When mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated in this way you can expect seven fruits and benefits. What seven? You attain enlightenment early on in this very life. If not, you attain enlightenment at the time of death. If not, with the ending of the five lower fetters you’re extinguished in between one life and the next … you’re extinguished upon landing … you’re extinguished without extra effort … you’re extinguished with extra effort … you head upstream, going to the Akaniṭṭha realm … When mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated in this way you can expect these seven fruits and benefits.”

Linked Discourses 54.6 1. One Thing With Ariṭṭha

At Sāvatthī. There the Buddha … said: “Mendicants, do you develop mindfulness of breathing?” When he said this, Venerable Ariṭṭha said to him: “Sir, I develop mindfulness of breathing.” “But mendicant, how do you develop it?” “Sir, I’ve given up desire for sensual pleasures of the past. I’m rid of desire for sensual pleasures of the future. And I have eliminated perception of aversion regarding phenomena internally and externally. Just mindful, I will breathe in. Mindful, I will breathe out. That’s how I develop mindfulness of breathing.”

“That is mindfulness of breathing, Ariṭṭha; I don’t deny it. But as to how mindfulness of breathing is fulfilled in detail, listen and apply your mind well, I will speak.” “Yes, sir,” Ariṭṭha replied. The Buddha said this: