These questions, with my responses following, were recently posed on the Tricycle blog:
How do we know what enlightenment is precisely if no one we know has reached it? Who is qualified to serve as judge to gauge whether someone is, in fact, enlightened when clearly those left to label someone as such are most likely not, themselves, enlightened? If it’s also true that one who claims to be enlightened is most certainly not so, how does one know when someone becomes enlightened? Stephen Bodian explores this with Adyashanti in “The Taboo of Enlightenment” in the Fall 2004 issue of Tricycle. Would love to hear what folks think about this.
Interesting questions, though I think many of them are deeply flawed. Let me take a shot at each, by being practical and down-to-earth. Please excuse the rhetorical force behind the responses, but I think Western Buddhists have gone far too long behind childish when it comes to the topic of enlightenment, and so I feel compelled as fellow practitioner and lover of wisdom to be frank…
How do we know what enlightenment is precisely if no one we know has reached it?
If you don’t know anyone who is enlightened, then you probably aren’t looking hard enough. There are many, many people in all sorts of spiritual communities who have had very deep breakthroughs and permanents shifts of identity. By almost all definitions they’ve achieved various degrees of enlightenment. Just ask around, and you will find them… But if you do find them, try not to project all sorts of weird shit onto them. They’re just normal people. Instead, a practical and helpful question is, “How did you do it?” Usually those who are enlightened, woke up for a reason.
Who is qualified to serve as judge to gauge whether someone is, in fact, enlightened when clearly those left to label someone as such are most likely not, themselves, enlightened?
Again, why do we assume that there aren’t those that are enlightened walking around right now? That’s, to me, one of the most disempowering (and frankly untrue) beliefs one could have. Of course, it depends on what you mean by enlightenment (if you think enlightenment = a super being who can’t do any wrong, then you probably won’t find any enlightened people). If instead, you use a working definition of enlightenment that has to do with radically diminishing the sense of fundamental duality, in their real-time experience, then I think you’ll find 100′s, if not 1000′s of people who have had those kind of shifts. Ask any authentic teacher if their students are getting enlightened. If they say, “no”, run the other way.
In terms of assessing other people’s degree of awakening, that’s a little trickier. By virtue of having actually experienced the terrain of awakening, an enlightened person has a much better shot at seeing similar patterns in other people’s practices. They can use various maps to try and aid in their assessment (there are many helpful one’s that the traditions have provided), but having a map doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to map the complexities of reality. People are just too varied and too complex, for one map to fit all the possible experience and descriptions out there. And humans are constantly making assessment errors, even if they do have good maps and have the experience themselves.
Of course, we musn’t forget that our own internal models of what enlightenment is, will always shade our assessment of other people’s realizations. Those internal beliefs need to be subjected to inquiry as well, and if we find that our internal beliefs lead us to think that no one could possibly be enlightened, that probably means we have poor beliefs, not that enlightenment isn’t possible.
If it’s also true that one who claims to be enlightened is most certainly not so, how does one know when someone becomes enlightened?
Why would saying, “hey, I think I’m enlightened, because of x, y, or z…” automatically disqualify me from being enlightened? Does enlightenment somehow limit the words that can come out of our mouth, or the thoughts I can have? By that very same faulty logic the Buddha himself couldn’t have possibly been enlightened (not to mention the 1000′s of respected figures throughout time who have made similar claims). Come on now folks, just because we’re talking about enlightenment, doesn’t mean we need to regress to pre-rational modes of thinking. Rationally is still very helpful…
Personally, I think Adyashanti has done much to demystify a topic which historically has been so shrouded in shoddy and magical thinking. Part of the problem has to do with the very way the traditions have talked about it, but the other part has to do with us as pretty smart Western people completely buying that bullshit hook, line, and sinker. Just because someone from the East said it, doesn’t make it so. We need to use our own discerning mind, do the practices set out by the Buddha and all the multitude of people since him, and find out for ourselves what enlightenment is or isn’t. Then, we can speak about it with authority, instead of asking silly questions. I appreciate Adyashanti for doing just that, and think more should follow in his footsteps.
