Gradual enlightenment

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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dharmagoat
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by dharmagoat »

rachmiel wrote:You can see how enlightened you are by your score.
Others can too. We will then finally know who to idolize and who to scorn.
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Rick
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Rick »

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily ...
tingdzin
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by tingdzin »

These answers are good. I would only like to add that 1) a lot of the time, people who talk about their "epiphanies" are full of horse manure --Agehanada Bharati, who was a lifelong and perceptive student of these things, said the he had very often listened to glowing dramatic accounts of experiences which people had not had. 2)Talking about such experiences, even if one does happen to have them, immediately reduces them to the polluted conceptual level. 3) Using such experiences, real or imagined, competitively or as badges of spiritual status, further degrades them, and removes all possibility of their having any genuine value.

As a side note, practicing any aspect of Dharma competitively, while it is as common as dirt these days, may get you some kind of cheap renown, and sometimes even official titles and positions in Dharma organizations, etc. , but in the end is just another ego trip. A good practitioner does not measure his or her progress against that of others.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

rachmiel wrote:How about measuring your progress by how content you are? How happy. How equanimous. How whole feeling.

It's too easy to deceive yourself, everyone wants to feel great, sometimes it means nothing at all when you do. Some of the best advice I've gotten is that your practice is measured by how you function during really hard times. That includes, do hard times make you treat others worse, or can you turn situations around, etc. Can you maintain empathy and compassion when are in the grip of fear or anger, or does it just overwhelm?

One of the first things I noticed when I started practicing seriously were #1: I have serious anger issues (not that it was any surprise, but, ya know) and #2, I never really apologized to anyone in the past about the issues caused by them. While I can't say I'm at all cured of my pissier personality characteristics, I did start apologizing to my parents (among other people) for the undeserved grief they'd gotten from as a younger man, etc. It also made me realize that there were people who on some level I owe a great deal to, I'd never really even thought about it deeply before. to wrapped up in my own stuff.

To me these seem like good markers, if you can see direct improvement in your relationships with others, and in the amount of energy you are able to give to them. You deal better with things that would have frozen you in place previously.

Is it enlightenment, no, not by a long shot..but it does give one confidence that this stuff freaking *works*.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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Rick
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Rick »

Yes, how sane you remain in periods of stress, difficulty, trauma is probably a good marker. Theory tends to be trumped by harsh reality, in'nt? Don't some teachers tell students to lean towards things that scare them to develop grace in adversity?
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily ...
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

rachmiel wrote:Yes, how sane you remain in periods of stress, difficulty, trauma is probably a good marker. Theory tends to be trumped by harsh reality, in'nt? Don't some teachers tell students to lean towards things that scare them to develop grace in adversity?

Yes, some of the best advice I've gotten is to experience pain as nakedly as possible.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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Rick
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Rick »

You need to know your limit.

Feeling certain pains naked has been healing for me. Feeling others has knocked me out for the count.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily ...
MindTheGap
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by MindTheGap »

It seems to me that anyone who (pro)claims that they are an enlightened being should be avoided like the plague.

I think that no enlightened being would ever make a claim as such. They merely act out of the enlightened state. Every word and action is a teaching and cuts through the delusion of sentient beings with compassion, precision wisdom and skillful means.

They don't advertise; they are recognized.

They don't need to proclaim it - there's nothing to proclaim.

Take for example the Dalai Lama. 14th reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara. He is Chenrezig. He is Kundun - "the presence".

How does he refer to himself?

"I'm only a simple Buddhist monk."

I don't know the accuracy of this next example, but it is my favorite and most beautifully eloquent; in the movie Kundun, the Indian boarder guard asks the Dalai Lama, "Are you the Lord Buddha?"

The Dalai Lama responds by saying* "I am like the moon reflecting off the water. I think that, when I am a good man, when you see me, you see the goodness in yourself."

I think that is the way an enlightened being speaks of her/himself.

As to gradual vs quick enlightenment, I think there are two ways of looking at the question.

1) is the process of becoming enlightened quick or gradual?

From what I understand, the Vajrayana claims to be a rapid path to enlightenment, with the motivation being to bring happiness to sentient beings as rapidly as possible. There are other yanas (vehicles - paths) to enlightenment under the general umbrella of Buddhism that move at different speeds.

2) is the actual moment of enlightenment like a quick flash of lightning, or the slow dawning of the sun?

I think there are as many different ways to enter the enlightened state of being as there are sentient beings - from eons to milliseconds.

I don't know because I can't speak from experience

If you think about it, how can you realize non-duality if there is a before and after moment? Is there really anything to realize at all?

Well, of course there is. And, there isn't. Ain't it?

"Before I had studied Ch'an for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers." - Qingyuan Weixin


*I don't recall if this is the exact wording of the line from the movie, word for word. But it is very close.
And now, as long as space endures, As long as there are beings to be found,
May I continue, likewise, to remain, To drive away the sorrows of the world.

