Questions about stream-winners

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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mikenz66
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by mikenz66 »

vinasp wrote:The passages which you quote seem to be saying that the stream-winner has eliminated sakkaya ditthi. But such a view directly contradicts a large number of discourses. Have I mis-understood what sakkaya ditthi is ?
Well, that's what I was trying to say.
sakkāya-ditthi is translated as "personality belief" in the quote I gave you. I.e. a stream enterer does not have a "self" view. [There is still a subtle feeling of "I am": http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html].

But a stream-enterer still has Avijjā: Ignorance.
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Bud ... vijj%C4%81" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Avijjā: Ignorance, nescience, the blindness of not knowing, is synonymous with confusion moha (see mūla), is the primary & deepest root of all evil and suffering in the world, veiling man's mental eyes and preventing him from seeing the true nature of things. It is the confusion that fools beings by making life appear to them as permanent, happy, substantial and beautiful and preventing them from seeing that everything in reality is impermanent, liable to suffering, void of 'I' and 'mine', and basically impure see: vipallāsa. Ignorance is defined as not knowing the Four Noble Truths, namely, suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way to its ceasing see: S. XII, 4.

As ignorance is the foundation of all life-maintaining actions, and the root of all evil and suffering, it therefore stands first in the formula of Dependent Origination paticca-samuppāda. But for that reason, says Vis.M XVII, 36f ignorance should not be regarded as the causeless root-cause of the world, since is not causeless. The cause of it is stated thus: With the arising of mental fermentations āsava there is the arising of ignorance M. 9. But there is a figurative way in which it can be treated as a root-cause; namely, when it is made to serve as a starting point in an exposition of the Round of Existence... As it is said: No first beginning of ignorance can be perceived, Bhikkhus, before which ignorance was not, and after which it came to be. But it can be perceived that ignorance has its specific causal condition idappaccaya A. X, 61. The same statement is made A. X, 62 about the craving for existence bhava-tanhā (see tanhā). Craving and ignorance are called the outstanding causes or creators of the kamma that lead to unhappy and happy destinies Vis.M XVII, 38.

As ignorance still exists though in a very refined way until the attainment of Arahatship, it is counted as the last of the 10 mental chains samyojana, which bind beings to the cycle of rebirths. As the first two roots of evil, greed and hate (see: mūla), are on their part rooted in ignorance, consequently all disadvantageous states of mind are inseparably bound up with ignorance. Ignorance or confusion is the most obstinate , dense, deep, subtle, hidden and fearsome of the three roots of evil.

Ignorance is one of the fermentations āsava and latent tendencies anusaya. It is often called a hindrance nīvarana e.g. in S.XV, 3; A.X, 61 but does not appear together with the usual list of five hindrances. It is however immanent in them all, yet especially dominant in doubt & uncertainty vicikicchā.
Metta
Mike
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by vinasp »

Greetings TheDhamma,

I know it must sound crazy, I could not believe it myself when I first discovered it. One such sutta has already been quoted on the Sotapanna Issues thread : The Silavant Sutta SN 22. 122 PTS S iii 167. Here we see non-returners still training themselves to see no-self in the five clinging aggregates. I understand this to mean that they are still in the proccess of eliminating sakkaya ditthi. There are hundreds of such sutta's, but they do not use the term sakkaya ditthi. However they do show that a view of self is still being removed.

Best wishes, Vincent.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by vinasp »

Hi mikenz66,

Thanks for taking the time to engage with me on this issue. I think that much of what you are quoting is a modern interpretation of the teachings contained in the five nikaya's. It took me years to discover that these modern interpretations are wrong. I do not rely on them anymore, I look at what the nikaya's are actually saying. But this is just the approach that I have chosen, I do not ask others to follow it if they do not wish to.

Best wishes, Vincent.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by Jechbi »

Hi Vincent,
vinasp wrote:If your understanding of the teachings is wrong then this question can be very troubling. In fact, whichever answer you choose you run into big problems. What is your answer?
Actually I don't see the point of the question with regard to one's own practice. What difference will it make? As you point out, if one's understanding is wrong, there's a problem with whatever answer one chooses. If that's true, then one's answer only becomes unproblematic with right understanding. So why ask others for an answer?

Best wishes
:smile:
Rain soddens what is kept wrapped up,
But never soddens what is open;
Uncover, then, what is concealed,
Lest it be soddened by the rain.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

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Hi Jechbi,

Thanks for your interest in this thread. You seem to have mis-understood what I was saying. It is probably my fault for not expressing myself clearly. I think you are conflating two separate statements.

1. If your understanding of the teachings is wrong then this question can be very troubling.

This seems true to me. The value of the question is it's ability to show one that ones understanding must be wrong. One will not find a right understanding unless one first rejects wrong understanding. But it is not pleasing to discover that one has a wrong understanding.

2. In fact, whichever answer you choose you run into big problems.

This refers back to the two answers to the question. One or the other answer must be true. But if you choose the wrong answer you do not solve the problem. If you choose the right answer you solve that problem, but then run into even bigger ones.

Why did the Buddha say that his teachings were like a poisonous water snake ?

