For me your reply is one-sided. That is, it does not take into account different situations.
Someone may read the suttas to a person who can’t read, or recite them, if they have been memorised. Probably the majority of people in the Buddha’s time could not read. It’s probably not a casual link, but compare:
Buddha’s time people read less and realise more
these days people read more and realise less.
In a previous version of your reply you talk about reading the commentaries. I have found that harmful more than helpful. This is not to say that reading is harmful in all cases and it sounds like you may not have had much success either way, reading or listening. If that is so, I would say you would be reading and listening to wrong view.
Labelling oneself in that way, even as a ‘maybe’, for me, is part of identity view and based on the ‘I am’ conceit. A clearer more accurate way of thinking would be: ‘maybe I still have ignorant and (very) slow tendencies/habits’.
Yes, I’m familiar with monk speak as you explain it. Even though what you said would not be, there are similar qualities, i.e. unclarity, non-straightforwardness.
I didn’t think you were, but was speaking as a monk and to those readers who know that rule of the monk.
thanks for your kind wishes and understanding/appreciation
Hi brother ,
I referred to these era , but ,
Nvm, IMO by listening to
others memories , it’s just
potentially harmful as reading commentaries . Anyone could
be reading a wrong view
writings . I would have
wrong view either if I
don’t read any . It seems
there is no choice . Or,
does it ?
I guess my questions are of the same kind you always get when making this claim: are lust, hatred and delusion gone? Are you unable to crave a slice of pizza or to get sexually aroused? Do you ever get irritated or frustrated? Do you get the vague sense that if you stepped into a molecular dis-integrator you would cease to exist, even though you do not self-identify with anything in particular and do not feel like a self in daily life?
If no, tell me more. If yes, why use the label arahant?
I may feel sometimes certain excitement. It’s like influx of energy that comes to the present space. It comes and it’s being felt; but it doesn’t transform into restlessness, as it was before.
Instead, I remain in natural state of easiness, and pay the attention to all the space.
It can be explained through the opposition of “me” and “space”.
(1) We can perceive feelings as something “in me”.
Something that might overwhelm me.
Or something that holds as my mood.
We can feel emotions as sensations in this body.
So it’s like there is a vessel with our feelings, and we hold that vessel as “me”.
(2) On the other hand, we can turn to feel all the space. No border between “me” and the environment.
When there is a “vessel of me”, it’s like cooking pot where we cook our reactions. Our feelings dwell there, our thoughts come out from there.
When there is no “cooking pot”, all the space works instead. It’s unlimited and calm.
When, by habit, excitement appears in my body, the space remains unlimited and calm.
Then that quality of space might become less “accessible”, less apparent because there is excitement and tension in the body. (That excitement and tension are in the center, so unlimited and calm space feels less clearly).
Still, the basis is shifted: from “cooking pot of me” – to unlimited space.
That way the calmness and limitlessness of space gradually dissolve the tension and excitement in the center.
Thus when emotional habits manifest, they do not prevail, but dissolve.
2. Are you unable to crave a slice of pizza
No, I do not crave food. If the body is hungry, then normal physiological reactions like salivation can happen.
And perhaps I might develop craving if it would be needed.
But here’s no dissatisfaction, so here’s no need to try to escape it by chasing pleasures.
Chasing pleasures would develop dissatisfaction – so the natural condition of easiness and satisfaction would be lost.
Why develop craving, if that would create inner opposition – polar feelings of lacking and chasing?
Ordinary people may think that experiencing strong polar emotions might be an interesting and pleasurable life; but that’s because there’s always a background of uneasiness.
When we discover a condition where uneasiness is dropped, then creating it again is just bothersome.
3. or to get sexually aroused?
Sexual arousal is possible, under proper conditions. It’s a normal biological function of the body.
Just like unwholesome desire doesn’t inherently belong to eating, likewise it doesn’t inherently belong to sex.
Sexual craving is accompanied by narrowed perception. For example, in sexual misconduct we don’t perceive something, or we ignore it.
In samadhi “the attention is placed evenly”, so we perceive all the aspects of the situation. We perceive the partner, everything, completely, and the action comes from the wholeness, karuna.
That’s why there’s no entanglement, no attachment. They result from narrowed perception.
4. Do you ever get irritated or frustrated?
Some energies might come, for example:
I talk to a person who acts stubbornly and is not receptive;
then my legs may suddenly feel they “want to” stand up and go, so the body will do something else rather than keeping sitting and talking.
If there was attachment, that might result in the clash between that impulse to leave and the desire to prove something to the person. That would create irritation.
But without attachment the energy flows – not being blocked – so it transforms into some movement in the situation.
No irritation develops (or not more than for a tiny moment).
Frustration, again, is an opposition where the energy movement feels blocked by attachment.
No attachment – no frustration.
