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IS IT POSSIBLE
to write a definition of enlightenment that:
- is consistent
with definitions in major traditions, and
- describes
actual enlightened people?
How about:
Enlightenment
is the state in which you are permanently free from
identification with your ego. This means you are free
from the normal compulsion to fantasize continuously
about people, situations, and objects. You act and think
without feeling like a doer or thinker. You have no
anxiety. You usually have no thoughts. There is a profound
change in your sense of what "I" means. When these things
become habitual and effortless, you are enlightened.
We're not
completely satisfied with this definition -- the phrase
profound change in your sense of what "I"
means is particularly weasely -- and we're hoping
you can help us improve it.
Please send
your definitions to letters@realization.org
.
Here's a
good description of enlightenment from a book by Osho
called The
Book of the Books, Volume IV (page 109):
Enlightenment
is not a thought nor a feeling. In fact, enlightenment
is not an experience at all. When all experiences
have disappeared and the mirror of consciousness is
left without any content, utterly empty, no object
to see, to think about, to feel, when there is no
content around you, the pure witness has remained,
that is the state of enlightenment.
Judy Liu
.
. . . . . . .
Shinzen
Young gives a good definition in an article you linked
recently, How
Meditation Works:
So
Nirvana is what life feels like to a person for whom:
- No
matter how assailed, anger need not arise.
- No
matter what the pleasure, compulsive longing need
not arise.
- No
matter what the circumstances, a feeling of limitation
need not arise.
Bobby
Brusher
.
. . . . . . .
To me, enlightenment
is a state of perfect mental health. In this sense,
I believe that we are all born enlightened, but we gradually
lose it, largely due to the abuse (I use this term broadly)
to which we are all subjected as children by our families
and culture in general. To regain our enlightened state
is not to destroy the ego; rather it is to heal the
ego so that one knows that one is a part of God and
God is love. Becoming enlightened means becoming as
a little child. I agree with Carl Jung who wrote, "One
does not become enlightened by imagining figures of
light, but by making the darkness conscious."
Robert
www.breadcasters.com
.
. . . . . . .
For
brevity, its hard to beat professor Juan Mascaro's statement
about Nirvana, which may be the same thing, stated in
his preface to the Penguin edition of the Dhammapada
which he translated: "Nirvana is the natural and inevitable
result of the extinction of desire." (Desire, here,
is of course the Buddhist concept of tanha, i.e.
self-centered craving). I personally like the conjoining
of natural and inevitable -- kind of scary and wonderful
at the same time!
dervish
.
. . . . . . .
I love simple
questions! : D Here goes: enlightenment is the awareness
that you and everyone and everything around you is spiritual
in nature. You are all connected. You and everyone and
everything are manifestations of the deity into the
material. The purpose of life is improvement --to make
people more loving, helpful, kind, and compassionate.
The hard lessons that you experience are the teachings
that you need. Deity (however you define it) is infinite
love. Hope I cleared things up! : D
Isadora
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. . . . . . .
Enlightenment
is the gradual or sudden Recognition of what Reality
is, and of who we are, at a fundamental, essential level.
This realization or "awakening" is the simultaneous
and irrefutable recognition of both:
- the
finite nature of all things, and
- the inherent
completeness of Reality manifesting within the Infinite
Present.
Metta
Zetty
awakening.net
.
. . . . . . .
The Buddha
explained what enlightenment is in the first talk he
delivered after he got Awakened, the Dhammacakkapavattana
Sutta. He says that Awakening is understanding
the Four Noble Truths. In other words, it's understanding
that we make ourselves unhappy by wanting things, and
understanding how to stop that process.
Bhikkhu
Bill
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. . . . . . .
Enlightenment
is the realization of the truth of the fact that Advaita
(nonduality) is not a state where you can take shelter
escaping Dvaita (duality) but rather it is unconditional
acceptance of the totality of duality with all the consequences
. . . THIS IS ADVAITA . . . THIS IS ENLIGHTENMENT .
. . THIS IS REALIZATION.
Biharilal
Shah
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