Five Ways a Spark Goes Out

4.2 Five Ways a Spark Goes Out

After non-return, no uniformity.

That is this station's second surprise. By the straight-line picture, the story past the crossing should be simple: ascend to the form realm, wait for the five higher fetters to be exhausted, and arahantship follows—one road, nothing more. Instead, the canon here spreads out a classification of remarkable fineness. The Saṃyukta-āgama records: at Jeta's Grove, a monk came to the World-Honored One and asked what the factors of awakening are; the World-Honored One taught him how the seven factors arise in sequence and are fulfilled by cultivation, and then, sitting by sitting, counted the fruits of cultivating them—at one sitting, two kinds of fruit; at another, four; until the widest count of all: cultivate the seven factors of awakening, cultivate them much, and one obtains seven fruits, seven benefits. The first two are of this very life; the remaining five are precisely the non-returner's five roads to nibbāna:

At the time of death the five lower fetters are exhausted, and one attains final nibbāna in the interval; if not final nibbāna in the interval, then final nibbāna upon rebirth; if not upon rebirth, then without exertion; if not without exertion, then with exertion; if not with exertion, then the upstream course to final nibbāna.

Watch the syntax first. Five gaits, one shared premise—the five lower fetters exhausted; then "if not the former, then the latter," listed in relay. One premise, paths in succession—the syntax itself hints: these five are not five fruits ranked high and low, but five roads under a single premise.

And exactly there stands the question: the severance being equal, why do the roads divide? The quantity the same—why is the journey not?

The Pure Abodes, and the Five Roads

First, the place-names and the road-names. This layer is the treasury's fine ruling; note its station and proceed.

Where is the non-returner reborn? In the uppermost five heavens of the form realm's fourth absorption: No Affliction, No Fever, Beautiful Appearance, Clear Sight, and Akaniṣṭha, the Limit of Form. These five are dwelt in by noble ones alone, and so are called the Pure Abodes. The five roads, the treatise defines one by one. In the interval: final nibbāna in the intermediate state—between dying here and being born there—without ever actually taking birth in the Abodes; the swiftest. Upon rebirth: born into the Abodes, and soon after, final nibbāna. With exertion: born, and only after long time and much applied effort. Without exertion: born, and after long dwelling, attaining it effortlessly, of its own course. Upstream: "upstream" means moving upward—ascending heaven by heaven, the wisdom-inclined as far as Akaniṣṭha, the concentration-inclined as far as the peak of the formless; and the manner of ascent divides again into full-leap, half-leap, and dying-at-every-station. The treasury keeps this account down to such detail.

Two notes in passing. The "intermediate state" on which the first road rests—the passage-body between death and birth—is judged differently by the schools; this book recounts the matter after the Kośa and does not adjudicate the dispute. And the middle two roads stand in different order in sutta and treatise: the sutta places "without exertion" first, the treatise "with exertion." This book follows each source in its own place, and does not quietly even them out.

Red-Hot Iron, Flying Sparks

Why are the five roads a division of journey and not of rank? The sutta supplies its own simile, and none fits better. The Madhyama-āgama records, in the discourse on Where Good Persons Go: the Buddha, staying at Sāvatthī in Jeta's Grove, told the monks—I will teach you the seven places to which good persons go, and the nibbāna without remainder; listen closely, attend well. Seven kinds of good person, and the practice of all seven is one practice. Before each of the seven, the World-Honored One begins from the same words:

In me there is no self, and nothing belonging to self; in time to come there will be no self, and nothing belonging to self. What has already come to be, is severed; severed, it is relinquished. There is pleasure, without being stained; there is conjunction, without clinging.

No self, nothing of self; what has arisen, severed; what is severed, let go; pleasure without staining, meeting without clinging—seven persons, one and the same practice, "seen by the unsurpassed wisdom of the traceless quenching, though not yet realized." Only with the practice held equal does the World-Honored One ask: practicing so, where does such a one go? The answer is a run of sparks. The first: like burning chaff, out the instant it kindles. The second:

It is as when iron is glowing through, ablaze, and one strikes it with a hammer: the sparks burst flying into the air, and having risen, at once go out.

