The MeasureThe SotāpannaThe SakadāgāminThe AnāgāminThe Fruit of Arahantship (Approach)
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Part 3 · The Sakadāgāmin

Four Śrāmaṇa Fruitions · 1 papers

This part has a single chapter, and it must answer the finest-grained question in the book.[ from the book's part intro ]

論Study the papersfootnotes · abstracts
05Thinning as SeveranceThe subtraction established in the first four papers measured only walls of "wholly severed" — a fetter severed and abiding. The once-returner (sakadāgāmin) brings the first real difficulty: its mark is "thinning greed-hatred-delusion" — sensual greed and ill-will are not wholly severed, only attenuated. How can a wall taken down only partly still constitute a "fruit"? Is "thinning" not precisely the "degree-magnitude" the earlier papers rebutted — the halfway house of accumulation — rather than the severance of subtraction? The thesis: "thinning" is not a halfway house but the real unit of reduction by which subtraction operates upon a graded fetter. The Abhidharmakośa gives the precise mechanism: the desire-realm cultivation-defilements divide into nine grades; the stream-enterer advances to sever through the sixth grade and thereby becomes a once-returner, named "thinning" "because only the lower-grade greed-hatred-delusion remains." The crux: the six grades severed are an unconditioned cessation, severed and unable to re-arise (true severance, not attenuation); the lower grade remaining is a fetter not yet severed (to be exhausted later). So "thinning" is not the vague quantum-feel of "the whole has grown one shade fainter," but the precise reduction of "six of nine grades permanently severed, three definitely remaining." The once-returner's "one return" is exactly the fixed rebirth-number this reduction yields. Conclusion: thinning greed-hatred-delusion is subtraction realized by grade — the wall is not half-fallen but a nine-part wall whose six parts are permanently taken down; "thinning" still measures "what is gone" (the six grades severed), not "how much has faded" (a diminution of experience).
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Four Śrāmaṇa Fruitions · in the bookcontinuous prose · apparatus removedRead from here →
Thinned Is Not FadedPart 3 · Ch. 1

Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.