Sometimes I feel tiny moments of regret, but that’s all. They transform into decision to do what I can.
5. Do you get the vague sense that if you stepped into a molecular dis-integrator you would cease to exist, even though you do not self-identify with anything in particular and do not feel like a self in daily life?
Maybe not.
I think it might depend on how the attention is directed.
I might not feel that “I” would cease to exist.
But there are deeds where the attention is invested.
For example, if someone would say: “Drop all that you do in life, die now!”, I would probably disagree, because that would be not natural.
Plants grow, human bodies live. Why stop that?
It was interesting to answer the questions.
Let our talk be beneficial to all sentient beings!
Dear zhao. Thank you so much for coming out.
Have you been thru the four stages by the destruction of the corresponding fetters?
Can you also describe what happened in your brain when crossing each stage.
Alaber, probably there is not much use in describing my experiences. For example, at the age of five I realized that the human world is false. People speak of ideas which are theoretically true, but in practice they are far from true. Still people keep them as “truths”.
It’s actually mind-blowing. May be it was especially mind-blowing for a 5 years old boy, whose parents pretended to be clever and right, logical and rational… Though one day I discovered they were more rationalizing and indulging than actually rational.
They couldn’t explain some facts, but still pretended to be knowledgeable. They kept holding something as true though it was obviously demonstrated as contradictory.
How well could people imagine what I felt? Adults seem to be used to such things and don’t really notice them. Would you see anything strange in what I just said?
For that boy it was a notable experience. He realized that human world, all in those perfect squares and circles, was a theatrical decoration.
When people thought “it is…”, the boy might ignore that opinion. He looked at the reality, discarding – or not relying on – labels and explanations.
I didn’t greet people, because I saw no sense in that. They said, I was impolite, but honestly: why say ‘hello’?
You are here, I am here. We see each other, we can communicate. But saying “Good morning” – what for?
Thus my behavior was sometimes unconventional, and the parents took me to a psychiatrist. On the other hand, sometimes people told me that though I was a child, my eyes were like those of an old sage.
At the age of ten I heard about the Four Noble Truths and the story of Ashoka. It was another overwhelming experience. Before that, I was already puzzled, why people do stupid things, why they remain stubbornly ignorant, why they create suffering (because they obviously often did that by themselves).
And suddenly I learned that I was not alone in the world – Siddhartha was also interested in such questions. He already studied the problem and created a teaching which worked. Ashoka stopped his conquest voluntarily (!) – realizing that it led to suffering.
It was very impressive.
So, perhaps this experience – the realization that human world is illusory, like theatrical decoration – could be classified as Stream Entry. Freedom from:
Identity view – perhaps, that boy didn’t believe in labels.
Attachment to rites and rituals – no sense in rituals, even no “Hello”!
Doubt about the teachings – no doubt, Dharma was seen to be the answer.
Is all that story useful to know?
Maybe people could meditate on those things and reach stream entry too?
Gnlaera, my thoughts will appear when there will be problems. As there are no problems, there are no thoughts.
My experience correlates with the Eightfold Path completely. For me “Right View” means not only those things mentioned in the sutta (MN117), but any correct view, such as
“According to these observations, this cause gives that result”.
Note the words: “According to these observations”. We should remember why do we make this or that conclusion, because one day we might receive new information, and we might want to improve our views with that new information.
For that, we need to remember our original data, so that we could add new data to them, and then re-evaluate all the information together.
Otherwise, if we remember only our conclusions, but not the original data, and now we get some new information, then how could we weight and combine those new and old information?
Not having complete picture, we risk to lose something and to make incorrect conclusions.
Maybe that’s why some people are so stubborn and not receptive: they hold to old views (even very imperfect) and refuse to improve them, maybe because they are afraid of losing something.
Therefore, Right View means not only having correct ideas, but also remembering clearly why we have those ideas; how they were created from our observations and other data.
With Right View, we see what leads to what, and therefore we will have Right Intention.
For example, once I was arguing with someone, and I felt that my self was offended. I wanted to destroy my opponent. But because of my previous observations of causes and results, a thought appeared:
“If I will react egoistically now, it will be not beneficial for my opponent and for other people. But if I will tame my negative emotions and will answer compassionately, it will be beneficial for them”.
That thought was a manifestation of the right view. Pondering that, I decided to tame my egoistic feelings and answer in a more compassionate way.
Thus right view caused right intention, and then right speech and action.
That’s how we can overcome egoism not with force, struggle and inner conflict, but with understanding what is more natural, joyful and beneficial.
The difference between the few and the many is attitude and disposition – that is all. Most people are not interested in this path.
I have heard this before but I find it hard to believe. There are many instances of lay people awakening in the EBT’s. Some say there are more instances of lay people achieving stream entry than there are of Monks – so those monks of old must have been teaching something useful to them! Maybe it was the more itinerant lifestyle of the monastic community in Buddhas time that allowed them more contact with the lay community? Maybe people were more curious? I don’t know. It would make for an interesting discussion.
