2	T02n0099_p0010c15
Virtue-concentration-wisdom exhausting the three taints · baseline 定型句 form	Dīrgha-āgama, fasc. 2	T01n0001_p0012a22
Śāstra: knowledge-of-exhaustion co-arising with the exhaustion of taints · establishing the arhat-fruit (time-structure)	Kośa, fasc. 24	T29n1558_p0126c24
Śāstric side-reference: three taints / four floods (the view-member's division)	Kośa, fasc. 20	T29n1558_p0107b21

Series Cross-Reference Index

★ Realization-axis SRAMANA-P09, "The Approach to the Exhaustion of Taints" (parallel · seam paper): this paper reads the same passage of exhaustion in common (T02n0099_p0223c01). Realization reads "the last cut completes," Attainment reads "freedom begins here"; two faces of one instant. The shared seam question flagged in P09's §VI (simultaneity or sub-momentary sequence) is adjudicated in this paper's 3.2, following the Kośa's co-arising, as "co-arising without before-or-after."
ARHAT-P02, "The Unshakable Liberation of Mind" (forthcoming): this paper establishes the twofold-liberation 定型句 in 2.3; P02 treats in full the "unshakable" (akuppā) aspect of the liberation of mind — the freedom that cannot be moved.
ARHAT-P03, "Liberation by Wisdom and Liberation Both-Ways Distinguished" (forthcoming): the twofold liberation of 2.3; P03 discriminates the two types, liberation by wisdom (wisdom alone) and liberation both-ways (with cessation-attainment).
ARHAT-P05, "Supernormal Powers Are Not Mastery" (forthcoming): this paper's 3.3 and §V break "mastery = powers," setting the keynote; P05 treats in full the discrimination of power from mastery.

Paper: ARHAT-P01 · 漏盡即自在 · The Mastery of the Arhat · Part 1 · The Signature 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、《長阿含經》T0001、《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 31, T02n0099_p0223c01. The third of the three knowledges, "the realization-knowledge of the exhaustion of taints": the three taints (of sensuality, being, ignorance) liberated in mind, followed by the self-verification 定型句 "birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what was to be done is done, one knows there is no more becoming." ★ The core seam passage (Realization reads completion; Attainment reads freedom). Quotation reproduces the Saṃyukta original wording. CBETA-verified. ↩
Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 15, T02n0099_p0104c06. Defining the arhat through the four truths known, abandoned, realized, cultivated: "the taints all exhausted, what was to be done done, the burdens laid down, one's own good attained, the fetters of being all ended, rightly well liberated by perfect knowledge." The paper's core witness: exhaustion set in apposition with the marks of freedom. ↩
Saṃyukta-āgama, fascicle 2, T02n0099_p0010c15. The twofold-liberation 定型句: "attaining the exhaustion of taints, the taintless, liberated in mind and liberated by wisdom, in this very life knowing and realizing for oneself, dwelling in fullness," followed by the self-verification 定型句. The standard statement of liberation-of-mind and liberation-by-wisdom together. ↩
Dīrgha-āgama, fascicle 2, T01n0001_p0012a22. The graduated path virtue → concentration → wisdom; "the mind purified, gaining the even liberation, exhausting the three taints," followed by the 定型句 "birth and death exhausted, the holy life lived, what was to be done done, no more becoming." The paper's baseline form of the 定型句 (held with the Realization axis at the seam). ↩
Abhidharmakośa, fascicle 24 (Chapter on the Noble Persons, part 3), T29n1558_p0126c24. "The knowledge-of-exhaustion … because the path of liberation co-arises, at the first moment, with the exhaustion of all taints, is called the knowledge-of-exhaustion. When the knowledge-of-exhaustion has arisen, one becomes the adept arhat-fruit." The paper's śāstric ground for the time-structure: exhaustion and mastery co-arise, without before-or-after. By Vasubandhu, trans. Xuanzang. Śāstric side-reference on the three-taint / four-flood divergence: same treatise, fascicle 20 (Chapter on the Latent Dispositions), T29n1558_p0107b21 (marked as-is, not unfolded). ↩