Enlightenment

YogaMama

In your own words, what does "becoming enlightened" really mean?? I am having a hard time really figuring out what it really means, so I am just looking for some advice and/or thoughts from all of you.

Namaste,
Kim

federica

when you are enlightened, you know and have absolutely no attachment or false perception of permanence... When you are enlightened, everything is clear, you are full of everything that is needed, but void of all superfluousness... When you are enlightened, the struggles of others prompt you to smile inwardly, because you recognise their suffering for the illusory and clinging state it is, but at the same time, your compassion is as limitless as the Universe.
When you are enlightened, you know.

When you are not, you don't. But you want to.

That's my take on it anyway.


How's that? :winkc:

harlan

In my thinking, there is no 'meaning' in 'enlightenment'. Is there meaning in any process...other than what you give it?

zenmonk_genryu

YogaMama wrote:

In your own words, what does "becoming enlightened" really mean?? I am having a hard time really figuring out what it really means, so I am just looking for some advice and/or thoughts from all of you.

Namaste,
Kim

It means that you see your delusion clearly and that you understand that water is wet, the sky is blue and a chair is a chair.

federica

ZenMonk... isn't a chair sometimes used as an analogy of the skandas.... that is, that it IS a chair, but that when you take it all apart, it's just different bits of wood, that came from maybe different trees, that grew from different seeds, in soil in different parts of the world....

I don't say this to dispute your description of enlightenement.... I ask this as a separate question relating to aiding people understand that we are not what we perceive ourselves to be.....

harlan

I thought the question was what is the meaning of enlightenment...not a description of it?

federica

'In your own words, what does "becoming enlightened" really mean?' Was Yogamama's first question in her post... But we're all guessing, and answering from our own personal perception.....

zenmonk_genryu

You're quite right Harlan, and you're also right that it has no meaning. And Fede, you're correct in that when you take it all apart, there is no abiding thing that we can point to as 'chair'. Hence the Diamond Sutra says, to paraphrase, that a Buddha is not a Buddha and therefore is a Buddha. In the same way, a chair is not a chair and is thus fully a chair. Or as Shunryu Suzuki Roshi once put it, “Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity."

federica

zenmonk_genryu wrote:

You're quite right Harlan, and you're also right that it has no meaning. And Fede, you're correct in that when you take it all apart, there is no abiding thing that we can point to as 'chair'. Hence the Diamond Sutra says, to paraphrase, that a Buddha is not a Buddha and therefore is a Buddha. In the same way, a chair is not a chair and is thus fully a chair.

Or as Shunryu Suzuki Roshi once put it, “Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity."

..... and that is just about as perfect an answer as you are ever going to get, Yogamama....

YogaMama

zenmonk_genryu wrote:

Hence the Diamond Sutra says, to paraphrase, that a Buddha is not a Buddha and therefore is a Buddha. In the same way, a chair is not a chair and is thus fully a chair.

Clear as mud!!!

zenmonk_genryu

LOL! One problem, and one reason why the Diamond Sutra says what it says, is that we split Reality (or try to) into this and that, enlightened and unenlightened, good and evil, existence and non existence and so on, and then mistake the concepts for Reality itself. In reality, there is no seperation, no such separate thing as enlightened or unenlightened. Hence the Diamond Sutra points to the totality, or things as it is (as Suzuki Roshi liked to put it) by negating any concepts we may have of it.

Traleg Rinpoche, in a talk called, "Discovering Basic Sanity" puts it this way,

Some people think if you realize emptiness you must lose any notion of discrimination, because everything is empty, but that is a misunderstanding of what is meant by emptiness. On the absolute level everything is non-differentiated, but on the relative level each single thing is different, so a table is still a table it is not a car, and they have different functions and they serve different purposes and so on. In this way there is that relationship between relative truth and absolute truth in terms of the physical world. The same thing applies to the mind, from the point of view of the absolute, all the mental processes that go on in the mind have the nature of being luminous, that is from the absolute point of view. From the point of view of the relative aspect, then still there are unceasing thoughts and concepts and ideas etc happening in the mind. So there is that relationship between the absolute and the relative truth on that level as well.

