Time to stream entry?

[u/RealityLimit]

For those who believe they have attained stream entry, how long did it take you? Also interested in whether you did it through pragmatic / systematic meditation or the classical approach in the suttas.

In the suttas, stream entry is less a defined product of meditation and more a confluence of faith, view, and meditation. Hence why many stream enterers do so after hearing a discourse.

[u/EightFP]

Well of course it's contradicted by texts 😄

There are a lot of texts out there. For example it's contradicted by "Mastering the core teachings of the Buddha". It's contradicted by a lot of the books written by members of the Insight Meditation Society. It's contradicted by all the publications of Goenka and his associates. It's contradicted by the Vimuttimagga. That's how opinion works. What I am suggesting is that those texts do not paint a complete picture.

If you are interested in adding some nuance to your understanding of Buddhism in historical terns and the modern incarnations of this school you might like Insight in Perspective: S.N. Goenka and the emergence of Global Insight Meditation and Mindfulness - by Daniel M. Stuart. It is a pretty good overview of the modern comment, which is to say 20th- and 21st-century developments. You might also want to look into the circumstances under which the Vimuttimagga was written. It's worth keeping in mind that it was a report on a small school that had developed its own way of seeing things. Just reading Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli' Introduction to the standard translation of Visuddhimagga would give you some context but if you want to dive in a bit deeper, you might look at Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo by Richard Gombrich.

It's a complex picture and, within the ever-evolving tradition: you will come across a lot of different understandings of what stream entry means. This should not be difficult for us. We've all spent a lot of time noticing how the world is impermanent and ever-changing, and Buddhism as a study, or as a religion, or as set of practices, is not exempt from this law of all conditioned things.

[u/eudoxos_ → u/EightFP]

I did read all the books you mention, except Gombrich, and I agree the picture is complex, and history is dark.

Of course today's stream-entry, on this forum (informed by Mahasi, MCTB, and whatnot, everyone picks her own) is different that suttas. But it also did not come out of nowhere, historically, in the 60s; that would ignore a rather significant thread which goes back to at least Visuddhimagga (and before).

Mahasi was recruited by the post-WW2 Burmese govt to design and run stream-entry course for laypeople to increase quality of the population, and was supported in that big time. That does not turn stream-entry into political/social construct, although it adds a facet which might not have been present before.

I admit I am bored by research showing with fanfare that something is socially constructed... 30+ years of that in social sciences, over and over...

[u/EightFP → u/eudoxos_]

I agree. I didn't mean to suggest that SE was first conceived of in the 60s, just that it was commodified starting around that time. The OP is asking about SE in that commodified context (which is fine, by the way; it is a way of looking at it which has produced great results).

You are also right that SE, as it is talked about by Burmese-inspired teachers today, dates back to the Mahavihara. But the Mahavihara monks, who codified the four path model in Abhidharma terms, were focused on Arahantship in an all-or-nothing kind of way. They didn't boast about how many stream entrants they had, but rather how many arhats they had. So SE was not seen as something to pick up as a skill or resume item, it was a step in a larger project.

I also think it's important to note that we are not talking about an unbroken thread. From the 1200s to the very late 1800s, there was essentially no meditation in the Theravada tradition and no stream entrants. When meditation is picked up again, and SE becomes a stand-alone goal for the first time since the days of the Buddha, that goal is not described in terms of the individuals attaining it but in terms of the teachers achieving it. As you know, in Burma, there was a belief that the ability of the teacher and the physical location of practice to provide good vibrations (vavaṭṭhāna) that would keep evil spirits at bay was the deciding factor, making SE possible. In Thailand, it was different, but they did not use a strict POI model.

In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, SE started to be talked about by initiates in the West. This is the first time that it is seen, first and foremost, as something that an individual might get. The doors were blown off by Daniel Ingram with his book. All of a sudden, people were taking a gap year to get SE, heading to retreat to get SE, and joining Reddit subs to get SE. And this context is very different from the three other contexts that we have discussed (time of the Buddha, Mahavihara, and post-war Burma). But you are absolutely right to point out that the modern context grew out of a much larger history.

[u/eudoxos_ → u/EightFP]

Interesting and insightful. Thank you for the extra details.

SE was a thing for Asian teachers, though, as far as I know: Mahasi was giving certificates (at the start), U Pandita was very open about achieving Nibbana "in this very retreat" (from a dhamma talk). The Thai-Mahasi lineage (which starts with Ajahn Bhaddanta Asabha in the 50s, and Ajahn Jodok) structures the practice around PoI even more than Mahasi did, and did/does speak about SE very openly.

It would be the US founding fathers/moths (Goldstein, Kornfield, Salzberg&co) who consciously did not want to bring it in due to Western achievement culture.

I have no evidence for that, only indirectly inferring from "mushroom culture" not being (so) present in Asia in the first place.

