Entering the Stream and Forgetting the Object, and the Stream-Entry of the Srotāpanna

Question: In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra's perfect penetration through the ear faculty, the phrase "entering the flow and losing the object" (入流亡所) and the later "the realm of the aggregate of form" (色蕴区宇)—what is the relationship between these and the statement in the Diamond Sutra that the stream-enterer (Srotaāpanna) is called "one who has entered the flow" yet does not enter form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas?

Answer: When Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva cultivated the samādhi of the hearing nature through perfect penetration via the ear faculty, at the beginning, upon hearing sounds, he entered into the flow of sounds, knowing only the sounds, unaware of their source or anything else. This kind of focused absorption is the initial stage of meditative concentration (samādhi).

The Diamond Sutra says that the stream-enterer is called "one who has entered the flow" yet there is nothing entered; this flow refers to the six sense objects—the realms of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas. Because the stream-enterer has realized that the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) and the eighteen realms are all empty, he no longer takes the six sense objects to be truly self or belonging to self. Therefore, although he dwells amid the six sense objects, his mind does not attach to them.

The stream-enterer's "entering the flow" is a wisdom realm attained through the elimination of self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), with wisdom as the primary element and meditative concentration as the auxiliary; whereas Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva's "entering the flow and losing the object" is primarily a realm of meditative concentration, with wisdom as the auxiliary.

When one's practice enters the realm of the aggregate of form (rūpa) but one has not yet emerged from it, not having passed through the realm of the aggregate of form, this is a realm of meditative concentration.