Four stages of enlightenment


The four stages of enlightenment in Early Buddhism and Theravada
are four progressive stages culminating in full enlightenment as an Arahant.
These four stages are Sotāpanna, Sakadāgāmi, Anāgāmi, and Arahant. The oldest Buddhist texts portray the Buddha as referring to people who are at one of these four stages as noble people and the community of such persons as the noble sangha.
The teaching of the four stages of enlightenment is a central element of the early Buddhist schools, including the Theravada school of Buddhism, which still survives.

Origins

In the Sutta Pitaka several types of Buddhist practitioners are described, according to their level of attainment. The standard is four, but there are also longer descriptions with more types. The four are the Stream-enterer, Once-returner, Non-returner and the Arahant.
In the Visuddhimagga the four stages are the culmination of the seven purifications. The descriptions are elaborated and harmonized, giving the same sequence of purifications before attaining each of the four paths and fruits.
The Visuddhimagga stresses the importance of paññā, insight into anattā and the Buddhist teachings, as the main means to liberation. Vipassanā has a central role in this. Insight is emphasized by the contemporary Vipassana movement.

Path and Fruit

A Stream-enterer is free from:
A Once-returner has greatly attenuated:
A Non-returner is free from:
An Arahant is free from all of the five lower fetters and the five higher fetters, which are:
The Sutta Pitaka classifies the four levels according to the levels' attainments. In the Sthaviravada and Theravada traditions, which teach that progress in understanding comes all at once, and that 'insight' does not come 'gradually'," this classification is further elaborated, with each of the four levels described as a path to be attained suddenly, followed by the realisation of the fruit of the path.
According to the Theravada exegesis, the process of becoming an Arahat is therefore characterized by four distinct and sudden changes, although in the sutras it says that the path has a gradual development, with gnosis only after a long stretch, just as the ocean has a gradual shelf, a gradual inclination with a sudden drop only after a long stretch. The Mahasanghika had the doctrine of ekaksana-citt, "according to which a Buddha knows everything in a single thought-instant."

The ordinary person

An ordinary person or puthujjana is trapped in the endless cycling of Samsara|. One is reborn, lives, and dies in endless rebirths, either as a deva, human, animal, male, female, neuter, ghost, asura, hell being, or various other entities on different categories of existence.
An ordinary entity has never seen and experienced the ultimate truth of Dharma and therefore has no way of finding an end to the predicament. It is only when suffering becomes acute, or seemingly unending, that an entity looks for a "solution" to and, if fortunate, finds the Dharma.

The four stages of attainment

The Sangha of the Tathagata's disciples can be described as including four or eight kinds of individuals. There are four when path and fruit are taken as pairs, and eight groups of individuals, when each path and fruit are taken separately:
  1. the path to stream-entry; the fruition of stream-entry;
  2. the path to once-returning; the fruition of once-returning;
  3. the path to non-returning; the fruition of non-returning;
  4. the path to arahantship; the fruition of arahantship.

    Stream-enterer

The first stage is that of Sotāpanna, literally meaning "one who enters the stream," with the stream being the supermundane Noble Eightfold Path regarded as the highest Dharma. The stream-enterer is also said to have "opened the eye of the Dharma".
A stream-enterer reaches arahantship within seven rebirths upon opening the eye of the Dharma.
Because the stream-enterer has attained an intuitive grasp of Buddhist doctrine and has complete confidence or Saddha in the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and has removed the sankharas that force rebirth in lower planes, that individual will not be reborn in any plane lower than the human.

Once-returner

The second stage is that of the , literally meaning "one who once comes ". The once-returner will at most return to the realm of the senses one more time. Both the stream-enterer and the once-returner have abandoned the first three fetters. The stream-enterer and once-returner are distinguished by the fact that the once-returner has weakened lust, hate, and delusion to a greater degree. The once-returner therefore has fewer than seven rebirths. Once-returners do not have only one more rebirth, as the name suggests, for that may not even be said with certainty about the non-returner who can take multiple rebirths in the five "Pure Abodes". They do, however, only have one more rebirth in the realm of the senses, excluding, of course, the planes of hell, animals and hungry ghosts.

Non-returner

The third stage is that of the , literally meaning "one who does not come ". The non-returner, having overcome sensuality, does not return to the human world, or any unfortunate world lower than that, after death. Instead, non-returners are reborn in one of the five special worlds in Rūpadhātu called the worlds, or "Pure Abodes", and there attain Nirvana|; Pāli: Nibbana; some of them are reborn a second time in a higher world of the Pure Abodes.
An has abandoned the five lower fetters, out of ten total fetters, that bind beings to the cycle of rebirth. An is well-advanced.

Arahant

The fourth stage is that of Arahant, a fully awakened person. They have abandoned all ten fetters and, upon death will never be reborn in any plane or world, having wholly escaped Samsara |. An Arahant has attained awakening by following the path given by the Buddha. In Theravada Buddhism the term Buddha is reserved for ones who "self-enlighten" such as Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, who discovered the path by himself.