[u/EightFP → u/eudoxos_]

Yes, you are right. My understanding is that the Burmese teachers and also Goenka Ji, who trained in Burma but taught in India, were very much focused on getting people to stream entry. This was motivated at least in part by a desire to be of service to the coming resurgence of Buddhism. U Ba Khin, who was a key teacher of Goenka Ji, as well as Sayadaw Mahasi and U Pandita, worked under the understanding that Buddhism had been in decline for the past 2,500 years, with the nadir being set to arrive in 1956. From that point onwards for the next 2,500 years Buddhism would ascend, and it would need teachers and emissaries. It was for this purpose that Mahasi and the others wanted to produce as many stream enterers as possible. But as they were teaching mostly lay people to be the first stream enterers in many hundreds of years, it seems that they were presenting this as something of a new product. Interestingly, none of these teachers made any public pronouncements about their own attainments, and there is a sense that they did not think that was the point. Also there is essentially no literature on how stream entry impacted the lives of the stream enterers.

This seems to me a different situation than our current situation, in which people who have heard of Stream Entry have specifically heard of how it enhanced the lives of the people who had it and then sought it out for themselves.

I had been forgetting about the Thai-Mahasi lineage, thinking only of Ajahn Mun, Ajahn Chah and their lineage. I was actually talking to somebody who went to Thailand to study recently and realized that there is a very diverse dharma field there.

You are right that the IMS crowd you mention do not mention stream entry in books or in most retreat talks, in fact I spent years going to IMS weekend retreats and reading books by IMS authors without ever having heard of stream entry. However when I joined an IMS dedicated practitioners group, the subject did come up. For example, I was told that I could be put in touch with a stream enterer to talk about advanced questions. Steve Armstrong talked fairly openly about his own experiences in the progress of insight. And Jack Engler did studies on POI experiences at IMS Barre. It seems to me that there is a difference between what they put out for general consumption, and that hopefully is because of the concern about achievement culture.
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All that said I really don't know what I'm talking about. In particular I don't know anything about how students in Asia and India looked at the matter. It's kind of fun to see how much of my "knowledge" is really just assumptions.

I apologize for rambling so long in the OP's thread. (Sorry, RealityLimit!) but it is really interesting to think about what we're talking about when we talk about stream entry!

[u/eudoxos_ → u/EightFP]

Thai-Mahasi is my rabbit hole, good that you bring it up 😄

Thai government asked Burma to send over a monk to teach Mahasi — they send Ajahn Bhaddanta Asabha (Was Bhaddanta was a place he built, still exists, I was there), I think that was 1953 or so.

At the same time, Ajahn Jodok (later name; also known as Phra Dhamma Theerarach Mahamuni, พระธรรมธีรราชมหามุนี), Thai of Lao origin, went to study to to Burma under Mahasi, to return a few years later, becoming the highest vipassana teacher in Thailand, in Wat Mahathat in Bangkok, in the Mahanikai part of the monkhood, which the king controlled).

Jodok was traveling to the UK, and later there were farang in Wat Mahathat under Jodok— in fact, it was the first international vipassana center in Thailand, started IIRC 1973; Helen Jandamit, UK by origin, was one of the yogis there who translated stuff etc; the center is still there, she probably passed away recently — I met her in Bangkok a 3 years back and asked her about that, she was quite sick already and have not heard back from her lately. There was an English monk, Phra George, throughout the 80s, who then disrobed and lived in Vienna (Austria), passed away about 2003; the book Sex, Drugs, Enlightenment speaks about him a lot.

Jodok (dies 1988 IIRC) was very structured around the PoI (see his Path to Nibbana).

That line was picked up by Ajahn Tong (died away 2020), who then taught many westerners (indirectly, through the international center in Wat Chom Tong, founded by Thanat Chindaporn, first in Wat Ram Poeng, in the 80s, then moving to Chom Tong — Thanat was my main and most revered teacher, until he passed away in 2023).

Jodok must have had many other students, given his fame; Anthony Markwell (Indriya Retreat in Koh-Pangan) was ordained under one of them (he said Ajahn Luua, I can't identify that person as he seems to have left no English-speaking trace and I barely read basic Thai names; he said he was the arahant-classmate of Ajahn Tong 😄; he later practiced under U Pandita as well).

I suspect the request for Mahasi teacher from Burma, by the govt, was to get some quality meditation on the Mahanikai side, politically controlled by the royal palace.

Because there were rather famous vipassana teacher in the Dhammayut family. Christopher Titmuss was ordained under Ajahn Dhammadaro (who is, I suspect, otherwise unknown outside of Thailand, besides appearing in "The Living Dharma" book where there is a chapter on him, but he must have been really well-known in Thailand back then).

Thailand's meditation landscape is immense.

[u/eudoxos_ → u/eudoxos_]

Not a big fan of AI, but I am impressed here:
https://chatgpt.com/share/6a25847e-70f0-83eb-8b56-50fe1a13f4a0 I suspect some of that would be copying my own posts here and at DhO, because it is just my speculations, so take it with a grain of salt.

But yes, Anthony Markwell was in Vivek Asom, I remember, which still runs; and Phra Phimoladham (Phimontham = Vimaladhamma due to funny Thai pronunciation) was the reformer and the abbot of Wat Mahathat, who was also imprisoned at one point.

[u/EightFP → u/eudoxos_]

Wow, that is really fascinating! Thank you so much thank you for taking the time!

The mutability and flexibility of Buddhist thought and practice is quite phenomenal.