Signs of Stream-entry (Buddhist awakening) and how to do it.

​STREAM-ENTRY STUDENT: DISMISSED

​This is a dismissal letter from a Buddhist stream-entry coach to his student for wrong views, violent entertainment, and incorrect practice — and explaining the deeper meaning of Buddhist renunciation and the importance of yoniso manasikāra.
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This is my final teaching letter to a student who is choosing to remain misinformed on what Buddhism is, the importance of contemplation, and how meditation should be practiced if stream-entry is ever to be genuinely experienced.

​​As a coach dedicated to guiding my students toward spiritual progress, I sent a detailed letter to a middle-intermediate Dhamma practitioner and meditator explaining why I am dismissing him from my program.

​In this letter, I explain the importance of correct and sufficient practice and I outline and detail the harmful nature of the various Wrong Views he subscribes to that are hindering his spiritual progress, such as his attachments to violent entertainment and modern interpretations of the Dhamma, his desire for shortcuts to enlightenment, his reliance on "insight meditation" (vipassana), and his clinging to the myth that the jhānas equate to stream-entry or any other stage of Buddhist enlightenment.  I also took the opportunity to explain what Buddhist renunciation truly means for those who are dedicated to achieving stream-entry, a.k.a., awakening; and the critical importance of yoniso manasikāra in the development of Right View and progress along the Buddhist path.

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Stream-entry Teacher's Note

Why I am sharing this private letter publicly?
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In short: because people want awakening, but they are going about it all wrong.

I am sharing this letter with others not only because it brings light to what Buddhism actually is — beyond the misrepresentations of Buddhism that are overwhelmingly prevalent today — but also because it serves as a clear manifesto of the approach that I follow in my instruction of the early Buddhist texts (EBT) to my students; with the emphasis being on learning and cultivating the views and practices that slope them toward stream-entry, or beyond.  My intention is to provide potential future students with a clear understanding of what they can expect from me and my guidance as someone who successfully coaches veritable stream-enterers.

While reading this, it is absolutely necessary to understand that what I teach, and how I teach it, reflects my understanding of where each of my students are along the Buddhist Path and what each one of them needs to hear and do in order to make further progress toward nibbāna.  I don't teach them how to get to stream-entry or arahantship as much as I teach them how to make continuous progress from where they are on the spectrum of spiritual development, gradually taking them to higher and higher attainments along the Buddhist Path.  In support of that, I don't teach "generally" to any of my students; I teach precisely to each of my students based entirely on their individual needs and abilities. Accordingly, I am holding the student that this letter is directed at to a set of standards that are uniquely appropriate to his level of experience, his current place along the Path, and his personal hindrances — these standards should not be taken to apply to all (or any) of my other students.

For additional information on my approach and my teachings, please see this page.​

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​(the student's name has been changed for confidentiality) 

Dear "Jonathan,"

Working with you for the past couple of years has been a journey of maturation and exploration, and I am grateful for your trust in me as a Dhamma instructor and stream-entry coach. Our time together has overflowed with valuable lessons and insights, and I sincerely appreciate the effort and time you've invested in your spiritual journey. I have been giving the time we have spent together a lot of thought, especially our last several sessions.

As I reflect on our journey, it's important to acknowledge the progress you've made but also the unwavering challenges that you continue to face. You clearly possess an unyielding determination to advance on the path to awakening, and your commitment to seeking spiritual progress is evident. I've been privy to your determination for stream-entry firsthand many times.

However, over these years, we've continued to have several recurring obstacles that hinder the profundity of your spiritual progress. Our discussions have and continue to centre so often on the misconception that meditation will inevitably lead to stream-entry and that worldly pleasures and unwholesome sources of pastimes can coexist harmoniously with profound spiritual growth. As we've discussed ad nauseam, these notions reflect a misalignment with the core principles of the Dhammavinaya and are deeply steeped in contemporary distortions that fuel widespread Wrong Views.

This is, unfortunately, a result of how the Buddhism of the Buddha, a doctrine that is over 2,500 years old, has evolved over just the past couple of hundred years (and especially in the last 60 years or so) into the pop-Buddhism that we have on offer today, which is chock-full of misrepresentations of the Dhammavinaya and has been further distorted and disseminated by so many "trusted 'meditation' teachers."

These distortions of the Buddha's teachings have become so widespread as to have overtaken and obscured the original teachings in mainstream Buddhist circles, replacing them with false Dhamma coupled with convoluted meditation techniques, systems, and maps; and effectively making the true Dhamma a niche practice and something of a subculture. As you know, the Buddha predicted that this would happen.

When I closed our last session, I was left with a dilemma and lingering concern for you and our time together. My intention has never been to discourage you but rather to support you, to course-correct you, and to guide you toward a path that aligns more closely with authentic teachings and the many millennia-tested principles and practices that could otherwise underpin your spiritual aspirations.

With a heart filled with dāna and mettā, I have invested significantly more time with you than I have with any other pro bono student that I've ever worked with, not just in the number of years that I've worked with you, but also in the amount of time that I spend with you during each of our weekly calls, often spending upward toward an hour or more with you; this is even more than the 50 minutes of session time that I provide to those students who fully support my pro bono program by providing me with session dāna. I have generously given you much of my free time solely for the benefit of your development; however, the effort and energy have not been reciprocated.

I've focused this much effort on you as an act of genuine dāna because I believe in you and because I saw it as a valuable investment of my time in someone who I think has the qualities and capacity for awakening. I've only wanted to help you shake off the taints of so many distractions and misunderstandings of the Dhamma that have held you back for so long, and those that continue to cause you so much personal dukkha.  

But despite my time, effort, and care, I conclude that I have failed.

Not only have I been unable to uproot your attachment to wrong views but also to your persistent craving for unwholesome diversions and your cavalier attitude toward meaningless distractions. For other students, this wouldn't be so grave of a disconnect, but you are much further along the Path, so the bar must be set higher if you are to make further progress.

Distractions can be so harmful: they turn us away from the practices, ideas, and possibilities that make true happiness possible. You continue to regularly choose unwholesome distractions over your Dhamma practice despite my repeated instructions to you. Time and time again. This is no longer supportable. And so it is with a heavy heart that I must acknowledge that our current dynamic has reached the point where it is no longer possible for us to navigate these differing perspectives and paradigms in a way that doesn't waste time.

