Are right knowledge and right release momentary or constant for the arahant?

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I see in MN 117 SuttaCentral that the path can in a way be described as tenfold: the noble eightfold plus “right knowledge” and “right release.” If that is the case, would it be accurate that the arahant treats knowledge and release like a journey and not just a destination? As in, are they perpetually feeling the knowledge and release, or does that happen in a moment, followed by a shift to a different way of being?

I ask for personal and intellectual reasons. For example, with right speech, one is always vigilant to speak rightly. Is it this sort of “always” state for right knowledge and release for the arahant?

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That one.

The enlightened don’t need to be vigilant because the underlying causes of unskillful actions—greed, hatred, and delusion—have been cut off.

In MN 76 this is compared to an amputee. Someone with their legs cut off isn’t always aware of having no legs, but they need merely look down and they immediately know. But of course at no time are they able to walk.

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When you know that the area of the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides of a right triangle you dont need to be vigilant and check every right triangle conforms to your knowledge. You know they do.

You also dont need to hold the knowledge in your conscious mind continually, if you come across a new right triangle, you know the theorum, even if you wherent thinking about it before.

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This simile is a very good answer to this question:

I would like to make a contribution:

  • the arahant have right knowledge about the conditioned phenomena: it’s all impermanent, distressful and void of self
  • the arahant have right knowledge about the three feelings: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.
  • having right knowledge about these (and other things), they have right release: release from greed, anger and delusion. Released from these things, it is impossible to act with wrong intention. Without wrong intention, they don’t have to be vigilant about their motivations.

But they still have to be vigilant about their own capacities, the right time to act and the possible outcomes of their actions. Only the Buddha has the power to act perfectly in these four respects. Arahants are always perfect in their motivations, but may fail in the other respects. Sariputta is an example of this statement.

  • He failed to conduct a brahmin to cessation of becoming, and opted to conduct him to rebirth in the Brahma Realm.
  • He considered to get inactive when the Buddha dismissed a group of noisy monks.
  • He passed to Rāhula, who was already instructed by the Buddha, instructions to meditation that cause some confusion, and the Buddha had to complement his instructions.

His intentions were always perfect in all these situations. Only his timing and other factors were somewhat inadequate.

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While this quote speaks directly to the OP about having constant awareness of Knowledge and Vision, Arahants still do remain vigilant after Awakening. While the Fetters are permanently cut off, and thus re-birth is ended, it does not mean that Arahants stop being vigilant for the rest of this life.

Here are a couple of suttas that state why an Arahant, including the Buddha himself, remains vigilant.

MN4 SuttaCentral
“Now, brahmin, it might be that you think: ‘Perhaps the recluse Gotama is not free from lust, hate, and delusion even today, which is why he still resorts to remote jungle-thicket resting places in the forest.’ But you should not think thus. It is because I see two benefits that I still resort to remote jungle-thicket resting places in the forest: I see a pleasant abiding for myself here and now, and I have compassion for future generations.”

and SN22.122

“But Reverend Sāriputta, what things should a perfected one rationally apply the mind to?”

“Reverend Koṭṭhita, a perfected one should also rationally apply the mind to the five grasping aggregates as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not-self. A perfected one has nothing more to do, and nothing that needs improvement. Still, these things, when developed and cultivated, lead to blissful meditation in the present life, and also to mindfulness and situational awareness.”

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My take is that the four truths only apply when suffering exists. If the first truth applies, the remaining truths apply.

That Gautama described a ten-fold path for the adept speaks to the existence of the first truth on occasion, even for those who have attained to “freedom” and “knowledge”.

In MN 70, Gautama described 7 different “(types of) persons existing in the world”. The first two had nothing further to be done through diligence, their cankers were completely destroyed, but the remaining five did have, their cankers being only partly destroyed if at all. The first person had abided in the “peaceful Deliverances”, the incorporeal jhanas, but was “freed both ways”. The third person had abided in the “peaceful Deliverances”, but was apparently not “freed both ways”. The second person was freed by “intuitive wisdom”.

All seven persons had “seen by means of wisdom”.

In MN 4, Gautama recounts directing his mind in the fourth rupa jhana to “the knowledge and recollection of former habitations”, to “the knowledge of the passing hence and arising of beings”, and to “the knowledge and destruction of the cankers”. The knowledge and destruction of the cankers involved both understanding as it really is the four truths, and understanding as it really is four similar truths about the cankers.

In SN 54.11, Gautama recommends the mindfulness described in SN 54.1 to both those aspiring to the “supreme sanctuary from the yoke” and to “those mendicants who are perfected”. Doesn’t sound like a one and done there.

If mindfulness is not one and done, then as in Maha Satipatthana (DN 22), there will be mindfulness of the four rupa jhanas, and of the elements of the path leading to the end of suffering.

Gautama said that seven days and seven nights of Satipatthana would result in “profound knowledge”, but how many are able to direct their minds as he did in the fourth jhana, to former habitations and the arising of beings (much less seeing as it really is the four truths and the cankers)?

You get the brass ring if you are freed and knowledge of that freedom arises, but in fact you remain on the carousel. Or as Ch’an master Yuanwu put it, “if you feel like stopping, then stop. Don’t ever think that you will be finished” (words to that effect, from Zen Letters tr. Cleary).

I’ll add that I don’t find Sariputta’s statements to be as consistent as Gautama’s, and so tend to disregard them, in spite of Gautama’s expressed confidence in them (which may or may not have been an addition, IMO).