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Four Stages of Enlightment
Vincenzi
Veteran
How does (one) confirms that (one) has broken a specific chain?
i think to have broken the first five fetters.
regards,
बोधिसत्त्व (hope this works) G.
i think to have broken the first five fetters.
regards,
बोधिसत्त्व (hope this works) G.
0
Comments
Some texts describe signs that accompany certain attainments too. If you can tell us a bit more, perhaps some textual confirmation can be found.
What "chain" do you think you broke? The chain of interdependent origination? You think there is no coming back to samsara for you? That would be awesome.
I'm curious as to your use of "(one)".
Are you trying to avoid sounding dualistic by eschewing the use of personal pronouns? Language, by its nature, is dualistic. It implies that there is an attempt at communication between (at least) two beings. Your posting a question on a forum implies a dualism too. So, I'm just curious as to why you used "(one)". Please don't take any offense.
As for the 5 fetters: we can use the analogy of weeds. Weeds grow up and smother the (let's say...) tomato plant, making it impossible for the tomato plant to grow. Now, you can go in there and cut all the weeds down, and the tomato plant will be free of the smothering of the weeds for a little bit. But the weeds will grow back, and the suffering of the tomato plant will return. The only way to save the tomato plant completely is to rip the weeds out by their roots, so that they never grow back. (I don't think this works with dandelions!)
Have you ripped out the roots?
It would be a rare thing indeed to have passed through three stages of awakening before asking such a question.
The teacher's reality will visit you. A borrowing of nirvana.
Meditation will bring a sense that only innocence relieves the tedium.
Nature, which includes the child and the teacher, will discover the sincerity, and inquire with you. This is the first serious inquiry, the end of the effort to inquire.
Thought will end; self will vacate the mind or brain, cease to exist. Nirvana will come around quite often. One is a teacher, but only a student teacher.
Emotion will be discovered to have a whole enw significance; emotion becomes the actual intelligence, the sense of what each relationship is, the key to binding all events together into a clearly loving world.
Thought is self. Then thought leaves. Leaving no self? Not so!
Emotion is still self. That is the final confusion. The thing that keeps human life apart and allows us to invite some misery still.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/stream.html
and
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/stream2.html
IF you are looking for a Theravada understanding...
(If Upala doesn't mind me stealing his scheme) I ask because I don't know and I'm curious.
(just FYI)
"Easy access to all 8 jhAna stages is one ability of the Anagamin."
I can confirm that, I can enter jhAna stages on demand... this week I went to one of my favorite masters (a tree) and entered jhAna; I can choose between arupa and rupa dhatu (and then the respective jhAna). Sometimes the arupa and rupa dhatu selection is random; and sometimes I like to go from low to high and then to low again.
I have being very careful to avoid this behaviour being public, because people may think that (anatta/TriLaksana) is "drugged" with some LSD (or similar); for some women it can (they can) misinterpret it and it can be a little uncomfortable.
For a slang-ish beatnik style of explanation (even if i don't concur with west's approach to bodhi-dharma): "i'm high on (LSD), just chilling until i get to the sudhavAsa abodes... a little worried that i may witness the destruction by fire/war"
Namaste
Are you saying you are taking LSD?
Commendable.....
This is a serious inquiry. I prefer elves than trolls... Assumptions can be dangerous.
Do you want some scholary review to the texts? the actual Pali Tripitaka. Or are you the actual troll?
There's too much ego, and very few anatta in some online buddhist forums' replies. Too much decorations and too few undersanding.
Sorry for being point-blank.
There are 5 stages: accumulation, stage of junction, stage of insight, stage of cultivation, and stage of non-study...
Seriously sounds like wild stuff to me. Sounds like the path to enlightenment of snoop dogg or cheech and chong.
More seriously your thinking seems a little off to me. I have a thought disorder and I wonder if you have some of the same tendancies. If you think you need help, remember not to hurt your self and others and to seek help.
Not that I can be sure from a forum your mental state
A mahayana sutra called Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment.
The five paths according to the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment:
First, the paths establish a foundation through studay and practice of the Dharma of lower and middle capacity persons, then cultivate the mind of aspiration and action bodhicitta, then gather the accumulations. These clearly explain the path of accumulation. "Then one gradually attains the heart(1) and so forth" explains the path of application. "obtain the level of Great Joy and so forth" explains the paths of insight, meditation, and perfection.
(1) Heart is a metaphor. When meditation practice is started the heart of experience arises and becomes hotter and hotter as the practice develops, as with the fire which starts warm and grows hotter as it develops.