Delusions do not develop, because calmness and easiness have became stable.
When I developed delusions, I felt as if I needed them to come to pleasant resolution.
For example, in conflict situations I felt uneasiness, and so I felt as if I needed or wanted to press on, to develop anger, to overcome the opponent and finally come to peace.
Now peace is already here, so I don’t feel developing anger as a way to peace. Rather the opposite, it’s a bothersome travel out of peace to some unnecessary battlefield.
Thus calmness of certain depth makes our abiding in calmness stable.
Feeling natural and unconcerned, it’s not pleasant to develop lust or excitation.
So without efforts we remain in samadhi in daily deeds.
That is supported with
Right View (seeing the causes, we know directly that people aren’t enemies; delusions are “enemies”),
Right Intention (seeing what is natural, joyful and beneficial, we overcome our faults without inner opposition, without struggle and resistance),
Right Speech (realizing benefits for all beings of being unbiased and sincere, we get power to drop egoistic attitudes),
If one’s ever played a type of logic puzzle called Knights and Knaves, one’d see that the statement “I’m a knight” provides absolutely no useful info. to help one solve any problem.
This conversation with Zhao makes me wonder that if we were able to create a “bot” whose logic maps were perfectly consistent with EBTs in a way that whatever question you put to it would be answered perfectly, we would all then come to the conclusion that the bot is nothing less than an arahant!
In the end of the day, this is a key downside of the Buddhist model of religion which postulates not an ineffable truth or divine essence to the world and things but call us all to action in terms of attaining the very same liberation the Buddha attained.
It is really tricky to not fall in the traps inherent to this model of religion and hard to keep the mind open to the fact that blindly taking this model may end up leading us to some of the extremes the Buddha apparently advised to to go.
I believe this is the key reason the Buddha gave us third noble truth and its e nobbling task of individual verification of the fruits of the path.
SarathW1, I practised mainly Mahayana, and I didn’t read clear detailed explanations of these four steps, so my knowledge about them is suppositive.
With that in mind, probably yes, there were all four steps. As I described in this post:
Sotapanna step happened at the age of 5.
After that, I gradually immersed into the world of human delusions, because I wanted to understand, why people live like that.
Also I disliked the pressure of being coerced by adults to do stupid things, day by day; so when going to sleep I dreamed to miraculously become an adult person on waking up.
Thus, perhaps I “fell asleep”, and after high school graduation, my life was in disarray. I had a feeling that there was some truth in my life, some meaning and purpose, but I didn’t remember them.
I felt I didn’t know what I really wanted. So I started to practise Zen – contemplation “to see my original nature”. It was like carrying a question with me, every moment asking the universe.
Then one day I got a realization: “My task has no solution”. Now, looking back, I think it was a task “to be happy in the scope of usual human roles”.
You know: get education, get a good job, create a family etc. It was like a computer program in my head: to become a successful adult, do this and that…
But troubles were endless. You finish one task only to discover that now you have to do two more.
There was no end, no happiness. So one day the realization came, and so I had dropped everything.
There was no more difference, life or death. All tasks and troubles were abandoned.
Then from usual material world my perception shifted to something else. I realized the unity of everything. I saw all the universe, previous lives of myself and others, realms of existence and potentialities.
Maybe that was the second step, Sakadagamin.
After realizing the unity of all beings, there were no strong ill-will or sensuous desire.
For example, when I was going to have first sex with a girl who loved me, I felt that something was missing in the situation, and refrained from sex.
There was no proper “spiritual” contact between us, because my mind was still clouded with ignorance.
I was few years after 20.
The experience was overwhelming – including a state of immense joy, until I decided to go to do something useful for others.
I considered that “awakening”; all burdens dropped, all problems disappeared. But after few months I realized that I still had laziness, and I still didn’t know how to solve some problems.
So I started to study Buddhism (and other spiritual things) in a systematic way.
And then, at the age of almost 40, I realized:
All my thoughts, feelings and actions do not happen per themselves – they are conditioned.
Those conditions are conditioned too, so there’s no place where we could draw a line between “me” and “conditions”.
All things do not have selves; endless and countless causes intertwine, and even they are illusory.
Maybe that was a step to Anagami.
Some people said that my behavior notably changed since that time. Indeed, I started to feel more calm and free – especially comparing to some hard time and difficulties with the practice I had in my 30’es.
I felt that digressing ended, and I was back on the path.
And finally, few years before 50, I realized:
There is no need to force myself.
Mental processes are explored, regulation goes naturally.
Free movement of everything returned.
No more need to dive into human problems, all is solved already.
Maybe it was a step to Arahantship.
So totally it was a bit more than 40 years from Sotapanna to Arahant.
sort of like the Dhamma version of the