Does the attainment of a supramundane fruit necessarily involve a specific experience?

Abstract

In Chapter 3 we study in depth whether attainment of a phala really does involve a specific experience. This issue is vital to this study and the following chapters are based on this foundation. It concludes that attaining a phala entails a specific, striking experience with a peak-point which I refer to as a “fetterbreaking-experience,” and the intensity of the experience may vary from person to person. The fetter-breaking-experience has been articulated in the secondary sources quoted herein and in this field research as a “strange experience,” “a fine point,” “a tapering off,” “cessation,” “emptiness,” “a breaking of a boundary,” “a going beyond,” “an oceanic experience” etc. Hence for the purposes of this study, attainment of a phala has been defined as a specific, striking experience of a person treading or making an effort to tread the Noble Eightfold Path, resulting in the understanding or knowledge which leads to breaking of the corresponding fetters [saṃyojanas].