Introduction to Spiritual Enlightenment
There was a very out dated treatise on this webpage entitled “Spiritual Enlightenment and Healing”, that I wrote before I had any real intention to teach meditation and spiritual practice. In essence, that old treatise was the forerunner of what I now teach. Ultimately, it lead to my current teaching program.
On March 29, 2020, I removed the old treatise from this website, for I do not teach like that now. I replaced it with the first two chapters of my current teaching program. The other 7 chapters can wait until later.
I hope the following will be helpful and inspiring for you.
On March 29, 2020, I removed the old treatise from this website, for I do not teach like that now. I replaced it with the first two chapters of my current teaching program. The other 7 chapters can wait until later.
I hope the following will be helpful and inspiring for you.
Table of Contents.
B1. The Spiritual Qualities.
B 2. A Mountain Top Experience?
B 3. Why a Negative Definition?
B 4. Buddhist Teachings on nirvāna.
B 5. Can Enlightenment be Permanent?
B1. The Spiritual Qualities.
What is spiritual enlightenment? To describe it as the end of suffering is to define what it is not.
The best positive definition is in terms of the Factors of Enlightenment, usually called the “spiritual Qualities” on this website. These are active in the enlightened state. So a list of these beautiful Factors or Qualities of Freedom best describes the enlightened state.
These Factors of Enlightenment are numerous and varied, and can be conveniently grouped to aid understanding. You are invited to add to this list.
- Inner peace, - and stillness and silence, contentment, being at ease, feeling safe ...
- Determination – and diligence, making effort, renewing efforts, persisting, motivation, competence and confidence, courage ...
- Clarity – and wisdom, tactfulness, perceptiveness, insight, good decision making ...
- Friendship – and finding and sharing good things, trust, forgiveness and tolerance, being supportive ...
- Enjoyment – and appreciation, inspiration, reverence, wonderment, happiness ...
- Healing – and nurturing, caring for, releasing the pain, resolving difficulties, transcendence from suffering
- protecting - and guiding and guarding the mind, practising the spiritual Qualities, cultivating them,
- good companionship - and good leadership, quality service, honesty, integrity, inspiring others, transparency in motives,
For our Liberation, we need to recognize these Qualities, cultivate them, value them, speak well of them, encourage them, protect them, and remember to do these things. This is essential to the Way of Being Liberated in your daily life.
The Factors of Enlightenment can be labelled with ordinary words and phrases. We know what they mean.
This is most significant. We all know what the Qualities of Freedom are because we already have experienced them. The enlightened state is not so far away after all.
B2. A Mountain Top Experience, Or A Daily Experience?
Spiritual enlightenment is often presented as rare and fleeting moments, or as something that only available to the great spiritual master, with numerous devoted disciples. This leads to some questions –
- Is enlightenment a peak experience, occurring only a few times in our lives, or is it for daily life?
- Is the end of suffering for ourselves, or only for the Guru?
Since the Reformation, people no longer need to go to a Church appointed priest to access God. Similarly, we no longer need to reserve the Goal of the spiritual path to the religious elite.
Nor is there any need to limit Buddhist philosophy concerning the Goal to rare and fleeting moments. And we need not postpone the end of suffering to our old age or until it’s too late.
Moreover, who would want to sit on the mountain top all day every day? Is this even possible ?
So when I discuss spiritual enlightenment, I am talking about the Goal for daily life - a special Way of Being that is free from suffering, where all suffering has ended. I also discuss how we can train ourselves to return to the enlightened state and restore it back into daily life where it is supposed to be.
B 3. Why a Negative Definition of Spiritual Enlightenment?
Sometimes, when people demanded a definition of spiritual enlightenment from the historical Buddha, he either remained silent or gave the negative definition – the end of suffering.
A positive definition best comes from insight that arises in meditation – it does not really come from the interrogative mind busy with opinions, judgements and analysis. When the mind is intellectually busy like this, it cannot access nor perceive the enlightened state.
For this reason, Eckhart Tolle calls the enlightened state “the Unmanifested” - it is not manifested to the ego.
This treatise comes from my intellect to your intellect, but it is pointing to that which is beyond the intellect.
B 4. Buddhist Teachings on nirvāna.
There are other reasons why Buddhism often does not give a clear, positive definition of nirvāna. Buddhist themes about nirvāna are like Hindu themes about brahman and ātmā. The more they talk about these themes, and the more we read about them, the more confusing they become.
Hinduism responded by developing the Purana stories. These use the ancient tradition of telling stories, often gathered around the communal fire at night. These traditional stories convey themes intended to guide the people in their religion. Often about connecting with what we would call “Mother Nature.” And people were used to such stories and their purpose. Modern storey telling is not really like this.
In Buddhism, misunderstandings naturally arose about nirvāna, and whether the Teacher was “enlightened” or not. This also gave rise to accusations about “false claims” about “being enlightened”, whatever “being enlightened” might mean.
Buddhism responded with a major rule, that forbids a monk from making false claims about his spiritual attainments. Punishable by expulsion from the Order for life. This naturally gives rise to a lot of fear in monks of making any claims about their own spiritual attainments. Thus a minor rule also arose to not make any claims, true or false about one’s spiritual attainment. I remember a monk saying that this makes it quite difficult to teach nirvāna.
My approach is to leave aside all these hard-to-understand doctrines about nirvāna. I just define it as the Presence of the spiritual Qualities, and absence of defilements.
B 5. Can Enlightenment be Permanent?
When we can perceive the enlightened state as being permanent, then we know it is always there. It never dies, nor fails, nor disintegrates, just because we have fallen into another slump, yet again. It is always waiting
for us, calling out to us. This perception, that happiness is still available to us, is the first step in the healing process. The first step out of suffering.
Unfortunately, the enlightened state is all too often obscured from us by defilements. Indeed, this is the main role of defilements, to cut us off from eternal happiness. And defilements will arise, sooner or later, to do their work, whether we will this or no. That is their nature. Thus our experience of the enlightened state is always impermanent.
But the enlightened state is always there, either as the Goal we are heading towards in this hour, or the experience we are enjoying in this moment. For the only time we can be enlightened is right Now, in this moment. In this moment. We can never be enlightened in the future or in the past.
The enlightened state is likened to the blue sky. Although often obscured by clouds, it is always there. If we climb the mountain, we can rise above the grey clouds and reach the sunshine.
Thus enlightenment or nirvāna is presented as a permanent state. Naturally, this has given rise to the belief that we can stay in it permanently, or that we should be able to stay in it permanently. Even the belief that our experience of enlightenment is not “genuine” unless it is permanent. samādhi receives the same treatment, unfortunately.
There are powerful political reasons for this belief (and behind it.) It can create a highly elevated position for the big guru to occupy, with really good income and status, if he can somehow get the reputation of being “permanently enlightened” (whatever this might mean.)
It leads also to another belief : that Buddha’s enlightenment is for the Buddha, and not for the Buddhist.
All these things make the word nirvāna = enlightenment really difficult to use. What does it mean? Thus I will write now about the spiritual Qualities instead. Yet it just means : the “Factors of Enlightenment” = bodhyanga. bodhi = enlightenment or awakening.