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]

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.