Hello everyone,
When can one start to teach ? Does he need to be a stream-enterer or have jhāna first ?
Thank you for any idea
You might want to check out the suttas on Dhamma teaching in the CIPS: https://index.readingfaithfully.org/#Dhamma-teachers
AN8.16 doesn’t seem to impose any such requirements that you mention:
“Mendicants, a mendicant with eight qualities is worthy of going on a mission. What eight? It’s a mendicant who learns and educates others. They memorize and remember. They understand and help others understand. They’re skilled at knowing what’s on topic and what isn’t. And they don’t cause quarrels. A mendicant with these eight qualities is worthy of going on a mission.
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There was a passage in Ajahn Chah’s “Still flowing river” where he talkes about this but I can’t find it, sorry.
This is the other advice I thought of SuttaCentral AN 5.159 Udayisutta
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Well, objectively observable facts are unambiguous: one can start to teach the Dhamma any time. 
Perhaps you mean when one can start to teach Dhamma, so it will be of some real help for others and also benefical for one who teaches Dhamma?
“It isn’t easy, Ānanda, to teach the Dhamma to others. One who teaches the Dhamma to others should first set up five qualities internally. What five? (1) [Having determined:] ‘I will give a progressive talk,’ one should teach the Dhamma to others.1155 (2) [Having determined:] ‘I will give a talk that shows reasons,’ one should teach the Dhamma to others.1156 (3) [Having determined:] ‘I will give a talk out of sympathy,’ one should teach the Dhamma to others. (4) [Having determined:] ‘I will not give a talk while intent on material gain,’ one should teach the Dhamma to others. (5) [Having determined:] ‘I will give a talk without harming myself or others,’ one should teach the Dhamma to others. It isn’t easy, Ānanda, to teach the Dhamma to others. One who teaches the Dhamma to others should first set up these five qualities internally.” AN V 159
And here some difficulty arises, assuming potential teacher’s good intentions: whom one wants to help? And how to give a talk without harming oneself and others?
So as far as morality goes no harm to encourage others to keep moral percepts. But to teach others about things one doesn’t understand and whicy are related with right view may very easily end up in harming oneself and others.
“Bhikkhus, there was once a foolish Magadhan cowherd who, in the last month of the rainy season, in the autumn, without examining the near shore or the further shore of the river Ganges, drove his cattle across to the other shore in the Videhan country at a place that had no ford. Then the cattle bunched together in mid-stream in the river Ganges, and they met with calamity and disaster. Why was that? Because that foolish Magadhan cowherd, in the last month of the rainy season, in the autumn, without examining the near shore or the further shore of the river Ganges, drove his cattle across to the other shore in the Videhan country at a place that had no ford.
“So too, bhikkhus, as to those recluses and brahmins who are unskilled in this world and the other world, unskilled in Māra’s realm and what is outside Māra’s realm, unskilled in the realm of Death and what is outside the realm of Death—it will lead to the harm and suffering for a long time of those who think they should listen to them and place faith in them. MN 34
As a lay teacher for many years, I would add when one has students. If I have students, then I’m teaching even though I’m aware of my lack of spiritual attainments. Apparently there’s enough wisdom and teaching aptitude.
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SN22.115 is interesting because it offers definitions for three types of people:
- a ‘mendicant who speaks on Dhamma’
- a ‘mendicant who practices in line with the teaching’
- a ‘mendicant who has attained extinguishment in this very life’
I think it could be reasonable to assume that this means that noble attainment is not required before teaching.
In contrast we have this passage in MN8:
If you’re sinking in the mud yourself, Cunda, it is quite impossible for you to pull out someone else who is sinking in the mud. But if you’re not sinking in the mud yourself, it is quite possible for you to pull out someone else who is sinking in the mud. If you’re not tamed, trained, and extinguished yourself, it is quite impossible for you to help tame, train, and extinguish someone else. But if you are tamed, trained, and extinguished yourself, it is quite possible for you to help tame, train, and extinguish someone else.
Among those monks I know who don’t believe you need to be an arahant before teaching, this passage is interpreted to mean that someone who is not an arahant cannot set out the instructions needed to become an arahant, but anyone who knows the true Dhamma can share the Dhamma that they know.
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As far as teaching which requires the right view goes - for example dependent arising - it is absolutely not necessarily to introduce dialectic sotapanna/ arahat, since not-knowledge of the Four Noble Truths is abandon by all ariyas. It is ignorance on reflexive level (abandoning of wrong wiev) and removing ignorance on pre-reflexive level in no way adds something to the ability of explaining the Four Noble Truths.
Indeed, it is quite likely that sotapanna could be more capable to teach dependent arising than arahat, since there are additional factors at play such as learning (and arahat may not know many Suttas) or just didactic skills which also can be higher in certain sotapanna than in certain particular arahat.
One can see this by analogy to chess or other such skills. There is absolutely clear that the best player in the world plays better than that on the 100 place on the ranking list, but whether he is more capable to teach chess then other good players, that isn’t certain at all.
