Re: have you met a Streanwinner?
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2023 9:54 am
If you had met a Streanwinner, so what? Just see the Dhamma by yourself.
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santa100 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 11:40 pmFirst of, if some lay person claiming Arahantship out of the blue, then it seems quite fishy right from the start. But lets' say given the benefit of the doubt, the next checklist should be: did that guy immediately joined monkhood or die soon after? If not, then his/her their claim is bogus.SarathW wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 11:00 pm Agree.
It is easier to say if someone is not an Arahant if he blatantly breaks precepts etc.
But there were Arahants in Buddha's time who had harsh speech.
In Sri Lanka, some lay people claim Arahant status while they are married.
Even in that case, we do not know whether he is lying.
"If a layman attains arahant-ship, only two destinations await him; either he must enter the Order that very day or else he must attain parinibbàna" ~ Milindapanha III.19 ~
santa100 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 2:07 amWe do know. Those conditions aren't just mentioned in the Miln. but also by the MN's Comys. Furthermore, there are very few instances of lay arahants, and all those cases satisfied either one of the two conditions, as Ven. Bodhi's note from "Connected Discourses":SarathW wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 11:59 pm To start with Malindapanha is not a credible document as Tipitaka even though I really like it.
Even if it is in Tipitaka we have to assume that the Tipitaka covers everything.
So we still do not know. As I said the best we can do is to see whether the person has some Sila at least to observe the five precepts.The Buddhas statement thus indicates that the lay follower has become an arahant. Apart from the few instances of lay people who attained arahantship just before renouncing the household life (like Yasa at Vin I 17,1-3), this may be the only mention of a lay arahant in the Nikayas, and in his case the attainment occurs on the verge of death. Mil 264-66 lays down the thesis that a lay person who attains arahantship either goes forth that day (i.e., becomes a monk or nun) or passes away into final Nibbana.
And i haven't met any stream-enterer as far as i know. I don't even know of anybody who i think is likely to be a stream-enterer.Points of Controversy4.1 As to whether a Layman may be Arahant
Controverted Point: That a layman may be Arahant.
Theravādin: You say the layman may be Arahant. But you imply therewith that the Arahant has the layman's fetters. “No”, you say, “they do not exist for him”. Then how can a layman be Arahant? Now for the Arahant the lay-fetters are put away, cut off at the root, made as the stump of a palm tree, incapable of renewed life or of coming again to birth. Can you say that of a layman?
You admit that there was never a layman who, as such without putting away his lay-fetters, made an end in this very life of all sorrow. Is there not a Suttanta in which the Wanderer Vacchagotta addressed the Exalted One thus:
“Is there now, O Gotama, any layman who, without having put away the layman's fetters, makes at death an end of Ill”?
And to whom the Exalted One said:
“Nay, Vacchagotta, there is none”?
Again, in affirming your proposition, you imply that an Arahant may carry on sexual relations, may suffer such matters to come into his life, may indulge in a home encumbered with children, may seek to enjoy sandalwood preparations of Kāsi, may wear wreaths, use perfumes and ointments, may accept gold and silver, may acquire goats and sheep, poultry and pigs, elephants, cattle, horses and mares, partridges, quails, peacocks and pheasants, may wear an attractively swathed head-dress, may wear white garments with long skirts, may be a house-dweller all his life—which of course you deny.
Uttarāpathaka: Then, if my proposition be wrong, how is it that Yasa of the clans, Uttiya the householder, Setu the Brahmin youth, attained Arahantship in all the circumstances of life in the laity?
https://suttacentral.net/kv4.1/en/aung- ... ight=false
The point is that an unordained arahant is not the same thing as a lay arahant, that is how the words are used.
Isn't the right question to ask, regardless of the circumstances, whether the person is dwelling with a mind completely free from clinging? Is he or she permanently established in a clear mental state that cannot become agitated? That is undisturbable? . . . in a state of mind that is delivered from any and all possible occurrences of suffering? Isn't this the right goal, the right state to value and search for in others irregardless of where and how they are living? If the Buddha taught that one must been living a fully renounced life in order to experience this, I accept this. But it's really hard to know this when looking at others. Didn't even Sariputta get it wrong about whether Channa was an arahant in MN144? It took the Buddha to set Sariputta straight, that no, it didn't matter that Channa lived in dependence on certain lay households, it mattered that Channa lived his last life anywhere. After death Channa was no longer to be found by Gods or men in any type of body, form or formless.
I believe that the closest thing we can think of to an unordained Arahant is a private-Buddha. They are also technically unordained Arahants.
