The four stages of enlightenment in Buddhism are the four progressive stages culminating in fullenlightenment as an Arahat.

These four stages are Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anagami, and Arahat. The Buddha referred to people who are at one of these four stages as noble people (ariya-puggala) and the community of such persons as the noble sangha (ariya-sangha).^[1][2][3]

The teaching of the four stages of enlightenment is a central element of the early Buddhist schools, including the Theravada school of Buddhism, which still survives.

Origins[edit]

In the Sutta Pitaka several types of Buddhist practitioners are described, according to their level of attainment. The standard is four, but there are also longer descriptions with more types. The four are the Stream-enterer, Once-returner, Non-returner and the Arahat.

In the Visuddhimagga the four stages are the culmination of the seven purifications. The descriptions are elaborated and harmonized, giving the same sequence of purifications before attaining each of the four paths and fruits.

The Visuddhimagga stresses the importance of prajna, insight into anatta and the Buddhist teachings, as the main means to liberation. Vipassana has a central role in this. Insight is emphasized by the contemporary Vipassana movement.

Path and Fruit[edit]

Supra-mundane stages, fetters and rebirths (according to the Sutta Piṭaka[4])
stage's "fruit"[5]	abandoned fetters		rebirth(s) until suffering's end
stream-enterer	1. identity view 2. doubt 3. ritual attachment	lower fetters	up to seven more times as a human or in a heaven
once-returner[6]			once more as a human
non-returner	4. sensual desire 5. ill will		once more in a pure abode
arahant	6. material-rebirth lust 7. immaterial-rebirth lust 8. conceit 9. restlessness 10. ignorance	higher fetters	none
Source: Ñāṇamoli & Bodhi (2001), Middle-Length Discourses, pp. 41-43.

See also: Phala

The Sutta Pitaka classifies the four levels according to the levels' attainments. The Sthaviravada/Theravada tradition, which believes that "progress in understanding comes all at once, 'insight' (abhisamaya) does not come 'gradually' (successively - anapurva),"^[7] has elaborated on this classification, describing each of the four levels as a path to be attained suddenly, followed by the realisation of the fruit of the path.

The process of becoming an Arahat is therefore characterized by four distinct and sudden changes, instead of a gradual development.^[8] The same stance is taken in the contemporary Vipassana movement, especially the so-called "New Burmese Method".

The ordinary person[edit]

An ordinary person or puthujjana (Pali; Sanskrit: pṛthagjanai.e. pritha : without, and jnana : knowledge) is trapped in the endless cycling of samsara. One is reborn, lives, and dies in endless rebirths, either as a deva, human, animal, male, female, neuter, ghost, asura, hell being, or various other entities on different categories of existence.

An ordinary entity has never seen and experienced the ultimate truth of Dharma and therefore has no way of finding an end to the predicament. It is only when suffering becomes acute, or seemingly unending, that an entity looks for a "solution" to and, if fortunate, finds the Dharma.

The four stages of attainment[edit]

The Sangha of the Tathagata's disciples (Ariya Sangha) can be described as including four or eight kinds of individuals. There are four [groups of noble disciples] when path and fruit are taken as pairs, and eight groups of individuals, when each path and fruit are taken separately:

1. (1) the path to stream-entry; (2) the fruition of stream-entry;
2. (3) the path to once-returning; (4) the fruition of once-returning;
3. (5) the path to non-returning; (6) the fruition of non-returning;
4. (7) the path to arahantship; (8) the fruition of arahantship.

Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn in portrait by Anton Graff, 1773
Born	September 6, 1729 Dessau, Principality of Anhalt
Died	January 4, 1786 (aged 56) Berlin, Margraviate of Brandenburg
Religion	Judaism
Era	18th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Haskalah, Enlightenment philosophy
Influences	[show]
Influenced	[show]
Signature

Moses Mendelssohn's glasses, in the Berlin Jewish Museum

Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729^[1] – 4 January 1786) was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the Haskalah, the 'Jewish enlightenment' of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is indebted.

Born to a poor Jewish family in Dessau and originally destined for a rabbinical career, Mendelssohn educated himself in German thought and literature and from his writings on philosophy and religion came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Christian and Jewish inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire. He also established himself as an important figure in the Berlin textile industry, which was the foundation of his family's wealth.

Moses Mendelssohn's descendants include the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn and the founders of the Mendelssohn & Co. banking house.

Youth[edit]

Moses Mendelssohn was born in Dessau. His father's name was Mendel, and it was Moses who adopted the surname Mendelssohn ("Mendel's son"). Moses's son Abraham Mendelssohn wrote in 1829 (to his son Felix Mendelssohn ), "My father felt that the name Moses Ben Mendel Dessau would handicap him in gaining the needed access to those who had the better education at their disposal. Without any fear that his own father would take offense, my father assumed the name Mendelssohn. The change, though a small one, was decisive."^[2]

Mendel was an impoverished scribe — a writer of torah scrolls — and his son Moses in his boyhood developed curvature of the spine. Moses's early education was cared for by his father and by the local rabbi, David Fränkel, who besides teaching him the Bible and Talmud, introduced to him the philosophy ofMaimonides. Fränkel received a call to Berlin in 1743. A few months later Moses followed him.

A refugee Pole, Zamoscz, taught him mathematics, and a young Jewish physician taught him Latin. He was, however, mainly self-taught. He learned to spell and to philosophize at the same time (according to the historian Graetz). With his scanty earnings he bought a Latin copy of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and mastered it with the aid of a Latin dictionary. He then made the acquaintance of Aaron Solomon Gumperz, who taught him basic French and English. In 1750, a wealthy silk-merchant, Isaac Bernhard, appointed him to teach his children. Mendelssohn soon won the confidence of Bernhard, who made the young student successively his bookkeeper and his partner.

