Stream Entry

Adrien Lancaster, modified 6 Years ago at 2/4/18 10:39 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 11:56 AM

Stream Entry

Posts: 3 Join Date: 7/11/17 Recent Posts
Stream Entry
Chris Weeks, modified 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 1:26 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 1:26 PM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 6 Join Date: 12/5/16 Recent Posts
While I am not in position to speak with any authority on stream entry, I have had a similarish experience with entheogenic mushrooms many years ago, and from that I can say... give it some time.

I had an experience that was utterly transformative.  Like your experience, I was given a very direct and literal glimpse into no-self. For an entire week afterwards I was seeing things more clearly, was way more open emotionally and socially, feeling more balanced and confident, in a constant good mood (not normal for me at the time lol), and everything just looked and felt... right..in a weirdly dynamic way.  At the time I was very excited obviously.  Sad to say, after a week the feeling went away.  I could feel the moment it left, it took about 3 or 4 seconds, like all the color just draining quickly out of the world.  In retrospect, with the info I've gained here, I see it as simply a very strong A&P experience.

Now, at the time I didn't have any meditation or insight experience, so maybe your situation will be different, but I know that it is exceedingly rare for chemically induced experiences to produce permanent change.  My feeling is that they are more valuable as 'glimpses' of the territory.
thumbnail
streamsurfer, modified 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 3:41 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 3:40 PM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 101 Join Date: 1/19/16 Recent Posts
Could you describe "the moment" more detailled?

I think that psychedelics provide so much energy they make jhanas easily accessible and also equanimity. But why not also stream entry...
Nevertheless experiencing emptiness flavour is not the same as cracking up emptiness, it can give you a lookout though.
Was the shift smooth or suddenly? Was there an observer and how was he experiencing?
Adrien Lancaster, modified 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 7:56 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/11/17 7:56 PM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 3 Join Date: 7/11/17 Recent Posts
@streamsurfer so if I treat this as an A&P, what would you recommend paying attention to in the coming days of temporary bliss during this glimpse to enhance my later practice and path?
thumbnail
streamsurfer, modified 6 Years ago at 7/12/17 6:22 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/12/17 6:21 AM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 101 Join Date: 1/19/16 Recent Posts
Okay that really sounds more like stream entry.
If it was, time will tell: the loosening of sense of "me" will stay the same and will be deepened by further practice. And also, you will be cycling through the nanas. Maybe you will experience fruition more clearly in the following practice. If not: When there's A&P, dark night, equanimity symptoms, and then again later A&P, you missed it in between (fruition is really easy to overlook in everyday life). So I would just continue and see whats coming, cause if it was a path then its limits will show sooner or later.
Adrien Lancaster, modified 6 Years ago at 7/12/17 6:56 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/12/17 6:56 PM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 3 Join Date: 7/11/17 Recent Posts
Thank you for your reply. Certainly the suffering that is left seems much more impenetrable than that which is dispersed :/ A final detail I forgot was that one of the first things I felt after the moment was that it felt like "I" was moving through a long hallway, at the end of which was what was in my field of vision, this hallway seeming to be between my brain/mind and the ends of my eyeballs, and once arriving at the end of this hallway, things generally continued along relatively normally
Dom Stone, modified 6 Years ago at 7/16/17 2:37 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 7/16/17 2:34 PM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 118 Join Date: 3/21/17 Recent Posts
I would certainly give it time to be sure to see if any effects are permanent.

I get the impression however that it was just a very strong A&P moment.

The reason I don't think it was an equinamity moment is due to the clinging of the experience. Powerful and profound as it may have been, experiences are as temporary and fleeting as a moment in time itself and the important thing is how we decide to assimilate these experiences.

Through meditation, we dedicate a very significant amount of time suppressing and undercutting desires, and changing the perspective of self that some of us call ego. This is what allows Insight experiences such as this to accidentally grace us with their presence. Without our mind shying away from bare reality like a hot pan, or trying to make sense of it in terms of "It happened to me", these experiences only go as deep as our mind allows. It takes an act of surrender to experience so that the mind, for the first time, chooses NOT to follow the constant stream of desire and meet Nibbana.

