I haven’t found Dkervick’s views a problem . It wouldn’t be much of a discussion forum if we all had identical views .
I also find words emphasised with capital letters similar to shouting.
I have not found Dan’s views a problem - either. I did not say they were problematic - did I ? I do enjoy reading Dan’s contributions for a number of reasons. However, I do believe he would benefit from a careful reading of the comments he made in this thread and a revisit to the replies he received. I am going to take a second read through all this as I found it a very helpful thread and I have missed a few details. I am not (shouting) I use capital-letters sometimes instead of parentheses but, I will take that on board and limit myself to inverted comma’s and brackets. Dan didn’t like my use of exclamation marks in the past - I try to control the urge as best I can. My writing skills probably need a lot of attention ho-hum! oops
I do think its important to take everything to pieces - the nuts and bolts - everything. I feel that a lot of what ‘triggers’ reactivity and stimulates discussion in this process has to do with our underlying assumptions. Its sometimes difficult to see how we come up with the views and perspectives we have of the teachings unless we pull everything to pieces and take a close look - as best we can.
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The Nonreturner never returns to greed and anger. There is no more living with such expressions of selfdeception. This brings a clear release from such matters, leaving only traces of ignorance, conceit, subtle clinging, and [restlessness] for the Nonreturner to dissolve to reach utter fulfillment of the teachings. - Sharon Salzberg
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Restlessness is temporarily suppressed or absent in Jhana - in the non-returner there is still restlessness that is also absent when they are in Jhana (there is no contradiction). An Arahant is truly at rest - the rest of us keep wriggling even while we are asleep. When practice is profoundly calm and continuous - unbroken - at night there is no movement in the body or the mind. It may not be sleep but a formless Jhana. If unbroken practice continues for (7 days) or longer - the Buddha taught this - it can transform our understanding of the Dhamma - of (everything).
I can’t take responsibility for what others do and do not find useful. I don’t expect everyone to find my views appealing.
Like every other practitioner, I would like to overcome fetters and hindrances, and achieve liberation from the many causes of suffering. I regard some of the discourses as far more important and useful than others in that regard, and have never found any particular use for the teaching on stream entry, once-returning and non-returning. This stuff just seems to me like an extra classification scheme that adds nothing of importance to the practice, but makes a strong appeal to people who are interested in ranks and titles.
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I get that bit regarding your views on the subject. I really feel you could benefit from looking at your comments and the responses you received more closely. I am not being specific because it was all made clear in this thread - you may have missed something. Let me know - if you find the time and interest to take another careful look if, you saw what seemed obvious to me - as clear as day - you don’t seem to have picked up on it just take a closer look. 
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Its interesting. Laurence, that although you didn’t start this topic, you appear to have felt the need to dominate it…sometimes with posts that seemed more like lengthy admonishments and lectures rather than relaxed conversations.
Anyway, I’ve nothing more to say, I’m out of here to look for more balanced discussions elsewhere.
Be well and happy.
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No felt need to dominate anything simply participating as I felt a great deal of interest. I think you may have misunderstood my intentions but thats OK - be well and happy.
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Dear dhamma friends,
this post has been put in temporary time out to allow hot heads to cool. Please take this time to review the community guidelines.
Mettā,
Pasanna on behalf of the moderation team.
Welcome back.
Please play nicely.
I think if someone is committed to the path, they wouldn’t want to miss out on something which the Buddha repeatedly praised, without which enlightenment is impossible.
I’m not talking about anyone’s personal attainments.
The concept of stream entry brings along with it important practice implications…without which again, enlightenment would be impossible. To take one example:
"There is the case where an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person…does not discern what ideas are fit for attention [yonisomanasikara], or what ideas are unfit for attention [ayonisomanasikara]. This being so, he does not attend to ideas fit for attention, and attends [instead] to ideas unfit for attention. And what are the ideas unfit for attention that he attends to? … This is how he attends inappropriately: ‘Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?’ Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: ‘Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?’…
He attends appropriately, This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the way leading to the cessation of stress. As he attends appropriately in this way, three fetters are abandoned in him: identity-view, doubt, and grasping at habits & practices. These are called the effluents that are to be abandoned by seeing." MN 2
I doubt if many have contemplated the Four Noble Truths at any great length. I wonder how many of us think that pleasant meditation is the way to overcome dukkha? If there isn’t an appreciation that the ultimate cause of dukkha is ignorance (Second Noble Truth) and craving, without practicing to overcome ignorance through insight meditation or the contemplation of wisdom such as the impermanence, dukkha and not-self quality of the five aggregates, pleasant meditative states become just a balm to temporarily sooth suffering.
