At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remains..

ANNA AIYAR, modified 8 Years ago at 1/9/16 8:39 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/9/16 8:39 PM

At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remains..

Posts: 40 Join Date: 1/8/16 Recent Posts
Hi 

Can someone please explain in detail the Stages of the "I" feeling dissapearance. 

What truly is Sakkaya Ditti? 

Sutta say that "Mana" is only eliminated in the Arahathship... then what is the difference between Sakkaya Ditti and Mana?

Can Fear of Death or Fear of illness occur to a Stream Enterer?

With Metta
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CJMacie, modified 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 6:22 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 6:10 AM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
ANNA AIYAR:

Can someone please explain in detail the Stages of the "I" feeling dissapearance.
What truly is Sakkaya Ditti? 


Thanissaro Bhikkhu's (Than-Geoff) little book "Into the Stream" (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/into_the_stream.html) lists sutta quotations to define this (pp 54-58 print version, section "The Three Fetters").

Sutta say that "Mana" is only eliminated in the Arahathship... then what is the difference between Sakkaya Ditti and Mana?

On page 58 (end of sub-section on "self-identity views"), a passage (SN 22:89) is quoted where one Ven. Khemaka outlines how "…self-identity views may be cut even though the mind has yet to cut the conceit, 'I am,' which ends only at the level of full Awakening.". The gist of it seems to be one overcomes identifying with any of the 5 khandas – "it's not that I say 'I am form [feeling…]', nor do I say 'I am something other than form [feeling…]'. With reard to these five clinging-aggretates, 'I am' has not been overcome, although I don't assume that 'I am this'."

My own sense of it is that one sees clearly that any particular identification is insubstantial, but one still uses identification as a means on the path (like the famous raft simile), in the sense of becoming, of aspiring, i.e. to find awakening. Than-Geoff likes to quote his teacher saying that one thing is to be clung-to avidly, namely the (skillful) desire to find the end to suffering; when that's found, then this clinging falls away with all the others.

The three fetters cut with stream-entry seem to represent achieving a clear view (the "dhamma eye" as Than-Geoff points out) of the goal, and ardent intention to follow the path towards it (basically the first two of the Eight-Fold-Path).This includes realizing that views of the self are not substantial (fetter 1), and that things like pure formalisms (habits, practices, etc.) don’t do the job (fetter 3). With overcoming doubt (fetter 2) there comes this clarity, and the ardent intention to follow the path through, training to cut the remaining fetters. The way is clear and open, though the remaining task is non-trivial. Likely the mana (conceit) aspect of comparison may be used skillfully along the way, in the sense of evaluating one's progress, for instance using the help of "noble friends" to point out where one has made progress, where one need further work, which involves comparing one's self (provisional tool of becoming) with standards used to discern how one is progressing. At the end goal, that all falls away; there is imperturbable certainty, nothing to further become.

Can Fear of Death or Fear of illness occur to a Stream Enterer?

Probably so, in the sense of fear in general. There's a sutta passage where some monk thinks he's fully awakened, but another points out that he was obviously gripped with fear in the face of a threatening elephant, and thus not really yet at the arahant stage. Fear may be similar to disenchantment, dispassion, revulsion, dark-night, and other phases that may arise. Maybe in fact a certain fear of not successfully carrying-out the path, which, like the sense of urgency the Buddha often urges people to keep in mind, helps motivation to propel the work along – like 'ars longa, vita brevis' (Latin: "art takes a long timebut life is short"). In fact, Than-Geoff considers the Buddha's path as a sort of skill, craft of mental training (for instance in his recent book "Buddhist Romanticism" http://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html), and the Latin 'ars' was used to translate the Greek 'techne' , which the Greeks used for what we call artistic actitivities, in the sense of "technical" skills. (Art as individual "creativity" in the modern sense is perhaps more a product of "Romanticism".)

Banned For waht?, modified 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 12:14 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 12:14 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 500 Join Date: 7/14/13 Recent Posts
Absense of self.
The thing is that i know that there is self somewhere but haven't yet realized it nor have no idea how to realize it.
As i read your post then i started thinking about it and reflecting on it then i forgot about it perhaps i switched to another music song but then i came back to your post and then the awareness/self came by itself, then i came aware that i became aware and the self disappeared. Now after that i do meditate like i normally do, so i think it were a fruition/accomplishment and i don't know what i will do next, nor what i need to do.
Also if i try to experience the same fruition again now, i can't. So it seems i need to forget it entirely again in order to realize it again.

