What you said above is not consistent, as I told you before your problem is not your perspective but your inconsistency leading to contradictions. Please clarify further the right amount of defilements one needs to begin meditating.Zom wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 3:31 pmSee what I've said above.Uhh, what? Stream enterers have desire and ill-will and the remaining 5 other fetters.
Sutta does not say this. But even if it did - ancient ascetics with 8th jhana weren't stream-winners, but still, they were 5 mintues from arahantship (they had much more developed mind than stream-winners'). One short phrase was enough for them to attain full enlightenment immediately on the place (Bahiya case is the best known, but not unique).Buddha teaches Anapanasati to people who are even lower than Stream-enterers... .... to non-nobles
What is more important - Anapanasati sutta was given to monks, not lay people. Probably, capable monks, with developed minds. Same goes for Satipatthana sutta (at least Commy states that it is so - it was given to special, advanced audience).
Also yes, the sutta does say it, hence the Buddha addresses new monks who have not attained anything. Also I posted another sutta in this thread where the Buddha tells a lay person to seek seclusion and attain rapture, aka to meditate.
Here the Buddha addresses new monks and goes from most attained to least in anapanasati sutta:
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Then the elder monks taught & instructed the new monks even more intensely. Some elder monks were teaching & instructing ten monks, some were teaching & instructing twenty monks, some were teaching & instructing thirty monks, some were teaching & instructing forty monks. The new monks, being taught & instructed by the elder monks, were discerning grand, successive distinctions.
Now on that occasion — the Uposatha day of the fifteenth, the full-moon night of the White Water-lily Month, the fourth month of the rains — the Blessed One was seated in the open air surrounded by the community of monks. Surveying the silent community of monks, he addressed them:
"Monks, this assembly is free from idle chatter, devoid of idle chatter, and is established on pure heartwood: such is this community of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that is worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect, an incomparable field of merit for the world: such is this community of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly to which a small gift, when given, becomes great, and a great gift greater: such is this community of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that it is rare to see in the world: such is this community of monks, such is this assembly — the sort of assembly that it would be worth traveling for leagues, taking along provisions, in order to see.
"In this community of monks there are monks who are arahants, whose mental effluents are ended, who have reached fulfillment, done the task, laid down the burden, attained the true goal, laid to waste the fetter of becoming, and who are released through right gnosis: such are the monks in this community of monks.
"In this community of monks there are monks who, with the wasting away of the five lower fetters, are due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, destined never again to return from that world: such are the monks in this community of monks.
"In this community of monks there are monks who, with the wasting away of [the first] three fetters, and with the attenuation of passion, aversion, & delusion, are once-returners, who — on returning only once more to this world — will make an ending to stress: such are the monks in this community of monks.
"In this community of monks there are monks who, with the wasting away of [the first] three fetters, are stream-winners, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening: such are the monks in this community of monks.
"In this community of monks there are monks who remain devoted to the development of the four frames of reference... the four right exertions... the four bases of power... the five faculties... the five strengths... the seven factors for awakening... the noble eightfold path: such are the monks in this community of monks.
"In this community of monks there are monks who remain devoted to the development of good will... compassion... appreciation... equanimity... [the perception of the] foulness [of the body]... the perception of inconstancy: such are the monks in this community of monks.
"In this community of monks there are monks who remain devoted to mindfulness of in-&-out breathing"