AN 6.120–139 About Bhallika, Etc.

Citta the householder of Macchikāsaṇḍa is the layman monks came to question. When elders debate the meaning of 'fetter,' his simile of two yoked oxen settles it: the fetter is the desire that arises in dependence on the senses (SN 41.1). Monks debate him and rival ascetics question him in turn, and his answers show the wisdom and direct knowledge of an exemplary lay follower (SN 41.2–9). Gravely ill, he refuses when deities urge him to wish for a wheel-turning monarchy ('that too is impermanent'), establishes his family in the Buddha, Dhamma, Saṅgha, and generosity, and passes away (SN 41.10).

One of the two master builders of Rājagaha, the celibate and the married pair whom Migasālā held up as proof that conduct does not decide destiny: both were declared stream-enterers, and the Buddha turned her challenge into the teaching on the ten kinds of persons (AN 6.44, AN 10.75). Isidatta received the four factors of stream-entry with his fellow builder (SN 55.6) and was counted among the six-quality householders bound for heaven (AN 6.120–139).

One of the two master builders of Rājagaha, the celibate and the married pair whom Migasālā held up as proof that conduct does not decide destiny: both were declared stream-enterers, and the Buddha turned her challenge into the teaching on the ten kinds of persons (AN 6.44, AN 10.75). Purāṇa received the four factors of stream-entry with his fellow builder (SN 55.6) and was counted among the six-quality householders bound for heaven (AN 6.120–139).

The wealthy householder of Vesālī whose giving the Buddha rated remarkable: he served the finest foods, saying that the giver of the agreeable receives the agreeable, and heard that giving the best bears the best fruit (AN 5.44). Endowed with eight wondrous qualities (AN 8.21), he asked why some beings attain nibbāna here and now and others do not (SN 35.124), and was counted among the stream-enterers (AN 6.120–139).

Householder Anāthapiṇḍika, the donor of Jeta's Grove, first journeys through the night to meet the Buddha (SN 10.8). As a patron he receives practical guidance on wealth, giving, and stream-entry (AN 5.41, AN 9.20, SN 55.26–28). Gravely ill, he is taught non-clinging by Sāriputta, weeping that he never heard such a teaching as a layman and asking that laypeople also receive it (MN 143). Soon after he passes away and returns as a young deity, praising examination of the Dhamma and Sāriputta's wisdom (SN 2.20).

The Buddha's kinsman at Kapilavatthu, Mahānāma carried a layman's anxieties and brought them all to the Teacher. Busy with the crowd's press at work, he asked how a disciple should dwell when the Teacher is gone, and received the five spiritual strengths supporting the six recollections: of the Buddha, the teaching, the Saṅgha, and the rest (AN 11.11–12); convalescent, he asked which comes first, knowledge or immersion, and heard Ānanda gently take the question too deep for the sick Buddha (AN 3.73). When he worried about dying heedless amid Kapilavatthu's chaotic streets, the Buddha reassured him with the simile of the leaning tree, that a trained mind falls the way it has grown (SN 55.22), and taught him the factors of stream-entry that free a noble disciple from loss (SN 55.21–25, SN 55.37, SN 55.49, SN 55.54).

Hatthaka of Āḷavi met the Buddha with a question from the world's comforts: how could anyone sleep at ease in such cold? The answer, that the mind free from the fevers of lust, hate, and delusion sleeps at ease anywhere, stayed with him (AN 3.35). He gathered a following of some five hundred householders by the four ways of being inclusive, giving, kind speech, and helpfulness (AN 8.24), and the Buddha held up his seven wondrous qualities (faith, ethics, generosity, learning, and the rest), only for Hatthaka to worry who else had heard the praise, so the Buddha added contentment as the eighth (AN 8.23). After death he reappeared as a godling among gods, sending the godlings flocking to hear the Dhamma, and confessed he had passed without getting enough of seeing the Buddha, hearing the true teaching, and serving the Saṅgha (AN 3.127).