Iron heated through, the hammer falls, sparks burst out—one goes out the moment it rises; one turns back from its rise and goes out before reaching the ground: the first three sparks all die before landing, and all three are persons of nibbāna in the interval—three instants of one road, early, middle, late. The fourth spark falls to the ground and goes out—nibbāna upon rebirth. The farther sparks land and burn on a while before dying—those are the ones who, born there, still need time and work: through to the upstream walker, ascending as far as the Limit of Form. The Madhyama-āgama counts this run of sparks as seven—the in-between attainment here opened into three instants—where the Saṃyukta's list holds five. The groupings differ; the logic is one line: the nearer the spark bursts, the sooner it dies.

The simile's point should be said outright: one iron, one hammer-blow, one kind of spark. Between spark and spark there is no difference of size, none of worth; there is only the lateness or earliness of going out. Not one word of the simile compares the sparks' height—what it compares, from first to last, is time.

Fruit Fixed by Severance, Journey Fixed by Conditions

Now the opening question can be answered head-on: the severance equal, why five roads?

On the fruit's side, the answer carries the book's master rule: the fruit is fixed by what is severed. The five persons are identical in severance—five lower exhausted, five higher not yet—so they must be identical in fruit: all five are anāgāmins, without exception, without rank. The book's ruler shows its clearing power here once more: it bars "difference of journey" from the precincts of "fruit." The fruit recognizes severance only, not speed; "arriving sooner" is not on the roll of severed fetters, and so makes no difference of fruit. The in-between attainer is no higher anāgāmin; the upstream one, no lower. People landing from the same ferry crossing—some stride, some stroll; the shore is one shore.

On the journey's side, the five roads' difference comes from the conditions under which what remains is severed. The five lower exhausted—the same; the five higher unexhausted—the same; but when that remainder is exhausted, where, and with how much effort differs person by person—faculties sharp or dull, the mixed cultivation of absorption present or absent, applied effort much or little. Three conditions—timing, exertion, place—open five roads. And note: all three conditions govern the process of the unsevered being severed; not one touches the content of what is already severed. So the five roads divide the journey, not the fruit.

Together they yield a deep property of the subtraction, worth saying slowly: equal severance does not entail equal journey. The fruit is fixed by severance—hence five persons, one fruit; the journey is fixed by the conditions of severing the remainder—hence one fruit, five roads. The ruler measures walls, not walking speed; but walking speed is real, and the canon classifies it faithfully. Two layers, each in its place, neither swallowing the other.

Two Things to See Clearly Here

First, the five attainers are not five ranks of noble ones. "In-between is swiftest" slides easily into "in-between is highest"—and that slide is a return to measuring the fruit by something other than severance. Swift is a swiftness of journey; fruit is a fruit of severance. The spark simile sealed this long ago: one kind of spark, differing only in when it goes out, never in size. Let no one here raise the mind that picks the higher—there is no higher to pick.

Second, "all the same anāgāmin" is no license for slack. The fruit being equal, the speed of trending to the remainderless hangs on mixed cultivation and applied effort—and there a practitioner's own strength still tells. Past the crossing, severing the remainder is real work; the work is not wasted. Certainty gives the direction and the ending, not an exemption from practice. And the words from which the Good Persons discourse begins each of its seven have already said the work's whole content: what has come to be, severed; what is severed, relinquished; pleasure without staining, conjunction without clinging.

Part Four, Gathered

Take the two chapters together, and the spark image runs through the whole part. The spark struck from the iron—that is the crossing, chapter one's affair: one iron, one change of kind. The spark's flight and dying—that is the severing of the remainder unto final nibbāna, chapter two's affair: one kind of spark, several timings. The striking is one; the goings-out differ.

And the words "the remainder" have already called the next part to the door. These gaits all walk one and the same stretch: severing the five higher fetters—craving for form, craving for the formless, conceit, restlessness, ignorance: the last five, and the finest. The five attainments are that stretch's timings; the next part walks into the stretch itself.