if one can experience no-self ,or no-ego ,or no center point stuff as a permanent entity,is he a stream entrant?

or

This need not be true for all stream entrants ?

And i see a lot of people asking questions like "is this stream entry?" ,so if one can check himself like

"is there a center point,is there some one behinds the eyes ,is there a watcher" ?

if not,he is a stream entrant

please advise

Holy schmoly, I tend to think it's much simpler than that. Mind has had some kind of click, some kind a release, knows it's great to not be be in deliberately immersed/subsumed by dukkha nanas, but still look at all the fetters associated with sotapanna. Not pretty. Seriously, a person who's overcome major addiction has, IMHO, has much, much, much more under their belt -- a much more capable mind frame, and, chiefly, humility. Just my two cents.

i see ,so a huge control over mind ,and a relief from all those dukka nananas,as if like the weight lifted from the body ,kind of thing is SE

so when this "no-self" happens ,no center-point thing happens ,is it some where between 1st and 2nd path?

I think a “technical” definition is safest, e.g. like this:

stream entry = having completed (at least) one progress of insight

Everything else, especially definitions that rely on psychological effects or abilities that coincide with meditation attainments can be very misleading, because different people with different issues & temperaments from different backgrounds etc. will report & emphasize different aspects of the changes that come with stream entry.

Christian raises an important point. There are different criteria for stream entry, and it's helpful to specify which ones you mean. It's hard to map the (edit) criteria in MCTB to the those in the traditional definition.

Yes, the above points make sense.

And I am a huge, experiential fan of the "wait a year" school of thought. So from time of an insight moment that seems to have some poignancy to the practitioner or stands out, the practitioner will know for themselves if mental state has experienced a significant shift-&-release as behaviour and some habits do change over the coming months. And, to me,each path has a tremendous 'risk'/natural tendency of clinging to its Equanimity phase, which seems to me to have a "smug"-like flavor despite one's best intentions. (It is really interesting me that conceit is among the last fetters. And is to me no surprise that some of the greatest most loved, sometimes least known teachers are remembered and described as completely humble/egoless.)

Thanks for bringing this up, Rony =]

Good one katy ,may be i am more curious ,so when this no-center point ,no-watcher ,or no-ego stuff become a real experience (word experience is a problem) .Like there is no I behind the experience sprout ?

Wow, where to start.
The stream entry concept has been discussed at book length for thousands of years and people do not agree...let alone a sentence that reduces it to the absurd.
What do you mean by "experience no-self ,or no-ego ,or no center point stuff as a permanent entity"?
Please explain self, ego, and center point too as a starting place before you negate them. then continue with:
What is being experienced?
Who is experiencing it?
Please start writing your book explaining these concepts as others have done. Then see how many people agree to what you say given unlimited words.

See the problem?
It gets much more problematic than this...

Now with that aside, since I mostly might agree with your sentence, what are you trying to do; or ask; or state?

So, for me, what you're describing sounds like its coming from the fresh, vivant, unaffective aspect of Equanimity --- getting closer to a suffusive or 'pure' state of EQ (whereas the "smug" and tense side of EQ is when a person starts to naturally cling to equanimity, reducing equanimity to its bear minimum little state that sits very, very close to the dukkha nanas, but is clinging to stay out of them directly). We could call these high and low equanimity, too; that's one convention. Low equanimity is very close to dukkha nanas (but can feel awesome the first few times it occurs after intense 'dark night'); high eq has a scopeless range of experience arising from more of what you're describing.



A high equanimity, which inherently seems to come up not-from-me and as not-me because it is purely equanimous, is a launching point for lots of not-me/centerless/vast kinds of perception of experience (which experience one recalls with kinds of hindsight view). It is from the mental state of high EQ that a person knows intuitively ego and conceit will someday have to be dispelled because the great meditation experiences (and much practicality) come from this pure (singular, undiluted) equanimous-intimately-engaged/immersed/merged mental state, which -- like you say, has no center, no ego, no relevance to an experience of "I behind the experience sprout" (fun word choice, Rony).

