The Zennist: You really need to enter the stream

It almost goes without saying, but Western Buddhists are not, by and large, students of the Sutras (P., Suttas) hence all the freaking arguments that tend to erupt. I suspect that most pop Buddhist writers haven’t studied but a handful of Sutras. It is when debates arise over certain key doctrines such as Atman vs. no-self that Sutras become important. But they are also important for understanding meditation and the Five Aggregates (pañca-skandha) and their relationship to our self and why we are not these conditioned aggregates.

The problem facing the novice is what do the specific terms mean as to their notion. What is the specific notion of anâtman (lit., not the self) or pratityasamutpada (dependent origination), or dhyâna (meditation), or vijñâna (consciousness)? What does nirvana mean? Incidentally, even the best scholars have to make educated guesses when it comes to nirvana—not all agree with each other. We see this in the book, The Buddhist Nirvana and Its Western Interpreters by Guy Richard Welbon.

Speaking from the vantage point of the Pali Nikayas, it is only when we have entered the stream or current (S., srotas), a kind of super spiritual baptism, that we begin to understand the Buddha’s terms as they are meant to be understood.

Better than absolute sovereignty on the earth, better than going to heaven, better than lordship over all the worlds is the reward (phalam) of entering the stream (sotapatti)” (Dhammapada 178).

During this baptism, we get our first glimpse of nirvana. In addition we begin to distinguish our psychophysical body from our true self. We also put away our doubts about the veracity of the Buddha's teachings because we now can see what he is aiming at. As a result, we no longer cling to ritualistic and moralistic practices which really amount to dead-ends.

Short of this, our understanding of Buddhism is like that of a man born blind before his is cured by a physician. He insists that his senses are correct (this was an argument the Buddha used against materialists).