According to the Buddhist tradition different people have fallen into all kinds of extremes. Some people, who actually try to become more reflective and lead a spiritual life, fall into the trap of a dualistic way of thinking, separating the relative from the absolute and denying the importance of the relative truth. Ordinary people, who do not concern themselves with religious matters, fall into the other extreme, which is to become immersed in the relative, into the multiplicity, into what is temporal.

From a Buddhist point of view what one has to realize is the unity between the absolute and the relative truth. Both are co-existent, one cannot say one is more real than the other. Unless we understand that, then we cannot develop insight. Insight is attained through what is called the middle view, which means not falling into any kind of extreme view, not falling onto one side or another. If we say that what is relative is illusory, that it is like a dream, then it becomes very difficult, for example to fight for social justice or to care for the environment, to have regard for others welfare, to think about other peoples suffering. Because we can say: "Oh, it is all illusory it is all like a dream, like a nightmare, it is actually not happening you know it is not real." On the other hand if one does not have any sense of transcendent reality, if one becomes totally caught up in the empirical world, then one has no higher perspective to look at what is going on. One becomes swayed this way and that way by delusions and prejudices and so on.

So according to Buddhism, to attain insight is to actually have our feet planted in both worlds at the same time. What is important is not to over-emphasize one or the other, and that is called unity of absolute and relative truth. To understand that is to gain insight that is to achieve enlightenment.

Discovering Basic Sanity

Jason

Yoda,

To be honest, I don't know what "becoming enlightened" really means. I can only guess at its meaning since I have no direct knowledge of enlightenment myself. If I had to come up with some idea of how to explain it, however, I would say that becoming enlightened means the laying down the "burden". The continuous cycle of birth, sickness, old age, and death can only be travelled because we condition its existence. We build this proverbial house through our own actions, and consequentially, we are forced to live within it. We are aflame with with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Becoming enlightened (nibbana) means that all of the fuel for our suffering is simply no longer present. It implies an extinquishing, a blowing out, or a growing cold do to lack of sustenance. Ignorance, greed, hatred, delusion, and the fabrication of "self" (I-making and my-making) are completely abandoned. With this knowledge, a person discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world.' What such an experience is like, I can only imagine, but it is said the be the foremost ease, the ultimate happiness, and the highest bliss.



Jason

buddhafoot

My $0.02

Enlightenment - enlightenment may be different things to different people at different levels.

I sometimes think that we think "Enlightenment" is something magical and mystical - although Buddha never taught that he was either.

We also have no idea of what "levels" Siddartha achieved before his complete Enlightenment. I can't help but think that he continued to learn and learn and learn as he went along.
Even as an ascetic he realized that, whether enlightened or awakened, he realized the fact that you cannot punish this physical body and it be a "good" thing. He realized that even as "self" - we must take care of this "condition" to be able to achieve anything.

I believe the only Enlightenment I may be able to achieve in this lifetime is:

Compassion for all
Where my "self" and "ego" no longer play a part in my day-to-day existance. I no longer feel rage or anger or hurt like I do now when I sense of self or ego is injured.
I don't have "knee-jerk" reactions to things I am confronted with, have never encountered or don't understand.
That the Eightfold Path is not something that eludes me - but is a part of me as much as my skin is now. I don't have to think about "is this my skin?" - but that I know it for what it is and that it's a part of me - inseparable and complete.

That's all I would hope for.

-bf

Xrayman

okay, (before I was buddhist-and more into western medicine than what is considered healthy).

"Enlightenment" happened to a guy that spent 40 frigging days under a tree, near starvation and dehydration, hallucinating etc.. NO WONDER!! he thought he had attained Enlightenment!

I'm a lot less sceptical/sarcastic and more understanding now-I think.

regards,
Xrayman

buddhafoot

Forty days?

Aren't you thinking of Noah... or am I wrong?

