..续本文上一页. Just as a lamp simultaneously burns the wick, dispels the darkness, creates light, and uses up the oil, so the supra-mundane knowledge simultaneously understands suffering, abandons craving, realizes nibbána, and develops the path. [28]

　　The breakthrough to the unconditioned comes in four distinct stages called the four supra-mundane paths. Each momentary path-experience eradicates a determinate group of defilements ranked in degrees of coarseness and subtlety, so that the first path eliminates the coarsest defilements and the fourth path the most subtle. The defilements cut off by the paths are generally classified as ten "fetters" (samyojana), receiving this de, signation because they fetter sentient beings to samsára. With the first path the yogin eradicates the first three fetters -- personality view, doubt, and misapprehension of rules and observances. Thereby he becomes a "stream-enterer" (sotápanna), one who has entered the stream of the Dhamma and is bound for final deliverance in a maximum of seven more lives passed in the human or heavenly worlds. The second path weakens all the remaining fetters to the point where they no longer arise frequently or obsessively, but cuts off none completely; with its attainment the yogin advances to the stage of a "once-returner" (Sakrdagamin), one who is due to return to the sense sphere world only one more time. By eliminating sensual desire and aversion by means of the third path, he attains the state of a non-returner (Anagamin), no longer bound to the sense sphere but heading for rebirth in a pure pine abode, where he will reach the final goal. The fourth path cuts off the remaining five fetters -- desire for existence in the fine material and immaterial planes, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. With its attainment the yogin becomes an arahat, who has destroyed all the defilements and reached the state of perfect purification.

　　Emancipation (Vimutti)

　　"Dispassion is the supporting condition for emancipation": Each of the supra-mundane path-moments is immediately followed by several moments of a different kind of supra-mundane experience called "fruition" (phala). Fruition marks the enjoyment of the realized degree of release effected by the path”s work of eradicating defilements. Whereas the attainment of the path is an extremely intense exhilarating experience requiring the expenditure of a tremendous quantum of energy, the attainment of fruition is characterized by its peacefulness, relaxedness, and blissful quiescence. If the path-attainment be illustrated by a captive”s sudden bursting of the chains that hold him in captivity, fruition may be compared to his savoring the taste of freedom that lies beyond the captive state.

　　The completion of the fourth path and fruition results in full emancipation (vimutti): "With the destruction of the cankers, he directly realizes for himself, enters, and abides in that emancipation of mind, emancipation of wisdom, which is canker-less."[29] The subtlest and most tenacious fetters have been broken, and there is nothing now that makes for further bondage. Having destroyed the mental corruptions at their basic level of latency, the yogin has completed his task. There is nothing more to do, and nothing to add to what has been done. He abides in the living experience of deliverance.

　　The emancipation realized by the arahat has a twofold aspect. One aspect is the emancipation from ignorance and defilements experienced during the course of his lifetime, the other the emancipation from repeated existence attained with his passing away. Through his complete penetration of the four noble truths, the arahat has eradicated ignorance and released his mind from the grip of the passions. The fading away of the passions issues in a stainless purity…

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