Of course there are such factors as self-confidence which should increase after abandoning ignorance on pre-reflexive level and they are helpful in teaching, but this doesn’t invalidate my point. For example Ajahn Chah teaching is great as such, but we are told that one day he asked disciples to repeat how many kinds of upadana are mentioned in Suttas, since he couldn’t recall it.
So when certain factors are lacking in arahat, such as learning, even total cessation of ignorance doesn’t neutralise them. And this is precisely the reason why Lord Buddha could praise venerable Ananda:
Then, not long after the Venerable Ānanda had left, the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus: “Bhikkhus, Ānanda is a trainee, but it is not easy to find one equal to him in wisdom.
AN III 78
I thought in the commentaries that there’s a teacher who was able to produce arahants until he felt ashamed that he himself is not an arahant, so he trained under the youngest novice monk who’s an arahant who asked him to walk straight, into a pool and don’t stop until the novice monk asked him to stop. It’s a test of his obidence.
Another story is that of the disciple who is an arahant decided to help his teacher who’s not by asking the teacher to manifest an elephant and charging towards himself. The teacher felt fear at the last moment and the disciple gripped the teacher and asked: “does arahant feels fear?” The teacher then realized that he wasn’t an arahant.
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If we don’t have a firm foundation in samādhi, teaching can become a danger as one can become restless and passionated around his own words. People can be attracted by him and falsely think he is really attained.
Then he can get entangled with people and having little time left for practice, his practice thus deteriorates.
He can also translate and interprets the higher teachings in a wrong way and leads people astray from the path.
He can also get proud thinking that he is a good teacher and so a good monk…
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I have read many times that teachers advice to focus on oneself first. Otherwise blind will lead blind.
I think that one must be especially alert on ones own desire to be a teacher. Hungry for status, being appreciated, respected, honoured, seen as knowledgable Dhamma expert etc. If this plays any role, i think one must not teach.
I can see i have this hunger. I feel it is not easy to even discuss Dhamma in a way that is not defiled with such personal motives, let alone being a teacher.
I also believe there are many spiritual teachers who are more concerned with status, might, then being really concerned with others welbeing. I think that is also very normal but not wise, a pitfall.
The corruptions in the heart are not easy to overcome.
I think one must see in the mirror of ones own mind, but i am an idealist 
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One day, I asked a very famous american monk a similar question and he discouraged me from teaching.
Even on virtue, it seems sometimes teachers disagree among each other:
So people with wrong views but beautiful & well-rounded speech can get famous and lead many people in the realms of deprivation if they take the wrong bets and encourage others to do so.
And of course, even if it’s a teacher with right views, he can loose concentration, get entangled with people and bewildered by fame and status.
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Perhaps it would be good to clarify what is considered as teaching.
I made this chart below.
Do we expect ariyas to be sunday dhamma school teachers?
And do we expect monastics to interact with total strangers and non buddhists in the streets to help bring in new people to the religion? Or the lay disciples who got strong faith and excitement share the dhamma a bit to their most important friends and family and bring them to the dhamma talk by an inspirational teacher?
My chart basically is more like each person at their place on the path to liberation, can influence the circle of people they are influential with and bring them to their level. Depending on various factors, the newcomers may progress faster on the path and in turn guide those who brought them into the dhamma. Up, up, up the chart they go until they have the good kamma to meet with an ariya. Then the real training can begin or maybe they dunno that they had met an ariya and didn’t put forth all the effort to train.
Or maybe a total beginner met an ariya and have to learn a lot of the basics first before being able to benefit fully from the words of the ariya, as compared to a puthujana teacher.
It’s a whole organic web and at each stage, there’s sharing of the dhamma, there’s listening of the dhamma and hopefully, as they get to met real ariyas, there is straightening of views.
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Is it possible to become arahant without Samadhi?
No. It’s very clear in the Noble 8fold path.
Non returner perfects the samādhi. No need to mention arahant.
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Yes but in reality there is no badge on monks’ robes which says that he is an ariya.
People can think he is one and believe his words, which might be true Dhamma or false Dhamma.
Even the fame and the widespread teaching of a teacher don’t guarantee his ariyanness or the rightness of his view.
For example, there is a very famous layman on YouTube who claimed arahantship …
I admit, my model, doesn’t include the reality of teachers with wrong views. Hopefully, ariyas would have the good kamma to be influential enough to spread the right view to more people.
Who? Private message appreciated
Ideally, those who teach Dhamma should be the one who sees the Dhamma.
Those who sees Dhamma, will teach Pure Dhamma.
But, those who have not sees any Dhamma, will surely teach the Buddha Dhamma with some impurities based on other teachings and last but not least his or her own analysis.
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One needs to study and understand completely the Buddha Dhamma based on the essential teachings of SN/SA suttas first.
Sāratthappakāsinī , ‘Revealer of the Essential Meaning’, is the title of Buddhaghosa’s commentary on the Saṃyutta-nikāya (SN). This suggests that he recognised the practical and essential values of the Saṃyutta-nikāya suttas for Buddhist monks.