The final episode in the Vacchagotta trilogy sees our hero rise above his useless metaphysical quandaries and seek a better way to live. The Buddha’s patience is rewarded as Vacchagotta finally achieves his goal.

Elsewhere (eg. MN 9:4.1) a distinction is drawn between greed, hate, and delusion as the root of the unskillful, while the ten kinds of action are the unskillful (and the same applies to the skillful).

Two devas mentally ask Mahāvīra a similar question at Bhagavatisūtra 4.5.59; the answer was seven hundred.

Devoted layfolk would regularly keep the five precepts, which forbid sexual misconduct, and undertake the eight precepts, including celibacy, on the sabbath. However it seems that then, as today, there is a less formalized class of layfolk who would undertake the eight precepts continuously. White-robed, celibate layfolk are mentioned in DN 29:12.11, where they are a property of a fully-developed and prosperous religion. Celibate laypeople are also referred to at AN 5.180 and AN 10.75:2.2. Such layfolk have the potential to realize non-return, since that requires the complete letting go of all forms of desire.

That is, they are stream-enterers.

Vacchagotta’s attainment is also confirmed in his verse at Thag 1.112.