As a religious institution governed by a professional elite, Buddhism has tended over time to elevate stream entry to such a rarified spiritual height that it becomes all but inaccessible to any but the most dedicated practitioners of the dharma. Yet the suttas insist that numerous stream enterers at the Buddha’s time were “men and women lay followers, clothed in white, enjoying sensual pleasures,” who had “gone beyond doubt” and “become independent of others in the teaching.”22 Perhaps the most striking example of this is that of a drunkard called Sarakāni the Sakiyan, whom the Buddha
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