A nice fellow named Joel responded to my comment yesterday, and I decided to write another big chunk of material to try and clarify some of my current thinking around “enlightenment”. Here’s Joel’s original comment, followed by my response:
I appreciate Vince Horn’s comments regarding the need to demystify enlightenment. I’d like to make a minor point here. While I think it is true that we often project ‘weird shit’ onto those we regard as enlightened teachers–a longtime Buddhist practitioner once said to me, with a straight face, ‘Tibetans aren’t like us. They can fly’–I do believe the saying, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits’ carries some validity.
Among The Three Trainings taught by the Buddha, morality is just as important as wisdom and concentration. I’ve grown tired of people saying that supposedly enlightened teachers who commit unspeakable acts–who harm others in ways that might shock an average person plucked off the street–have mere ’shadow issues.’ This has started to seem like a somewhat dangerous euphemism to me, valuable and true as the shadow concept is.
In other words, when looking for signs of an enlightened being, we should not demand an Unerring Goody Two Shoes who never gets angry, always wears a kindly smile, etc. But when it becomes clear that the individual in question routinely indulges in behavior that causes harm to others, I do believe that this should give us pause about that person’s level of realization.
Enlightened beings actually should have enough self-mastery that people associate them largely with wholesome states and behaviors, basic goodness and sanity. The strength and goodness of HH The Dalai Lama comes to mind here.
Dear Joel,
I really appreciate your comment and the points you bring up. I thought it would be helpful to respond, so that I could clarify some of my thinking around this topic…
Firstly, I totally agree that morality is an important part of the traditional Buddhist path also. Really, it’s an important part of living a good and healthy life. That said, when I use the word “enlightenment,” I specifically mean the realization that comes through training in insight. And so one can train in insight, attain realization, and then still be a jackass if they haven’t done much in the trainings in morality. And likewise, one can train in morality all day long, everyday, become a saint of sorts, and still not be awake in terms of insight. I tend to think there was both a reason that the Buddha separated these trainings (as becomes obvious when we see the huge disparity between the different trainings in certain people’s practices) and also a good reason he saw them as inter-connecting and mutually supportive. Mastery, or even small gains, in any of the trainings can be used as a support for mastery in the other trainings, but that doesn’t mean they are the same thing.
This brings us to another meaning of enlightenment, which is actually Buddhahood, in which we see enlightenment as the perfection of the 10 paramis (or 6 paramitas), which include qualities from all three trainings. I think when people think of “enlightenment” they are often thinking of the ideal of Buddhahood. But I’ll be honest, I don’t think the Buddha was a Buddha. Who can “perfect” a quality of being (let alone 10), and what does that even mean? “I’ve perfected patience”. Does that mean the quality of patience has an endpoint? And what can have an endpoint in the relative world? If that’s the case, I’d have to say this smells a bit of mythic dogma. If instead, the teachings on the perfections (whether there are 6 or 10) is pointing to ideals which we can cultivate, approach, and otherwise work toward, but which we acknowledge don’t have an endpoint per say, then I’m all for it. But when we recognize there isn’t an endpoint to patience, generosity, concentration, etc. then we’re also recognizing this type of enlightenment isn’t possible in the relative world. From this vantage, the 1st definition of enlightenment (certain significant milestones in the training in insight) becomes a much more useful working definition.
So, I’d say that enlightened beings realization should not be judged by their behavior, as insight training can really be done largely independent of the training in morality. That said, as Buddhist practitioners, the ideal, as you say, really is to combine the three trainings as best we can, so that we can live an awake, still, and ethical life. That though, is probably an endless process, and so I think we should give ourselves some credit where it’s due, and also be patient with ourselves as best we can.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Thanks for this chunk, Vince. Indeed, the gap between “enlightenment” (or, in Buddhist context more properly, awakening) and notions like “perfection” (another dubious rendering, just like “emptiness”) is semantic to the core. And I don’t mean *just* semantic, because what something *means* is in this case what something is or should be (and simultaneously, isn’t and shouldn’t be). Now, this in no way detracts from your reasoning, quite the opposite. Here’s an alternative.