I have wanted nothing more than to see you progress and overcome these obstacles that stand in the way of your growth, but it has been clear to me for a very long time that what I teach isn't what, or how, you want to practice. What I say doesn't align with your understanding of the Buddha's dispensation, despite the depths of the Sutta Nikaya from which I teach, and my experience of it.

Not everyone is going to agree, or even like, what I have to say or teach — I convey as much on my website as a sort of disclaimer — however, it's not my aim to cater to those people; my aim is focused on helping those people who have it within themselves to ultimately benefit from my direct understanding and expertise.

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Right View, Not Right Concentration = Stream-entry

(and achieving it won't be easy)

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​What I teach is a hard path, but that's because it's the correct one. Shortcuts don't work. If they did, they wouldn't be shortcuts; they would simply be the Dhamma, and the Buddha would have been keen enough to have taught them in lieu of what he did teach: the Gradual Path, which always starts with proper study of correct Dhamma and the development of sīla — not with meditation.

You and "everyone else" are so focused on meditation. It's a contagion. There are millions of Google search results for meditation retreats. Where are all the search results for virtue and good-behaviour retreats? Where is the focus on sīla, on being kinder and more generous? Even on r/streamentry, where people are interested in developing the skills that support awakening, it's practically all about processes, systems, remorseful posts of non-progress, anecdotal experiences, and meditation this and meditation that. Meditation is not a path to stream-entry, and associating and learning from those who don't know that isn't a path to understanding or progress. If people spent more time learning and understanding what the Buddha taught and less time mapping out or spacing out, they'd know better. It's the blind leading the blind.

This is precisely why Buddhists need noble, awakened teachers; this path was never intended to be self-instructed or learned from the inexperienced, especially those falsely or prematurely claiming expertise or direct knowledge.

I cannot, at least in my role as a pro bono teacher, continue to teach against such deeply ingrained wrong views and against a mind that so willingly slopes toward habituated and counterproductive behaviours that work against what I am trying to do for you.

As expressed and reinforced so clearly in the suttas, "there is no single factor so responsible for the suffering of living beings and the arising of their unwholesome qualities as Wrong View, and no single factor so potent in promoting the benefit of living beings and the arising of their wholesome qualities as Right View." (AN 1:306-309)

And, there is also "no single factor so responsible for taking rebirth in the plane of misery, in a bad destination, in the lower realm, so much as Wrong View, and no single factor so potent for taking rebirth in a good destination, in a heavenly realm, so much as Right View." (AN 1.312-313)

And, despite my constant efforts to encourage and guide you toward a structured formal Dhamma contemplation practice, it remains clear to me that you continue to resist this practice in lieu of breath meditation, at the cost of your progress. It would be beneficial and wise if you came to fully embrace the understanding that deep, penetrative, and daily analytical meditation on the Buddha's actual Dhamma (yonisomanasikāra) is by far the most crucial activity that you could engage in for developing Right View and making attainment-level progress along the Path; that there is "no single factor so responsible for the arising of unarisen Right Views and the increase of arisen Right Views as yonisomanasikāro." (AN 1.310-311)

No matter where you are on this path, be it someone who is brand new to Buddhism or someone who is a non-returner striving for the completion of this path, arahantship, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is more influential to the cultivation of profound progress toward attainments than deeply and penetratively contemplating authentic Dhamma teachings (yonisomanasikāra).

You intellectually know all of this, and you also know when you are "doing wrong." Still, you continue to actively choose to engage with the unbeneficial and the spiritually unwholesome despite knowing the wrongness of it. How can I continue, in good faith, to work against that? There are too many other pro bono students currently queued up on the waitlist who may be in better positions for me to possibly help along the Path; and because my time to work with pro bono students is limited, I must sometimes make difficult decisions.

With this having been stated, I suggest the two other teachers with whom you are already familiar and whose teachings are more akin to your preferred understanding of the Buddhist Path.

While I do not align with what they teach, at least by working with them, you can work with others who interpret Buddhism in the same ways that you do. They are more likely to offer you comfortable, familiar, and preferred teachings and thereby guide you without the dukkha of resistance toward a deeper understanding of your personal journey along this Path, one that places the emphasis on the practice and pleasure of meditation (though not without its associated opportunity-costs).

Please know that this decision and the time that I am investing in writing this letter to you come from a place of heartfelt concern and genuine care for your contentment and freedom from dukkha. Sometimes, as a teacher, I must settle for "good enough." Please recognise that this is not an ending as much as it is a stepping stone on your journey toward your own process of self-discovery, wherever that may lead.
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Wrong Views Learned from the Internet

(and an oversupply of ignoble teachers)

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​Jonathan, you resist correct practices and behaviours; and, you continue to cultivate incorrect views that ultimately hold you back from the progress you so desperately wish to experience. They are the source of your dukkha.

​If your practice is not addressing and countering your afflictions, your dukkha, then you must question whether what you are doing is actually Dhamma practice at all. And that palpable feeling of dukkha that bothers you so greatly is the result of your resistance to the hard work that I present to you week after week, and it is the result of your aversion to, and your doubts about, the Path as the Buddha, in fact, taught it. Your doubt reflects your lack of faith in what the Buddha taught; there is no doubt about that.

But why is that?

Because you've steeped yourself in the many widespread distortions and incorrect interpretations of the Dhamma that are being packaged and sold as "Buddhism" today.

You have learned from the internet, from Reddit, from Discord channels, from YouTube, and from so many teachers who do not know this Path directly yet who claim to be worthy, noble teachers of this Dhammavinaya. Could it be possible that the Wrong Views you've adopted and cling so strongly to are a function of that poisonous seed of doubt that both holds you back and causes you so much dukkha? Look around you; who are your role models of spiritual success? Who are you choosing to subscribe to, and why? What behaviours do they demonstrate? What views do they disseminate? What teachings do they expound? Has the Dhamma-eye clearly opened within them? You continue to pick and choose which instructions you will and will not subscribe to based solely on confirmation bias. That is unwise.

But alas, your flavour of Buddhist studies, understanding, and practice is quite common amongst most lay Buddhists today.

