SuttaCentral
i view it as absolutely possible by way of not caring about the destination and conditions of rebirth at all
aiming for heaven is perpetuation of sensual desire, so what does it really win us considering the 2nd Noble Truth? this is just plain old tendency of indulgence in sensual pleasure and most importantly doesn’t draw a person near any of the 4 noble attainments one step, not to speak of nibbana
it’s more pleasurable to waste one’s time in heaven but it’s still a waste of time
I am afraid you don’t see my point. If a lay Buddhist realizes that the noble attainments are out of reach for him or her in this life (e.g., leading a family life or pursuing a time-consuming career), but they live an ethical life and know full well that it will bring them into heaven, it is impossible for them not to know they are likely to be reborn in a deva realm - it is not 100 % fixed, but it is highly likely. Now, I never said that this lay practitioner should not aspire to noble attainments and consider them to be the highest goal of any spiritual life. Nobody says they should specifically aim for heaven, no, but they should be honest to themselves about what they should expect from their practice in this very life, while still hoping to achieve the noble attaiments in the long run. And who says they will waste their time in heaven instead of just further practice?
To give a simile, it is like the moon mission. The moon landing is the highest achievement of the human science and technology, and I would really love to fly to the moon myself. Moreover, theoretically it is possible for me to start training for my moon mission right now. However, realistically, there is a pretty slim chance I will make it to the moon surface in this very life. My training will help me to stay fit, I may even take one of these zero gravity flights and experience weightlessness or, if I am very very serious about it, I can even visit the Earth orbit. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do my best as if I had a chance to go to the moon, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t hope for going to the moon in one of my next lives. It means that I admit going to the moon requires a very specific lifestyle and very hard training, and I am a small fat guy with myopia, so my personal moon landing is out of the cards for now, in this puny body.
In that case you can’t really say I am wasting my time, because I am doing my best, and thinking about my training making me at least fit and healthier is a nice consolation prize for a fat, short-sighted guy. For my ear, it basically amounts to saying all those who are not astronauts are losers. Well, they are losers, but should we really keep reminding them about it all the time if they are doing their best?
[quote=“Vstakan, post:18, topic:2965”]
My point was to show that it is impossible for an ordinary person like you and me to not want to be reborn in a deva realm… Even if you do not believe in rebirth, I think it would be pretty hard for you…[/quote]
It is not impossible. It is easy, not hard, for e.g. an empirical naturalist to see all such ideas as silly and vapid, unattractive and ridiculous.
If you think stream-entry requires that “one needs to live a celibate life, abandond your career pursuit and do a whole lot of otgher quasi-monastic things that are uncharacteristic of the overwhelming majority of the lay Buddhists”, please note that it’s incorrect.
Many lay stream entrants occur in the Suttas: of them, many did not practice celibacy, many did not give up their lay careers, many did not engage in quasi-monastic activities. Consider that this is even true of Yasa’s father, the first lay Buddhist.
Consider that many people joined the Sangha before attaining stream-entry. So, when an eternalist or an annihilationist had joined the Sangha they would still have had certain views.
Now! certain annihilationism ideas were considered by the Buddha to be very close to dispassion; contemplation based on an annihilationist credo, with a subtle shift in phrasing & motive, can even cut off the five lower fetters.
So, in many ways you can see how heaven has no need to show up at all as a motive. It doesn’t need to be thought about with respect to dana, per the OP, but verily it need not show up anywhere at all.
IF
Now, that is something we can certainly agree upon 
So when an empirical naturalist hears about a state of greatly diminished dukkha he considers it unattractive and ridiculous? He merely thinks that this state is achievable in this very life and thinking so is not that different from lay Buddhist view except it just places the heavenly sukkha in this very life. Besides, how come you do not consider the empirical naturalism to be merely a cultural trope of the Silicon Age Western civilization? 
But then again, should we really consider reports of stream entry by lay Buddhists as hard facts if we regard Buddha’s words about the rebirth in heaven as evidence of him being caught in Iron Age Indian cultural tropes? How can we be sure it these are just not legendary reports? Of course, we can distinguish between facts and legend by textual criticism, but I am not currently aware of any work done in that field. So, till we have any thorough research on the topic, we should agree that it is possible but not proven and as such is a matter of faith.
Their views were part of their fetters preventing them from the stream-entry. The Buddhist doctrine of rebirth is the middle way between believing in a transmigrating soul annihilationism, so as long as the monks clung to their annihilationist ideas and did not abandon them they were not able to achieve their noble attainments. That said, why shouldn’t we ignore the annihilationism from the very beginning, then?
Thanks for another nice deep Sutta. I do not really think you can regard these ideas as annihilationist. How can they be annihilationist if the Buddha talks only about natural processes like perceiving or being aware? They would be annihilationist if they were about the annihilation of the self, but they aren’t. The insight in the absence of a self is what brings the Noble disciple over the edge and makes him or her into a Stream-Enterer. What do they have to do with the doctrine of rebirth?