- Shantideva: Bodhicharyavatara

In this world there is no man, there is no woman. There is no person, self or consciousness.
Man and woman are merely imputed and have no essence. Thus, the minds of worldly beings are mistaken.

- Wisdom Moon: now known as the Bodhisattva Tara

When there arises a gap in the mind...

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Anders
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Anders »

AFAIK, there is an unavoidable element of 'in a flash' realisation to insight. The recognition of one's nature always happens instantaneously in some form or other. You won't be contemplating one day and realise you've rested in the nature for weeks or months was your true nature. From the first moment you see it, you know it immediately.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean it is a big deal, although practise ought to get a less more accessible from there. And by no means does it mean that it is necessarily life changing, or that the 'a ha' moment is necessarily registered as anything more than 'ah, it's like that. I guess I should have seen that coming'. The transformation of habits, outlook and state of mind is far more likely to be a very gradual thing that you only notice over a longer period of time. And this is the crucial bit.
"Even if my body should be burnt to death in the fires of hell
I would endure it for myriad lifetimes
As your companion in practice"

--- Gandavyuha Sutra
muni
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by muni »

Yes, habits!

About gradual, I remember a master saying, it was a bit like that: "someone comes out of the airport and takes a taxi to the hotel which is in front of the airport. The taxi goes through the traffic of the city all around, is stuck many times in the traffic and after a long sightseeing, the taxi finally turns from behind the corner and arrives at the hotel, in front of the airport."

Gyalwang Drukpa Rinpoche: “Followers create lots of zig zags, I am not so very smart, therefore, for people like me, I think it is better to go directly into the teachings of Lord Buddha and it is less wasting time.”

I do not think he was chasing us or we should hurry up, this should be a lack of compassion and this is certainly not. I guess it was a light on the need for us to practise.

Maybe we are spending all of our time on the weight and depths of apprehensions, while our habits are maintained.
When we approach everything with the head-intellect; I know all, while nature’s knowing aspect is liberation of all this cultivated knowledge since all what need to be known is inclusive. This cultivated knowledge is fleeting .…, we can use it or not, dependent on our karmic disease. Ego's knowledge is apprehended and apprehended knowledge is not without nature, but nature need no any apprehended knowledge "to be".

There is no one who realizes nature, nature is already,... is when the one who want to realize it is dissolved in nature. Alas habits are strong and without knowing it we are feeding them and suffer.

Homage to all enlightened guidance!
muni
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by muni »

They don't advertise; they are recognized.

They don't need to proclaim it - there's nothing to proclaim.
Yes. Since by recognition, me is told, is no one who recognized something, since even that one thinking to be on the way to enlightenment dissolves as never been. Since it is just a thought. Then what?

Silly waterdrop back into ocean.

Then there is the example by our kind masters to put others always as more important then oneself, to open our self constructed cage, into freedom.
As a side note, practicing any aspect of Dharma competitively, while it is as common as dirt these days, may get you some kind of cheap renown, and sometimes even official titles and positions in Dharma organizations, etc. , but in the end is just another ego trip. A good practitioner does not measure his or her progress against that of others.
That competitively is very much suffering and by its' influence, this competitive suffering is spread. I remember now these words: even if you see the other is wrong, let him win, don't go into a fight. Maybe not something useful on a forum. Lol.
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Supramundane
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by Supramundane »

Sorry really basic question, but was the Awakening of the Buddha really a transcendental experience as many seem to believe or was it simply realization of the method he espoused? just because he conceived the 8 fold path and 4 noble truths at this moment doesn't mean he had seen them through to fruition, if you see what i mean. in fact, some may argue that one must die to reach full Nirvana, to have the last karmic link severed.

Is bodhi knowledge of how to attain Nirvana or that Nirvana has been attained?
dreambow
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by dreambow »

I see the Buddha's four noble truths and the eight fold path as both statements, precise tools for enquiry and investigation. Gradual or sudden enlightenment is dependent on ripeness, about our differing capacities to draw sustenance from what is available.
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by antiquebuddhas »

rachmiel wrote:One of the strongest images associated with Buddhism is the im/explosive life-altering Aha!-of-all-Aha!s enlightenment experience.
Does Buddhism also allow for gradual enlightenment? More like a slow dawning upon rather than a sudden flash.
I don't think there are a instantaneous enlightenment. You must clear every step of a ladder to go to next floor. You cannot fly to the next floor. Same applied for attaining Nirvana.
"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." Lord Buddha
dreambow
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Re: Gradual enlightenment

Post by dreambow »

Perhaps there is sudden enlightenment? You many have done your meditation, investigation, intense enquiry in a previous incarnation. Is it possible?Reincarnation is the backbone of Buddhism and Eastern Religion. There are many examples of sudden awakening.
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