It is disheartening to see that a significant majority of people who identify as Buddhists lack the correct knowledge and practical expertise to practice Buddhism in ways that could possibly lead them toward stream-entry, let alone toward the towering aspirations of arahantship. As I often say to my students, stream-entry isn't difficult; it's just very uncommon. Very uncommon, indeed. Most people who believe themselves to be sotāpanna / ariyapuggala are, in fact, mistaken. Fact.

It's not that I am suggesting that your spiritual friends, teachers, or role models are lying, but I am categorically stating that the ones you have referenced to me are mistaken.  They undoubtedly believe that they have "achieved enlightenment."  Such unwarranted attainment claims are a common delusion (mohā) within overly systematised and complicated meditation circles, a delusion driven by a hardened ego that I've seen many times before.  Delusions, at the most mundane of levels, are false beliefs that persist even in the face of evidence to the contrary, and this is one of the reasons why the Buddha identified delusion as a root poison. The root poison of delusion is just so potent, way more powerful than the poisons of attachment or hatred could ever be, and this is precisely why wrong views are one of the most significant factors for a rebirth in the hell realms.  It's called "delusion" because it's hard, if not impossible, to recognise, let alone to want to let go of — especially when it gets wrapped around an identity view.  While I believe that they believe that they are awakened/enlightened, wilfully dismissing evidence that doesn't support their boastful inner narrative or their preferred interpretations of the Dhamma (i.e., confirmation bias) is an unmistakable hallmark of delusion.

This is not to imply that they may not understand Buddhism's core concepts and its principles, but rather that they demonstrate a genuine struggle to interpret its meaning correctly and to translate these varied concepts into real-world practices and behaviours that cultivate the actual qualities and views that lead toward profound spiritual realisations, just as you do. Why is this? Because they lack qualified tutelage of the Dhamma, practical knowledge of how to apply said Dhamma into their daily lives, and adequate development of the skills needed to weave this Dhamma into their worldview and how they approach their day-to-day experiences and interactions with others.

Frankly, the majority of practitioners are not practicing correctly because they don't know how to, because no one has properly instructed them (or, because whoever is teaching them — assuming that they have a direct relationship with a teacher at all, as most people don't — is training them incorrectly). In either case, both have the unfortunate result of deeply embedding wrong views and incorrect practices and, more insidiously, strengthening an ever-increasing identity around their wrong views and faulty practices into their worldview.

This most clearly can be seen — not just in the overwhelming lack of people's progress toward enlightenment — but in the disturbingly pervasive lack of understanding of what meditation actually is, how to actually meditate according to one's position along the Path, and what role their meditation practice actually plays in making progress toward the next spiritual milestone in their path, be it a major or minor step along the Path.

It can also clearly be seen in the overwhelming lack of understanding of what progress along this Path actually looks like.

With misunderstandings and knowledge gaps such as these, it should be no surprise to anyone why so few people are genuinely awakened within the abundance of Buddhist spiritual circles and communities.

These problems are illustrated by the generally slow, stunted, and sometimes reversed progress toward stream-entry and beyond that so many people lament and struggle to come to terms with. The root cause lies in their need for a better grasp of how to effectively engage with, and practice, the Dhammavinaya, the very path that they claim to understand and dedicate themselves to. And, doing so, had little-to-nothing to do with time spent on a cushion with eyes closed. The truth is that these teachings are so correct and so good that if they were, in fact, learning and practicing in accordance with the true Dhamma, then their inevitable progress toward profound and noble results would be clear, measurable, and continuous, rather than murky, inconsistent, and stuttering.

Day after day, they struggle to put these transformative teachings into practice as a result of poor instruction, insufficient understanding, and incorrect application of whatever authentic knowledge that they possess. These deficiencies manifest time and time again in their persistent experiences of practice-related dukkha and the glass ceilings of their progress along the Path.

This problem is familiar to many spiritual traditions, not just Buddhism, where people have all too theoretical understandings of the teachings and philosophy. The problem with too much knowledge and insufficient (or inappropriate) practice is that by not examining the meaning of those teachings with the intention to courageously apply them to the constant onslaught of challenges that they experience in their day-to-day lives (e.g., being patient in challenging situations and conditions; being compassionate, kind, and generous in conflicts and unwanted interactions with difficult people; gradually applying more and more sense restraint into their lives; being more discriminating on who they spend their time with and around, et cetera), they do not gain a reflective acceptance of the instructions based on confidence and experience. Instead, and perhaps all too often, they learn the Dhamma or meditation techniques seemingly for the purposes of criticising others, or for inflating their spiritual identities, or for winning debates over who is right and who is wrong. So, they do not experience the benefits of these teachings for the sake of which they learned them. The Buddha warns against the faults and dangers of wrongly motivated acquisition of intellectual knowledge of the Dhamma — (MN 22).

For example: take a basic and core practice such as the Four Right Efforts, a relatively straightforward but altogether critical approach to cultivating sīla and developing the foundations of insight into the Three Characteristics of aniccā, dukkha, and anattā. It often remains an afterthought in the lives of most Buddhist practitioners, yourself included. As a teacher and practitioner, it's utterly confounding to me that so many people could be so oblivious to even the simplest of instructions in this doctrine, one that literally defines the sixth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path.

But again, why is that?

Because they are not being taught what this Path actually is (i.e., EBT-based Buddhadhamma), what it actually means (i.e., correct views), and how to actually practice it in genuine accordance with the Buddha's explicit instruction (i.e., yonisomanasikāro). At best, the Dhamma is being taught piecemeal and out of context, or at worst, it is being distorted and instructed incorrectly, resulting in the rooting of wrong views in the minds of the potentially enlightened, wasting their time and even possibly fueling spiritual dukkha. What we generally have access to is a mockery and a caricature of the Buddha's instruction being sold to us as either the real deal or as a shortcut to the development of insight — i.e., a shortcut to enlightenment; more on that in a bit.

The quality and effectiveness of the teachings that you receive from me depend entirely on how well you listen to and engage with those teachings by way of how much you think about, contemplate, analyse, and apply the teachings that you receive from me, and of course, from the Buddha by way of the sutta piṭaka, into your everyday life, situation to situation, and moment to moment. This cannot be overstated. In this, there has long been a disconnect.

