What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

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Rumblebuffen, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 1:03 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 1:03 AM

What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 9 Join Date: 4/23/17 Recent Posts
Dear All

What is specifically meant by "irradication of doubt?"

I've heard it translated as specifically "skeptical doubt" meaning that you no longer doubt the Buddha's teaching on Nibbana and his path of how to get there and the efficacy of the Four Noble Truths.

This is clear to me.

However, I'm unclear as to other types of doubt namely self-doubt, doubt in a teacher and doubt in a method. 

One would think that the doubt in a teacher and method would still be functional post S.E. because otherwise you'd have no defence against shitty teacher and crappy methods after S.E. 

What about self doubt? If you have some low-self esteem issues maybe its possible to doubt you attained S.E. even though you did and believe its possible but maybe not for you. Or maybe you are confident in your attainment but doubt the possibility of attained later paths.

What makes things confusing is that the definition of the hinderence of doubt often includes doubt in ability, teacher and method. Therefore it would be great if someone, ideally an advanced practitioner or teacher, could clear up the question of whether or not these continue post-S.E. or not. Because if they do, then its clear that people post-S.E. can expet to still suffer from the doubt hinderence but just not insofar as it refers to the Dhamma. 

Cheers and many thanks 

(crossposting to r/streamentry - if this isnt correct etiquette please let me know)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 2:03 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 2:03 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
According to what I have heard, it is possible to reach SE without realizing it, as testified here at DhO by at least one advanced practitioner, Chris Marti, and I guess that could be labelled as doubt in ability. Doubt in teachers has also been reported in the aftermath of scandals. As for methods, there are so many of them when one goes into the specifics, and not all of them are suitable for everyone. I have no doubt in Buddhist meditation as a method, but as for the specifics, I may doubt if they are a good match for me at a specific point in my practice. 

I certainly doubt my ability sometimes. If that means that I have not reached SE, then I haven't, but I assess that I have reached second path. I find the beginning of a new path unsettling and challenging, since it involves difficulties I have a hard time accepting. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I just imagined all of it because again it seems so unreachable.

I'm not a teacher and not very advanced, so I hope there will be input from others as well. I hope it was okay that I answered anyway. 
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Bardo, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 2:36 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 2:32 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 263 Join Date: 9/14/19 Recent Posts
At stream-entry you gain direct, personal experience of the way out and only doubt concerning just this is removed. However, there still remains various klesha's (unwholesome states of mind) which can waver and subdue any further attempts to progress. These klesha's can take on the guise of doubt in many forms.

It may be possible that whatever context or teacher you find yourself with at the time of reaching stream entry, your confidence in that context or teacher is amplified. The ability to subjectively assess a context or a teacher should always be present. It needs to be... one must always be questioning these two areas (teacher and context) otherwise, consciousness will form itself around those two domains and take them as its object. When this happens, you are lost. Consciousness (self) has no problem wrapping itself around ancient spiritual teachings or guru figures. So, yes, there must always be a sort of healthy doubt in those two areas but one can never really take away your own direct experience of knowing that there is a way out; that part has been burned in. The question here onward is technique and method to finish the job and for some people that can change but for others it remains stationary.

Self-doubt will make itself known through the klesha's.

My experience of the fetters model is cumbersome at best. Anything that creates linear stages will never paint an accurate picture of your direct experience which will be scatty, spasmodic and discombobulated. At best, you'll overlay parts of your journey onto a very rough blue-print painted by an elephant's trunk.
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Rumblebuffen, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 3:04 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 3:04 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 9 Join Date: 4/23/17 Recent Posts
Thanks for your helpful reply. It fits with my intuition that it must be specifically skeptical doubt that is irradicated whereas self-doubt on the basis of an arising klesha would remain. Cheers!
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Mista Tibbs, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 4:09 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 4:08 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 81 Join Date: 8/17/18 Recent Posts
These teachings need to have a real-world application or none of this would amount to anything emoticon

Have there been noticeable changes in your perspective with your association to the world and how each individual relationship in your life impacts you? Regarding self-doubt, what's your attitude about that right now, and has it always been this way? How has it impacted you outside of meditation?
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 7:09 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 7:09 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 5433 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
What is specifically meant by "irradication of doubt?"

The doubt typically referred to is doubt in the process. After stream entry (or whatever equivalent thing you encounter in other practices) you are convinced beyond doubt that the process of awakening is possible, true and useful.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 3:00 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 3:00 PM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 1047 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Also sometimes also expressed as doubt in the dharma.  The experience is kind of "Whoah! This stuff really does work. Ok, I'm not a skeptic anymore - I don't just believe it is true, I know it is true."
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 3:08 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/4/19 3:08 PM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I agree with that. Even at those moments when the thought popped up that I had imagined it all, I never doubted the dharma per se, because I still knew it was true. I just questioned my own attainments. Or some thoughts did, thoughts that were flashing by. 
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Stirling Campbell, modified 4 Years ago at 12/5/19 1:06 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/5/19 1:06 PM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 635 Join Date: 3/13/16 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
What is specifically meant by "irradication of doubt?"

The doubt typically referred to is doubt in the process. After stream entry (or whatever equivalent thing you encounter in other practices) you are convinced beyond doubt that the process of awakening is possible, true and useful.

I'm inclined to agree wholeheartedly with Chris here.

