Mixed signals on Anatta

The Watercooler
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Utterly confused, with in the suttas does it teach you need an understanding of Anatta to gain stream entry and if so how do we reconcile that with not taking a view on no self or a view on a self

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Understanding is necessary to certain extent. Understanding is necessary to certain extent just as for experiencing skill of flying, you need to be aware of the concept of falling upto certain extent.

And stream-entry is(generally) won with this body and mind both simultaneously. It is not won by holding some view…it is actually won by insight into reality of our own body…here and now!
Because when we start working to gain stream entry, we don’t start by sitting there and holding view of either ‘self’ or ‘no-self’, instead we start by sitting and then trying to observe with insight.

Anatta or ‘no self’ relates to not taking any view till we have observed it with our insight, that’s how we start journey. I think taking of any one of above both views would be contradicting concept of anatta.

Also keep one thing in mind…stream entry is not just about realising the ‘anatta’ only…its more than half of it…but not all of it. Stream entry is completed only when you realize impermanence of your body directly with insight then after that, you will realize everything is just arising and perishing(characterized by impermanence only) then you will ‘really’ look(through your insight) for that which does not come in the realm of impermanence, that which is permanent, unborn and undying then you will realize/experience/see with insight that which is not impermanence, that which does not die, that which is supremely blissful, that which is beyond comparison, that which is ultimate happiness (the nibbana)…then after wanting to realize… you will actually realize the ultimate happiness characterized by Permanence (nibbana)…then you will know and realize with insight that ‘self’ is impermanence, and ‘no-self’ or ‘anatta’ is permanence, the nibbana the highest ultimate happiness. When person gets the experience and insight in true reality of permanence of dhamma, then only he/ she can be called as stream-enterer. For us these are concepts only, and not reality unlike stream-enterers.

So you see holding of either views actually involves holding some view, while anatta is characterized by not holding of either of those views.

Hope this answers your question.

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Stream-entry is at the beginning, and ‘not taking a view’ is at the end of the path. The Buddha generally addressed his discourses at the arahant level, but there are many addressed to or delivered by Ananda, nuns, or laypeople, or about the pre-awakening experience of the Buddha-to-be. All these suttas deal with the middle of the path, and using conditioned phenomena skillfully. There is no alternative.

"“Is the noble eightfold path fabricated or unfabricated?”

“The noble eightfold path is fabricated.”—MN 44

For practical purposes it is necessary to have a sense of self:

“And how is a monk one with a sense of himself? There is the case where a monk knows himself: ‘This is how far I have come in conviction, virtue, learning, liberality, discernment, quick-wittedness.’ If he didn’t know himself — ‘This is how far I have come in conviction, virtue, learning, liberality, discernment, quick-wittedness’ — he wouldn’t be said to be one with a sense of himself.”—AN 7.64

This means the practitioner has two realities, one conventional the other ultimate, one being subordinate to the other. The problem that has to be overcome is the presumed superiority of conventional reality. This perception control is a power to be developed:

“If he wants, he remains percipient of loathsomeness in the presence of what is not loathsome. If he wants, he remains percipient of unloathsomeness in the presence of what is loathsome.”—SN 46.54

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Yes, it’s an aspect of the 4 NTs.

We don’t, this is not what the suttas teach. What they teach is not getting attached to any view, including the view that one should have no view.

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