In my opinion, exploring the practices required for stream entry, focuses the mind on very important aspects that might be easy to miss. They are described in the EBTs, but not in one place -there is a scattering effect, of discrete snapshots scattered due to the effects of time, which I think can be gathered and appreciated, again.
with metta
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There are hundreds of cases of people attaining stream entry in the suttas, all did it the same way: through listening to a discourse and then contemplating it. Even a criminal did it.
Those that were already ascetics and had removed most of their craving became non-returners or arahants, while lay people usually became just stream enterers.
Stream entry = Right view, understanding that there is no self, etc. - it is done through contemplating the higher dhamma. ( SN chapter 2,3, and half of chapter 4)
There were many ascetics and nice people during Buddha time that meditated and did a lot of good things but none of them achieved anything.
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Imagine there are a bunch of bushman seeing a car for the first time. They will believe it is pushed by a spirit. They will then debate weather it is the spirit of a tiger, the spirit of an eagle, etc. Then a mechanic comes along and shows them how the car actually works. He shows them it is actually an engine that makes it work, that there is no spirit, etc.
If a person would come to you right now and tell you: Your car is pushed by a tiger-spirit - would you have any doubts regarding that ? Or would you simply say that the person clearly doesn’t know how the car work and therefore could never be your teacher when it comes to cars ?
It is the same with the non-existence of a self. Everybody says that there is a self, even atheist believe in a self. Only the Buddha claimed there is no self. A person can investigate the problem and see weather there is a self or not. After one sees for himself that there really is no self, he will think: It is only this Buddha guy that said there is no self, all others said there is a self. Therefore, I can only have this guy as my teacher, I can’t have any confidence in these other guys that say that there is a self. Such people will look just like those that claim cars are pushed by tiger-spirits.
And this is why a stream enterer has supreme confidence in the Buddha and would not take another person as his teacher
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To an extent I agree. However, I don’t feel it’s that simple. Even though I think ‘this Buddha guy is right and there is no self’ on a heart level I still get caught up in the 8 worldly winds. I still try to make things I don’t like other than they are and things I like persist (vi/bhava tanha). It’s so ingrained in me. In someone who hasn’t heard the Dhamma they might not even see the process but even with seeing the process there is still the turning away. This is where deep meditation comes in. You see the world without the hinderance of self-view and all its suffering and you incline to letting go. You need both the Dhamma and deep experience of non self.
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Y’all might be interested in SN 46.38 (excerpt):
When, bhikkhus, a noble disciple listens to the Dhamma with eager ears, attending to it as a matter of vital concern, directing his whole mind to it, on that occasion the five hindrances are not present in him; on that occasion the seven factors of enlightenment go to fulfilment by development.
and SN 46.3 (excerpt):
“Bhikkhus, those bhikkhus who are accomplished in virtue, accomplished in concentration, accomplished in wisdom, accomplished in liberation, accomplished in the knowledge and vision of liberation: even the sight of those bhikkhus is helpful, I say; even listening to them … even approaching them … even attending on them … even recollecting them … even going forth after them is helpful, I say. For what reason? Because when one has heard the Dhamma from such bhikkhus one dwells withdrawn by way of two kinds of withdrawal—withdrawal of body and withdrawal of mind.
It makes sense to me that, listening to a Dhamma talk by the Buddha himself in your own language, surrounded by various arahants, once-returners, and so on, would be enough to suppress the five hindrances then and there, making a breakthrough possible.
It also seems that the Buddha was able to tell when this happened to people, and could therefore teach the deep stuff at just the right time.
To my understanding, usually something like the jhanas is required to suppress the five hindrances and then one can make a breakthrough by investigating the Dhamma, but it makes sense that these awe-inspiring encounters ~2500 years ago would produce the same effect in many people 
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True- but we also know that the satipatthana sutta also talks of reaching stream entry. That is if the practice is followed (along with the other 7 factors of the path) stream entry can be achieved. This includes Right view of course- it wont be mundane right view but the Right view of the Four Noble Truths. It starts by contemplation of the 4NTs, especially dukkha. Understanding the five aggregates subject to clinging ie what they are/how they apply to our daily experience, is a key first step. We are also reminded that dukkha is to be understood ‘comprehensively’ (parinneyya) SN56.11. I think this means we need to see and ‘accept’ suffering on a gross level. The number of tears shed in samsara via rebirth is one way to look at it. He also talks how everyone has been another’s relative at some point; also he talks about the number of times we have been beheaded as animals (he also reverses some of these stark similies in his description of stream entry). I think this isn’t really enough - we need to see that the suffering in our own life, is greater than the random pleasures within it. It is only then, IMO, we are ready to make genuine effort to reach stream entry (and arahanthood). The levels of suffering are the suffering of that which is unpleasant (dukke dukkha) -pain arising from the body, illness, old age, mental suffering and mental illness; suffering arising from transience (viparinama dukkha) -due to unconsciously clinging to possessions, objects, places and people that change and suffering of fabricated phenomena (sankhara dukkha). For the latter, contemplating it in the following manner (and maybe also seeing it through vipassana meditation) is necessary.
