Is becoming a Sotapanna something spontaneous or is it gradual?
Can one be a Sotapanna and not be aware of it or have some sort of doubt about it?
Good questions.
Well, it's both really.
Becoming a Sotapanna is one moment.
You're not kind of a Sotapanna.
You're not partially Sotapanna.
You either are or you aren't.
It's a categorical difference.
A Sotapanna is someone who's seen Nibbana.
A non-Sotapanna is someone who is not.
That means it's spontaneous or instantaneous.
but it's not spontaneous in the sense that it is gradual practice.
You have to cultivate awareness to the point where the mind is able to break away from sankharas and reach the asankhata, the unformed, which is nibbana.
The second question is more difficult because I don't want to say the wrong thing and misrepresent the truth.
But to me, how am I going to be the arbiter of this question?
This is a question you have to ask the Buddha.
A sotapanna doesn't have doubt.
But my understanding, and I think the commentary's understanding, is that, and maybe even the Tipitaka, what we have of the Buddha's teaching, is under the understanding that that refers to specifically doubt in the Buddha, doubt in the Dhamma, and doubt in the Sangha.
Thus, the Buddha is enlightened.
His teachings are the path to freedom from suffering.
and a person who practices these teachings, a person who is enlightened is the person who has practiced these teachings.
That's the doubt, that's the confidence of a Sotapanna, that they have no doubt in these three things.
It doesn't say that they have no doubt in themselves.
And I think that's reasonable.
I don't want to give a categorical answer here.
But to me that seems reasonable.
Because Sotapanna is just a word.
And this happens all the time in meditation.
You get this idea that it's something, that it's an entity.
Am I it?
Am I there yet?
You're waiting for the signpost.
So you're looking.
How do you know if you're a Sotapanna?
I had some experience that makes me think that I'm a sotapanna, but am I a sotapanna?
So we don't tend to answer people's questions when they ask about how do you know you're a sotapanna and so on.
Do you have greed?
Do you have anger?
Do you have delusion?
Well, then there's still further to go.
That's all you should know.
Because the only thing that it would do if you did know that you're a sotapanna is...
it would give you the reassurance that would maybe make you stop practicing or get lazy.
If you are a sotapanna and you have doubt about it, you're still going to work really hard to push on, to cut off more defilements.
But I would say yes, a sotapanna can have doubt.
My guess is, and I'm not sure that it's correct, is that a sotapanna
can have doubt, because it's not a sure thing.
I would say an arahant, see I don't want to make these categorical statements,
I think it's reasonable to suggest that a Sotapanna could have doubt.
And I think it's reasonable to suggest that an Arahant may not have doubt.
Because the Arahant is free from delusion.
So the Arahant is in my mind more likely of the two to be free from doubt in themselves.
Because, and the Buddha said, He knows for himself that there is nothing further.
This is an arahat.
The arahat knows for themselves.
I would say as Sotapanna, because they still have greed, anger and delusion, they might still have this confusion inside of themselves.
and thus still have doubt.
The doubt that has disappeared is in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.
So whether they know that they themselves have reached it, they'll just be confused and doubt about themselves.
But when they look deep down, they will be able to say that they have no doubt in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.