It was possibly Gumperz who introduced Mendelssohn to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in 1754, who became one of his greatest friends. The story goes that the first time Mendelssohn met Lessing, they played chess; therefore, in Lessing's play Nathan the Wise Nathan and the character Saladin first meet during a game of chess. Lessing had recently produced the drama Die Juden, whose moral was that a Jew can possess nobility of character. This notion was, in the contemporary Berlin ofFrederick the Great, generally ridiculed as untrue. Lessing found in Mendelssohn the realization of his dream. Within a few months, the two became closely intellectually allied. Lessing also brought Mendelssohn to public attention for the first time: Mendelssohn had written an essay attacking Germans' neglect of their native philosophers (principally Gottfried Leibniz), and lent the manuscript to Lessing. Without consulting the author, Lessing published Mendelssohn's Philosophical Conversations (Philosophische Gespräche) anonymously in 1755. In the same year there appeared in Danzig (Gdańsk) an anonymous satire, Pope a Metaphysician(Pope ein Metaphysiker), which turned out to be the joint work of Lessing and Mendelssohn.

Early prominence as philosopher and critic[edit]

Mendelssohn became (1756–1759) the leading spirit of Friedrich Nicolai's important literary undertakings, the Bibliothek and the Literaturbriefe, and ran some risk (which Frederick's good nature mitigated) by criticizing the poems of the King of Prussia. In 1762 he married Fromet Guggenheim, who survived him by twenty-six years. In the year following his marriage Mendelssohn won the prize offered by the Berlin Academy for an essay on the application of mathematical proofs to metaphysics, On Evidence in the Metaphysical Sciences; among the competitors were Thomas Abbt and Immanuel Kant (who came second).^[3] In October 1763 the king granted Mendelssohn, but not his wife or children, the privilege of Protected Jew (Schutzjude)—which assured his right to undisturbed residence in Berlin.^[4]

As a result of his correspondence with Abbt, Mendelssohn resolved to write on the Immortality of the Soul. Materialistic views were at the time rampant and fashionable, and faith in immortality was at a low ebb. At this favourable juncture appeared the Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Phädon or On the Immortality of Souls; 1767). Modelled on Plato's dialogue of the same name, Mendelssohn's work possessed some of the charm of its Greek exemplar and impressed the German world with its beauty and lucidity of style. The Phädon was an immediate success, and besides being often reprinted inGerman was speedily translated into nearly all the European languages, including English. The author was hailed as the "German Plato," or the "German Socrates"; royal and other aristocratic friends showered attentions on him, and it was said that "no stranger who came to Berlin failed to pay his personal respects to the German Socrates."

Haskalah (Hebrew: השכלה‎; "enlightenment" or "education" from sekhel "intellect", "mind"), the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies,Hebrew language, and Jewish history. Haskalah in this sense marked the beginning of the wider engagement of European Jews with the secular world, ultimately resulting in the first Jewish political movements and the struggle for Jewish emancipation. The division of Ashkenazi Jewry into religious movements or denominations, especially in North America and anglophone countries, began historically as a reaction to Haskalah. Leaders of the Haskalah movement were called Maskilim (Hebrew: משכילים).=It was based upon the honorific maskil, meaning "scholar" or "enlightened man," used by Isaac Israeli ben Joseph in the 14th century to refer to his Italian Jewish colleagues.

In a more restricted sense, haskalah can also denote the study of Biblical Hebrew and of the poetical, scientific, and critical parts of Hebrew literature. The term is sometimes used to describe modern critical study of Jewish religious books, such as the Mishnah and Talmud, when used to differentiate these modern modes of study from the methods used by Orthodox Jews.

Haskalah differed from Deism of the European Enlightenment by seeking modernised philosophical and critical revision within Jewish belief, and lifestyle acceptable foremancipation rights.^[1] Rejectionist tendencies within it led to assimilation, motivating establishment of Reform and Neo-Orthodox denominations. Its outreach eastwards opposed resurgent mysticism and traditional scholarship. While early Jewish individuals such as Spinoza^[2] and Salomon Maimon^[3] advocated secular identity, it remained until the late 19th century for secular Jewish ideologies to replace Judaism. In the 20th century Gershom Scholem reestablished the historical significance of Jewish mysticism, dismissed by Haskalah historiography.

Origins in Germany[edit]

v t e

As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities, and as long as all social intercourse with their Gentile neighbors was limited, the rabbi was the most influential member of the Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and "clergy", a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of ghetto," not just physically but also mentally and spiritually in order to assimilate among Gentile nations.

The example of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), a Prussian Jew, served to lead this movement, which was also shaped by Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn (1754–1835) and Joseph Perl (1773–1839). Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews. Mendelssohn also provided methods for Jews to enter the general society of Germany. A good knowledge of the German language was necessary to secure entrance into cultured German circles, and an excellent means of acquiring it was provided by Mendelssohn in his German translation of the Torah. This work became a bridge over which ambitious young Jews could pass to the great world of secular knowledge. The Biur, or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision, was designed to counteract the influence of traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis. Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of Haskalah.

Some famous Lord Buddha Quotes:

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.
Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.
Lord Buddha Quotes

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

When one has the feeling of dislike for evil, when one feels tranquil, one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings; when one has these feelings and appreciates them, one is free of fear.


Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze (Enlightenment Quotes)

Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.
Lord Krishna (Meditation Quotes)

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi Quotes)

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
Mother Teresa (Mother Teresa Quotes)

When you allow God to speak through you and smile upon the earth through you (because you are an unconditional giver, a purposeful being) prosperity will be your reward.
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (God Quotes)