This formula must be applied to the five aggregates subject to clinging:
“What do you think, monks — Is consciousness [or another of the 5 aggregates] constant or inconstant?”
“Inconstant, lord.”
“And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?”
“Stressful, lord.”
“And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: ‘This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am’?”
“No, lord.”
This is then seen to be applicable not just in the present moment, but to all time and space:
"Whatever consciousness is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: That is called the consciousness aggregate. SN22.48.
As dxm_dxm says, going through the khandasamyutta in the samyutta nikaya and the nidanasamyutta would probably be very helpful towards this. Everything must be seen to be dukkha.
He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It’s to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is Right view. SN12.15
Hope this makes sense: it then sets the mind up- ready for nibbida (repulsion).
with metta,
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I this shows the level of concentration required to temporarily suppress the five hindrances- of course developing jhana would be far more desirable, but it is not readily possibly for everybody. I would hazard a guess that the concentration of reading with interest, might give rise to the same degree of concentration (whatever that is, not needing to put a label on it).
Because when one has heard the Dhamma from such bhikkhus [enlightened bhikkhus] one dwells withdrawn by way of two kinds of withdrawal—withdrawal of body and withdrawal of mind.
“Dwelling thus withdrawn, one recollects that Dhamma and thinks it over. Whenever, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu dwelling thus withdrawn recollects that Dhamma and thinks it over, on that occasion the enlightenment factor of mindfulness is aroused by the bhikkhu; on that occasion the bhikkhu develops the enlightenment factor of mindfulness; on that occasion the enlightenment factor of mindfulness comes to fulfillment by development in the bhikkhu. SN46.3
So here it can be seen that contemplation alone is enough to bring mindfulness as a factor of enlightenment, to come to fulfillment.
Developing Right view is an important aspect of stream entry and jhana on its own, wont be enough!
with metta
The person who does not see anything as self, is released from the suffering that believing there is a self, is subject to. The stream entrant has got rid of Self-view that the one or more of the five aggregates are Self (sakkaya ditti). Each of the aggregates need to be thoroughly explored - the meditations on the elements of the body and asubha nature of the body can be helpful too.
Doing all this, the stream entrant hasn’t completely eradicated cravings, aversions and other defilements. These occur at non-returner and arahanth levels. They can and do persist despite seeing through the illusion of a self. Self view is not the only defilement at their root- others like everything is satisfactory (not suffering), permanent, and not foul (subha) persists (ie they are the ‘four perversions’ AN4.49).
Also a subtle feeling of self still persist (not a self view) even following stream entry, as mentioned in the suttas. The person doesn’t see it as a self, but knows it is a conditioned, transitory feeling only. This isn’t the cause of the defilements - that would give the Self a solidity it doesn’t have as in ‘I had a self before- hence that was the cause of my defilement; now I don’t believe in a self - hence no more defilements’. ‘Selfing’ is only a mislabelling- it doesn’t provide any factual information about the constituent parts inside the mind (as there never was a self, not now, not before).
Deep meditation gives rise to samadhi free from the five hindrances- this leads to contentment with a life of simplicity and this facilitates renunciation. However samadhi is temporary, and even then we know strong defilements break through and bhikkhus who have been ordained for many years can still leave the robes, due to desire etc overpowering them. So deep meditation is necessary like flour to making bread, but it on its own isn’t adequate. According to the Dependent origination ignorance (avijja) arises prior to craving (tanha) and is a cause for it. Only suppressing craving using samadhi is beneficial but isn’t a permanent solution. Ignorance in the form of faulty programming must be removed first, to completely remove craving (though done gradually).
with metta
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Well, this is not what my research in the early texts show. If you look at passages like the one you cited, you will see that the text does not say “he became a stream-enterer”, it does not use sotāpatti or sotāpanna, it says that his dhamma-eye opened. Now of course we regard this as a synonym, but this is our assumption.
My research concludes that these notions are quasi-synonymous, so the general perception is not very off the mark, but it’s still very telling that those occasions that clearly depict something of a momentary nature do not use the language of the four stages. The way the nikāyas treat the term “stream-enterer” is, by and large, as a human condition. The change has to happen at a specific point in time, but this change is not what the nikāya usage of the terms sotāpatti and sotāpanna refers to (there are exceptions, but they are that… exceptions!)
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Opening of the dhamma eye = the time it happens
Stream-entry = his status afterwards
Nothing too complicated. An important thing that I’ve learned is that we should read the nikayas like we would read any other book, meaning without overthinking it. Just read it in a normal way, like we would read any other book, not like trying to decode german coded war messages.
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