Hi Ben,
Firstly, I would like you to know that it wasn’t my intention to call to question your contributions in making this forum available to all Buddhist worldwide. You guys provide a invaluable service and in that regard, I hope you do not think that the tone I used in my previous post undermines that contribution.
Having said that, we have fundamentally different views of what or who a stream entrant is, how he behaves and how common should stream entry be in the modern world.
I am going to jump forward to address the following quote
Ben wrote:
Those people who were close to the Buddha already had great paramis and excellent kamma which is why many attained after just listening to a discourse or in no short time. Becoming a sotapanna is not impossible, it can be done in this life but in this era it requires great effort and it cannot be attained outside the dispensation of the Buddha.
You are correct to assert that these people have great paramis and kamma to be born during the Buddha’s time. However, they all had the same faculty to listen and process words, like all of us have today. The Buddha’s role was merely to speak the right words to the right people at the right time to clear specific doubts. But they are, at its very fundamental level, words. Words that has been translated and recorded into Sutta that are generally available to all of us. The Sutta speak about many incidents of common folks awakening, but it does give a full account of how many walked away unawaken. I don’t believe there was a big distinction between a commoner who is ripe to be awaken and one that cannot be awaken even in the presence of the Buddha. Don’t forget that the Buddha himself, was a common person who found enlightenment through his own efforts. That is attractiveness of the Buddha’s teaching, that a common person can find enlightenment regardless of social status, intelligence and character. So in my humble opinion, there is no distinctive characteristics that tells a person who is ready to be awaken and one who is unawaken. Obviously, there are exception to this rule but by and large, the norm is that 2 sets would be undistinguishable.
Now, I gather we are all do not have a problem with the description that a sotapanna is one that has eradicated doubt, self-illusion and partaking in wrongful rituals and ceremonies, and the he has not began to weaken sense desire and hatred which will lead to the next stage of once-returner. By this definition, that he has not began to weaken hatred, how can he be one that has perfect sila then? I am not saying he is unable to keep the precepts or he doesn’t keep it. I am saying the degree in which he keeps it may not be perfect. I will go out on a limp to say that he may, on occasion still indulge in frivolous talks or harsh speech, but the intention to harm with such action would be lessen, much much less than before his attainment of stream entry. In that regard, he walks among us. You will not be able to tell him apart from another unless you have intimate knowledge of his previous habits or character (e.g. he suddenly appears to be unafraid of things he used to be afraid of) and even then, the assumption is that there is a big enough change to warrant notice. Here, I would like to say that I am not gender bias by using the word “he” to reference a stream entrant so as to exclude the womenfolk.
Next, if a stream entrant merely requires one to eradicate :
1) Self
2) Doubts in the Buddha’s teaching
3) Partaking in wrongful rituals and cermonies
Then, let us look at (3) first. I gather all of us don’t have a penchant for those voodoo stuff. By virtual of that, we are already 1/3 a sotapanna. Now, eradication of (1) leads to (2). Which means (2) is for our taking if we work hard enough to eradicate (1). By that assertion, we are 2/3 a sotapanna. Correct?
You raised an interesting line in your Sutta reference:
Ben wrote:
"Consider the person who is accomplished in the precepts, and is moderately successful in concentration, moderately successful in wisdom – by destroying the three hindrances, he becomes one, who will be reborn seven times at most [stream entrant]" Anguttara Nikaya 9.12
Moderately successful in concentration, moderately successful in wisdom. Not perfection! With moderate success in meditation and wisdom, you qualify. So the only question is the definition of moderate. How much is moderate? In my opinion, it is just enough to see the destruction of the concept of self. Moving the mind between absorption is one way to see mind and matter. You don’t have to perfect the absorptions. Just a flirting glimpse of cause and effect, how your mind engages the sense bases and create thoughts. Again, no need to see the full chain of dependant origination. Being able to experience thoughts rising and falling and again, you do not need to see it perfectly. Just a glimpse. The key is to experience as many of these as possible and slowly, the perception of self breaks down. So is this really unattainable by common people? A lay Buddhist? The Average Joe? Hardly!
I don’t say any of this is easy as you still need to put in the effort to acquire wise friends and wisdom. But any wise friend worth his salt will tell you that this is attainable and that he will teach you how to attain it. An equally wise friend will also tell you that this is attainable but that he does not know how to teach it, that you need to find someone else to teach you. However, an unwise friend will tell you that this is not attainable because he has not attained it or he does not know how to teach you to attain it.
In conclusion, the title of this thread is “How common is stream entry?” I think the appropriate title should be “Why isn’t stream entry common!”
I should add that I neither reject nor confirm your claim - I just can't make a judgement either way, other than if it is true, I'm very happy for you, really. But whatever the actual situation, I do encourage you to study the suttas, and put the teachings therein, into practice. One other advice would be to try to let go of identifying with the idea of having attained, for now; because my concern would be that if you have overestimated - it's very common to do this on the back of a wonderful meditative experience, I and many others know about this personally - that holding on to the belief that you have gone further than you actually have, might actually become a bit of an obstacle for you. So, I hope you can sense that I'm saying all this out of goodwill. The road can be tricky sometimes...