The reason why drugs have been able to make us open to such profound states, but rarely supramundane states is because the mind is conditioned to respond to sense contact. Drugs can heighten the speed of awareness, but their changes are generated in a reality that is not typical to the mind. Should the mind revert back, these Insight experiences can become a distant memory.

Perhaps you have reached stream entry, but ask yourself, "How did you stream entry?"

If, upon seeing reality as it really is, you managed to find it in yourself to just accept it and be, without controlling or, understanding, thinking, feeling it... To silence the mind into experiencing non existence... Then give it some time and spend some time trying to call up fruitions.
Jinxed P, modified 6 Years ago at 2/2/18 3:56 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 2/2/18 3:52 PM

RE: Stream Entry (Answer)

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Hey Adrian,

If you are asking about MTCB paths, there are others here who are better qualified to answer, but one thing I noticed in your reports is the lack of an obvious Cessation/Fruition experience. A cessation is a gap in experience. It happens because the mind is in such and incredibly deep state of equanimity, that it doesn't project any experience into consciousness. There's not even a blackness, it's literally nothing.
 
Cessation/Fruition - also known as a nibbana experience, is the marker for stream entry in Mahasi traditions. When one has this first cessation experience, it is often followed by a bliss wave that last days or weeks. In the later paths, these cessations should be happening all the time. You should also be able to do the samatha jhanas. 

But perhaps you can relate your experience to the traditional four path model of theravadan buddhism, or at least Culadasa's version of it and see where you place yourself..



1st path: Obtained through the direct experience of emptiness, this is by having a cessation or a series of smaller insights. One is no longer deceived by perceptions of self, and self-existent reality outside the midn. There is less attachment, less suffering, less craving , more inner peace, more love, more generosity

2nd Path: Desire and aversion, while not completely extirpated, have vastly diminished and only appear when tired, or unmindful, and are easily overcome when they do arise with a little mindfulness.

3rd Path: One becomes completely and totally free from the compulsions of desire and aversion and there manifestations of greed, hatred, anger, jealousy, and sadness

4th Path: The arahant has completely overcome the conceit and restlessness associated with "I" and has put an end to suffering.

Here is a more detailed guide:

http://dharmatreasure.org/wp-content/uploads/Enlightenment.pdf

If you have low Emotional intelligence, there are a few things you can do to 'test' whether you are experiencing negative emotions, or just really unable to be aware of them. 

1. Ask other people if you ever seem to be stressed,anxious, bad mood, angry, irritable. Girlfriends, your Mom, are the best people to ask as they will bring out the emotions in you and women are also very sensitive and are able to pick up on emotions better than men. There's the old saying, "Think you are enlightened? Go hang out with your family for a week."


2. Do the following test (it's a famous test in Tibetan Tantra), hold your breath for as long as you can. To the point of near passing out. If you do this, and on the very first try (it's something you can quickly adapt to, so it has to be on the first try), you experience the slightest discomfort, stress-response, or aversion then you have not reached 4th path.

As for third path by the traditional model, third path is the complete ending of craving for sensual pleasure... So if taking a hard stance on this, if you ever crave any sensual experience, for food, sex, music, getting high, then you are not third path.  Or if you have any aversion, as in you dislike anything, then not third path.

There are funny stories of people reaching this path and testing it out. I imagine one might go to a strip club and  get a lap dance and see if the desire for sex arises, or allowing one's girlfriend to have sex with another man in front of them and see if the slightest jealousy arises. 


Now these are hardline stances, and very few people are third or fourth path by these measures. As for MTCB paths, again, someone else is probably better to diagnose you than me. 


 
thumbnail
Thich Nhat Han Solo, modified 5 Years ago at 7/1/18 11:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/18 10:14 PM

RE: Stream Entry

Posts: 16 Join Date: 1/12/18 Recent Posts
1st path: Obtained through the direct experience of emptiness, this is by having a cessation or a series of smaller insights. 

Hi Jinxed - would you detail further this idea of 1st path resulting from a series of small insights as opposed to a cessation/Nibbana dip?
 
I've never heard of this before? Could a person reach 1st path having had no cessation? Where does the idea originate from?
 
Thanks!
TNHS