So I think you're describing an experience related to a higher equanimity mental state, maybe a moment of pure equanimity. In equanimity and near high equanimity immeasurable amounts of juicy, here's-why-we-learn-meditation-and-sati experience occurs. The more pure equanimity occurs the more experiences occur and which experiences only occur when there is first that centerlessness, not-me. It's like concentration and attention are super-charged just because ego-center, me-ness", stood down/ dropped out of the way/ went dormant for a bit. This all can sound a little epic, but, again, there are some very simple, amazing, low-key folks out there who seem to be experiencing this state most of the time.

Also, in a middling equanimity (not suffusive, yes diluted) experience a person can experience two rapidly toggling sources of experience: one which is sort of that scopeless completely neutral-intimate-engaging-merged-not-separate awareness and another source that is faint, small and me-like periodically rippling a personal awareness into the scopeless, massive equanimity no-center/no-watcher/yes-isness experience.

But these are just my words. The after-joy of equanimity experience is that the experience itself is a massive tutor for everyone who trains and experiences it in their own practice. It is vast and practical, insightful. Maybe you will share other eq experience as they arise.

To me ego,self is like a permanent entity ,like

"i write this post on dho" , "i am looking for answers" , "like i refresh the thread to see whether any new replies had been posted"

So there is an "I" around all my experience

A watcher who feels the cool sensation in the skin,who feels the emotions ,sadness,anxiety,who feels tingling sensations in the head,and "I" puts aversion to it ,and "I" applies "Let go" to it etc

Now i heard/read that the solid ,hard "I" thing is also a thought pattern,which is like any other thoughts,and also i heard that when people do stuff like buddhist practices,zen,advaitic,Tantric etc etc they will realize that there is no "I" behind the actions

Now like every one / (most) else here ,i read MCTB ,and the "Progress of Insight" completes its one cycle at Stream Entry

I had asked a few about what this stream entry is like ,and also read some SE diagnosis by several people in DhO

The Pretty much common answer is "There is a huge shift in practice ,Emotions are not affecting the mind in a huge deal like it was before"

Now the question i want to ask specifically is ,when this "No self" is experienced ,i had a chat with Daniel,and asked the same question to him,and his answer was like

"the moment or two before I got stream entry: yes, I remember that quite well "

So now i think this may not be the case with everyone

Please share your thoughts with respect to "Stream Entry" and "No Self" phenomena

You might just be asking DW, but...

Totally agree: memorable. Very remarkable. There are certain moments (guess those are insights) that just somehow leave a distinct residue which "I" can process once the volitional skandha re-arises... actually when they're all back "on" after the entirety of whatever is mind/brain does what ever it does and one experiences a very plain coming back online through the skandhas.

How can something be memorable when the moment occurs in pure equanimity (no self, no center, distinctions, but no gradient, what is remembering?) when there has been an absolute "off" and the a re-booting of the components of "I"-ness before they fully reform i-ness? I remember I felt something like a hindsight view of the skandhas of each individual one as that aspect of mind came back "online", even just that sense of a first spark of basic mind: form without discrimination (without gradient, w/oaffect) after being "off", but it really wasn't until the the voilitional skandha came up that I felt sort of the "wham" of personal interest and thoughts, and it wasn't until they all returned there was the cacophony of "I" and "I am here again". There is a pali word for this hindsight view. It is called pari-_________ and I don't remember the second part of that word.

Absolutely remarkable, leaves something on the brain. It was like a very plain-seeming experience that incongruously caused an incredible enlivening, vivacity, curiosity in the months that followed.

well I started down the rabbit hole but got distracted on the way and didn't finish the thought yet....Check out this post

here is a grab bag of ideas I am working on reguarding the selfing process...
Mind
Thoughts
Narrative
symbolic
consciousness

viewpoint
relational self
not other
watcher

proprioception
body sensations
possession me
awareness
location

when self referencing
emotions with referencing to I

stress

So there are different aspects to the selfing process and when an aspect is shut down will the person necessarily understand or notice exactly what happened or be able to describe it? will they all explain it the same way? Will it reboot in some people? Will the other layers coopt the experience? Is it truly permanent for all people in the same way? Are there additional things going on that confuse the issues? Hmmm....not simple but I find this very interesting..
Can you say it all in one sentence? sure....but is it meaningful to do so?

which blind man describes the elephant in one sentence the best? Reference

Lets narrow the self down to a separate, permanent self. What part of the selfing process creates this illusion of separateness and permanentness?

