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Going With the Stream—or Against It

AN 4.5, the Anusota Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 3 min · 416 words

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Before you read

This teaching turns the path into one river image. Drifting downstream means following the easy pull of sensual indulgence and harmful behavior. Going upstream means resisting that pull, even when doing so feels difficult.

The first two descriptions are directions of movement, not permanent kinds of human being. The last two use the early Buddhist map of awakening: one person will not return to ordinary sensual existence, while the other has completed the crossing. You can follow the practical image—drifting, struggling, becoming steady, and reaching dry land—before deciding what you think about the text's claims concerning rebirth.

One phrase is especially honest: a person may go upstream while distressed and in tears. Beginning to act against a well-established habit is not always peaceful, but it changes the direction of travel.

Translation

Four Ways of Meeting the Stream

"Bhikkhus, four kinds of people are found in the world.

Which four?

A person going with the stream.

A person going against the stream.

A person standing firm.

And a brahmin who has crossed over, gone to the far shore, and stands on dry land.

Going With the Stream

Who is the person who goes with the stream?

It is someone who indulges in sensual pleasures and does harmful actions.

This is called a person who goes with the stream.

Going Against the Stream

Who is the person who goes against the stream?

It is someone who does not indulge in sensual pleasures or do harmful actions. Even while suffering and distressed—weeping, with tears on their face—they live the full and pure spiritual life.

This is called a person who goes against the stream.

Standing Firm

Who is the person who stands firm?

It is someone who, with the wearing away of the five lower fetters, is spontaneously reborn elsewhere. They reach final nibbāna there and will not return from that world.

This is called a person who stands firm.

Reaching Dry Land

Who is the brahmin who has crossed over, gone to the far shore, and stands on dry land?

It is someone who, with the wearing away of the outflows, realizes for themselves the release of mind and release through discernment, both free of outflows. They enter and live in these releases here and now.

This is called a brahmin who has crossed over, gone to the far shore, and stands on dry land.

These are the four kinds of people found in the world.

The Four in Verse

People unrestrained in sensual pleasures, still caught in passion and enjoying those pleasures here, return to birth and old age again and again. Overwhelmed by ignorant wanting, they go with the stream.

So a clear-sighted person, with remembering established, does not indulge in sensual pleasures or harmful actions. Even through pain, they should let sensual pleasures go. Such a person is said to go against the stream.

Someone who has abandoned five stains, a fully developed trainee who cannot fall back, master of their heart, with their faculties unified, is called a person who stands firm.

Whoever has fully understood things high and low has swept them away; they have ended and are no more. That sage has completed the spiritual life, gone to the world's end, and reached the far shore."

The fifth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (24)
against the stream
Resisting the current of sensual indulgence and harmful action, even when changing direction is difficult.
bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
birth
This project's rendering of "jāti": birth, coming into being. In the dependent-arising sequence, ageing and dying depend on it. In MN 141 the word appears once in its everyday sense instead, in a simile about a mother.
brahmin
Originally a member of ancient India's hereditary priestly class. These texts sometimes reuse the title for an ideal practitioner who has completed the path. Context shows whether caste or conduct is the point.
crossed over
Having completed the crossing rather than merely moving toward the other side. This preserves the river image used for completion of the path.
faculties
The capacities used in practice, especially confidence, energy, remembering, unification of mind, and discernment. You can train them and bring them into balance.
far shore
The safe side of the river image: the completion reached after crossing beyond the forces that keep a person bound.
final nibbāna
The final-completion use of nibbāna language. It is not a synonym for death, annihilation, or heaven.
five lower fetters
Five patterns said to bind a person to ordinary sensual existence: self-view, doubt, grasping at rules and observances, sensual passion, and aversion.
heart
This project's rendering of "citta": the feeling side of mind. It takes on moods, wants, leans, and reacts. Practice can gladden, steady, train, and release it. Some call it the "heart-mind" or "feeling mind". Here "heart" does not mean only emotion, or the physical organ.
ignorant wanting
Wanting something you can't have right now. This project's rendering of "taṇhā", often translated "craving". We call it ignorant because it comes from not seeing clearly; ordinary, sensible wanting is something else.
outflows
This project's rendering of "āsavā" -- deep-running habits that keep seeping out and driving behaviour, classically sensuality, becoming, and ignorance. Often translated "taints" or "defilements."
release of mind
Release described from the mind or heart side of experience, often paired with release through discernment.
release through discernment
Release described from the clear-understanding side, paired with release of mind rather than reduced to intellectual knowledge.
remembering
This project's rendering of "sati". It means actively keeping what matters in mind and coming back to it when you lose it. It is not bare attention to whatever happens to be present.
sensual pleasures
Enjoyable sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches, when you chase and consume them as sources of satisfaction.
spiritual life
The Buddhist path of practice as a whole -- not just a set of beliefs, but a whole way of living.
spontaneously reborn
Reborn fully formed rather than through a womb, egg, or moisture. AN 4.5 uses this traditional cosmological description for a non-returner.
stands firm
AN 4.5's river image for a non-returner: someone no longer being swept back into ordinary sensual existence, though the crossing is not yet complete.
trainee
Someone who has entered the noble path and is still completing the training; not a beginner.
wearing away
The gradual using-up of something until it runs out completely. The texts use it especially for what has to run out before release.
with the stream
Following the easy current of sensual indulgence and harmful action. In AN 4.5 this is a warning, not praise for being flexible.
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
world's end
In AN 4.5, the end of the experienced world as a field of bondage -- not a geographic edge of the earth.
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