If we look carefully at the sequence of Buddhist revolutions (or “dharma-wheel-turnings”), we may recognize a master-blueprint for our own contemporary attempts at clarification. Individual awakening (traditionally deemed as *liberation* rather than *realization*) came first and foremost. Philosophical sophistication came next, culminating in a sharp discernment of the way we solidify and reify conceptual categories, including the notions of samsara and nirvana, as well as tend to ignore the varying meanings something as “buddha” has. As this became normative, what emerged from the ever-receding background of such awakening is a universal purpose, which was then found to be at the very heart of awakening. Now love was the force behind wisdom, and the ultimate became not just a goal to be reached but even more a ground of all experience, as that which is already the case. One’s own situation forever remains finite in relation to that vast reality, even when distinction between “one’s own” enlightenment and the vastness of the great completeness (buddhahood in “cosmic” terms) is erased in light of direct realization i.e. recognition.
An impeccable (not the same as perfect) morality is itself a result of many influences coming together, and we may well be cautious in ascertaining a degree of morality in self or other, since the recognition of an impeccable morality requires an impeccable moral cognition. And moral cognition always arises in a social and cultural gestalt(s), obviously, just as less obviously meditation and insight do. This socio-cultural gestalt being the very epitome of perfectability due to its many flaws, the whole configuration is set for an awakened individual’s larger purpose, namely service.
In short, the first stage is already complete buddhahood, with all *perfections* adorning it, though not in a literal, fundamentalist sense. Everything that follows is a gradual uncovering of its mysterious depth, step by step never ending.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Thank you for the insightful post, Vince! I interpret the perfections in a different way… It is convenient and often necessary to “approach people where they are,” and this seems to have influenced Buddhism greatly. After all, what’s the use of profound wisdom if you can’t explain it and benefit people because advanced realizations are not accessible given their current, limited paradigms? There needs to be some way for people to “get it,” and many concepts are employed for this purpose.
The trainings seem designed to progressively guide people from conventional paradigms and delusions to enlightenment—the absence of such delusions and the perfection of the positive qualities. But how, you ask, can these qualities be perfected? How can there be an endpoint?
My understanding of the teachings is that there is no endpoint as such. The concept of an endpoint is an artifact of our conception of the method. The popular conception (and don’t misread me; it’s very useful) is that we are developing and cultivating the positive qualities from the ground up, like a video game player “levelling up” with experience. It’s a useful conception in terms of practical application, and perhaps this psychology also explains the popularity and addictiveness of the “level up” concept in video games.
As a mental exercise, though, let’s change the conception of the method and see how that affects the endpoint concept. Instead of levelling up our positive qualities, what if we are deepening our understanding and experience of them? What if the positive qualities are by nature perfect, but they are obscured by delusions in the same way that the blue sky, obscured by clouds, is still blue behind the clouds? In verb form, “to perfect” these qualities is not a matter of levelling up, but rather of deeper and deeper realization to the point that the individual fully realizes, understands, and embodies that true nature.
So, while they are offered as purifying methods along the path to enlightenment, the perfections are themselves basic qualities of buddha-hood. By practicing these methods, we are simply practicing the perfection of our buddha-nature. In other words, is there such a thing as pure water? Yes, when it is purely H20 and free of contaminants (everything that is not H20). Buddha-nature is still present in a being clouded by delusion, just as the H20-ness of water is still present in a polluted stream. How can the perfections be, well, perfect? By being free of that which is not perfect. For the perfection of generosity, being free of self-cherishing and attachment and other contaminants of generosity.
Rather than attaining an endpoint of development, we are manifesting ourselves as the unobscured, undeluded, unpolluted perfections. The endpoint is just a useful concept for people needing a “how-to” perspective.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
The concept of enlightenment certainly deserves some study. Of course, whatever meaning we posit has to be understood as one’s own. This is how come to see people stating “Tibetans can fly”. Certainly being labelled isn’t altogether the cause of the person who wears the label. For the most part, I would say that anyone that I would label as enlightened would refute the title. The progress on the path is an infinite end-point and most “masters”, I think, understand this. That really points to the person doing the labelling just stating someone else is exemplifying a quality that they do not feel they have. It truly is a projection in it’s best example.
