The SignatureThe Two LiberationsThe Three Knowledges and Six PowersThe Eight Liberations and CessationNo-More-Becoming and the Worthy
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Part 2 · The Two Liberations
Arhat’s Mastery · 2 papers
Part One set the seal: the mastery is what the exhaustion of taints looks like. This part faces the substance of that freedom directly — the names scripture gives it are the libera[ from the book's part intro ]
論Study the papersfootnotes · abstracts
02The Unshakable Liberation of MindContinuing the frame of "The Exhaustion of Taints Is Mastery" (mastery is the signature of exhaustion), this paper enters Part 2, "Liberation of Mind and Liberation by Wisdom," to treat the highest aspect of the liberation of mind — the unshakable (akuppā). The prior paper held mastery to be the unobstructedness of "nothing left to bind"; this paper presses further: can that unobstructedness be shaken, can it be lost? Scripture's answer is "unshakable." The thesis: "unshakable" is not a further merit alongside mastery but the completeness of mastery — a liberation that can still be lost is a liberation not yet through to the bottom; only when "there is no cause or condition that could make it fall back" is liberation full, and so scripture makes "the unshakable liberation of mind" a monk's "named jewel-treasure" and the verse-conclusion of "all the fetters of being exhausted." The argument runs in three layers: liberation of mind and liberation by wisdom are the twofold-liberation 定型句 of the exhaustion of taints (continuing the prior paper's 2.3), and "unshakable" is the highest of their qualifiers; the śāstra glosses "unshakable" by "the unshakable lineage-nature" and "the time-independent liberation" — not waiting on favorable conditions, not waiting on the occasion, samādhi manifesting at will, because there is no falling-back; and the sense of "unshakable" shows only against the contrast of "time-dependent, retrievable-and-losable" liberation, so the paper touches the six kinds of arhat only to sharpen the unshakable, not as a full doxography. Conclusion: the unshakable is the floor of mastery — if mastery can fall back, bondage still remains; only the unshakable is the consummation of the mastery of exhaustion.03Liberation by Wisdom and Liberation Both-Ways DistinguishedContinuing Part 2, "Liberation of Mind and Liberation by Wisdom," this paper takes the discrimination of the twofold liberation: the distinction of two kinds of arhat — liberation by wisdom (paññā-vimutta) and liberation both-ways (ubhatobhāga-vimutta). Scripture plainly posits the two as coexisting: one who has gained cessation-attainment and realizes the eight liberations with the body is named liberated both-ways; one who, by the power of wisdom alone, severs the hindrance of defilement and has not gained cessation-attainment is named liberated by wisdom; the Buddha himself records, of five hundred monks, that "ninety have gained liberation both-ways, the rest liberation by wisdom." The thesis: the distinction lies in whether concentration is gained (whether cessation-attainment and the bodily realization of the eight liberations), not in the presence or degree of exhaustion and mastery — both kinds are alike in the exhaustion of taints, alike sever the hindrance of defilement, alike are the final adept, and so are alike the mastery of exhaustion. What the both-ways "both" adds is, beyond the hindrance of defilement, the further removal of the "hindrance to liberation" (the hindrance of concentration) — one further measure of concentrative mastery (the bodily realization of the eight liberations and cessation-attainment); yet this is a further face of mastery (autonomy in concentration), not a greater quantity of exhaustion (a deeper liberation). The argument runs in three layers: the canonical definitions of the two kinds (by wisdom, wisdom only; both-ways, also concentration); why the two coexist (by the keenness or dullness of the five faculties, by whether concentration is gained — not by the depth of exhaustion); and the criterion of mastery — the mastery of exhaustion is equal in both kinds, and the both-ways "also-concentration" is an added face of concentrative mastery, not an added quantity of the mastery of exhaustion. Conclusion: holding to P01's frame — mastery is the signature of exhaustion; the exhaustion-signature of the two kinds is one and the same, and liberation both-ways merely countersigns one further stroke of "concentrative mastery," not a "higher exhaustion."Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.