Spelling Out Or Speaking "englightenment"

[Svenn]

Many Hebrews refuse to say or write G-d or His official name in the Bible (as spoken to Moses on the mountain). Now I know the end achievement of Buddhism, "Enlightenment" (bodhi), should not be deified, but I'm wondering if it would show more respect for that experience not to speak or write of it directly. We all know of the mentally transient hippy who starts speaking of high ideals of Buddhism much to our distaste... and it is a fact that in Chinese Buddhism 'Enlightenment' is often replaced with "the great matter" or even just "the monk then had all his worries vanish and his study of Buddhism was at an end" (implying Enlightenment). Neither I, nor I would think anyone who has happened upon this forum, or perhaps even in modern times, has achieved completely the end goal of Buddhism... so I have made it a rule of mine not to write out or speak this word directly ( I did of course for this post and in the past). For one, it arrogantly assumes I know what that experience is, but two, more importantly, I really do think it dimishes the truly awesome and profoundly fundamental nature of the experience. Does anyone else agree?

[sabaijai]

I'd like to know exactly how "truly awesome and profoundly fundamental" is the nature of the experience to which you refer?

[Svenn]

A common sentiment but I'd like to know exactly how "truly awesome and profoundly fundamental" is the nature of the experience to which you refer?

Witty retort, perhaps we should shut down this forum if you imply the ignorant such as myself cannot reiterate universal descriptions of the experience we speak of. Do you have better descriptive power of this matter, oh supermoderator? Relevant, kind, and more than one-sentence responses appreciated from now on.

Edited July 2, 2009 by Svenn

[sabaijai]

Perhaps it's rather unkind to make proscriptions of this sort, when the Tipitaka itself is full of descriptions. I think I know what you're saying, just wondering why you feel this way? Of course, if you make it a personal rule, more power to you, Svenn.

With god and the Hebrews, it's a matter of sacrilege, as far as I know, being a theistic tradition. In Buddhism it may be considered bad form to speak of supernatural powers or one's own attainment of enlightenment, but I've never seen any reluctance to talk in general about the nature of enlightenment, path-fruit and so on. In fact many Thai teachers, such as LP Tean, Aj Buddhadasa, Aj Tong, LT Maha Bua, have done so openly.

To answer your question, ie, whether it 'diminishes the experience,' not knowing what the alternative outcomes might be (to speaking or not speaking), it's difficult to know definitely whether it's good or not good. I think what counts, in the end, is intention.

[fabianfred]

I talk about Nirvana every day..... and I want to make it more widely know.

IMHO other beliefs which do not encompass nirvana, karma and rebirth are incomplete...

People often say..."all religions are the same...they all teach us to be good..." ...... but being good is not good enough, it only gets us reborn in the higher realms...still stuck in samsara.....

The Buddha didn't spend all that time perfecting himself as a boddisatva in order to reach enlightenment and then teach us to get to heaven.... he taught how to reach nirvana..... to escape from karma and rebirth.

I want to make it more widely known.... not hush it up....or keep it as a personal secret...

[phetaroi]

I talk about Nirvana every day..... and I want to make it more widely know.

IMHO other beliefs which do not encompass nirvana, karma and rebirth are incomplete...

People often say..."all religions are the same...they all teach us to be good..." ...... but being good is not good enough, it only gets us reborn in the higher realms...still stuck in samsara.....

The Buddha didn't spend all that time perfecting himself as a boddisatva in order to reach enlightenment and then teach us to get to heaven.... he taught how to reach nirvana..... to escape from karma and rebirth.

I want to make it more widely known.... not hush it up....or keep it as a personal secret...

Did Buddha say that everyone SHOULD seek nirvanna, or COULD seek nirvanna.

[fabianfred]

Did Buddha say that everyone SHOULD seek nirvanna, or COULD seek nirvanna.

Only the wise....those who realise that being stuck in samsara is endless suffering...

....but remember he compared the wise with the number of horns on a cow.... and the unwise with the number of hairs....

[Xangsamhua]

Can we speak of "Enlightenment" and "enlightenment"? Svenn speaks of the former (with a capital E) and describes it as "truly awesome and profoundly fundamental". Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the latter (with a small 'e') in the following terms:

First of all, enlightenment is enlightenment about something. Suppose you are drinking some tea and you are aware that you are drinking some tea. That kind of mindfulness of drinking is a form of enlightenment. There have been many times that you've been drinking but you didn't know it, because you are absorbed in worries. So mindfulness of drinking is already one kind of enlightenment.

(Interview with John Malkin, Shambala Sun)

This is enlightenment as mindfulness - perhaps not really awesome, but it is fundamental.

I'm not sure what people mean when they refer to enlightenment. Is it the final stage of awareness before non-returning, or are there stages of enlightenment of which e.g. mindfulness of tea-drinking is one, or does real 100% mindfulness of tea-drinking trigger non-returning? I have a lot to learn.

