Upvote:1
What are some teachings the Buddha gave to arahants to guide them towards further growth?
Technically speaking, once one's attained arahantship, one'd continue training simply because the training has become second nature, a way of life, not because there's some further "growth" needed. A very common stock phrase that describes arahantship in many suttas:
"Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world." ~~ Quote Refs ~~
Upvote:2
There needs to be some caution/qualifications when discussing arahants just as there should be when discussing the Buddha. SN 44.1 discusses this caution and it applies to arahants as well.
"so too, great king, that form by which one describing the Tathagata might describe him has been abandoned by the Tathagata, cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated so that it is no more subject to future arising. The tathagata is liberated from reckoning in terms of form; he is deep, immeasurable, hard to fathom like the great ocean."
In SN 35.135:
I do not say of those bhikkhus who are arahants . . . that they still have work to do with diligence in regard to the six bases for contact. Why is that? They have done their work with diligence; they are incapable of being negligent.
There is one other teaching that I know of regarding what arahants do but I can't find it right now. In it the Buddha says that arahants continue to dwell with the 4 mindfulness established. Maybe someone else can find that reference?
Upvote:2
Case 46 of the Mumonkan
Proceed On from the Top of the Pole 四十六 竿頭進歩石霜和尚云、百尺竿頭、如何進歩。
Sekisõ Oshõ asked, "How can you proceed on further from the top of a hundred-foot pole?"又古徳云、百尺竿頭坐底人、雖然得入未爲眞。
Another eminent teacher of old said, "You, who sit on the top of a hundred-foot pole, although you have entered the Way you are not yet genuine.百尺竿頭、須進歩十方世界現全身。
Proceed on from the top of the pole, and you will show your whole body in the ten directions."Mumon's Comment
無門曰、進得歩、翻得身、更嫌何處不稱尊。
If you go on further and turn your body about, no place is left where you are not the master.然雖如是、且道、百尺竿頭、如何進歩。嗄。
But even so, tell me, how will you go on further from the top of a hundred-foot pole? Eh?"Mumon's Verse
頌曰 瞎却頂門眼 He darkens the third eye of insight
錯認定盤星 And clings to the first mark on the scale.
拌身能捨命 Even though he may sacrifice his life,
一盲引衆盲 He is only a blind man leading the blind.
Or put very simply - seeing one's face for the first time does not perfect make us perfect Buddhas. It's really only the first mark on the scale. Some go so far as to say that our training doesn't really begin until we've had our dai kensho or great awakening experience. After enlightenment, there is still so much work left to be done! We still have to address what karmic obstacles remain and what insights into the nature of reality that we continue to miss. This means more meditation, more koans, more sesshins, and more sweat. In other words, post enlightenment training, that part of the path that turns us into perfect Buddhas, is basically identical to what came before. You proceed from the top of the pole in the same way that your climbed the first hundred feet. The tricky part is making that first step off the pole.