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What person today do you belive have reached enlightenment?
Namada
Veteran
There are many good teachers around, Dalai Lama, TNH, Ajahn Brahm, Bikkhu Bodi, Bikkhu Thanissaro, Ajahn Jayasaro, Echart Tolle and many more.
Do you belive some of the teachers you know have reached enlightenment?
If so, why do you belive they have reached this stage?
Or is enlightenment just a confused word that we should not use...
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Comments
Is this question limited to human teachers or do crustaceans count?
@Namada
Enlightenment is really just a word that points towards sufferings cessation.
It is not a word that I usually use for all the clinging that seems to follow it when ever it gets mentioned.
The taints of self interest that mark worldliness, when carried in practice towards selflessness, often persevere by attaching to such spiritual goals. The prospect of enlightenment is one of the more common abodes for delusions facing the possibility of homelessness.
I think that using terms that better reflect the effort required to manifest enlightenment cause less problems than a word that so easily get misconstrued as a destination.
@yagr I was thinking firstly about human teachers... threes, flowers, cats and crustaceans are already highly devloped in buddhas teachings
I do believe that if there is someone today who has attained the unconditioned then that awakened one would not teach meditation, instead the awakened one would only teach the Dhamma.
Certainly; I was being a little silly. I will be serious now...
For me to spend a moment wondering if another is enlightened is, in my opinion, a moment wasted. How would I know? For me, and it has certainly not always been the case, speculation on topics that are unknowable increase suffering rather than relieve suffering.
@how I agree, its a very confusing word!
But when we want to take a holliday trip, we always want to know where we are going,
we dont just jump on a airplane, and hope we end up in a good place.
Before we go to a place, we want to know the condition of the hotel , how warm is the weather, what kind of food can you get, we are watching nice pictures of the place from the travel guide, what did other people say after their visit?
Most of the people want to know where they are going before they travel :P
Enlightenment is diffrent, no travel guide and pictures, and who have actually been there recently? We have a road, but where does this road lead us?
It takes one, to know one.
But even then there is no certainty.
How can an intern judge a doctor fit to practice medicine?
He is not a doctor. He does not have the knowledge and experience to be qualified to make that judgment.
He can only speculate.
Another doctor who has extensive knowledge and experience in that particular field of medicine is more qualified to make that call.
Does it matter to you if they are fully realized?
Have they helped you?
I think this is what's important. If they have, what does it matter if they are fully realized or not?
Keep in mind that insight generally (but not always) occurs first then full realization as a result of burning away defilements.
Only in rare cases has it happened that full realization occurred without first having walked the meditative path. As was the case with Sri Ramana Maharshi who became fully realized at the age of 16. And it's possible that this has happened to many others. Many completely unknown. Not all choose to talk about their realization.
In other words, Wisdom leads to Samadhi (full realization). Samadhi is our inherent unconditioned condition.
A diamond dropped in the mud remains a diamond. Its nature hasn't changed. It's only obscured by the presence of mud.
That's all that has happened to us. Our nature has been obscured by the activity and entanglement with mind.
Mud = craving?
Is it possible to not crave for anything, Iam craving all the time for things...
but many times I just see it and then let it go, I dont run after it.
But after the other its gone, it just coming another one, and so it goes.
When I sit in meditation, I have pain here and there, I watch it, I can feel it, after a while I get irritated and move my legs..its suffering, but I have to cling to it..
I cant see any diamond in this mud, we are always craving for something..
This is why we continue with practice. To cut through that craving and desire. Hatred and greed. Jealousy, anger and Delusion.
Because you don't know it at this moment, does that mean it isn't a possibility?
It is a possibility because it is already you. No need to search for It. Just keep practicing.
When the necessary conditions are present you will know this for yourself.
This is why we continue with practice. To cut through that craving and desire. Hatred and greed. Jealousy, anger and Delusion.
Because you don't know it at this moment, does that mean it isn't a possibility?
It is a possibility because it is already you. No need to search for It. Just keep practicing.
When the necessary conditions are present you will know this for yourself.
Yes by practicing continuously, in all postures during all activites, cravings fall away gradually.