I often instruct that the only thing that prevents people from awakening, stream-entry, and directly experiencing the stages of enlightenment is incorrect instruction and/or insufficient practice. I have been clear that it has been, and continues to be, my professional assessment that you are hindered by both. I have never been shy in expressing that opinion to you in the hope that you would be motivated to try something different, something more correct and effective. If and when you can finally let go of the intellectual boundaries that keep you shackled to your incorrect and unwise ways of practicing this Dhammavinaya, you will finally be able to release yourself from the limitations of that approach.

Yet, something compels you to keep reaching out to me, to continue wanting time on my calendar week after week despite the challenge and directness of my tutelage, but something else also keeps you locked and bound up. I clearly don't have the key, which disappoints and dismays me. I cannot continue to be the spiritual lubrication between the worldly concerns that you are so attracted to (and unwilling to let go of) and the genuine spiritual work that you aren't willing to make the required sacrifices for.

In the past, you have referred to me as a "softy;" perhaps you have misinterpreted my kindness and frequent affability for leniency. But despite my occasional humour, wit, and warmth, there is no doubt that I am a serious teacher for serious students, and I take my students' progress very seriously.

As I have coached you on so many occasions, you have to live a certain kind of way if you want to experience a certain kind of result, and that means letting go of the views and behaviours that you are so quick to recognise and acknowledge as being harmful to your practice.

Three weeks ago, I wrote this to you in an email:

"...it would be skilful to ask yourself if the activities that you marinate your mind in (e.g., violent anime, sports, and video games) are Dhamma-friendly.
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"Are they wholesome, beneficial, and conducive to developing your level of wisdom? If not, then you have some thinking to do. Why do you rationalise that way of passing time, that kind of content consumption as OK, acceptable, or valuable? Are there really no other sources, more progress-supportive sources, of entertainment or distractions from your Buddhist practice?

"When we pass time consuming violence, especially when it's packaged as entertainment, it touches our minds unbeneficially. It normalises harmfulness in our worldview. And it numbs us to harm. We stop seeing people doing bad things to others as something to turn our eyes and minds away from [but rather as something to relish, enjoy, look forward to, and amuse ourselves with]. Violence as a form of entertainment, especially mortal violence, as a form of entertainment or pastime should be completely avoided as unskilful.

"There may be give and take here, of course.

"Nevertheless, the more serious we become as practitioners, the more often we will find ourselves in positions of having to choose between our spiritual practice and our attachments to the worldly distractions that keep us away from our practice. Our time to practice is limited. It is advisable to use the discretionary time that we have available to ourselves as beneficially as possible; and how we define that will be based on where we are on the Path and how motivated we are to cultivating the factors that support making more progress along it."

And your reply was:

"I definitely have [my] feet in both worlds. I'm pretty sure that contributes to my [lack of] progress in a big way. [But] I still feel like I can have my cake and eat it too. You mentioned sense restraint in the last session, and I felt a bit exasperated by the prospect lol."

I was not pleased with your reply.
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Violent Media & Unwholesome Entertainment

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The Buddha taught the non-doing of evil, the doing of what is wholesome, and the purification of one's mind. It's pretty simple really. An actual practising Buddhist is deliberately engaged in a way of life that is dedicated to non-violence and non-harm. That's a fundamental element of being a Buddhist. It's a non-negotiable!

It's worth considering what your hobbies and entertainment choices say about your commitment to being a "Buddhist." Do they align with a life of cultivating inner peace, developing a lifestyle of non-violence and non-harm towards others, and seeking enlightenment? No, they don't. Instead, you choose to (or, worse yet, mindlessly) indulge in your desires rather than dedicating yourself to a path that frees you from the need to indulge. And what is "indulging" but otherwise doing something against our better judgement? And for what?

You should reflect on this and ask yourself some serious questions about your intentions and whether or not you genuinely care about this path more than you care about what this path does for your ego.

"This is the very start of the path for a wise person:

• guarding the senses.
• contentment.
• and restraint." (Dhp 375)

You are far too quick to make constant allowances for harmful choices in your desirous pursuits to "entertain" yourself and unhook from reality (e.g., by watching ultra-violent anime, playing violent and bloody video games mercilessly killing NPCs, and getting emotionally invested in unwholesome movies and television series). When you do that, what do you think that does to a mind that is interested in cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, and patience? To a mind that seeks to increase its sensitivity to violence rather than to normalising it? Instead, it's numbing your aversion to it while increasing your craving for — and enjoyment of — violence, revenge, gore, abuse, and harm. Do you imbue in these things because they are awesome? Because they are fun? How fun and awesome is the depiction of murder and violence toward others? From a Buddhist perspective, it's a cultural sickness. It's a delusion of the most harmful kind. And you love it.

The five basic precepts are to refrain from killing, stealing, and causing harm via sex, speech, or intoxicants. Have you really considered just how many of those precepts are demonstrated, supported, and reinforced by the games that you play? I suspect that your player-character (and you, by way of your player-character) breaks all of those precepts. Through the agent of your player-character, you lie, steal, cheat, manipulate, abuse, ridicule, drink, take intoxicants, and worse yet, you hunt, chase, terrorise, kill, slaughter, behead, disembowel, and defile the bodies of NPCs in all sorts of obscenely bloody, gory, and dehumanising ways. And for what? For mindless fun and a meaningless good time? That's how a Buddhist has "fun?" While that may be culturally acceptable for a puthujjana, you are supposed to be a practising Buddhist! What would Gotama say to you about how you choose to spend your downtime, the time when you aren't studying/practising the Dhamma or in meditation? And what a high price you pay for those lolz. Are those games so important to you that you would sacrifice your mind and your progress along the Path that you spend so much time every day trying to learn, the Path that you spend so much time wrapping your identity around, just to play video games, to train yourself in violence? Or to watch unwholesome television series? Or to be entertained by ultra-violent anime? Really?

Avoiding violent and negative media and pastimes is a no-brainer for someone who claims to "practice" Buddhism. One does not cultivate the seeds of happiness or spiritual progress by watering the mind with violence, negativity, and harm in the guise of entertainment.