Okay, I got it, you don’t like the word ‘heaven.’ Well, let’s call it ‘non-stream-entry state of diminished dukkha’ to bring it to the least common denominator
We don’t seem able to have a good conversation; probably I’m misspeaking a lot, and having other communicative issues. So, take care.
Although I am not a moderator in this forum, I humbly would like to suggest to our discussants to consider some metta towards each other and some uppekha in general.
To be honest, I did not mean any of my words in a rude way and it was not my intention to be harsh on any of the other discussants. If I come across this way, I apologize and assure you all once again it was not intention and probably due to my imperfect command of English or some unconscious dosa tendencies. I will try my best to avoid such situations in the future.
I agree. It seems we both talk about our doctrinal views and, as I mentioned before, it can hardly lead to a meaningful discussion. Sorry if I sounded rude or aggressive, I assure you I have nothing against you or your views, and I wish you the very best results we can hope for in our practice :anjal:
my observation is that people from certain non-Anglo-Saxon cultural backgrounds in Internet discussions tend at times to be confrontational, overly argumentative and direct a little bit more than necessary or acceptable
this is not to disparage anyone, just to be taken into consideration
Thanks for your helpful comment. If you perceive me this way, I apologize. I cannot guarantee it won’t happen in the future, but I will try to avoid it. As I am not from the Anglo-Saxon cultural background, it is pretty difficult for me to figure out what people of the said background regard as overly direct or inappropriate, which only means I have to try harder
In fact, I was trying to formulate my thoughts and views as polite as possible and even double-checked it, and my failure to sound okay for English-speaking people is nice evidence of how our cultural conditioning shapes our perception and our personality, something that I regularly experience in Germany. I think, the opposite would also be true: people of the Anglo-Saxon background are sometimes perceived as insincere by some Russians because of their tendency to sugarcoat their criticism or trying to formulate criticism in positive terms - again, I don’t mean it disparagingly, just trying to figure out how these things come about. Thinking about how I can be rude, blunt and inconsiderate or on the opposite, eel-wriggling and insincere even though I think I am not and trying to see myself with the eyes of people with other cultural backgrounds can actually be a nice foundation of contemplation about metta and metta practice in general. To triple-check everything, I do not mean it in any way, shape or form as criticism of any person or view in this thread
I don’t think anyone on this thread has been rude or inconsiderate. It’s been a good discussion, and my perception is that everyone is doing their very best to be reasonable and courteous. Keep up the good work!
So then:
They aren’t rated; they all have the same result, their order is incidental.
We could also ask: How does the removal of three fetters make someone a stream-enterer?
Frankly, I suspect this whole structure is a formalization of a much simpler & informal set of ideas based on colloquial views of the cosmos. But, be that as it may - it doesn’t matter one whit.
As we’ve seen, the Buddha did not consider any of this to be essential at all. This simsapa leaf, much-loved & much-doted-upon, could easily have been left on its tree.
…if you’re still interested, have a look at this paper by Analayo:
Saccaka’s Challenge – A Study of the Saṃyukta-āgama Parallel to the Cūḷasaccaka-sutta in Relation to the Notion of Merit Transfer
At least the first four motivations seem to be put in a logical sequence reinforced each time by mentioning an ever higher heaven realm: ‘self-interest’ → ‘general positive attitude’ → ‘maintaining established social practices’ → ‘compassion for less fortunate people’. The fifth motivation kind of puzzles me and seems to be breaking the sequence, but still we are talking of a radically different culture, and some of other people in this thread mentioned reasonable arguments as of why it is rated higher than the other ones. Now, it can be an instance of confirmation bias on my part and the motivations are mentioned in an incidental order (cf. MA 1 and AN 7.64), but we need a parallel sutta to be sure, otherwise it would be reasonable to assume there is some logical sequence.
I think it is becoming a stream-enterer which removes three fetter, not vice versa Still, you are certainly right this issue doesn’t really matter for our day-to-day practice. It just bothers me that people so meticuolous and fond of refuting what they thought to be false views as to compile Katthavatthu overlooked this anomalous passage. It should either be made sense of in teh framework of traditional Indian and Buddhist cosmology (even though mostly for purely scholarly reason) or we should try to figure out why someone would introduce it inot the Sutta at a later date. Maybe there is more to he word ‘anagami’ in this framework than we are used to think?
An interesting paper, as anything by Ven. Analayo. I don’t think, however, we should think of offerings to ‘ancestral spirits’ in terms of merit transfer, at least not in this context, even though this sutta may have contributed to the genesis of this practice. The Buddha specifically mentions food. Applying the four kinds of nutriment to this context, I think we may exclude edible food and consciousness as unlikely to be relevant. What remains is either sensory impression or intention-volition. Maybe commemorating ceremonies can induce intentions to continue living in these spirit desperately craving for a human existence, maybe they provide them with some kind of sensory input. There is no need to regard this practice as transference of kamma, rather as a stimulusfor petas to react to.