Best wishes, Vincent.
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cooran
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by cooran »

Hello all,

Here are three sites with good diagrams/explanations of what is eliminated at each stage by the Ariya Sangha, and what remains to be overcome:

QUALITIES OF ARIYA PERSONS[ Reference: "Ten Suttas from Digha Nikaya", Burma Pitaka Association, 1984]
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/ariyas4.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From Puthujjana to the Buddha ( Reference: Brahmajala Sutta)
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/ariyacht.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ariyas (Noble Persons)
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/mtinmon4.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

metta
Chris
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

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Hi Vincent,
vinasp wrote: I know it must sound crazy, I could not believe it myself when I first discovered it. One such sutta has already been quoted on the Sotapanna Issues thread : The Silavant Sutta SN 22. 122 PTS S iii 167. Here we see non-returners still training themselves to see no-self in the five clinging aggregates. I understand this to mean that they are still in the proccess of eliminating sakkaya ditthi. There are hundreds of such sutta's, but they do not use the term sakkaya ditthi. However they do show that a view of self is still being removed.
OK, here is the Sutta:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
As you say, for everyone it's the same thing:
"A monk who has attained non-returning should attend in an appropriate way to these five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self. For it is possible that a monk who has attained non-returning, attending in an appropriate way to these five clinging-aggregates as inconstant... not-self, would realize the fruit of arahantship."
Even an Arahant:
"Then which things should an arahant attend to in an appropriate way?"

"An arahant should attend in an appropriate way to these five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self. Although, for an arahant, there is nothing further to do, and nothing to add to what has been done, still these things — when developed & pursued — lead both to a pleasant abiding in the here-&-now and to mindfulness & alertness."
Now for an Arahant, there is "noting further to do" in any sense. The question is whether the stream-enterer/etc attending "in an appropriate way" is because he/she still has sakkaya ditthi, or whether such attention is useful for removing the other fetters. Since the practise is still "useful" for the Arahant I would go with the second interpretation.

How do you reconcile your interpretation with the texts quoted here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/stud ... ml#fetters" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"In this community of monks there are monks who, with the total ending of [the first] three fetters, are stream-winners, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening..."
Mike
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by vinasp »

Hi Mike,

So you are saying that an arahant still has the five clinging aggregates, which are inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction..... etc ?

Vincent.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

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vinasp wrote:Hi Mike,

So you are saying that an arahant still has the five clinging aggregates, which are inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction..... etc ?

Vincent.
I'm not sure what you mean. Of course he as aggregates, and pain. That's clear in the Suttas.

Mike
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by vinasp »

Hi Mike,

Now it's my turn to be baffled, I thought everyone understood that the five clinging aggregates have ceased for an arahant. It just goes to show that one must be careful about ones asumptions !

Vincent.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by tiltbillings »

[quote="vinasp"...]the five clinging aggregates have ceased... [/quote]
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

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vinasp wrote: Now it's my turn to be baffled, I thought everyone understood that the five clinging aggregates have ceased for an arahant. It just goes to show that one must be careful about ones asumptions !
How can form, feeling, etc, has ceased for an Arahant who still has a body?

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .html#shot" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Now, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones, when touched with a feeling of pain, does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. So he feels one pain: physical, but not mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, did not shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pain of only one arrow. In the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. He feels one pain: physical, but not mental.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .vaji.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
28. But when the Blessed One had entered upon the rainy season, there arose in him a severe illness, and sharp and deadly pains came upon him. And the Blessed One endured them mindfully, clearly comprehending and unperturbed.
The term "clinging aggregates" suggests that there is some other kind of aggregate. "Aggregates subject to clinging" may be a better translation, but I'll leave that to the Pali experts. And remember that the khandhas are just classifications, not "things".
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Bud ... tm#khandha" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Some writers on Buddhism who have not understood that the five khandha are just classificatory groupings, have conceived them as compact entities 'heaps', 'bundles', while actually, as stated above, the groups never exist as such, i.e. they never occur in a simultaneous totality of all their constituents. Also those single constituents of a group which are present in any given body-and-mind process, are of an evanescent nature, and so also their varying combinations. Feeling, perception and mental constructions are only different aspects and functions of a single unit of consciousness. They are to consciousness what redness, softness, sweetness, etc. are to an apple and have as little separate existence as those qualities.
Mike
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by vinasp »

Hi everyone,

At Savatthi. "Bhikkhus, I will teach you the five aggregates and the five aggregates subject to clinging. Listen to that....
"And what, bhikkhus, are the five aggregates ? Whatever kind of form there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near : this is called the form aggregate.
Whatever kind of feeling there is.....this is called the feeling aggregate.
Whatever kind of perception...
Whatever kind of volitional formations...
Whatever kind of consciousness there is , whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near : this is called the consciousness aggregate. These , bhikkus, are called the five aggregates.
"And what, bhikkhus, are the five aggregates subject to clinging ?
Whatever kind of form there is, whether past, future, or present ...... far or near, that is with asavas, and subject to clinging : this is called the form aggregate subject to clinging.
Whatever kind of feeling ....
Whatever kind of perception ...
Whatever kind of volitional formations ...
Whatever kind of consciousness there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near, that is with asavas, and subject to clinging : this is called the consciousness aggreggate subject to clinging. These, bhikkhus, are called the five aggregates subject to clinging". S. iii, 47 - 48.

From : The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Bhikkhu Bodhi.

( Translation abreviated and slightly modified by me. )

That the Buddha needs to give two separate definitions here shows clearly that there are two sets of aggregates. The aggregates are one of the most difficult parts of the teachings to understand correctly.

I will look for a passage which makes it clear that the five aggregates of clinging have ceased for an arahant. I will post what I find here. It may take a day or two, if anyone else knows some passages then please post.

Best wishes, Vincent.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by cooran »

Hello vinasp,

Can you give the Book, Vagga, and page number of Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of the Samyutta Nikaya that you are referring to in your last post ( S. iii, 47 - 48)?

thanks
metta
Chris
Last edited by cooran on Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Questions about stream-winners

Post by vinasp »

Hi Chris,

Yes, it's book 3 The book of aggregates. Division I the root fifty. Section V. number 48 . Title : Aggregates. Page 886.

Best wishes, Vinasp.
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