You can never get enough of what you don't need, so you continue seeking solace from these harmful and violent worldly distractions without experiencing any sustainably genuine satisfaction and freedom from your cravings. Obviously. This willingness to engage the unskilful comes at such a high cost too.

The spiritual and virtuous ground you gain must be protected and retained at all costs and never yielded. Ever. The importance of this is only too obvious. It's one of the most alarming aspects of spiritual and moral life before the irreversible cerebral rewiring of stream-entry has been secured: as one of my teachers has so eloquently stated it, progress and insights, when left unattended and without support, will invariably fade and the realisations that you worked so hard to achieve will evaporate over time as enthusiasm drains away into the sands of complacency and old habits.

Yet you consistently reassert the belief that you can "still have your cake and eat it too." You know this Buddhadhamma well enough to know how foolish and out of line that belief is.

Nonchalantly acknowledging your unskilful behaviour and consistently making room for it, while at the same time, desperately lamenting your lack of personal progress toward awakening and stream-entry would be almost comical if it wasn't such a prevalent source of your day-to-day dukkha.  

From the perspective of where you are on the Path, sense restraint is an entry-level practice, it's kids' stuff, but it's a quality that you continue to strongly resist cultivating; instead, you prefer to wilfully marinate yourself in violent media and pass the time engaged in unbeneficial social relationships, conventions, and behaviours that only serve to cultivate your dukkha and your attachments for the eight worldly concerns/conditions and those that strengthen the narrative of a superficial ego/identity. You know better, you say as much, yet you still choose unwisely anyway.

"And what is the faculty of energy? It's when a noble disciple lives with energy roused up for giving up unskillful qualities and embracing skillful qualities. They're strong, staunchly vigorous, not slacking off when it comes to developing skillful qualities. This is called the faculty of energy." (SN 48.9)

Effort, determination, energy. Doing what's skilful, wholesome, and beneficial. Striving always to do what's "Right." Where are these essential Buddhist qualities in your day-to-day mundane decision-making processes? Where are they in your approach to your practice? These specific qualities of the trainee are a standard part of the practice and are the stock inclusions in countless suttas.
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The True Meaning of Buddhist Renunciation

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Renunciation (and practice in accordance with the true Dhamma), which is a core teaching that I have spent hundreds of hours trying to "convince" you of, is the very first component of Right Intention, the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. It's also prominent on the list of the ten paramis, not to mention its presence is squarely found on so many of the fundamental "numbered lists" of the Buddha's teaching.

Renunciation is nothing short of giving up the craving to always maximise pleasure. When you resort to outside things (i.e., distractions) for comfort and enjoyment, it is, in reality, a concealed form of suffering. Because your worldview has become so misinformed by Wrong View (miccā-diṭṭhi), the very opposite of the first factor, Right View, of the Noble Eightfold Path, it's understandable why you struggle so much with sincere renunciation of your unwholesome and unskilful worldly attachments and sense desires.  Sincere renunciation.

Your resistance to renunciation is additionally rooted in your all-too-high-level and intellectual understanding of the first two of the Four Noble Truths, resulting in your inability to genuinely perceive the danger (ādīnava) in satisfying your base cravings. Your resistance to renunciation is therefore founded in the very definition of avijjā.

Your motivation for stream-entry is so strong, but your motivation for cultivating the qualities that make it possible is so weak. This is why you find it so difficult to want to actually course-correct. As you once said to me about other people, "People are so fixated on the result of practice (i.e., stream-entry/enlightenment), that they forget about the process of practice." That was very insightful but also very relevant, personally. When the wisdom of the Four Noble Truths is understood and developed, you will see clearly that uncontrolled desires are the source of your dukkha, and then the wish to be free of them will arise naturally.

Genuine renunciation is inexhaustible, reassuring, and calming. Once genuine renunciation is understood and developed, the path becomes crystal clear. Until you can truly start working on genuinely attenuating the depth to which you are bound up by the three taints (e.g., craving for sense pleasures, craving for becoming, and ignorance) and to the bond of Wrong View, you will continue to be profoundly held back in your practice, doomed to experiencing the dukkha of following a shortcut "path" of "vipassana/insight meditation" and thinking that you can "have your cake and eat it too." For even if people can manage to generate some repeatably positive and still feelings in meditation, if they make no practical effort to guard themselves against committing or exposing themselves to unskilful actions of mind, speech, and body, these positive feelings will evaporate as quickly as a water drop on a hot stove. And what's the point of that? Ego? Status? Prestige? Pleasure? Escape? These are all worldly and impermanent.

That's not the Buddha's Buddhism. That is not what he taught, regardless of what the masses who have been hooked by their own spiritual dysphoria will tell you.

Buddhism is a non-violent understanding that concordant results arise from concordant causes, and this gradual Path that the Buddha taught is not for the casual or the undisciplined or the lazy — "little dust" after all.

Assuming you can even sync up with and identify sources of correct Dhamma, this Dhamma is deep, and these subtle concepts take time, effort, and discipline to get our heads around. It requires that you lay a foundation of knowledge before you can start the process of understanding before you can start the process of practice.

I have instructed you in the Four Factors of Stream-entry in great detail many times. I've spent many hours encouraging you to dedicate time and focus toward yonisomanasikāra and turning the Dhamma in your mind. "There are these two conditions for the arising of right view. Which two? The voice of another and yoniso ca manasikāro. These are the two conditions for the arising of right view." (AN 2.126) But you resist. You directly resist one of the foundations, if not the primary foundation, of Buddhist practice. How can you possibly experience a noble result when you actively resist the noble foundations of these four factors (SN 55.55-74): 

1. Associating with superior people,
2. Listening to true Dhamma,
3. Contemplating this true Dhamma, and
4. Proper practice in accordance with said true Dhamma.

These are the most explicit instructions for noble attainments found in the suttas. Did you happen to notice the utter absence of meditation, jhāna, or concentration in those practices required for stream-entry? And while you spend time thinking you are doing so, you do so from a place that is ultimately one of selfing, craving, and wrong views (i.e., "incorrect" Dhamma, as it were).
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Meditation ≠ Enlightenment

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Beyond that, you spend so much meditating, be it hindered by a discursive mind, by your sense desires, or not. Regardless, no amount of sitting, even sitting free from the hindrances, is going to lead you to stream-entry, and certainly not to the peace of mind that only the cessation of craving can deliver; if it were so simple, then Gotama would have accepted Rāmaputta's offer and ended his path there. But he didn't. Because over and over again in the suttas, we see that meditative experiences, no matter how sublime, are not equivalent to spiritual attainments — this couldn't be more crystal clear in the suttas — and if you spent half as much time contemplating and thinking about the true Dhamma as you do trying not to think at all, you'd probably be a stream-enterer by now.