One point I would like to make is that I feel that enlightenment is held in too high of a regard. I like the definition of enlightenment as being the ultimate maturity. Now thats something, as a practitioner, that I feel I can attain. That’s precisely the problem with my experience of people with thier opinion of enlightenment. It’s something that only special people with special circumstances can attain and the rest of us are unworthy, unable, and simply not privvy to the inner circle of understanding. It’s always been that enlightenment is available to all as all of us have that basic understanding and we simply have to slow down and recognize the stuff that stands on the negative side of enlightenment. Perhaps enlightenment is non-dual. It really is up to each of us to decide.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Vince, thanks. I love it! There is always more to learn and to cultivate in terms of morality and skillful conduct. We’d be like machines, and not human beings if we weren’t still challenged to find creative means to express ourselves, even if we are enlightened. I like seeing that there is no endpoint, that perspective leaves each moment to being fresh.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:15 am
to continue with Vince’s blasphemous title… heck, we don’t even know if the Buddha said what he said. maybe some group of old monks were just pulling our legs
on a more serious note, since we’re all speculating here, i prefer to speculate on enlightenment as not the ultimate maturity or ultimate whatever. i prefer to look at enlightenment as another momentous leap into a super adult (at least from the conventional/relative perspective). in my geeky transhumanist imaginative moments, i see a future (or even parallel worlds) where enlightened beings who are awake to our/their true nature could manipulate matter/energy/darkmatter/darkspace at the quantum level, at will. (yeah, i’m thinking of you, Dr. Manhattan!) now that’s a more kick-ass enlightened being compared to what we have in our midst right now
as a wise sage once said, “today’s enlightenment, is tomorrow’s mistake.” i think this statement captures it very succinctly
~C
P.S. sorry guys, i just had a tall glass of margarita.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:00 am
From a Vajrayana perspective, the historical Buddha did not attain _Buddhahood_ he attained Arahatship.
I also think its a bit dangerous to try and make Buddhism into a form of new agism. People seem to be doing this because they think there _view_ of enlightenment isnt dogmatic?
July 26th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
These thoughts on perfectibility are interesting and encourage me to try and gather some of my own sense about it. I’m not sure how completely accurate the following is, but I once read that, on the subject of morality and ethics, the difference between Hinayana, broadly speaking, and specifically Zen, is that Hinayana sets the precepts as rules to followed, with anything less than actual attainment counting as failure, while Zen presents them as ideals to measure one’s conduct against in one’s passage through reality.
This difference means that in the Hinayana model, the situation is black and white: you are either successfully maintaining the precepts or not. By contrast, the Zen model sees the precepts as a metric against which to mindfully measure oneself, in the full knowledge that any action taken has karmic consequences. Absolute success in not expected but rather an awareness of how one’s actions measure up against the standard.
The Zen model has always appealed to me as a true and vital representation of what it is to work with morality in the real world: The ideals are there to be worked towards, in the awareness, that, in any given situation, there will be downstream consequences.
The resulting m/o puts a premium on awareness along with recognizing both choice where it is available, as well as finitude where it is not. Practice in morality then becomes a matter of working with reality in an aware balancing act between what is actually possible, and the inescapable limits of contingent circumstances.
Such a model seems to me to be both demanding of effort and attention in working towards expressing and cultivating the precepts, while at the same time, full of compassion as one recognizes the contingent limits of this ideal expression.
Moral practice thus becomes an aware, mobile, becoming mode of being, that fully allows and recognizes the imperfect. A yoga, in short of compassionately working towards/with ideals. What could be more perfect! And never-ending, one might add. This, is what I would understand as Hokai’s impeccable morality.
What I do question in your post is the way you conceive enlightenment as separate from morality. Is this really possible? I’m neither expert, nor articulate on the subject, but I think the answer lies in Josh’s last paragraph where he speaks of ‘basic goodness and sanity’ In your excellent interview with Gaylon Ferguson on Buddhist Geeks he speaks of the same fundamental sanity and goodness which we learn to uncover and express in practice. My sense is that awakening and morality are necessarily linked within that fundamental sanity, and that development of only one or the other alone is a stunted development. Mind you, that’s speculation on my part.