So basically i thought like people who got stream entry is in a state of "no-center point" ,which is revealed to them after SE ,so that is not the case

No, not at all. The point I am trying to make is it is not so simple. You are trying to make something that is very complicated to explain into one thing only and apply it to every case.
Nothing is just black or white.
Never use absolutes. <---self recursive joke there>

You are digging in the right direction. You are starting with the right questions. Keep going. It will get complicated and hard but you can get some intellectual understanding of what is going on. You will not get to apply what you figure out to everyone all the time. Hopefully you will get an understanding for yourself that will help you in your practice and not slow yourself down by limiting your practice to merely what you can understand.


In the majority of the cases of stream entry, for people who achieve it in the MCTB model, the nature of how they view themselves changes.

But what happens at second path? and third and fourth?

It's not actually that complex in the classical definition, which Daniel says in MCTB he has no major beef with.

Maybe it gets more complex for higher paths, where Daniel says he does have a beef. But it sounds like his criteria for second path are weaker than Theravada's.

Hmm, Today I Learned that according to Daniel's definitions, I am third path, though I experience no cycles. I thought I had only just attained second two weeks ago (going by the Theravada model) using Nikolai's Hacking Vedana technique. Anyway, doesn't matter. I always know what the next development needs to be, practice wise.

@five_bells ,for you when the center-point got hacked,like when the no-center point became your experience ,the word experience wont count here as there is no experiencer ,so with in the constraints of the language when you had the experience of no-self popped in ,or it is still there in a subtle form?

Rony, could you expand on your question, please? I'm having trouble making sense of it.

hey i just started a new thread as a continuation of this thread to become more specific


this

Hi, Rony. I read your question there. The "I" is not destroyed completely at stream entry. "I" still comes up, but self-view is abandoned as a privileged or inviolable perspective on experience. It is possible to adopt a perspective in which this mind/emotion/body/dreams/personality is not me/mine/my self, and the most important development in stream entry is the realization that it's skillful to adopt such a perspective at least some of the time because it leads to greater peace and wiser decisions. There doesn't have to be a significant shift in day-to-day modes of perception for this to develop.

I don't know how useful it is to explain these things. You would be better off attending to the suffering and inconstancy in your experience of mind/emotion/body/dreams/personality, and asking whether anything so inconstant and causing so much suffering is worth perceiving as you/yours/yourself.

Dang dude, I was totally over-complicating it. Thanks Fivebells, when in doubt see Wikipedia, lol.
With this new insite I can get back to my rabbit hole of the selfing process...
Good luck
~D

Um, enjoy?

If you're being sarcastic, but have not yet decided that the conversation is a waste of time, you could move it forward by saying what aspect of stream-entry Daniel's and Wikipedia's definitions are missing, or outlining some of the complexities they gloss over.

PS: If you mean to say it's always hard to reach that point, or that people complicate it for themselves, I totally agree.

no sarcasm, things kinda clicked and I'm writing up a post on the selfing process thread that I started a while back...
I just got bogged down in what is a self....what makes it up...how is it built....what are it's aspects....then how does it apply to the "not self" concept...then how does this apply to which level of enlightenment....assuming the MCTB model. I think I might be making headway....we shall see..
Thanks,
~D

No worries, glad to be of help.

Hm. Is stream entry "a huge control over mind"... not what I would say. It occurred to me a few days ago that the mind before SE may wonder/despair something like, "Why is all this happening to me?"/"Why am I this?"/"Why is the world thus?" (because it is the effect of dukkha on self that provokes an introspective study like meditation ); after stream entry, I think the mind starts to identify, "Ah, here's how I create dukkha to experience," or "Here's how I'm creating dukkha for myself." In 2-3 "paths" metta will come to be known more and more subtly or the paths would not occur (in the fetter model) and understanding/realization of metta prepares the way for continuing. In my opinion, post-2nd loses need for and expectation of clear "paths" (like one awaits and senses with SE); open self-study and investigation become very strong, the will to openly investigate and work in one's habits and being become very strong.

Your question about "no-self": some people describe an experience of no-self/no center in single-pointed concentration or in less suffusive stages of equanimity jhana or even experience an astounding self in the A&P that it may seem like, "Not my self, anyway". Perhaps we have a different understanding of this phrase, but I don't automatically associate or even incline towards thinking SE with such an experience. There can be this kind of no-self experience without SE, in my opinion and based on my experience.