The Secret of Enlightenment
“No matter how much I meditate, I’ll never become Enlightened, whatever that is.” So said an experienced practitioner during one of my meditation groups’ Q&A periods.
I had a strong and immediate reaction, because her understanding of Enlightenment is based on a frustratingly common misconception, and her despairing attitude is completely unnecessary.
To be fair, most Buddhist texts do an awful job explaining Enlightenment (aka Nirvana, Nibbana, arahantship). It’s usually described as a one-time, life-changing accomplishment that completely and permanently obliterates our greed, hatred, delusion, and all the doubts and dissatisfactions of normal life.
That’s a great goal to aspire to, especially if it motivates you to meditate. But there are three big drawbacks.
The first problem is that greed, hatred, delusion, and doubt are an unavoidable part of life, and no human being can fully eradicate them. Chasing such an unattainable goal engenders a whole spectrum of painful, destructive mental states that conflict with the growth of wisdom: insufficiency, striving, comparing oneself to others, frustration, self-doubt, and ultimately failure.
The second problem is that the idea of Enlightenment as a permanent state contradicts the Buddhist belief that everything is impermanent. As described, Enlightenment is a specific mental state, and all things-especially all mind-states-are temporary, ephemeral, and guaranteed to change. Enlightenment as a one-time, irrevocable transformation just doesn’t jibe.
And finally, in my experience Enlightenment simply doesn’t exist. I have never met any meditator-lay or monastic, teacher or student, male or female-who claimed to be Enlightened, or who claimed to have met someone who was.
So much for the formal, upper-case noun “Enlightenment” as described in the suttas and as envisioned in popular culture. But let’s draw a distinction between formal “Enlightenment” and the lower-case adjective “enlightened”.
The former implies a mythical, permanent, once in a lifetime achievement. But if we use “enlightened” to describe a particular action, or a momentary mind-state which may come and go over time, we come much closer to something useful: an action or state of mind that any human being could achieve, if only for a brief time.
What is an enlightened action? It arises from a mind-state of intimacy and connection with all living beings that struggle with suffering. Enlightened acts exhibit love, compassion, delight, and stability, and are free from self-referentialism.
While most of us don’t think that way most of the time, we can and do experience those ah-ha! satori moments of insight when we can see a different, more enlightened way of being. And our practice is to recognize those moments, allow them to guide our actions in the world, examine the results of those actions, and cultivate more such enlightened moments.
This is something everyone can experience and aspire to, without incurring all the striving, comparisons, and failure of chasing some grandiose vision of permanent “Enlightenment”. And when we view enlightened mind-states as temporary, they do not conflict with the law of impermanence. And most importantly, this ”momentary enlightenment” is eminently achievable.
And if you somehow still believe in that permanent state of “Enlightenment”, in practice that's still nothing more than consecutive moments of enlightened behavior.
So let me summarize my view of Enlightenment:
- Enlightenment is not what you’ve been told. Enlightenment is simply stringing together enlightened mind-states and actions more and more frequently.
- At first, this may not be quickly or easily achieved. But early results produce confidence and progress that gradually accelerates.
- Enlightenment is definitely not a permanent, one-and-done accomplishment. It’s something that requires diligence, effort, and commitment over time.
- It’s unrealistic to expect Enlightenment to erase all the complexities, doubts, and selfishness of normal life, but it will greatly reduce them.
- Letting enlightened moments motivate our behavior still results in the same radically transformed way of thinking about, relating to, and responding to normal life, enabling us to minimize our own suffering, and that of all living beings.
So don’t tell me you’ll never be Enlightened. The real-world possibility of Enlightenment is as close as the very next action you take.