Hey Valois,
There are a couple of different stages and paths breakdowns depending on methods etc. There could be the five paths, the bodhisattva bhumi's or the paths according to the practice of Dzogchen.
You still must live out this life, run out this karma. While you are still here in this life, this body, and if the fetters be pulled up from the roots, there will be no more impulse toward unskillful action. At death, then, there will be no more rebirth.
When, you can say this with authority and authenticity you have hit the mark:
I said that because I am not comfortable with LSD etc and I am projecting onto you. At the same time there is probably a reason for the 5th precept. Drugs can be addicting. Not only physically.
I have thought I was sucking energy out of trees and I found out that that perhaps wasn't true but it was true that I had a thought disorder that was positively affected by: the dharma, meditation, acceptance, medication - drugs too, and therapy with another party of my choice.
When I am sick I often think things like 'I am an elf not a troll' and it is like identifying and materializing thoughts and metaphors. I now see that you were just jesting, but it rang warning bells for me.
I added this because if something negative is going on. And you are having some states of mind that eventually decay into a good deal of suffering. Well then I hope for you that you seek help. Non-harming was definitely one thing that I did have that saw me through.
3 more fetters to uproot.
Which ones?
I uprooted a goat!
nice goat!:D
Rūpa-rāga
Arūpa-rāga
Uddhacca
To uproot the craving maintaining the accretion of form and formlessness imputed on the continuum of subjectively experiencing reality as anāgāmi you must engender a great boredom with this samsara. (You don't want to be reborn anymore!) This boredom is manifested in your restlessness. Complement this restlessness with stillness of awareness.
"And what is lack of food for the arising of unarisen restlessness & anxiety, or for the growth & increase of restlessness & anxiety once it has arisen? There is the stilling of awareness. To foster appropriate attention to that: This is lack of food for the arising of unarisen restlessness & anxiety, or for the growth & increase of restlessness & anxiety once it has arisen.
thanks for the sutric reference.
You, an anāgāmi, you are not to be born again. You have become bored of it. No more being a little baby for you. No more dips in goldfishing. No being a hungry ghost. No deva nor brahma. No more. This no more interests you.
You have become bored of this.
Well, to be honest... I am not THAT bored.
Count every beautiful thing that you see.
A groan of tedium escapes me,
Startling the fearful.
Is this a test? It has to be,
Otherwise I can't go on.
Draining patience, drain vitality.
This paranoid, paralyzed vampire act's a little old.
But I'm still right here
Giving blood, keeping faith
And I'm still right here.
(...)
If there were no rewards to reap,
No loving embrace to see me through
This tedious path I've chosen here,
I certainly would've walked away by now.
Gonna wait it out.
If there were no desire to heal
The damaged and broken met along
This tedious path I've chosen here
I certainly would've walked away by now.
And I still may ... (sigh) ... I still may.
Be patient.
I must keep reminding myself of this.
And if there were no rewards to reap,
No loving embrace to see me through
This tedious path I've chosen here,
I certainly would've walked away by now.
And I still may.
Tool / Patient
Here's an advanced meditation book: http://www.amazon.com/Mahamudra-Moonlight-Quintessence-Mind-Meditation/dp/0861712994 take from it what you can, even though it is Tibetan
Cheers, WK
Cheers, WK
Could be, but it wouldn't be the first time that something is hidden in the dharma in plain sight.
Cheers, WK
"The Pali canon recognizes four levels of Awakening, the first of which is called stream entry. This gains its name from the fact that a person who has attained this level has entered the "stream" flowing inevitably to nibbana." (AccessToInsight.org, amazing how often that comes up in Google for this stuff).
Another site says "stream of awakening", basically the same thing.
My question above still stands though, to Vincenzi, is there a stream?
i got fired from amazon. i think...
that I will prefer to read it in tibetan...
after I finish studing samskrita.
entering the stream. boat.
noble eightfold path. similar to.
there's a stream... with DharmaDhatu (% of reference not that accurate) you can see the direction of the... path traveled, and path to be traveled. like one of many applications of a Third Eye (to use a more neutral term) : see time.
You want to believe that you are on a stairway, and there are Buddhists behind you and Buddhists ahead of you, and that in the end all wioll end up at the top with Buddha. Isn't this a fear of solitude? Isn't it just another way to want popularity, acceptance, and pleasure?
Do you envy the enlightened? Is envy making you project yourself into enlightenment, iamgining you have it or it is just beyond this day's grasp?
