That sounds very odd to me!
Firstly, being ‘into’ the concept is a strange way of putting it. Are you ‘into’ the 2nd noble truth especially, if you happen to hold an understanding of the teachings of the 2nd noble truth in the EBTs?
But more to the point, we have various examples in the suttas of the Buddha teaching disciples and them attaining stream entry by listening to him. And you characterise that apparently as “against the buddhist teaching”.
Or do you not consider the Buddha to have been ariya?
I have never made that claim. Nor heard it in fact. But I will ask, can you provide any example in the EBTs of anyone giving a dhamma talk, who has not yet attained stream entry, and any audience member attains stream entry during that talk? If not, then we are left with all specific examples of stream entry being through listening to an ariya, it would seem.
I don’t think I’ve heard of that. If it’s from later tradition that’s probably why, since I haven’t had much interest in later material except from some Mahayana works.
The first think it reminds me of however, is the ‘deathless element’, which can be experienced.
So you do not feel that ‘dhamma-vision’ represents a kind of awakening experience? I know you said to treat it separately, but this question seems suitable to ask. And perhaps you would like to explain why you want that treated separately - do you not see ‘dhamma-vision’ as a kind of direct non-conceptual experience of non-distortion, as we might also describe stream entry? Or how do you describe these two phenomena? I am not so familiar with ‘dhamma-vision’ though perhaps I should refresh my memory from my notes.
But also, let’s say during a dhamma talk, someone attains stream entry - that event of stream entry was bounded by time. So how short must an event be in order for it to be classified as ‘an experience’?
From the evidence, we can say that the maximum duration of the event was the entire discourse, and the minimum time was instantaneous. I am not sure we can say anything more than that from the reports of the EBTs.
So from this evidence, how do you conclude that it certainly is not classifiable as ‘an experience’?
I also do not find it irrelevant, as I mentioned above, that within the very same tradition, we find phenomena which bare the same characteristics - a qualified Buddhist teacher, taken to be at least past stream entry themselves, talks to a disciple, and while that is happening, the student attains what we can classify in English Theravada terminology as stream entry. In all these respects, the reports are identical. And, we have many such reports given in far greater detail than the 2 and a half millennia old suttas. And, while coming from different countries whose traditions have been separated for millennia, the reports conform to each other so far as I can see, in presenting a sudden dropping away of distortion, and the dawning of clear seeing. And, that this is generally temporary.
We get this also in other religions, and outside of religion also.
Now I would say that logically, we may propose that the various different groups of Buddhists, and non-Buddhists, may indeed be attaining the same phenomenon of awakening but, this may not be the same thing that was called ‘stream entry’ in the EBTs. I am totally open to that possibility.
However I find it implausible that that kind of awakening was not happening in the Buddha’s community. So, I look forward to hearing more from you especially about the two terms above and how they might shed light on this matter.
I was curious what the Pāli was for that. Here it is:
That’s why you should practice meditation …”
Tasmātiha, bhikkhave, ‘idaṃ dukkhan’ti yogo karaṇīyo … pe … ‘ayaṃ dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā’ti yogo karaṇīyo”ti.
Can anyone explain how the English comes from the Pāli? Specifically ‘meditation’?
