| | Author: Abe_Dunkelheit
Nanavira Thera writes In L. 50 :
I venture to think that if you actually read through the whole of the Vinaya and the Suttas you would be aghast at some of the things a real live sotápanna is capable of. As a bhikkhu he is capable of suicide (but so also is an arahat); he is capable of breaking all the lesser Vinaya rules (M. 48: i,323-5; A. III,85: i,231-2); he is capable of disrobing on account of sensual desires (e.g. the Ven. Citta Hatthisáriputta -- A. VI,60: iii,392-9); he is capable (to some degree) of anger, ill-will, jealousy, stinginess, deceit, craftiness, shamelessness, and brazenness (A. II,16: i,96). As a layman he is capable (contrary to popular belief) of breaking any or all of the five precepts (though as soon as he has done so he recognizes his fault and repairs the breach, unlike the puthujjana who is content to leave the precepts broken).
There are some things in the Suttas that have so much shocked the Commentator that he has been obliged to provide patently false explanations (I am thinking in particular of the arahat's suicide in M. 144: iii,266 and in the Saláyatana Samy. 87: iv,55-60 and of a drunken sotápanna in the Sotápatti Samy. 24: v,375-7). What the sotápanna is absolutely incapable of doing is the following (M. 115: iii,64-5):
To take any determination (sankhára) as permanent, To take any determination as pleasant, To take any thing (dhamma) as self, To kill his mother, To kill his father, To kill an arahat, Maliciously to shed a Buddha's blood, To split the Sangha, To follow any teacher other than the Buddha.
All these things a puthujjana can do.
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Daniel writes:
"peaking in generalities, realized beings are capable of doing, saying, feeling and thinking anything that non-realized beings are capable of. "
So does this mean Arahats CAN actually kill their fathers, mothers, their fellow arahats, and even Buddhas?! |