Conceit, pride.
When i play chess with someone and i lose i feel suffering, it just reminds me how i suck in life, it just happens that i lost money, perhaps other things, but it peaks. It feels like end of the world, at somepoint i see it through to the I there and i will come immune to suffering. The suffering just don't disappear by knowing that its conceit or im causing it to myself: but i need to go all the way to the end station.

Circles.
Something like if i come aware then i can't undo it: it can be small circle, you spin it to get fuel for big circle and at times both confluence.
There is big circle, where the same process is going through using your body channels, so you get a more elaborate picture. If channels aren't purified then it takes lots of time and can seem separate processes but actually is only first quarter of the entire circle.
ANNA AIYAR, modified 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 2:53 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 2:53 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 40 Join Date: 1/8/16 Recent Posts
Thank you Rist
ANNA AIYAR, modified 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 3:15 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/10/16 3:15 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 40 Join Date: 1/8/16 Recent Posts
Hi Chris, 

The information you provided was great, will explore now.. (the e-books you have recommended)

Thank you
Anna 
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svmonk, modified 8 Years ago at 1/11/16 10:42 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/11/16 10:41 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Anna,

My understanding is that at Stream Entry (First Path), a person gains their first experience of the self as not substantially existent, i.e., that it is not somehow a "thing", permanent and unchanging, and therefore loses a belief that they have a permanent and unchanging self inside them. However, the habit of referring everything back to the self and the construction of the self through seeking out specific sensations that enhance it and avoiding those that contradict it is so deeply engrained that a person continues to experience the constructed self as a coherent agent, so to speak, though with less attachment. I think this is what the suttas mean by "the conceit 'I am'". At Arhat (Fourth Path), the view of emptiness (no-self) becomes firmly established in a person's personality and the person loses the conceit and the experience of a coherent agent.

Regarding fear of death and fear of illness, my understanding is that they are mitigated as is fear in general in a First Pather, but to the extent that a person hasn't completely eliminated the self-view, there is some residual fear, if only when the view of self is active.

Hope that helps.
ANNA AIYAR, modified 8 Years ago at 1/11/16 10:45 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/11/16 10:45 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 40 Join Date: 1/8/16 Recent Posts
Hi Svmonk, 

yes it helped alot to confirm certain things.. 
thank you once again
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Nicky, modified 8 Years ago at 1/14/16 2:56 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/14/16 2:52 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 484 Join Date: 8/2/14 Recent Posts
ANNA AIYAR:
Hi 

Can someone please explain in detail the Stages of the "I" feeling dissapearance. 

What truly is Sakkaya Ditti? 

Sutta say that "Mana" is only eliminated in the Arahathship... then what is the difference between Sakkaya Ditti and Mana?

Can Fear of Death or Fear of illness occur to a Stream Enterer?

With Metta

"Mana" as a fetter refers to the perception of superiority & inferiority of 'people'. 

In other words, all 10 fetters can lead to the occuring of "self-view". 

The stream-enterer has had a clear enlightenment experience of selflessness & its peaceful fruits. 

However, the mind of the stream-enterer still has lots of ignorance, which results in self-view still ocurring when mindfulness lapses or when ignorance is functioning. 

For example, a stream-enterer may be inwardly free but worry when it sees the problems of 'people' externally. This external perception of 'people' is also self-view. 

Or a stream-enterer may wish to help other people but not know how due to a lack of wisdom. This frustration can cause 'self-view' to arise, both internally & externally. 

Of the four levels of enligthenment, only the arahant has eradicated self-view completely (internally & externally) so dukkha never ever occurs. 

With metta. emoticon
ANNA AIYAR, modified 8 Years ago at 1/14/16 2:56 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 1/14/16 2:56 PM

RE: At Stream Entry what "Identify View" is eliminated fully and what remai

Posts: 40 Join Date: 1/8/16 Recent Posts
Nicky:
ANNA AIYAR:
However, the mind of the stream-enterer still has lots of ignorance, which results in self-view still ocurring when mindfulness lapses. 

Of the four levels of enligthenment, only the arahant has eradicated self-view completely so dukkha never ever occurs.


Thank you Nicky. emoticon

Yes I totally agree... "which results in self-view still ocurring when mindfulness lapses"

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