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The Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing: A Wonderful Place of Rest 6
Each step, each breath carries two aspects, like the two sides of a coin: the effect in the present moment and the effect in the future. In the Buddhist tradition, there are four fruits of practice:
- Stream-enterer (entering the stream of the noble ones, including the direction and the fruit of stream-entry)
- Once-returner (one who will return to this world only one more time)
- Non-returner (one who will not return to the cycle of samsāra)
- Arhat (complete liberation, total freedom)
At Plum Village, these four fruits are interpreted as two interbeing pairs, with the essence being:
- “Arrived, at home” (dwelling in the Dharma) and “dwelling” (completely at ease in the present moment) interwoven together
- “Unborn direction/fruit” – tasting the nature of no birth and no death in each breath, each step
Washing the dishes, eating, sitting meditation, walking meditation are both means and ends: each action is a wonder, and if there is mindfulness, each one generates joy and nourishes oneself and the sangha. Happiness and peace in this very moment are the true measure of the fruits of practice; nirvana or “the unborn” is not somewhere far away, but present in every moment of dwelling in the present.