Most of them have claimed not to be enlightened/awake. Tolle does, I believe. I couldn't say whether he is or isn't. Of those I have read and follow, TNH seems to be the closest example I could come to if someone were to ask what I thought an embodied enlightened being might be. He seems to surpass humanness in many ways, to me anyhow.
it seems to me that seeking to label them is just as separating as anything else we label. To live in the world, we use labels to converse and describe and other things. But other things can just be left to be, just how they are. As soon as you assign "enlightened" then expectations change, as do criticisms and most other things. Why is the assignment necessary?
"I" honestly don't know...However many teachers and lay-people tend to exhibit the following....
( letting their enlightenment be naturally expressed so to speak)
"Don't practice to become enlightened-Let ones enlightenment be the natural expression of ones practice!"
More than I can count.
Exactly so.
I would take it further and remove the awakening requirement.
There are thoughts, ideas and people who deepen our dharma practice or if not yet 'of the Bodhi of Buddha', deepen our capacity to understand and improve our Being.
They're a lot more enlightened than I am.
I talk to a few on Facebook who I believe are fully realised.
They don't try prescribe anything to me or anyone. They don't tell people they should be a certain way.
They describe themselves as seeing all lines fall away, that they are not even nothing. That when it seen that they are nothing at all. The fullness rushes back in.
They seem as normally human as anybody else, as in they still swear etc.
and they don't try and sell anything.
None of them are interested in teaching at all.
Because of the brutal honestly, joy of existence and the fact they won't try teach or preach to anybody. This for me tells me they are definitely shifted.
The ones that try prescribe a method, talk about "their" enlightenment and try and tell people they should do it. I'm super sceptical about.
Steven Gray Adyashanti talks about his awakenings.
He goes into great detail of what it's like post first awakening and then describes the falling okay of identity.
He also says it's really rare for a enlightened being to teach. I like this guy!
Mooji I feel may be fully realised. Although he loves referring to everyone as the "absolute" I think it's his clever teaching method.
Sadhguru - a very famous supposedly fully awake being. I'm not sure about this guy. He's very very clever and a bit too flowery with his words but I don't know?!
He's fun to listen too.
You can pretend on Facebook.
I prefer to not consider anyone enlightened, unless their words AND actions are continuously constant....
There are many cited as being Enlightened who end up at some point, shooting themselves in the foot....
If you put my back against the wall, I would say TNH has a definite edge over HHDL. I have been in the presence of both.
HHDL was amazing.
TNH was breathtakingly remarkable....
But even then I would hesitate to label him 'Enlightened'.... however, I'd say he's pretty damn close....
I trust my intuition, I can see it in the videos they share and the words they use. Just a joy in being.
Whereas I look at Advaita and dharma connection pages. And even their most realised members have this dry super intellectual qualities in their posts. Like they are writing a thesis or something.
You don't have to believe they are, I definitely do. I think there are way more enlightened humans around than we think. They just don't say they are or even act a certain way. They appear as normal as anybody else.
Depends on what you mean by enlightenment imo. In many traditions, there are different levels of enlightenment. For example, if a person is "awakened" but not yet a fully realized Buddha, is that "enlightened"? Some say yes, others say no.
Yeah, one person's "realisation" is just another person's good day.
People mean so many different things by "awakening" that it's become almost meaningless. Like "spiritual" and "God"....
I'm not quite sure if it's relevant or not, but I did receive this in email this morning:
Hahahah
Super relevant. Thanks @genkaku
Classic zen training.
I was taught by a monk that enlightened beings can not be directly perceived until you, yourself have achieved enlightenment. This is because the things we perceive are just appearances to mind, if the mind isn't completely pure then it cannot perceive completely pure things. So until the mind has achieved enlightenment, you will not experience enlightened beings.
The point i get extremely confused at is as follows:
Buddha taught that we each have a mind and that this is the creator of all phenomenon.
But, if what i experience is a mere appearance to my mind, then when i experience you all i am experiencing is my mind, that includes your actions, your speech, your emotion ect... So, am i talking to a being with it's own mind? or am i talking to the appearance of a being with it's own mind? This confuses me because... What i experience is a result of how pure my mind is, so how you react to being in my presence is just an appearance to myself.... This is a question i have long withheld because how do i know if the being answering it is just an appearance to my mind or an actual being with their own mind?
The trouble with this understanding is... when i have a particular bad day or a particular good day, i can see the changes in the universe, but for a long long time i have refused to believe that it could be this way because that means i create the beings in my universe... and that's a scary proposition. And one that ill never know the truth too because obviously you are going to claim your own independence and you will obviously fight for the right to be recognized as a being with a mind. But if that's true then how can it be proved? It literally can't and if i was to guess at what was going on here, i'd say we are universe's interacting with each other in some strange paradoxical way. But even that is too strangely complex.
