Is there a moment in the Sotāpatti phala?

Question:  Is there a moment in the Sotāpatti phala?

Than Ajahn: You’ll experience the fruit of your practice when you have overcome your desire not to get old, get sick and die. You will know and you call that person: ‘the one who knows’.  Whether you want to call a name or anything, that person knows. We use the name for that person as ‘you.’ But actually it’s ‘the mind who knows’. 

So, the mind knows when he has got rid of his problem. There are four stages of problems. The first stage is the problem of a Sotāpanna.

The problem that a Sotāpanna can solve is the problem of the body — of the ageing, sickness, and death of the body. The next step is the problem of attachment to other people’s bodies. 

A Sakadāgāmī still has sexual desire towards other people’s bodies but when he starts to contemplate on asubha nature of the body, he starts to get rid of or eliminate his sexual desire. A Sakadāgāmī can get rid of the body attachment partially, not all. He knows that he has lessened his sexual desire because whenever his sexual desire arises, it will stop if he remembers asubha. But at times he forgets, so he cannot stop his sexual desire. He can go either way and the chances are the same. 

Sometimes he can and sometimes he can’t. 

But with an Anāgāmī, he can stop his sexual desire all the time. Every time sexual desire arises, he will think about asubha right away.

Dhamma in English, Apr 3, 2017. 

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

www.phrasuchart.com

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