Path and Fruit
from Ajahn Sucitto:
“The Buddha says that cultivation of the Noble Eightfold Path brings great fruit — ‘great benefit’ — but the word is ‘fruit.’
“The terms that are used — ‘path’ (magga) and ‘fruit’ (phala) — are pretty literal, straight-on translations.
“Magga definitely means ‘path.’ It’s never anything other than ‘path.’ Phala always means ‘fruit.’ It never means anything but ‘fruit.’
“So a path, which is a track in the woods….no mangos grow on that! A path doesn’t give rise to fruit.
“It takes you to a place, right? A path — if you follow it — it takes you to a place.
“So how can a path take you to a fruit? It can take you to a place, but it doesn’t take you to a fruit — unless you’re going to a fruit store, I guess. [laughs]
“It’s because the path — in walking that path — you start to learn. Through stumbles and dealing with the curves and the dips and the gulches and the traffic and all that — you’re beginning to learn a relationship.
“And relationship is where the fruit — that you didn’t know was there — begins to ripen. Out of that path.
“It’s a slightly different set of cause-and-effect, you might say, than the way we would normally assume it…
“Fruit arises from how one walks, not from where one goes.”
***
(excerpt from: Anapanasati–A Model for Cultivation and Freedom.)