Isn't it clear meditation is about the mind, and the mind is about intelligence, and intelligence is new? As soon as truth becomes known it is no longer truth. Because as the known it can not be new.
So clinging to known truth is also fear of truth, the comfort of the familiar, the popular. Truth in your head becomes a rattle!
So meditation is mutual self-discovery, keeping up with the discoveries as other people in your clique make them, like an algebra class?
There are the superior meditators who are downstream and the inferior who are upstream?
What if you make one discovery that ends thought, and there is no one on Earth who will hear about it? Then it is better not to make this discovery? Or does it make you superior, moving ahead by leaps in the stream, up there with the masters?
Enlightenment is humility because it is an animal, and it is the least of the animals along with the cattle. Nature is the most cosmic creatures on Earth.
Begin, if you want to discuss it, with what you interptret as potentially pessimistic.
When a venerable old meditation teacher enters a place it changes, no matter how vulgar the place is. But when it is all done in words perhaps its the other way around. Which spirit will be exorcized? The spirit of trifling self, or the spirit of meditation that walks in with an old man?
This place feels disgustingly like USA. Step off a plane there and you say, "One giant leap towards Hell!""
A place also changes when a small slug enters. And 'vulgar' is subjective.
Is it ever really done in a way other than with words?
My, how dualistic of you.
Well, there <i>are</i> a lot of people on this forum who live in the States. You are aware that people of many different nations are represented on the internet, right?
Also, I would argue that "hell" is a state of mind. If you come to a place and find it's hell, it's because you're taking it with you.
Yes, "Pop a cap in yo' ass" and "break da hoe" and kids dying of drivebys in your arms, smoking crack, huffing smack, dealing and pimping, selling children, etc. don't make a place sinister. It's the roots of great talent, hip hop and all that. Where would we be without it? Democracy has come to mean plenty of room for every evil.
And all this leads one to ask why you want to be with Buddhists at all, never mind where there is meant to be advanced studies. Is it a joke to you? Is Buddha a big joke?
And it's true as you say, Americans take hell with them wherever they go. They're the biggest joke on Earth as long as there are just a few of them. A market square with five hundred people, and one american ego silences everyone even when speaking in an undertone. He's like a comet crossing the sky.
Wow. I'm concerned that you have an incredibly limited, uninformed, and cartoonish view of western society.
Yes, that is my daily reality. I "pop caps" and "break hoes" and am so involved in all manner of horrific carnage, it's honestly a wonder that I have any time to meditate, go to temple, or feed myself. /sarcasm
It seems like you've come to this forum with a very definite agenda based on very rigid notions. I'm sorry for that.
And all this leads one to ask why you want to be with Buddhists at all, never mind where there is meant to be advanced studies. Is it a joke to you? Is Buddha a big joke?
? "be with Buddhists?" I am Buddhist; I take refuge in the three jewels. I am here to enjoy speaking with others and learning from others on this topic.
You sound quite fundamentalist..if one does not follow your particular brand, school, denomination, or lineage of Buddhism, then they don't take it seriously?
And it's true as you say, Americans take hell with them wherever they go. They're the biggest joke on Earth as long as there are just a few of them. A market square with five hundred people, and one american ego silences everyone even when speaking in an undertone. He's like a comet crossing the sky.[/QUOTE]
For what it's worth, you're mixing threads..you're responding to one thread what you're reading in another. I'm able to follow, but it might be confusing for others.
Nice that you think that a whole nationality is worthy of degrading. I must have missed the sutta that encourages bigotry.
A market square with five hundred people, and one american ego silences everyone even when speaking in an undertone. He's like a comet crossing the sky.[/QUOTE]
I think that situation may be unfortunate if the needs of many are unfairly dismissed because of the needs of a few (regardless of nationality--though I think it's also egregious for anyone, including my countrymen, to think (for instance) that an American life is worth more than that of the life of another person). But I think it sometimes to the credit of the human being that one individual can make a difference.
Perhaps this speaks to the divide between "western" and "eastern" thought...individualism vs community, a dualism I'm submitting for simplicity's sake. I used to believe that Western individualism was 'superior' to Eastern emphasis on communal values, but I have changed in this and have come to respect the Eastern take as well. Which approach works best in a given situation, I think, depends upon the situation..and I would say that both are potentially harmful when taken to an ideological extreme.
Didn't some old Yogi also tried to teach Siddartha to progress in stages of meditation Jana to get enlightenement?!
All this worry about levels of enlightenment will probably chain people more in Samsara than anything else.