[Svenn]

Can we speak of "Enlightenment" and "enlightenment"? Svenn speaks of the former (with a capital E) and describes it as "truly awesome and profoundly fundamental". Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the latter (with a small 'e') in the following terms:

First of all, enlightenment is enlightenment about something. Suppose you are drinking some tea and you are aware that you are drinking some tea. That kind of mindfulness of drinking is a form of enlightenment. There have been many times that you've been drinking but you didn't know it, because you are absorbed in worries. So mindfulness of drinking is already one kind of enlightenment.

(Interview with John Malkin, Shambala Sun)

This is enlightenment as mindfulness - perhaps not really awesome, but it is fundamental.

I'm not sure what people mean when they refer to enlightenment. Is it the final stage of awareness before non-returning, or are there stages of enlightenment of which e.g. mindfulness of tea-drinking is one, or does real 100% mindfulness of tea-drinking trigger non-returning? I have a lot to learn.

I don't know what this popular Thich Nhat Hanh fellow means, but 'Enlightenment' with a capital E has always meant samyak-sambodhi: complete and final awakening which the Buddha experienced at the end of his session below the Bo tree. The Japanese word is satori and they seem to respect it- a Japanese friend told me, "I don't understand that word, it is too deep for me, I cannot talk about it" making me feel pretentious for bringing it up. Mindfulness has nothing to do with Englightenment as far as I know, it is merely a samadhi technique used to prepare practioners for a sudden, shocking moment of awakening deus ex machina. According to accounts, the experience always tends to come at the end of an ardouous period of meditation and loss of will to continue on living until it's achieved... often accompanied by profuse sweating. Nirvana I believe is the state an Enlightened person enters into after his physical body dies, or it can be interchangable.

That's what I don't like about samadhiajahns like Nhat Hanh- they belittle the religion into a petty relaxation club fiddling around with tea and calming retreat centers. His teachings are very valuable and necessary for the world, but I don't think he's very keen and getting to the core and irreversable psychological transformation at the conclusion of Buddhism.

[Xangsamhua]

Can we speak of "Enlightenment" and "enlightenment"? Svenn speaks of the former (with a capital E) and describes it as "truly awesome and profoundly fundamental". Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the latter (with a small 'e') in the following terms:

First of all, enlightenment is enlightenment about something. Suppose you are drinking some tea and you are aware that you are drinking some tea. That kind of mindfulness of drinking is a form of enlightenment. There have been many times that you've been drinking but you didn't know it, because you are absorbed in worries. So mindfulness of drinking is already one kind of enlightenment.

(Interview with John Malkin, Shambala Sun)

This is enlightenment as mindfulness - perhaps not really awesome, but it is fundamental.

I'm not sure what people mean when they refer to enlightenment. Is it the final stage of awareness before non-returning, or are there stages of enlightenment of which e.g. mindfulness of tea-drinking is one, or does real 100% mindfulness of tea-drinking trigger non-returning? I have a lot to learn.

I don't know what this popular Thich Nhat Hanh fellow means, but 'Enlightenment' with a capital E has always meant samyak-sambodhi: complete and final awakening which the Buddha experienced at the end of his session below the Bo tree. The Japanese word is satori and they seem to respect it- a Japanese friend told me, "I don't understand that word, it is too deep for me, I cannot talk about it" making me feel pretentious for bringing it up. Mindfulness has nothing to do with Englightenment as far as I know, it is merely a samadhi technique used to prepare practioners for a sudden, shocking moment of awakening deus ex machina. According to accounts, the experience always tends to come at the end of an ardouous period of meditation and loss of will to continue on living until it's achieved... often accompanied by profuse sweating. Nirvana I believe is the state an Enlightened person enters into after his physical body dies, or it can be interchangable.

That's what I don't like about samadhiajahns like Nhat Hanh- they belittle the religion into a petty relaxation club fiddling around with tea and calming retreat centers. His teachings are very valuable and necessary for the world, but I don't think he's very keen and getting to the core and irreversable psychological transformation at the conclusion of Buddhism.

He's clearly using the term in a different sense and that could be confusing. He's pretty learned and has been a monk in the Vietnamese tradition for 66 years, so he's not just a new age guru. He should be listened to with respect, therefore.

I wonder if it's just confusion over the English term? TNH's first language is Vietnamese and his second is French. Perhaps the interviewer should have probed this more. I don't know. Your explanation of Enlightenment is what I would have thought it to be until reading another forum suggested to me that people have different understandings (or misunderstandings) of the term. I would think your Japanese friend is spot on in not wanting to talk about Satori; that would be quite an un-Zen thing to do, I believe.

[sabaijai]

Mindfulness or satipatthana has nothing to do with samatha. Samatha cannot create vipassana/insight, or panna/wisdom.

Now that you've clarified your point of reference as samyak-sambodhi, Svenn, I understand your POV more clearly. That term, I believe, is found only in the writings of Mahayana schools (not to discredit the concept in any way, just making the point that different schools view what you are calling 'enlightenment' differently).

