Wrong Knowledge and Right Knowledge, and Their Dependent States (4); Wrong Liberation and Right Liberation, and Their Dependent States (4)

In the Mahācattārīsaka Sutta (MN 117), the Buddha presents an expanded model of the Noble Eightfold Path by adding two culminating factors:

Sammā Ñāṇa (Right Knowledge)
Sammā Vimutti (Right Liberation)

This yields a tenfold path, showing that the path is not merely ethical–meditative, but explicitly liberative in its final fulfillment. We should understand that these two path factors are practiced exclusively by those who have already attained arahantship.

9. Sammā Ñāṇa — Right Knowledge

Sammā ñāṇa refers to direct liberative insight arising at the completion of the path. It is not conceptual understanding, but experiential wisdom that knows:

• Birth is destroyed.

• The holy life has been lived.

• What had to be done is done.

• There is no further becoming.

I quote the above from the Samaññaphala Sutta (DN 2).

So evaṃ samāhite citte parisuddhe pariyodāte anaṅgaṇe vigatūpakkilese mudubhūte kammaniye ṭhite āneñjappatte

When the mind is thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, free from defilements, softened, workable, steady, and attained to imperturbability,

---

āsavānaṃ khayañāṇāya cittaṃ abhinīharati abhininnāmeti.

He/she directs and inclines the mind toward the knowledge of the destruction of the taints.

---

So idaṃ dukkhanti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti,

He understands as it really is: “This is dukkha.”

---

ayaṃ dukkhasamudayoti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti,

He/she understands as it really is: “This is the origin of dukkha.”

---

ayaṃ dukkhanirodhoti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti,

He understands as it really is: “This is the cessation of dukkha.”

---

ayaṃ dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadāti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti.

He understands as it really is: “This is the path leading to the cessation of dukkha.”

---

Ime āsavāti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti,

He understands as it really is: “These are the taints.”

---

ayaṃ āsavasamudayoti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti,

He understands as it really is: “This is the origin of the taints.”

---

ayaṃ āsavanirodhoti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti,

He understands as it really is: “This is the cessation of the taints.”

---

ayaṃ āsavanirodhagāminī paṭipadāti yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti.

He understands as it really is: “This is the path leading to the cessation of the taints.”

---

Tassa evaṃ jānato evaṃ passato

For one who thus knows and thus sees,

---

kāmāsavāpi cittaṃ vimuccati,

The mind is liberated from the taint of sensual desire;

---

bhavāsavāpi cittaṃ vimuccati,

The mind is liberated from the taint of becoming;

---

avijjāsavāpi cittaṃ vimuccati.

The mind is liberated from the taint of ignorance.

---

‘Vimuttasmiṃ vimuttami’ti ñāṇaṃ hoti,

When liberated, there arises the knowledge: “It is liberated.”

---

‘Khīṇā jāti, vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ, kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ, nāparaṃ itthattāyā’ti pajānāti.

He/She understands:“Birth is destroyed;
the holy life has been lived;
what had to be done has been done;
there is no more coming to any state of existence.”

Doctrinally, this corresponds to arahant-level knowledge: full realization of the Four Noble Truths and penetration of dependent origination. It is the clear seeing of reality as it is (yathābhūtañāṇadassana), grounded in the prior development of sammā samādhi.

In other words, sammā ñāṇa is the cognitive moment of awakening — the wisdom that directly knows liberation.

10. Sammā Vimutti — Right Liberation

Sammā vimutti is the existential outcome of that knowledge: complete freedom of mind.

It denotes release through:

• Cetovimutti — liberation of mind (freedom from affective defilements), and

• Paññāvimutti — liberation through wisdom (freedom from ignorance).

Here the practitioner is fully liberated from greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha). This is not merely a meditative state, but an irreversible transformation of being: the end of rebirth and suffering.

If sammā ñāṇa is knowing freedom, sammā vimutti is being free.

---

Why MN 117 Matters in our Noble Eightfold Path Practice

MN 117 (Mahācattārīsaka Sutta) is unique because it explicitly clarifies that the Noble Path does not culminate merely in concentration (samādhi). Rather, this discourse demonstrates how an unenlightened person progresses toward enlightenment and how, after attaining awakening, one continues to cultivate additional path factors.

In essence, the Noble Eightfold Path (ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga) functions as the practical framework for the unenlightened individual to attain nibbāna. However, the Noble Tenfold Path, as presented in this sutta, describes how an enlightened being lives thereafter. It illustrates that even after awakening, right knowledge (sammā-ñāṇa) and right liberation (sammā-vimutti) complete and perfect the path.

Thus, MN 117 expands the understanding of the path—not merely as a means to enlightenment, but as the structure of awakened living itself.

 Instead, it culminates in:

• Wisdom realized (sammā ñāṇa), and

• Freedom embodied (sammā vimutti).

This reframes the path as a teleological process: ethics and meditation are supports, but liberation is the goal. The Buddha thus presents awakening not as an abstract insight alone, but as a completed lived transformation.

---

In short

• Sammā Ñāṇa = direct knowledge of liberation (the wisdom of arahantship)

• Sammā Vimutti = the realized state of liberation itself

Together, they show that the NobleEightfold Path naturally matures into awakening plus freedom — insight culminating in irreversible release.