Characteristics of the Anāgāmin and the Arhat

When one truly has no greed toward sense objects, one is a third-fruit person (anāgāmin), at which point one has already eradicated part of the manifest activity of the afflictions of greed and hatred. When one has no attachment to sense objects, one is an arhat of the fourth fruit, having eradicated the self-grasping of the manas and the craving for the three realms. Before the third fruit, no matter how tranquil the mind is, it is merely suppressing the afflictions, not eradicating them; the afflictions are hidden within the mind and rarely manifest, but when a major event arises, they certainly cannot be hidden—the afflictions will definitely manifest and reveal themselves. Those who can truly and comprehensively examine their own afflictions are extremely few, so some people often think they no longer have any afflictions, or believe they have attained the second fruit (sakṛdāgāmin), when in fact they are still very far from the second fruit.