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Book: Entering the Stream to Enlightenment

Chapter: ‘Path, fetter-breaking-experience and effect’ (of the fetter-breaking- experience)

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.24149

Blurb:

Based on the conclusion that attainment of a phala entails a specific, fetterbreaking-experience, in Chapter 4 we proceed to establish that a supramundane “phala” in the Suttas is a fetter-breaking-experience together with its ongoing effects, as opposed to the Pāli commentarial usage in which a “phala” of the Path is just a “peak-experience” that lasts only a few moments following the fetterbreaking “path” moment. This chapter includes:

1) Definition of the word “phala”: This extracts the various meanings attributed to the word “phala” in general.

2) References in the Nikāyas to Path, fetter-breaking-experience and the effect (of the fetter-breaking-experience) as three different phenomena:

This extracts evidence from the Nikāyas to highlight references to fetter-breaking-experiences and their effects as distinctly different phenomena.

3) Implications of the thesis of “Path, fetter-breaking-experience and effect”

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