When a mendicant has freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom,
such a mendicant is called one who:
lifted the cross-bar
filled in the moat
pulled up the pillar
banner lowered
Extracted from AN 5.72
I wonder
What scenes from daily life these similes described, for bhikkhus wandering with the Buddha?
What is the meaning?
I can project my imagination onto these similes but thats unlikely to be accurate.
For instance I thought the “pulled up the pillar” was likely about a pillar for tying animals to, but the dog on a leash simile " tethered it.. would just keep running and circling around that post or pillar" uses thambhe for pillar SN 22.99 ; whereas here the “pulled up the pillar” simile uses:
So, it looks like these are the same similes in MN22:30.1
Bhante Sujato has some notes there, but it may not answer your question.
If Buddhist studies programmes had as many PhD candidates as Christians, we would by no have multiple dissertations on door hardware in the time of the Buddha.
To my imagination (also fallible but at least somewhat informed!) these are different similes for the destruction of the ego.
In Dhp 154, the Buddha declared his Enlightenment thus:
I’ve seen you, house-builder!
You won’t build a house again!
Your rafters are all broken,
your roof-peak is demolished.
My mind, set on demolition,
has reached the end of craving.
For the last one, for example, the ego is like waving your banner around: “look at me! here I am! This is what I stand for!” Lowering the banner is, to me, not waving your flag around like this: one aspect of letting go of identity.