We've talked at length about the Noble Eightfold Path. While it isn't sequential, the order is relevant, and there is a reason why sammāsamādhi is at the end of the list on the Noble Eightfold Path; it wasn't randomly placed there, and even its complete development and mastery wouldn't suddenly make you accomplished in the seven other factors. It's not magical. It's just concentration. But it is on the list, despite the wrong views vipassana/insight meditators have adopted, because without the jhānas, the Noble Eightfold Path is incomplete, and the insight that leads to cessation is impossible.

As the Buddha said: "I do not say that final knowledge is achieved all at once. On the contrary, final knowledge is achieved by gradual training, by gradual practice, by gradual progress.
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"And how is final knowledge achieved by gradual training, gradual practice, gradual progress? Here one who has faith in a teacher visits him; when he visits him, he pays respect to him; when he pays respect to him, he gives ear; one who gives ear hears the Dhamma; having heard the Dhamma, he memorises it; he examines the meaning of the teachings he has memorised; when he examines their meaning, he gains a reflective acceptance of those teachings; when he has gained a reflective acceptance of those teachings, zeal springs up in him; when zeal has sprung up, he applies his will; having applied his will, he scrutinises; having scrutinised, he strives; resolutely striving, he realises with the body the supreme truth and sees it by penetrating it with wisdom." (MN 70)

MN 70 – Practice Questions:

• Can you find all the hidden and not-so-hidden references to yonisomanasikāra in this sutta quote above?
• Can you find each of the Four Factors of Stream-entry in this quoted passage?
• Can you also notice the lack of reference to meditation as part of these instructions?

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The Jhānas ≠ Stream-entry

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Jhāna practice — and even accessing the jhānas at all — should be avoided until (at least) stream-entry has already occurred, and not used as a practice to attain it; not only will that emphatically not work, it will only serve to make stream-entry even more difficult to experience as you continue to fuel and cultivate your ego, your craving, your attachments, and your wrong views.

Compounding the problem of this fruitless misbelief that meditation is a direct path to enlightenment, without good teachers (or, more often, with bad ones), it's so easy and all too common for people to mistake their meditative experiences for spiritual attainments. Anyone who claims stream-entry or any stage of the Path as a result of an experience that they had on a cushion is mistaking their craving and their ego for their progress. There are several suttas in which the Buddha examines the cases of monastics who overestimate themselves, thinking that they've reached partial or even full awakening as a result of attaining the jhānas. Never mind that people are so inebriated by their desire to experience the jhānas that most meditators who believe that they can jhāna-meditate actually can't.

Not many people actually "have" the jhānas, and those who self-report jhāna experiences are often mistaken. The fact is that the number of people who are ariyapuggala (i.e., at least a stream-enterer) far outnumber the people who have the jhānas. As I have said before, the inconvenient truth is that getting to stream-entry is much easier than getting to the jhānas, and one has nothing to do with the other.

There is so much emphasis on the jhānas that it's like a sickness; the craving for the jhānas that I see all around me is blindly and mindlessly rooted in the three poisons. Far too many people over-emphasise its specialness, certainly prematurely before its proper place as a next step on the Path, making an emphasis on it unwarranted, if not poisonous. It's the epitome of unwholesome craving.

The jhānas don't make the awakened; the jhānas are for the awakened — and as a tool, not as a reward.

The reality is that access to the jhānas is much more about possessing a natural acumen than anything else, and aptitude is undoubtedly more influential of a factor for being able to regularly practice the jhānas than the number of hours spent on a cushion, or teacher-student relationships, or meditation maps, et cetera.

As a personal estimation via years of observation coupled with discussions with many teachers — only a relatively small percentage of meditators will have a jhāna experience, even if only once or twice accidentally. When I say a relatively small percentage, I'm suggesting a realm of single digits. Even fewer of these people have the acumen to access them regularly, and even fewer still have stable enough concentration and circumstances to access them at will. With that as a given, it's easy to understand why the Buddha frequently referred to the jhānas as distinctly superhuman qualities (uttarimanussadhamma), literally "beyond the nature of humans." Nevertheless, I know you well enough to know that you won't believe me, but that's yet another inconvenient truth for the masses. And speaking of which, have boundless compassion for those who experience jhāna "once or twice accidentally" for the resultant dukkha that they may encounter in trying to "get back there" can be tremendous and course-damaging.

No worries, I am not about to provide yet another lengthy treatise on this and the origins of the jhāna myth, or on the 19th-century reform movement that led to the contemporary distortion of the vipassana/insight "technique" coming into being, or on the manifold distortions found in the Abhidhamma, the Visuddhimagga (esp.), and the plethora of other "commentaries." Bear in mind that the contents of the Commentaries are just that: commentaries, opinions, and extrapolations on the Buddha's Dhamma written in a time long after the Buddha's Dhamma had already started to evolve away from the original teachings — thus, they are not the Dhamma, per se. Wherever they expressly diverge from the sutta piṭaka, they cease to represent the Dhammaviniya and become additions by others of unknown levels of insight and progress along the Path. I am including the Abhidhamma in this grouping despite its inclusion in the tipiṭaka.

While the commentaries should not be dismissed wholesale, which would be both extreme and unwise except where they contradict the root texts (i.e., the primary suttas), they should be approached with all due caution and consideration that you would approach any "opinion" rather than accepted unquestioningly on faith or otherwise.

That being stated, the commentaries can be helpful for anyone who sufficiently understands the suttas. With that understanding and some discernment in place, if one finds that the teachings in the commentaries align with the suttas, with only minor exceptions as a result of some late additions to the sutta piṭaka before it was closed, then those teachings can be understood as the teachings of the Buddha and can, therefore, be accepted. If they do not align or if they contradict the teachings found in the sutta, then they are to be set aside as misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the Buddha's teachings.