Maybe i'm suffering from a massive delusion but i can't seem to get out of it because i keep seeing the signs that reinforce my belief, even if i'm not looking for them... I really apologise if this offends anybody, it really isn't intended to do so. I still love you, even if you are just an appearance or not.
I am/ these words are appearing in your mind. But it doesn't mean they are coming from you. It's relationship.
Your mind isn't creating the stimuli it is interpreting it. You flow in this world and the world flows into you. It's both.
You are trying to grasp this with thought, it doesn't make sense to the objectifying mind. The objective mind is a result of society and shared learning but it's not a necessary reflection of reality. You can understand it's raining without your mind telling you it's raining. You don't need to prove anything. You are creating your experience in a complete beautiful and magical way in every moment. But again it's relationship.
Try and create the sun rising? You can't can you?
The sun/light/your eyes/optical nerve/Brain/consciousness are all necessary for the expression of the sunrise.
It's not "you" doing it. Dependant origination is the teaching I think.
I think people call this solipsistic, people who believe they are creating their existence like a personal dream. That everything is their own expression.
There is a joke about these people getting together and arguing over who is real.
Again it's all relationship, in one way we are completely alone in this universe.
You will only ever experience "me" through your brain/senses/ and thoughts about me.
And the same is from me to you
But somewhere on the edge of nowhere we meet
without you I wouldn't know me, there is no self without other. Everything is this one dance of relationship. No river without it's banks, no tree without earth. No you without me.
Metta
Or perhaps just everything is just the one dance. What "relationship?"
I always liked the line, "Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help."
(Can't work out how to use the quote function lol.)
[Moderator note: @Humanb Prefix every line to be quoted with a '>' sign... leave a gap of two 'returns between the last quoted line, and anything you wish to add as comment. You're welcome.
]
I agree, i'm well accustomed to this philosophy, but Buddha's teachings confuse me very much.. I love the Dharma so much but the teachings on emptiness coupled with the more straight forward things the monks have told me makes me so so confused, i'd even say i have let myself get a little stressed about it because i can see exactly why i think the way i do but i can't accept that it could be wrong because i had connected things together so strongly that it simply couldn't have been any other way..
This is because things have happened in my life that just can not be a Co-incidence at all. I will never know if i'm right as i say. Because there is just simply no way to find out the truth. Unless of course i attain enlightenment and become an omniscient being, then i will understand everything there is to understand. Maybe that is the best way!
Enlightened in a certain field of knowledge, yes. Enlightened in all fields of knowledge, no.
I have found many to be enlightening and I think that is more the bodhisattva way than to be enlightened.
I don't think I've ever called anyone enlightened. It would seem phoney to me, like they are somehow out of reach, never make a mistake and know all the answers. It's just more fuel for the ego to burn.
Exactly.
Someone can be a carrier or transmitter without being bugged by enlightenment and having to save everyone all Mahayanic like ...
My teacher did not teach in any form that was outwardly recognizable. It is not a requirement for the enlightenened to teach.
Inner spookiness. In other words I was able to discern their qualities and realisation as more developed.
Depends, there is nothing confusing about enlightenment. The most enlightened people are not discernible, they have in essence returned to the market place ...
As @how said:
This is precisely the problem. Greed, clinging, curiosity and demand for 'teaching' become prevalent. It never occurs that teaching is already occurring, in a form that is measured and dependent on needs. It never occurs that enlightenment has requirements not entitlements.
Once enlightened, the real work begins. Who wants to hear that?
Here are three of my teachers in no order of seniority.
How does an enlightened person act ?
@Namada
You were close when you mentioned knowing where a road may take you.
When travelling, you may come upon a fork in the road. One branch leads to you destination, the other not. Enlightenment is simply knowing which road to take.
In addition, this knowing may not be permanent, leading to back-tracking and the occasional wrong turn.
Are there those that have achieved enlightenment? Well, yes. A great many in fact.
But that is a much different question than whether or not any have reached their destination. And for that, I have no visible answer, for reasons described by others.
Peace.
This is off topic but if someone today were able to attain Arahantship, then that person would be one of Buddha Gotama's Arahants.
I don't know about enlightened but I do think that Bhikkhu Bodhi is wise.