Five things that can’t be done. A mendicant with defilements ended can’t deliberately take the life of a living creature, take something with the intention to steal, have sex, tell a deliberate lie, or store up goods for their own enjoyment like they did as a lay person.
https://suttacentral.net/dn33/en/sujato ... ript=latin
Private Buddha is when there is no Dhamma Teaching available, the person awakens to it by oneself and does not teach.
Right. If that person is un-ordained, has no defilements/etc, no money or personal possessions, and lives in someone's basement - what is wrong with that?Five things that can’t be done. A mendicant with defilements ended can’t deliberately take the life of a living creature, take something with the intention to steal, have sex, tell a deliberate lie, or store up goods for their own enjoyment like they did as a lay person.
https://suttacentral.net/dn33/en/sujato ... ript=latin
Right. My point was merely that a private Buddha is technically just a self-awakened Arahant and is not ordained.
I don't think there is anything wrong with that but maybe we should give them some posessions like clothing at leastAlex123 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 4:24 pmRight. If that person is un-ordained, has no defilements/etc, no money or personal possessions, and lives in someone's basement - what is wrong with that?Five things that can’t be done. A mendicant with defilements ended can’t deliberately take the life of a living creature, take something with the intention to steal, have sex, tell a deliberate lie, or store up goods for their own enjoyment like they did as a lay person.
https://suttacentral.net/dn33/en/sujato ... ript=latin
What if the faithful owners/renters of the house decided not to provide the necessities any more? What if they suddenly felt (let's say wrongly) that they have been duped by a conman who thinks he's an arahant?
What if the same happens to the monastery?DNS wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 8:53 pmWhat if the faithful owners/renters of the house decided not to provide the necessities any more? What if they suddenly felt (let's say wrongly) that they have been duped by a conman who thinks he's an arahant?
I suppose then he could go to a monastery, at that point?
That's true, although less likely to happen at a monastery with a good community support. At a monastery the support is spread out over many families and individuals. At a home, it is all up to one or two people that control the necessities for the noble one and then his fate too.
You probably met zeroMahabrahma wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 6:50 am I've met a number of Awakened people. … my goal is Higher than that. I don't believe Nirvana is a true extinction.
-The Lotus Sutra, Chapter 2.Shariputra, you should know
that at the start I took a vow,
hoping to make all persons
equal to me, without any distinction between us,
and what I long ago hoped for
has now been fulfilled.
I have converted all living beings
and caused them all to enter the Buddha way.
If when I encounter living beings
I were in all cases to teach them the Buddha way,
those without wisdom would become confused
and in their bewilderment would fail to accept my teachings.
I know that such living beings have never in the past cultivated good roots
but have stubbornly clung to the five desires,
and their folly and craving have given rise to affliction.
Their desires are the cause
whereby they fall into the three evil paths,
revolving wheel-like through the six realms of existence
and undergoing every sort of suffering and pain.
Having received a tiny form in the womb,
in existence after existence they constantly grow to maturity.
Persons of meager virtue and small merit,
they are troubled and beset by manifold sufferings.
They stray into the dense forest of mistaken views,
debating as to what exists and what does not,
and in the end cling to such views,
embracing all sixty-two of them.
They are profoundly committed to false and empty doctrines,
holding firmly to them, unable to set them aside.
Arrogant and puffed up with self-importance,
fawning and envious, insincere in mind,
for a thousand, ten thousand, a million kalpas
they will not hear the Buddha's name,
nor will they hear the correct Law--
such people are difficult to save.
For these reasons, Shariputra,
I have for their sake established expedient means,
preaching the way that ends all suffering.
And showing them nirvana.
But although I preach nirvana,
this is not a true extinction.
All phenomena from the very first
have of themselves constantly borne the marks of
tranquil extinction.
Once the sons of the Buddha have carried out this path,
then in a future existence they will be able to become Buddhas.
I have employed the power of expedient means
to unfold and demonstrate this doctrine of three vehicles,
but the World-Honored Ones, every one of them,
all preach the single vehicle way.
Now before this great assembly
I must clear away all doubts and perplexities.
There is no discrepancy in the words of the Buddhas,
there is only the one vehicle, not two.
For numberless kalpas in the past
countless Buddhas who have now entered extinction,
a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million types
in numbers incapable of calculation-
such World-Honored Ones,
using different types of causes, similes, and parables,
the power of countless expedient means,
have expounded the characteristics of teachings.
These World-Honored Ones
have all preached the doctrine of the single vehicle,
converting countless living beings
and causing them to enter the Buddha way.