Questions That Need Answers

What is Enlightenment?? How does one achieve Enlightenment?? What will you become once you are Enlightened?? A friend and I get into deep discussions about stuff like this when we smoke. We would talk about, What if you gained the ability of Omniscient and Omnipotent after achieving enlightenment?? What if you could leave your body and just explore the universe, going to different planets with actual intelligent life?? We would keep a really open mind about the possibilities of such things happening. I'm still learning new things everyday and I need to know more about Buddhism to teach myself these things in order to make myself at peace instead of falling corrupted.

 

The end of suffering.

By following the Eightfold Path

Free

 

What is the eightfold path??

 

Buddhist enlightenment is not like being transformed into a god. In fact, in Buddhist mythology, even gods strive for enlightenment. It has nothing to do with mystic powers or omniscience or anything at all like that, and everything to do with realizing what you are.

 

What is rightness?

 

bold / sometimes this can be a frightening experience..

 

like the end of suffering or spiritual awakening...

 

I won't be hypnotized, sister...
these people just want to destroy us, fairies finally see it as it really is, we see how its always been the game that is played psychologically, even in becoming free of it
thats the society and enlightenment, everything, thats the 'wheel' of karma and incarnation ending

Thats Being itself!

 

Not what you are, rather what you are not.

 

I can see what both of you are interpreting

 

I see with my eyes closed.

 

third eye??

 

Is there any more cliches left?

 

Inference, imagination.

 

There are three aspects, characteristics to the Noble Eighfold Path.

Panna (wisdom): Right View, and Right Intention
Sila (morality): Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livlihood
Samadhi (concentration): Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Enlightenment is a condition by which one gains understanding regarding the condition of stress (Dukkha). It is not something to be gained, and can only be inferred to as something to be achieved. Yet "achieved" is not using the correct word to describe a condition that becomes a result of complete understanding.

Therefore enlightenment is a result of attaining freedom from those things which induce ignorance. More to the point a liberation from ignorance. The Second (of Four) Noble Truth instructs how it is stress originates by introducing ignorance as the root cause and that from this cause everything else becomes conditioned from a continual perpetuation of ignorance.

So that to put an end to the conditioning of stress, one merely puts an end to ignorance and the result will be freedom from stress, or Enlightenment. However the word "result" is also an inadquate description. Only in that stress being a result or conditioning of ignorance, once having been eliminated there is nothing to be conditioned, not even the idea of a "result." Suffice it to say Enlightenment is freedom from Ignorance. Enlightenment and Ignorance is as Nirvana and Samsara is as Left and Right is as Up and Down is as In and Out is as Forward and Backward. They are in comparison infinitely the complete opposite of each other.

These things you ask in your original post regarding abilities gained are already there within you. One simply chooses to keep them hidden in their ignorance, obscured by their own inability to understand what it is that is motivating them to act in accordance to that which conditions them to act ... Ignorance. Omiscience, Omnipotence, It's in there ... already ...

The Noble Eightfold Path is the Fourth Noble Truth taught by the Buddha of this age. It is the Practice. It becomes the practice by continually practicing Sila. The rest, Samadhi and Panna are the results of a continuous practice of Sila. And by continuous it is meant non-stop, moment-to-moment, second-to-second, minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day ...

Sila conditions Samadhi. Samadhi conditions Panna.

No Samadhi = No Panna.

No Sila = No Samadhi.

Sila quiets the mind.

Samadhi is a concentrated mind.

The mind cannot become concentrated if it is in turmoil, unsettled, dis-eased, busy, incapable of settling down.

Without a concentrated mind to penetrate the true nature of reality there can be no Wisdom.

This wisdom (Panna) is accomplished through the practice of Sila (morality). Through the practice of Samatha (concentration) meditation. And, the practice of Vipassana (clear insight) meditation. All three ... together.

However, the result of this practice will lead one to liberation from Ignorance ... i.e., Enlightenment ... It will put an end to death. It will put an end to birth. It will put an end to becoming. It will put an end to clinging. It will put an end to craving. It will put an end to feelings. It will put an end to contact [between the senses and their associated objects]. It will put an end to the six base [senses]. It will put an end to mental and physical aggregates (name and form). It will put an end to consciousness. It will put an end to actions. Because that which conditions action is no longer there ...

And so ends this mass of stress ...

You won't even care about Omniscience / Omnipotence. You won't even care about traversing the universe with a single thought, disappear from here reappear over there ...

And so ends this mass of stress ...

Even inference will no longer matter, nor will imagination ... nor will "rightness" or the intellectual babble that follows it ...

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Why not let it be now.

 

In the original post, the question was asked, "What is enlightenment?" As might be expected, the poster was rewarded with several standard answers, such as "The end of suffering."

Is a sound bite what the original poster wanted? I doubt that. The question has received the same (or similar) answers for over 2000 years and the world seems no closer to peace than before. Perhaps the tired old answers need some updating.

While I am keen on Buddhism, I do wonder if there are new perspectives to be had in our day and age. Has humanity learned nothing about humanity recently?

I've been "studying" enlightenment from every which way for decades. I've had a few, shall we say, enlightening experiences which opened my eyes to my own un-enlightenment. And what seems clear to me is that there is no single way to describe what "enlightenment" is all about. At least, there has not yet been a way to clearly answer the question, "What is enlightenment?"

When I survey the various writings about enlightenment, from the Vedas to the Sutras to the Gospel of Thomas to the latest book by Eckhart Tolle (to name just a few sources), I see some consistencies hiding behind different means of expression. It's as if they're all addressing a nebulous problem with the human race, but they can't put their finger on the source — the "original sin", so to speak.

Is it the devil? Is it bad karma? Is it evil mojo? Aliens?

The impression I have received is that un-enlightenment is thinking you know roughly how things are, while enlightenment begins with discovering that, no, you don't — not even close! We are so conditioned by our culture into thinking things are thus-and-so that we cannot even imagine what's wrong with our outlook.

Some people say that taking LSD or smoking weed will help you break free of those bonds. That may work, in part, for some people. However, it still does not allow anybody to answer the question, "What is enlightenment?" in a clear manner — one that does not simply throw the question back at the questioner in a new form.

I have come to suspect that we can find a clear answer. But until we stop regurgitating the old answers, we can't find the clear one.

To date, the best definition of enlightenment I have encountered is this: Seeing things as they are. But that's only the "what" of it; there is no explanation of the "how". So we still have a long way to go.

 

I totally disagree. Your viewpoint is a non-Buddhist viewpoint. Nothing wrong with that, but you must remember that the question was asked on a Buddhist forum, and one therefore has to assume that the OP wanted an answer from a Buddhist perspective.

From the Buddhist point of view, "enlightenment" is a word that the Victorian British used as a poor translation of "nirvana". So, from the Buddhist point of view, all the other possible meanings of the English word "enlightenment" are irrelevant. The Buddist answer is going to be what the Budda taught as nirvana. Which is the end of suffering.

If that answer is unsatisfactory, it just means that you are probably not a Buddhist.

What Buddhists are interested in is not so much what enlightenment is, but how do you get there. The explanation of the "how" is what the Buddhist path is all about. If the "how" interests you, it would be good for you to study Buddhism with a more open mind.

 

You're probably right about that.

Neither was the Buddha, surely.

I've studied Buddhism for 25 years. That's long enough to have killed the Buddha many times over. How about you?

 

I kill Buddhas,
Yes I do,
I kill Buddhas,
How bout you?

Jumping up and down with the sound of one hand clapping.

My apologies to the OP, and Neosimian, despite how my response might sounds, I am interested in what you have to say.