And please don't get me started again on this whole business of a "dark night of the soul" or "dukkha ñāṇas," which is utter nonsense. This Path is not appropriate for those who are mentally or psychologically unwell. If a relatively healthy person experiences dukkha as a result of meditation or "insight," it's probably because they haven't sufficiently cultivated sīla. And if someone experiences dukkha as a result of stream-entry, it's definitely because they have not experienced stream-entry. Read the suttas; the Buddha taught a path of joyousness, not of bad meditation trips.

If you do nothing else, please stop exposing your mind to such psychobabble rubbish; it's a playground for misguided minds with underdeveloped familiarities with the Buddhist path and too much time for nonsense at the expense of time to study, learn, contemplate, or practice the correct Dhamma.

As I have shared with you in the past, there are more than enough papers and books published by respected scholar monks that debunk these widespread yet potentially toxic and course-destructive aberrations of the Buddha's Dhamma, including but certainly not limited to such popular and insidious notions:

1. That the jhānas are required for stream-entry;
2. That meditative experiences equal spiritual attainments;
3. That vipassana is an appropriate technique to develop wisdom as a puthujjana or that it's a specific technique at all;
4. The veracity of the Abdhidhamma, the Visuddhimagga, and other commentaries;
5. And the many other wrong views and distortions that have slithered their way into the modern understanding and teachings of "Buddhism" today.

All that is left to state on these points, especially those on meditation, is to reiterate that peace and clarity come through understanding the underlying nature and patterns of our unskilful behaviours and habits, not by stopping our thoughts, or by noting and labelling every little distraction that enters our sense sphere, or by achieving some elusive or special meditative state.

One does not "achieve" or "attain" wisdom while sitting silently or still on a cushion; one develops it off-the-cushion by skilfully putting the correct Dhamma into practice within the context of unwanted situations and difficult people, in each moment, over and over again.
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An Easy Path Doesn't Exist, But Fake Buddhism Does

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Our society is addicted to shortcuts.

Too many people want an easy path to liberation, and despite how difficult meditating can be for so many people, sitting on a cushion is a heck of a lot easier than putting sincere effort into finding a noble teacher, studying, learning, discussing, thinking, penetrating, and putting the Gradual Path, as the Buddha instructed it, into practice: sīla first — being a good, kind, generous, and compassionate person in spite of living in a world that encourages and unrelentingly sells you on the benefits of the opposites: greed, hatred, and delusions. Why bother learning the benefits of being kind and generous with those who are unkind and selfish with us, and actually doing so? Why "swallow our pride" when we can assert our ego with the people with whom we have contentious relationships? Why do all that hard work when you could just sit on a cushion and attempt to cultivate pleasure? Isn't that just so much easier and faster, especially if the destination is trumpeted as being the same?

The Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1) makes it quite clear that practicing jhāna without the wholesome restraint of sīla leads to the arising of Wrong Views.  This is why the sutta starts with several sections on the importance of morality, ethics, virtues, and restraint before deep-diving into some of the many flavours of Wrong Views.  "Right Concentration" (sammāsamādhi) is named so for a reason; it emphasises the importance of practicing concentration in the right way; otherwise, it would just be called simply "concentration" (samādhi) instead.  Without fully-developed Right View and sufficiently developing sīla, engaging in samādhi with the intention of cultivating cessation (nirodha) would be Wrong Concentration (micchāsamādhi).  As I often teach, there is a right and a wrong way to do everything, and it's clear that practicing samādhi without abundantly developing sīla is the wrong way if you intend to follow the Buddha's instructions correctly.  And, if you don't intend to follow his dispensation as he intended, then you shouldn't expect to experience the intended result: cessation, peace, direct knowledge, enlightenment, and finally, nibbāna.

Take the Nutriments of Ignorance sutta (AN 10.61) for example:
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"Bhikkhus, I say that ignorance/delusion is conditioned by something, it's not unconditioned. And what is the condition for ignorance?
​

• Not associating with good persons (sappurisā) is the condition for...
• Not hearing the actual Dhamma from the sutta piṭaka, which is the condition for...
• A lack of confidence, which is the condition for...
• Unwise attention (ayoniso manasikāra), which is the condition for...
• Lack of satisampajañña, which is the condition for...
• Non-restraint of the sense faculties, which is the condition for...
• Bodily, verbal, and mental misconduct, which are the conditions for...
• The five hindrances, which are the conditions for...
  ... ignorance/delusion."

To paraphrase another part of the same sutta: ignorance and delusion are fueled by the five hindrances; and, the five hindrances are fueled by the three kinds of misconduct; and, the three kinds of misconduct are fueled by non-restraint of the senses; and, non-restraint of the senses is fueled by a lack of satisampajañña; and, a lack of satisampajañña is fueled by unwise attention; and, unwise attention is fueled by a lack of confidence; and, a lack of confidence is fueled by not hearing real Dhamma; and, not hearing real Dhamma is fueled by not associating with good persons.

You can't ignore all the initial supporting conditions and jump straight to the removal of the last condition, the five hindrances, and expect to receive the promised fruit of the Buddhist path. Attempting to conduce enlightenment, or even awakening, through deep states of samādhi will simply see you cultivating wrong concentration within the context of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path.

Yet you seem to be under the impression that you can just add meditation on top of your base desires and somehow reap the fruits of this noble path. The Buddha discovered that it doesn't work that way. He created an entire philosophy around the singular discovery that meditation isn't the path. He called it the Dhammavinaya — we call it Buddhism. It's a philosophy that, sadly, in modern times, has been twisted and turned up on its head to mean its very opposite.

If this Path were an easy one, one that only required a bit of reading and a lot of sitting, then Dharma centres and Goenka or vipassana meditation retreats would be filled with awakened beings. They aren't. In fact, they are mostly, if not entirely, empty of them. Why is that? Because the path to awakening is not found on the cushion; it's found off of it. It takes a lot of hard and courageous work with our afflictions and our cravings, and with the people who push our buttons and the conditions that trigger us. And in light of that, I ask a lot of my students, especially those who are dedicated to awakening, and the further along the path that they are, the greater the expectations that I have of them.

