Turning the Wheel of Truth by Ajahn Sucitto

Author:Ajahn Sucitto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Breaking Through the First Three Fetters

So there are a total of ten fetters that fall away through four successive breakthroughs, or stages of enlightenment that cause levels of ignorance to peel off. As I mentioned briefly, the first three fetters (or types of ignorance) that drop away at stream-entry bind our cognitive assumptions—the way that our thinking mind is set up to interpret experience in terms of self. The first fetter is personality-view. This is the superficial aspect of self-view, the belief that the socially conditioned creature of habit who mutters in our head is actually some essential being. When you look at it like that, it seems crazy to hang on to this moody, insecure being, but a lot of the time, that’s the program that’s calling the shots. The second fetter is doubt, which arises when we don’t see the Dhamma intimately. We may have a conceptual understanding of it, but we don’t see our own light. And the third is an attachment to customs and systems: our daily routines, our cultural values, our Buddhist tradition, or the meditation technique that we use. At stream-entry all these fetters fall away.

Stream-entry is the beginning of being completely composed on the path. With that level of clarity, there is no longer the instinctive need to hold on to any image, physical or psychological, as one’s self. Someone who’s “entered the stream” relates to their body as a part of nature. Similarly, they no longer look at someone else’s physical image as an expression of their enlightenment—or lack of it. Even more to the point is that they regard the bundle of learned habits, emotional patterns, and attitudes as an acquisition, a product of conditioning, and of old kamma. Stream-enterers are not trying to make the world fit their personality, nor are they trying to abolish their personality. “Personality,” after all, is a psychological body that is formed through contact with the world. It’s important because we act through that. But through the process of wise attention and inquiry, we can watch how our personality functions, know where to check it, where to encourage it, how to heal it. A certain degree of detachment, as well as insight, is needed in order to respond, kindly, to personality as a worthwhile organ for interaction. After all, we’re living in a society where we have to be a “someone”—so be it wisely!

With stream-entry, one no longer has any doubt that the path is based on purity of body and speech, and that it leads to fruition or full awakening. Doubt about whether or not one is capable of cultivating Dhamma, or about the value of that Dhamma, does not arise. With this mature understanding also comes a more balanced attitude regarding the use of techniques, conventions, and practices: one can use them sensibly, avoiding the extremes of either slavishly following them or rebelliously rejecting them. Finally, doubt, uncertainty about the Dhamma, is quelled because through applying himself or herself, a stream-enterer has sensed “the deathless,” nibbāna.

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