First stage of enlightenment in Heart Sutra

(Swapnaloka) The biggest illusion is ME? (Maya, Lila) the Divine Illusion (Advaita Vedanta)

I was trying to read the Heart Sutra to chant it in Sanskrit, but it doesn't make any sense in English translation. At least it didn't until Wisdom Quarterly's Dharma editor explained it.* Now it's clear. Now I know why "enlightenment" and "awakening" elude me. Now I know what to study and put into practice to know and see. Thanks, WQ!

• *The Heart Sutra: Buddha's Mother: Perfect Wisdom
• The Heart Sutra over the years (Wisdom Quarterly)

Stream-Enterer Sutra

The Scythian Sage: The Buddha

[At Savatthi the Buddha said:] "Meditators, there are these Five Groups clung to as self. What five groups?

1. The body-group clung to as self,
2. the feeling-group,
3. the perception-group,
4. the mental-formation-group,
5. the consciousness-group clung to as self.

"And when, meditators, the noble (Aryan = "enlightened," "awakened") disciple understands as they truly are:

• the arising and the passing away,
• the attractiveness and the danger, and
• the deliverance from the five groups clung to as self,

The Devi (Goddess) Pallas Athena (Klimt)

one is called a noble disciple who is a stream-winner, no longer liable to ever fall into subhuman states of woe [1], assured of full and final enlightenment."

• NOTE: 1. The "stream-winner" (sotapanna) is sure to become fully enlightened (an arahant) within seven rebirths and will not be reborn more than seven more times, and such a person will never again be reborn in any state lower than the human plane.

1. the one "with seven rebirths at the utmost" (sattakkhattu-parama) ["one with only seven further rebirths at the utmost," is one of the three kinds of stream-winners (sotāpannas).
2. the one "passing from one noble family to another" (kolankola),
3. the one "germinating only once more" (eka-bījī, lit. "one seed" or perhaps "at most once more seeded").]

As it is said (e.g., Pug.37-39; A.III.87):

What is the greatest bliss? Seeing release.

(1) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three lower fetters (personality-belief, skeptical doubt, attachment to rites and rituals, see samyojana), has entered the stream (to nirvana), that person is no longer subject to any rebirth in the lower worlds [below the human plane], is firmly established, destined to reach full enlightenment. After having passed among the celestial/heavenly (deva) and human (manussya) beings only at most seven times more through the round of rebirths, one puts an end to all further suffering. Such a person is called "one with seven rebirths at the utmost" (sattakkhattu-parama).

I continued to practice to make an end of ill.

(2) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three fetters.... is destined to reach full enlightenment, that person, after having passed among noble families two or three times through the round of rebirths, makes an end of all suffering. Such a person is called "one passing from one noble family to another" (kolankola).

(3) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three fetters...is destined to full enlightenment, one, after having only once more returned to the human plane, makes an end of all suffering. Such a person is called "one germinating only once more" (eka-bījī).

• See Sotāpatti-Samyutta (S.55)
• See also SN 55.24, Note 7:
• 7. This is an encouraging message for many! Compare it to the end of MN 22 and also the charming image of the newborn calf in MN 34. The Commentary (MA) to MN 22 says such people are termed "lesser stream-winners" (cula-sota-panna). This term is discussed in The Path of Purification (VM XIX, 27). [This term is more fully explained in The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga).] The stress laid here on the importance of faith (actually saddha, "confidence," "conviction," the trust sufficient to investigate that precedes personal verification) is interesting in view of later developments such as the Pure Land schools (e.g., Jodo-Shinshu or "Shin-Buddhism" in Japan).
• (SN 22.109 PTS: S iii 160 CDB i 9650)
• Maurice O'Connell Walshe (trans.), Sotapanno Sutta: The Sotapanna, "The Stream-Winner" Pali title based on PTS (Feer) edition; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly