Seeing life experience from a dhamma perspective helps to apply dhamma in daily life. Practicing dhamma to gain Nibbana requires training the mind to think beyond the ordinary within daily life. For example, when someone experiences a low mood, it is useful to bring back mindfulness and make some effort to reflect on the teachings of the Buddha that remind us how ups and downs are part of life, as that is the nature of life for all of us. Similarly, when one feels upset or worried, it is useful to bring back mindfulness to reflect that context can be anything, so that feelings and thoughts, good times and bad times are normal things to expect in life, and everything is subject to change universally applicable to all beings. Applying such a dhamma perspective into analyzing real-life experience is a helpful practice to maintain peace of mind.

Nibbana means four stages of enlightenment. Nibbana is not a religion, lifestyle, textbook, or similar thing but a fruition that is established in one’s mind. In line with noble standards, becoming an ethical person at the stream entry level requires abandoning discriminating self and beings, something beyond practicing precepts and training rules, and becoming a responsible person who genuinely cares for self and others in all areas of life to become a good friend, a good parent, a good sibling, and likewise by developing good internal qualities and ethics. Similarly, practicing to reach Nibbana (stream-entry and beyond) requires more than meditation, because what happens during mediation is usually one attempt to withhold temporarily the autonomous functioning of the mind (thoughts, feelings) by focusing on a mediation object or a particular aspect. Therefore, typically, mediation can provide short-term relief or effect. Gaining Nibbana requires identifying the mind’s autonomous functioning as nonself. To get there, it is useful to move beyond temporary mediation practice to apply the dhamma perspective into daily life. This explains why it is useful to train the mind in the “middle-way” in daily life, as this practice allows not withholding autonomous functioning but reducing getting attached to the autonomous functioning of the mind or reducing identifying the mind as “self”.

One who becomes a stream-enterer sees the teachings of the Buddha and comes to understand who Buddha is and understand that Nibbana is shaped by merits and karma, which is why it is important to develop merits by reflecting on the triple gem, a key aspect of the factors of stream entry, and engaging in meritorious deeds. For a stream-enterer, it becomes clear that beings can escape samsara by depending on Buddha as a disciple, which is why a stream-enterer accepts Buddha as the only teacher. Similarly, for a stream-enterer who sees that there is no permanent self, it becomes clear that it is meaningless to cling to other identities, and, therefore, a stream-enterer does not divide teachings. If we were to twist around this understanding of a stream-enterer into developing the practice, this indicates that the practice that leads to stream entry requires one to abandon clinging to divisions, rites, and rituals by understanding the message of Buddha or the core teachings of Buddha irrespective of traditions and divisions that are later additions. In sum, what is needed is to abandon three fetters and develop four factors of stream-entry to experience Nibbana.