In return for their trust and effort, most of my students experience measurably increased peace, positivity, contentment, discernment, and Path progress beyond what they thought possible — many become sappurisā; for my more contemplative and hardworking students, some of them even experience awakening — stream-entry.

It's unfortunate that we live in such a degenerate time when the Buddha's instructions can be so summarily co-opted and distorted by those with no business chopping up and repackaging his teachings to appeal to a greater (and lesser!) audience, effectively relegating the Early Buddhist teachings to the fringe of contemporary Buddhism, taken piecemeal, out of content, and out of order; and only in ways that support a distorted and twisted narrative, agenda, or business model.  

How sad and how great of a disservice to all of the people who dedicate what little time that they have to learn and practice teachings and techniques that are ultimately wrong and a waste of their precious time in their desire and efforts to make genuine spiritual progress along this Buddhist Path of Enlightenment, of cessation, of nibbāna. How can someone possibly experience the fruit of the path that the Buddha taught when they aren't correctly instructed in what that path actually is? How can they possibly make progress along a path they don't even understand?

Sīla, samādhi, and paññā. In that specific order. Sīla comes first — always — with no exceptions. Anyone who teaches something different is a person who claims to have skills and insights that they don't actually have, and consequently, they and their teachings should absolutely be avoided.

"Based upon sīla, established upon sīla, a bhikkhu develops and cultivates the Noble Eightfold Path, and thereby he attains to growth, increase, and expansion in wholesome states." (SN 45.150)

Fact: No one can meditate himself or herself to awakening, let alone to enlightenment. Period. It just does not work that way.

As I've instructed you on so many occasions, it is only from wisely working diligently, earnestly, with the four factors of stream-entry that the beginnings of a small drip can develop... the drip of a new perspective that one day, if you continue to skilfully and effortfully cultivate this process, can turn into a small spring, a spring that can one day feed a stream; a stream that may one day grow to fill an ocean; an ocean of peace, wisdom, and enlightenment. But before you can dip your toes into the ocean of a new consciousness, you must be willing to let go of what you cling so irresponsibly to and to give your practice of the Dhamma appropriate time, wise attention, and diligent energy. The effort you invest has a destination, and that destination is well worth the endurance and sacrifices needed to get to the other shore.

I put a lot of effort into being your guide. But only your guide. As you can see, the journey is not one that I can walk for you, but I did my best to be there to walk it by your side. However, for quite a while now, it feels to me that you want me to walk the path and drag you along the way toward progress; this I cannot do.

As I said in our last session, after all of these years of doing "Buddhism" the way you have, what has it done for you exactly? The progress you have made has been so little given how much time and thought you have applied toward progress.

What have you got to lose by giving the path as it was taught 2500 years ago by the Buddha a chance?

For just twelve months, make a genuine commitment to associate with superior people, to listen to and absorb authentic Dhamma, to courageously and genuinely turn it in your mind, and to live in accordance with the true Dhamma, which includes a persevering intention to practice sense restraint and skilful renunciation from your attachments, especially from the unwholesome and unbeneficial ones. After that, see what differences it makes to your life experience, to the state of your mind, and to your progress along this Path.

Again, what have you got to lose? So you defer playing some video games, watching some Netflix, and hanging out with people who demonstrate asaddhamma for a while. Are those meaningless and unwholesome distractions so vital to your sense of "happiness" that you would instead continue to sacrifice your progress, choosing to flounder in spiritual dukkha as you are?

You know exactly what leads you forward, and you also know exactly what holds you back; we've spoken about this endlessly, so your mandate is to choose again and again the path that leads to wisdom, not away from it. And if you don't, you will never become a stream-enterer. Ever.

"A person companioned by craving wanders on the long journey in this state of being and cannot go beyond saṁsāra. Having understood the danger thus, that craving is the origin of suffering, one should wander mindfully, free from craving, without grasping." (Iti 105)

Quite simply, if you want profound change, then you have to put in profound effort. Full stop.

Anyway, you've heard all of this and so much more from me before, countless times, practically since time immemorial. This letter isn't meant to lay out the arguments to support any of these positions that I'm only attempting to reiterate to you one last time at a high level; hundreds of hours of sessions between the two of us should have sufficiently done that. This is only meant to explain why I feel as if I cannot continue to spend as much time, effort, and energy as I have to try to convince you, or sell you, on what the Buddha actually taught — being asked week after week to drag you along a path that you already know is worthwhile to walk by your own volition.

It is not possible for me to "course-correct" someone who actively works against me and who willfully continues to choose to follow distorted and false paths, and the teachers who propagate them.

Regretfully, I have come to accept that you are not ready for (or willing to accept) the teachings that I have to offer you at this point in your path. And I doubt that I'm making much more than a temporary dent with all of these words as it is, but forgive me for taking one last shot across the bow before we part ways ;)

Jonathan — I genuinely care about you.

If this letter comes across to you as a bit harsh, heavy-handed, or final, it isn't intended to be. After all these years, you know me well enough to understand where I am coming from and what my intentions and tone are, and I wish you all the best as you continue your path of self-exploration.

So, for the time being, at least in the capacity of being a pro bono student, it's time for you to explore alternative avenues that will provide other insights and perspectives on your journey.

Of course, it goes without stating explicitly — though I shall do so anyway — I would be happy to make time for you if you would like to discuss this in more detail with me in one last pro bono session. If not, I respect that too, and I wish you many blessings in your spiritual journey ahead.

Should you ever feel that our paths should intersect again, should you ever finally overcome your reliance on Wrong Views as the cornerstone of your practice, and should you ever finally decide to pursue the spiritual over the worldly, I'll be here to support and guide you with an open heart.

Until that time, warm regards and sincere wishes, may you eventually come to thrive in the teachings of the Buddha, may the Dhamma always take care of you, and may you come to find a Sangha that can authentically direct you toward nibbāna. I will miss our sessions together.

​[Note: if you found this letter helpful, you may be interested in reading this directly related post on Meditation, Suffering, and The Dark Night of the Soul — Awakening/Stream-entry Explained]

​With mettā,

Michael Turner
Buddhist Therapist and Coach
Advanced Applied-Dharma and Sīla Trainer
Analytical Meditation (yonisomanasikāra) Instructor

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