Attaining enlightenment for the sake of all beings

karasti

I read this phrase often. I hear it from teachers and I read it in books and online. What, exactly, does this mean?

If someone truly gained enlightenment while still embodied as a human, then yes they most certainly can do a lot good for other beings. Clearly some have done this. Buddha did it. There have been (depending on your tradition I suppose) other Buddhas. But then that enlightened being dies, and no longer incarnates. So, how does being enlightened help others once they cease to exist on the planet?

how

On the fly, but off the cuff....

It's a warning to not become attached to reaching the end of the path to sufferings cause. (self correcting because such an attachment prevents that)
It's a warning that the practise is not just to feel good. (Jhana junkies)
&
It's a teaching that enlightment is essentially selflessness.

Jeffrey

In the mahayana the being manifests again in the world. The buddha is dharmakaya, sambhogayaka, and nirmanakaya. Only the nirmanakaya dies I guess and it (the nirmanakaya) could remanifest possibly

sova

have you ever felt a cool breeze

karasti

@Jeffrey I'll have to research those terms more, thank you.
@sova Hm. Yes, but if I'm supposed to get more out of what you said you might have to explain it, must be over my head, LOL.
@how, thanks, that makes sense.

nenkohai

Ya know, if its a furtherance of dharma; if it is the service of reducing suffering; if it helps, I'll do it. If those actions where conditional on me becoming enlightened, then I am totally screwed, not to mention those who'd I'd otherwise help.

"No, no, I'm sorry I can't help you. I'm not enlightened."

That don't wash.

(don't worry, I know that's not what's being said)

karmablues

As an unenlightened being with defilements you are liable to act in ways that inflict harm upon others. So, I suppose one aspect of how your own enlightenment benefits others could be that you will have reached a stage where you would no longer inflict harm upon any other being.

fivebells

The post-mortem fate of the tathagatha (roughly speaking, an enlightened person) is one of the imponderables. There is no useful answer to the question, similar to "What gets reborn?"

As for why, well, you'll never get any peace as long as there are unenlightened beings around.

Cinorjer

karasti said:

I read this phrase often. I hear it from teachers and I read it in books and online. What, exactly, does this mean?

If someone truly gained enlightenment while still embodied as a human, then yes they most certainly can do a lot good for other beings. Clearly some have done this. Buddha did it. There have been (depending on your tradition I suppose) other Buddhas. But then that enlightened being dies, and no longer incarnates. So, how does being enlightened help others once they cease to exist on the planet?

That's an interesting question. For some Buddhists, the belief is, the Enlightened can transfer great merit to the world just by having existed.

lobster

Enlightenment first.
Then look around? Any delusions? Deluded?
. . . now what? Dissolve . . . turn into a rainbow? Come on . . .

Compassion for samsara perhaps . . .

Florian

Cinorjer said:

karasti said:

I read this phrase often. I hear it from teachers and I read it in books and online. What, exactly, does this mean?

If someone truly gained enlightenment while still embodied as a human, then yes they most certainly can do a lot good for other beings. Clearly some have done this. Buddha did it. There have been (depending on your tradition I suppose) other Buddhas. But then that enlightened being dies, and no longer incarnates. So, how does being enlightened help others once they cease to exist on the planet?

That's an interesting question. For some Buddhists, the belief is, the Enlightened can transfer great merit to the world just by having existed.

This is my conjecture. It's not an exclusively Buddhist idea that our thoughts and mental states have an impact on some sort of global consciousness. There's even a vaguely scientific theory. Experiments with rats suggests that skills learnt by one rat can make it easier for later rats to gain the same skills even though they have not communicated.

Cinorjer

Florian said:

Cinorjer said:

karasti said:

I read this phrase often. I hear it from teachers and I read it in books and online. What, exactly, does this mean?

If someone truly gained enlightenment while still embodied as a human, then yes they most certainly can do a lot good for other beings. Clearly some have done this. Buddha did it. There have been (depending on your tradition I suppose) other Buddhas. But then that enlightened being dies, and no longer incarnates. So, how does being enlightened help others once they cease to exist on the planet?

That's an interesting question. For some Buddhists, the belief is, the Enlightened can transfer great merit to the world just by having existed.

This is my conjecture. It's not an exclusively Buddhist idea that our thoughts and mental states have an impact on some sort of global consciousness. There's even a vaguely scientific theory. Experiments with rats suggests that skills learnt by one rat can make it easier for later rats to gain the same skills even though they have not communicated.

And of course, just because you "cease to exist" doesn't mean the effects of your actions cease to exist in the world. The Buddha died thousands of years ago and look what an effect his life continues to have on the world.

seeker242

The Record of Wan-ling by Chan Master Huangbo talks about this.

Question: "Does the Buddha really save or rescue all sentient beings?" The master said: "There are really no sentient beings to be saved by Tathagata. Since there is, in reality, neither self nor non-self, how then can there be a Buddha to save or sentient beings to be saved?"

Question: "There are thirty-two Laksanas, that traditionally purport to save all sentient beings, so how can we say that there are no sentient being?" The master said: "Everything with form is unreal. If all form is seen as unreal, then the Taghagata will be perceived, Buddha, sentient beings and the infinite variety of forms all are generated by your false view, whereby you do not understand the Original Mind. If you retain a view even of Buddha as real, then even Buddha is an obstacle! If you grasp a view of sentient beings as real, then sentient beings are also obstacles. If you hold a view that labels phenomena as worldly, holy, pure, dirty, etc., this is also an obstacle to enlightenment. Because of these obstacles in your mind, you transmigrate along the six illusory paths, becoming fixed to the wheel of transmigration, just as a monkey picks up one object and lets go of another in never-ending, habitual, monotonous repetition.

The important thing is to learn the Truth; for without learning that there is really no holy, no pure, no dirty, no big, no small, etc., but only emptiness and non-action and that this alone is ONE MIND and that, always, any adornment is only an expedient to learn the truth, one only clings to illusion. Furthermore, even if you learn by heart the Three Vehicles and the twelve divisions of the Mahayana canon, you must abandon it all. Thus the Vimalakirti Sutra states that just as a person confined in bed by illness only lies in one bed, so there is only one Dharma that does not obstruct Dharma ? namely, the No-Dharma Dharma. This Dharma view alone can penetrate the three physical, mental and worldly realms, and it alone constitutes the supramundane Buddha.