What is the meaning of Narrow?
Just an indication of the brief moments when understanding is present. There are so many wrong paths and only one right.
This is the only way, monks, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the attainment of Nibbana, namely, the four foundations of mindfulness
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https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.045.than.html
“What do you think, Ananda: Which is harder to do, harder to master — to shoot arrows through a tiny keyhole without missing, one right after the other, or to take a horsehair split into seven strands and pierce tip with a tip?”[1]
“This, lord, is harder to do, harder to master — to take a horsehair split into seven strands and pierce tip with a tip.”
"And they, Ananda, pierce what is even harder to pierce, those who pierce, as it actually is present, that ‘This is stress’; who pierce, as it actually is present, that ‘This is the origination of stress’… ‘This is the cessation of stress’… 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.
vis. XVI 85
As long as a man is vague about the world,
About its origin, about its ceasing,
About the means that lead to its cessation,
So long he cannot recognize the truths
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Yes it is inferential based on seeing directly the rise and fall by conditions in the present. So by understanding the conditions related to the present moment there is also understanding that all past and future moments are also conditioned
Dhammapada Commentary
Loka -vagga 26
The weavers daugther
Seeing her come, the Buddha looked at her, so she put down her basket,
approached the Buddha, paid homage and stood up. He asked her, “Young girl,
where have you come �om?”
She replied, “I do not know, Lord.”
Then he asked her, “Young girl, where are you going?”
She replied, “I do not know, Lord.”
Then he asked, “Do you not know?”
“I know, Lord,” she replied.
“Do you know?” the Buddha asked again.
1 Sakunto
88 Loka Vagga — The World
“I do not know, Lord” she replied.
Many people in the audience were annoyed and murmured, “This girl just
says whatever she likes. Why doesn’t she say that she came �om the spinning
shed, and is going to the weaving shed?”
The Buddha silenced them and asked her why she had answered “I do not
know” when asked where she had come �om. She explained that since he knew
that she had come �om the spinning shed, he must be asking her if she knew
�om which existence she had come to take rebirth in this one, so she answered
“I do not know.”
The Buddha praised her answer and asked her why she had said “I do not
know” when asked where she was going. She explained that he knew she was
going to the weaving shed, so he must have been asking her if she knew to
which existence she was going after death, so she replied, “I do not know.”
The Buddha praised her answer a second time, and asked her why she had
answered “I know” when asked “Do you not know?” She explained that she
knew she was going to die, so she replied “I know.”
The Buddha praised her answer a third time and asked her why she had said,
“I do not know” when asked “Do you know?” She explained that she did not
know when she would die, so she replied, “I do not know.”
Praising her answer a fourth time, the Buddha addressed the crowd saying
that not one of them had understood. Then the Buddha uttered the above verse
and the girl attained Stream-winning.
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