“Mendicants, when these four times are rightly developed and progressed, they gradually lead to the ending of defilements. What four? A time for listening to the teaching, a time for discussing the teaching, a time for serenity, and a time for discernment.
AN4.147
Suppose the human mind operates in a cycle consisting of 4 stages: suffering, arising, cessation, and path.
In your opinion, which stages do the actions in the above sutta correspond to and why?
Or maybe my assumption is not correct. Any ideas?
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Buddha discovered the Noble Eightfold Path after cessation, so I seem to understand what you are saying.
I think, however, that because not all of us are Enlightened, especially like the Buddha (that would be an amazing feat!), that all of the four things you have mentioned, in suffering, arising, cessation, and path, are all available in a time for listening, discussing, serenity, and discernment. One does not need to be cessated or even begin fully on the Path of Buddhism to benefit from the Buddha’s words. Buddha met many Ascetics and Brahmins during the time He was expounding the Dhamma when they could have been in any four of the stages of suffering, arising, cessation, or path, and they could have benefitted from listening, discussing, serenity, and discernment interchangeably at different times. So I think that the benefit is interchangeable, and wouldn’t have a “set” correspondence. Namaste.
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Yes, it isn’t. Sutta simply describes progressive stages of practice. After hearing the Dhamma, one discuss points which are unclear, when doubts about the meaning are clarified, one unifies mind, and concentrated mind sees things as they are.
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