-bf

Xrayman

Yea I though that too, but somewhere there was this "40 days" business.

regards,
X

Esau

Hello,
Doing nothing special, going nowhere.......wouldn't have a clue.:scratch: Not really worried about it:)

Brigid

zenmonk_genryu wrote:

LOL! One problem, and one reason why the Diamond Sutra says what it says, is that we split Reality (or try to) into this and that, enlightened and unenlightened, good and evil, existence and non existence and so on, and then mistake the concepts for Reality itself. In reality, there is no seperation, no such separate thing as enlightened or unenlightened. Hence the Diamond Sutra points to the totality, or things as it is (as Suzuki Roshi liked to put it) by negating any concepts we may have of it.

Traleg Rinpoche, in a talk called, "Discovering Basic Sanity" puts it this way,

Some people think if you realize emptiness you must lose any notion of discrimination, because everything is empty, but that is a misunderstanding of what is meant by emptiness. On the absolute level everything is non-differentiated, but on the relative level each single thing is different, so a table is still a table it is not a car, and they have different functions and they serve different purposes and so on. In this way there is that relationship between relative truth and absolute truth in terms of the physical world. The same thing applies to the mind, from the point of view of the absolute, all the mental processes that go on in the mind have the nature of being luminous, that is from the absolute point of view. From the point of view of the relative aspect, then still there are unceasing thoughts and concepts and ideas etc happening in the mind. So there is that relationship between the absolute and the relative truth on that level as well.

According to the Buddhist tradition different people have fallen into all kinds of extremes. Some people, who actually try to become more reflective and lead a spiritual life, fall into the trap of a dualistic way of thinking, separating the relative from the absolute and denying the importance of the relative truth. Ordinary people, who do not concern themselves with religious matters, fall into the other extreme, which is to become immersed in the relative, into the multiplicity, into what is temporal.

From a Buddhist point of view what one has to realize is the unity between the absolute and the relative truth. Both are co-existent, one cannot say one is more real than the other. Unless we understand that, then we cannot develop insight. Insight is attained through what is called the middle view, which means not falling into any kind of extreme view, not falling onto one side or another. If we say that what is relative is illusory, that it is like a dream, then it becomes very difficult, for example to fight for social justice or to care for the environment, to have regard for others welfare, to think about other peoples suffering. Because we can say: "Oh, it is all illusory it is all like a dream, like a nightmare, it is actually not happening you know it is not real." On the other hand if one does not have any sense of transcendent reality, if one becomes totally caught up in the empirical world, then one has no higher perspective to look at what is going on. One becomes swayed this way and that way by delusions and prejudices and so on.

So according to Buddhism, to attain insight is to actually have our feet planted in both worlds at the same time. What is important is not to over-emphasize one or the other, and that is called unity of absolute and relative truth. To understand that is to gain insight that is to achieve enlightenment.

Discovering Basic Sanity

Hey, Genryu! I can actually get a handle on this. I'm reading "Practicing Wisdom" by HH the Dalai Lama and he was talking about the two truths, the relative and the absolute in chapter nine of "The Way of the Bodhisattva". I've noticed myself thinking on two levels for a long time. I was trying to explain what I meant to my father but couldn't find the words. I don't have a total grasp, more of a wisp of smoke thing. But in my mind there is a definite sense of seeing and understanding on two different levels. It's as if I have to deal with the "illusory", physical level because it exists and I still live in it but there is also the ultimate level. Somehow I understand the former as temporary but necessary and the later as bigger and maybe permanent. And on one level I'm still thinking in a dualist way because they seem to be different, and on another level I know they're not; as if they exist together, blended. It's the ultimate I'm trying to get to but I have to get a full handle on the relative as well and it happens in my mind at the same time. The relative truth comes through my filters that have developed throughout my life (having to form an opinion, an aversion, a liking etc.) and the ultimate is clean, bigger, and more firm. It doesn't change according to my opinions. It's not subject to my filters. Does any of this make sense? This is the first time I've talked about this.

Brigid