Can a Lay Practitioner Attain the State of an Arhat of the Fourth Fruit?

Question: There is a view that once innate self-grasping (俱生我执) has been eradicated, the mind becomes free of hindrances—one no longer fears the birth and death of oneself or one's loved ones, and no longer fears the loss of one's property. This is certainly a great liberation, but is such a state appropriate for a lay householder who does not intend to leave home? If one truly cultivated to this level, it seems many jobs could no longer be done.

Answer: First of all, a person who has completely eradicated innate self-grasping is, in the Small Vehicle, an arhat of the fourth fruit—a great arhat; in the Great Vehicle, an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva. A layperson cannot possibly cultivate to the level of a fourth-fruit great arhat; the highest a layperson can reach is the third fruit, and reaching the third fruit is extremely difficult. A person of the third fruit has almost no interest in worldly dharmas in secular life, and will certainly find a way to leave home; moreover, opportunities to leave home will be abundant, and such a person has even less interest in family. If such a person does not leave home, most simply live out their days according to conditions, but there still remain some attachments not yet eradicated; regarding household life and work, they also go along with conditions, without much attachment.

As for the Great Vehicle, a fourth-fruit arhat is at the eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva stage; such beings generally do not come to the Sahā world. Even if they come to this world, they would not live at home a secular life, such as working to support a family—that is utterly impossible. Their merit is immensely vast; how could they stoop to such a lowly thing as doing secular work to get by? Their work of delivering sentient beings proceeds according to conditions, without a trace of attachment—why would they need to humble themselves to work and support a family? In fact, in the Sahā world, even finding a first-bhūmi bodhisattva or a person of the third fruit is extremely rare. Bodhisattvas on the bhūmis generally do not remain at home; they all leave home to deliver sentient beings—unless there are so many bodhisattvas that not all of them need to leave home to serve as exemplars for sentient beings.