Can we attain stream entry while working or studying full-time? I want to start practicing the four elements meditation. For jhanas, I know that we need a quiet and supportive environment to attain and maintain those jhanas. I was wondering if it’s possible to be successful in vipassana if I can’t meditate full-time like a monk.
Is it still possible to attain stream entry while listening to the Dhamma like in the past?
I want to attain stream entry or once returner in this life and spend my remaining lives in the deva and brahma worlds.
I might take a month break and go to meditation retreats every year in the future. Maybe that is the best way to progress as a lay person. I wish there were Pa Auk Monasteries in the US.
Yes, this is still the time of a Buddha sasana and the path to stream entry is as valid for laypeople as for monks.
If the conditions are fulfilled - primarily right view - then genuine satipatthana is possible and subsequent stages of vipassana.
I hope I can attain stream entry while I’m still in my 20s. I’m thinking of doing a meditation retreat in the future once my career is stable. Stream entry is the goal for many Buddhists, so it would be great to attain it as soon as possible.
Ultimately all it takes is doing the right actions by body, speech and mind. The Buddhas teaching is about kamma all of it. What actions to do by body speech and mind. You can only attain nibbana by actions. The Buddha showed the cause of suffering and the way to its cessation too. The way is only by our own actions, our own kamma. If you focus on keeping the 5 precepts well and do some meditation and have right view. You can only attain Nibbana at some point. Where else could it take you?
Don’t do evil actions, cultivate what is good, purify ones own mind. This is the teaching of all the Buddhas.
Attaining sotapanna is the culmination of lifetimes of accumulating wisdom and other merits. Who can tell where are we right now on this long, long path.