Evidence from Timing of Teaching and Monastery Founding

Luang Por the Good Friend: Part 2 IMPONDERABLES ANYWAY

What exactly is meant by the ‘unshakeable deliverance of mind’? The Buddha taught that four stages of inner liberation may be discerned. Once attained, they cannot be weakened or lost, and hence they may all be deemed ‘unshakeable’. In fact, the word ‘attainment’ here has to be used with some caution. The Buddha defined each stage of liberation in terms of the irrevocable abandonment of specific mental defilements: a ‘deliverance’ from them. The changes that take place at each stage are thus experienced primarily in terms of endings rather than gains. In the central Buddhist metaphor, embodied in the word ‘Buddha’ itself, the experience is referred to as ‘awakening’.

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