It isn't so much about practices, dharma, or teachings, as the direct experience is entirely empty of any of those contrivances. It is more about the obvious reality and nature of enlightenment.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 12/5/19 9:35 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/5/19 9:33 PM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 615 Join Date: 5/20/18 Recent Posts
I believe that I attained stream entry in daily life, 3 years ago, before I was a serious meditator. At that time, I had never heard of stream entry, and I did not know that enlightenment was something people actually tried to achieve. My worldview changed suddenly, and pretty significantly, but I had no context in which to put it. When I later read about the 3 fetters, I had a sense that I knew what they were referring to.

In my personal opinion, it's not doubt about a teacher, or about any particular meditation technique, or whatever.

I'm not a physicist, but I have no doubt about gravity. That is, I know that if I throw something up in the air, it will fall back down. My lack of doubt is based on my personal experience living on the surface of the Earth. Yet, if you asked me some technical question about gravity that requires knowledge of advanced physics, sure I would have plenty of doubt.

Insight changes the way you look at the world. You stop looking at things the wrong way, and start looking at them the right way. It just becomes obvious, and you take it for granted. You wonder how you could have possibly seen them any other way before. So, that's why doubt is eradicated.

The better question is probably "how does stream entry change how you look at the world?"

Nowadays, when I throw a pen up in the air, it falls back down. In the past, sometimes I threw pens up in the air, and sometimes pens fell down from the sky. But, I never made the connection that what came down is what had gone up. It's literally that insane. How on earth could I not have noticed that? My only explanation is that I was so caught up in some kind of narrative that I just didn't have the mental presence to notice basic stuff like that.

(the pen is, of course, a metaphor)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/6/19 12:07 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/6/19 12:07 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
That was an excellent explanation. *bowing*
Henry wijaya, modified 4 Years ago at 12/6/19 12:23 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/6/19 12:23 AM

RE: What specific doubts are irradiated on S.E?

Posts: 58 Join Date: 7/7/18 Recent Posts
Nathan:

What about self doubt? If you have some low-self esteem issues maybe its possible to doubt you attained S.E. even though you did and believe its possible but maybe not for you. Or maybe you are confident in your attainment but doubt the possibility of attained later paths.


This is a very dangerous translation, the whole study is about how to eradicate self, anatta, now you translate into self-doubt, which strengthen your identity.

While there is a sutta where Buddha encourage bhikkus to doubt their body is himself, feeling is himself, sensation, volition, consciousness.

If you look into the pali words, vicikiccha, it means a mind goes into two direction, which create a conflict, like a young girl who want to marry a young boy, her feeling says he is the one, though in her mind see had seen many young couple divorced.

SE means one who seen the 4 noble path and beginning to walk the 8 noble path, deep understanding of dependant origination

Many people claim SE but very few walk the path, they go back in their old life, enjoy entertainments, party, have sexual activities etc. While the 8 noble path require one to take the virtues also and begin to live like they don't exist here anymore, live in solitude. How can you enjoy the world while it is your own delution who create the enjoyment. Samadhi is just like a game for them, or an escape from their life.

Those people with samadhi experience are just Hindus like in times of Buddha, they come to ask about samadhi, after Buddha explain, they gone. They are just ascetics who look for samadhi experiences and debates. But many become SE just by hearing his dhamma, because afrerwards they begin to walk the path. Nowadays it still happened, on people hearing or reading the dhamma.
You may claim anything in this world, no one bothers, but if you claim to be SE under Buddha's teachings but no understanding on dukkha, no 8 noble paths, no virtue, then you just make fun of yourself. On the day you left the world you'd know. But anything you think about yourself is just irrelevant. The nature law and kamma of rebirth isnt about what you think of yourself or what someone says about you. It's way deeper than that.


Try to understand these, see if these resonates inside you deeply:

1. What is Dukha? It is to be born, to aging and death. Not just your body, body is material world, it belong to time and space, not "you".
2. How you come into birth, aging, death , which means how you caught inside time? Because the being is born - Bhava.

You got to look deep into this, suppose you wake up from a real deep sleep :
First Avijja - unconscious ,
then Sankhara - volition,
then Vinnana - perceiving object,
then Nama rupa - Name and mental image,
then salayatana - six sense media creating experience,
then phassa - the world is formed out there ,
then vedana - feeling of pleasant, unpleasant, neutral of the objects in the world,

This is where the most interesting things occur :

then Tanha - Reactions to the objects ; emotionally or ignorantly
then Upadana - Taking the reactions into your identity, personalizing experiences into "MY" experience
then Bhava - the "I" is born here, caught in time and space

because of Bhava is born, at first only the body caught in time and space, now "you" also caught in, your past, you present , your future
Your Birth- your past and all your identity
Your Aging and death - your present and future, plans etc.

This is Dukkha Sacca, the ultimate truth of dukkha, beings in 31 existences.

3. How to end the dukha? Either from Avijja through meditation process, where you can stop the Sankhara which is jhana 9 or vipassana into the stopping. Or from Tanha, where you dont react to any feelings, even neutral, dont personalize them, only sense media in contacts.

4 The way to cessation of dukkha is 8 noble path, purify body and mind to prepare for enlightment, the cessation of bhava/existence, which lead to nibbana. This one is a long one, you should walk the path sooner or later.

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