Who will be able to conquer the earth, gods, and Yama loka?The story of the gardener, who made garlands of flowers and 500 monks, Part-2 [Verse 4.(2of1):45]Place: Jétavana

Who will be able to conquer the earth, gods, and Yama loka?

The story of the gardener, who made garlands of flowers and 500 monks, Part-2 [Verse 4.(2of1):45]

Place: Jétavana

In the first part and the previous stanza the question was raised by the Buddha, as to who will penetrate the well-articulated Dhamma doctrine? The Buddha himself provides the answer: “the student, the learner, the seeker, the apprentice, the person who is being disciplined. He will perceive the doctrine, like the ex- pert garland-maker who recognizes and arranges flowers. It is the learner, the seeker, the student who will perceive the world of Yama, the realm of heavenly beings and existence on earth. He will discard and deter- mine the various areas of the doctrine, like a deft gar- land-maker who plucks and arranges the flowers into garlands. 

Explanation: 

One, who pursues the three kinds of training, is one of those seven kinds of noble disciples who have reached one of the four supermundane paths or the three lower fruitions, while the one possessed of the fourth fruition, or arahatta-phala, is called ‘one beyond training’. The worldling is called ‘neither a noble learner, nor perfected in learning’. 

What’s Loka?: the ‘world’, denotes the three spheres of existence comprising the whole universe, i.e., (i) the sensual world, or the world of the 5 senses; (ii) the form world, corresponding to the 4 form absorptions; (iii) the formless world, corresponding to the 4 formless absorptions. 

What’s Self?: That is, one who will understand oneself as one really is. 

Meaning of Sugati: namely, the human plane and the 6 celestial planes. These seven are regarded as blissful states. 

The sensual world comprise of the hells, the animal kingdom, the ghost realm, the demon world, the human world and the six lower celestial worlds. In the form world (rupa loka), there still exists the faculties of seeing and hearing, which, together with the other sense faculties, are temporarily suspended in the Four Absorptions (four Jhana’s). In the formless world (arupa loka) there is no corporeality whatsoever; and thus only 4 aggregates (khanda) exist there.