According to one definition of the Sanskrit, it means 'Supreme perfect enlightenment, the unsurpassed enlightenment of a Buddha.' Now that is truly an experience you won't find many people talking about if any.

Is satori the same thing? It appears that many Zennists have experienced satori, but few if any have attained 'the unsurpassed enlightenment of a Buddha.'

In Theravada there are several stages of bodhi, and it seems reasonable to speculate that the lower rungs may have been attained by many. Sotapanna may not be samyak sambodhi but it's nothing to sneeze at either.

But I would ask again, why do you think that talking about 'enlightenment,' at any level, diminishes the experience? It seems to me that if the experience is real, it cannot be in any way diminished, least of all by words.

The converse of this question is that, unless you have experienced enlightenment yourself, it seems arrogant to call it 'profound' and so on. In fact it might feel very ordinary, who knows? Like the Zen proverb says, 'After enlightenment, the laundry.'

"Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment." -- Dogen

[Xangsamhua]

D. T. Suzuki, in Essays in Zen Buddhism (Rider 1949: Grove Imprint: 363), states that

The attainment of Buddhahood or the realization of Enlightenment is what is aimed at by all pious Buddhists, though not necessarily during this one earthly life; and Zen, as one of the Mahayana schools, also teaches that all our efforts must be directed towards this supreme end. While most of the other schools distinguish so many steps of spiritual development and insist on going through all of the grades successively in order to reach the consummation of the Buddhist discipline, Zen ignores all these, and boldly declares that when one sees into the inmost nature of one's own being, one instantly becomes a Buddha, and that there is no necessity of climbing up each rung of perfection through eternal cycles of transmigration.... "See into thy own nature and become a Buddha" has thus grown the watchword of the sect... The 'seeing into one's nature' [is] an instant act. There could not be any process in it which would permit scales or steps of development.

There are any number of Zen stories of monks experiencing satori in the most unlikely, sometimes banal, even ludicrous circumstances. Perhaps the banality of drinking tea may be an occasion for satori after all. TNH did not seem to be speaking of it that way in the interview though. Whatever Enlightenment/enlightenment is, however, it seems that it's ineffable, so perhaps talking about it and giving it a name does confuse people, especially if it's meant to be the antithesis of duality - a state in which the thing spoken about (the object) and the thing speaking (the subject) become the one thing.

[Xangsamhua]

D. T. Suzuki, in Essays in Zen Buddhism (Rider 1949: Grove Imprint: 363), states that

The attainment of Buddhahood or the realization of Enlightenment is what is aimed at by all pious Buddhists, though not necessarily during this one earthly life; and Zen, as one of the Mahayana schools, also teaches that all our efforts must be directed towards this supreme end. While most of the other schools distinguish so many steps of spiritual development and insist on going through all of the grades successively in order to reach the consummation of the Buddhist discipline, Zen ignores all these, and boldly declares that when one sees into the inmost nature of one's own being, one instantly becomes a Buddha, and that there is no necessity of climbing up each rung of perfection through eternal cycles of transmigration.... "See into thy own nature and become a Buddha" has thus grown the watchword of the sect... The 'seeing into one's nature' [is] an instant act. There could not be any process in it which would permit scales or steps of development.

There are any number of Zen stories of monks experiencing satori in the most unlikely, sometimes banal, even ludicrous circumstances. Perhaps the banality of drinking tea may be an occasion for satori after all. TNH did not seem to be speaking of it that way in the interview though. Whatever Enlightenment/enlightenment is, however, it seems that it's ineffable, so perhaps talking about it and giving it a name does confuse people, especially if it's meant to be the antithesis of duality - a state in which the thing spoken about (the object) and the thing speaking (the subject) become the one thing.

I should have read on. Suzuki goes on to say: But in point of fact, where the time element rules supreme, this was not necessarily the case. That is to say, there are, after all, grades of development in its study, and some must be said to have more deeply, more penetratingly realized the truth of Zen... The 'seeing into thy nature' must admit degrees of clearness... And here Zen fully recognizes degrees of spiritual development among its followers, as the truth reveals itself gradually in their minds until the 'seeing into one's nature is perfected.

So it appears that Zen and other schools, including the Theravada, are not in disagreement over levels of 'enlightenment' on the path to Enlightenment (bodhi).

[fabianfred]

One system of Vipassana...popular here in Thailand ....is the Mahasi Sayadaw method....also taught at Wat Mahathat and Wat Amphawan.

This teaches that there are sixteen seperate steps, or insights, and upon attaining the 16th one attains to Sotapanna.

I asked the Abbot of Wat Rampoeng about this, and he said to remember that we are all different.... and some may jump several or many steps.

My teacher Supawan Green says that one can attain to Sotapanna, or even Sakdagami, without realising it oneself.

[agent69]

It's like defining infinity, isn't it? But why do we always ask the guys next to us how those apples would taste like like when we could have reached and tasted it ourselve?

And eventhough they said they tasted so nice, would we believe them?

Edited July 7, 2009 by agent69