magga
Path
[ MUG-ga ]
Seeing it in life
Magga-citta arises once at each of the four stages — stream-entry, once-return, non-return, arahantship — uprooting specific fetters.
In short
The four supramundane path-moments.
The analysis
Magga-citta arises once at each of the four stages of awakening — stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, arahantship — taking nibbāna as its object and permanently uprooting a specific set of fetters at each stage. Unlike ordinary wholesome cittas, whose results ripen and eventually exhaust, magga-citta's effect is permanent: once a fetter is uprooted by a given path-moment, it doesn't return.
Where it sits
Magga is immediately followed by phala, its fruition, in the same cognitive process — the two are inseparable in sequence, path producing fruition without gap.
No everyday analogue is offered here — magga-citta describes a specific, doctrinally defined supramundane event, distinct in kind from any ordinary experience, however refined.
Commonly mistaken for
A gradual path or process extending over time. Magga-citta itself is a single, momentary event at each stage — the gradual cultivation is the preparation leading up to it, not the moment itself.
The same at every stage. Each of the four magga-cittas uproots a different, specific set of fetters.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha IX.
Related terms