Like everything else, the ultimate attainment, the awakening we call Nibbana isn’t a turn on or off process but a gradual path of shedding fetters and burdens. As such it has certain milestones along the way that the buddha defined as putting you definitely on the path to full enlightenment.
The first of these milestones is called Stream-Entry (Sotāpanna) and states that one who has attained this milestone is bound to attain Nibbana within a maximum of seven lifetimes and is guaranteed to always be reborn in the human realm or above.
As a lay practitioner, this makes the ultimate goal a little more attainable. Nevertheless, it is not a simple stage to attain.
The practice itself is simple enough. If you develop unshakable trust in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. Live in accordance with the true dhamma and … well this is where it gets complicated. The suttas tell us what defined one who has gained stream-entry. Those are clearly defined as:
- One who has abandoned self-view and the notion of me and mine
- One who has abandoned clinging to rites and rituals (eg believing that chanting will cure you of an illness)
- One who has abandoned doubt in the Buddha, his teachings and the monastic community (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha) as they have come to experience the true nature of dhamma through insights.
Moreover, it is said that a Sotāpanna is typically a very happy person due to those abandonments and insights. Nevertheless, as a lay person, depending on how you look at it and how you look at your own perception of life as you experience it, this can be very daunting indeed.
The abandonment of self-view is typically done through the realisation of anatta (non-self). The insight into the nature of what makes us, us, something that is bound to this lifetime only and isn’t going to transition to the next life. Such knowledge isn’t difficult to comprehend from an intellectual perspective but to know it so deep within yourself that you are capable of abandoning all the attachments to how we constructed our self since birth in this life is very hard indeed. Attachments can be roots that dig deep into clay soil and bed rock, firmly anchoring this sense of self to our impermanent body.
Comparatively the other two, speaking purely for myself, are not as difficult and can be further nurtured via diligent practice but it does take great wisdom to be able to see into however small the insight that arises from meditation and mindfulness.
I would like to see stream-entry as something achievable both in this lifetime and as a simple lay practitioner. If only the eye could see that there is no I…