Does your Buddhist tradition operate with the four levels of awakening (stream entry etc)? If so, which of the levels do you believe you have achieved?
Zen doesn't. It has a complicated relationship with awakening models. We may talk about kensho/satori, mind and body falling away, resolving the great matter, progression though the ox herding pictures, and even of past masters being awakened, but there's also a taboo against making too big a deal of measuring yourself against models (I'm somewhat bad in my regular violation of this taboo).
That said, if Daniel Ingram is to be believed, stream entry aligns with a first kensho (or satori depending on if you're in a school that distinguishes those) or what we'd call dropping off mind and body, and resolving the great matter with arhatship, but this doesn't match the traditional understanding of those terms, and Zen asks us to aspire to become bodhisattvas rather than arhats anyway.
A bodhisattva practices to end the suffering of all being, and that includes the bodhisattva. That said, resolving the great matter should result in a large reduction in suffering, nearly it's elimination, because it takes away the power from the self beliefs that cause one to "fire the second arrow". Most people report suffering is reduced by 90% or more, but not completely, as there's still some suffering from lingering habituated thoughts that must be retrained.
No. "Completely eliminated" is really the wrong framing. Suffering can arise in any moment, so it is only through continuous practice that suffering is abated. One wrong move and it can sneak back in. But, with practice, abiding in a place of non-suffering becomes more natural and available. Perhaps there are some few people who truly never suffer and haven't for years, but as best I can tell, most claims of eliminated suffering are delusion.
Does your Buddhist tradition operate with the four levels of awakening (stream entry etc)? If so, which of the levels do you believe you have achieved?
Zen doesn't. It has a complicated relationship with awakening models. We may talk about kensho/satori, mind and body falling away, resolving the great matter, progression though the ox herding pictures, and even of past masters being awakened, but there's also a taboo against making too big a deal of measuring yourself against models (I'm somewhat bad in my regular violation of this taboo).
That said, if Daniel Ingram is to be believed, stream entry aligns with a first kensho (or satori depending on if you're in a school that distinguishes those) or what we'd call dropping off mind and body, and resolving the great matter with arhatship, but this doesn't match the traditional understanding of those terms, and Zen asks us to aspire to become bodhisattvas rather than arhats anyway.
Thanks. What about the "end of suffering"? What is the relationship between bodhisattvahood and the end of suffering?
A bodhisattva practices to end the suffering of all being, and that includes the bodhisattva. That said, resolving the great matter should result in a large reduction in suffering, nearly it's elimination, because it takes away the power from the self beliefs that cause one to "fire the second arrow". Most people report suffering is reduced by 90% or more, but not completely, as there's still some suffering from lingering habituated thoughts that must be retrained.
Thanks. Do you know anyone who believes to have completely eliminated their own suffering, and whom you consider to be reasonably trustworthy?
No. "Completely eliminated" is really the wrong framing. Suffering can arise in any moment, so it is only through continuous practice that suffering is abated. One wrong move and it can sneak back in. But, with practice, abiding in a place of non-suffering becomes more natural and available. Perhaps there are some few people who truly never suffer and haven't for years, but as best I can tell, most claims of eliminated suffering are delusion.