Enlightenment success rate

[Tao]

Not sure if this is the right place for this request but here I go.

I'm looking for references about enlightenment success rate references in any kind of buddhist doctrine or collective.

For example I recall reading in some book by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (I think it was "Clarifying the natural state") that two thirds of the monks with some master reached the one-taste Mahamudra yoga but none of them was into non-meditation yoga.

I'm sorry for not being more specific in my example I can't recall more details...

Are there other references like this? (Mahayana or Vajrayana)

Thank you a lot.

[Malcolm]

Dzogchen, 100%.

Not sure if this is the right place for this request but here I go.

I'm looking for references about enlightenment success rate references in any kind of buddhist doctrine or collective.

For example I recall reading in some book by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (I think it was "Clarifying the natural state") that two thirds of the monks with some master reached the one-taste Mahamudra yoga but none of them was into non-meditation yoga.

I'm sorry for not being more specific in my example I can't recall more details...

Are there other references like this? (Mahayana or Vajrayana)

Thank you a lot.

[Tao]

Dzogchen, 100%.

Just after empowerment? before or later?

Is not Rainbow body the stage of full enlightement? Tögal?

Forgive my ignorance...

[Malcolm]

Dzogchen, 100%.

Just after empowerment? before or later?

Is not Rainbow body the stage of full enlightement?

Forgive my ignorance...

No problem. There are 21 capacities of Dzogchen practitioners divided into best, medium and average. The best achieve buddhahood in this life. The next 19 achieve buddhahood in the bardo. The last, the average of the average, achieve buddhahood in a nirmanakāya buddhafield without ever returning to samsara.

[Astus]

"Of the thousand or ten thousand people in this school, only three or five [have really understood Buddhism]."
(Huangbo: Essentials of the Transmission of Mind, in Zen Texts, BDK Edition, p 42)

"With a preceding moment of deluded thought, one was an ordinary person, but with a succeeding moment of enlightened thought, one is a buddha. To be attached to one’s sensory realms in a preceding moment of thought is affliction, but to transcend the realms in a succeeding moment of thought is bodhi."
(Huineng: Platform Sutra, ch 2, BDK Edition, p 30)

"The view that practice and realization are not one is skewed outside of the Way. In the Buddha Dharma practice and realization are one and the same. This is the practise of realization, and so from the beginning practice is the whole body of original Awakening. And so the instructions are to not to seek Awakening outside of the practice because the practice itself points directly to original Awakening."
(Dogen: Bendowa)

"if a person retaining the concept of there being anything to be gained generates the bodhi resolve and then proceeds to cultivate kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, giving, moral virtue, patience, vigor, dhyāna absorption, and wisdom, doing so for an incalculable number of asaṃkhyeyas of kalpas, one should realize that, on account of retaining the concept of something to be gained, such a person will not succeed in leaving behind birth and death and will not succeed in progressing towards bodhi."
(Vasubandhu: Treatise on the Bodhisattva Vow)

[Wayfarer]

one should realize that, on account of retaining the concept of something to be gained, such a person will not succeed in leaving behind birth and death and will not succeed in progressing towards bodhi...

A hard truth!

I once read there is a quotation from the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra translated as 'even though I have realised the supreme ultimate truth I have gained nothing thereby'. But whenever I searched for it I was unable to locate the source. Would you be able to cast any light?

[muni]

one should realize that, on account of retaining the concept of something to be gained, such a person will not succeed in leaving behind birth and death and will not succeed in progressing towards bodhi...

There is said, there is never ever any realization other than the continuation of our habitual grasping by investing, purchasing all concepts/things/phenomena. Also I guess by enlightenment, there is no diploma. We can try to know everything, the only thing there will be known are phenomena while when there is the ability( called ripened mind) to see methods' words-concepts their merely finger-pointing tool, then great.
Then this allows dissolving the confusion of duality ( I guess the way to leave birth death behind?) of a knower knowing concepts/phenomena. That is why Zen Masters, Dzogchen Masters’ advice can be: apply “I don’t know”, to quietening the mind. Quietening that thinking mind holding on/grasping to artificial apprehended phenomena. Because our nature is before “I know”. Therefore something that need to be gained is artifical while nature is natural knowing ( as Jetsunma here under my post is explaining in the youtube).

Don’t investigate the root of things,
Investigate the root of Mind!
Once the mind’s root has been found,
You’ll know one thing, yet all is thereby freed.
But if the root of Mind you fail to find,
You will know everything but nothing
understand. Guru Rinpoche.

[Astus]

I once read there is a quotation from the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra translated as 'even though I have realised the supreme ultimate truth I have gained nothing thereby'. But whenever I searched for it I was unable to locate the source. Would you be able to cast any light?

Subhūti said to the Buddha: “World-honored One. When the buddhas attain peerless perfect enlightenment, is it the case that actually nothing is attained?”
“Exactly right. Subhūti, as far as peerless perfect enlightenment is concerned, I have not attained the slightest thing. This is why it is called peerless perfect enlightenment.”
(Diamond Sutra, ch 22)

"And when these immeasurable, countless, infinite number of sentient beings have been liberated, in actuality, no sentient being has attained liberation. Why is this so? Subhūti, If a bodhisattva abides in the signs of self, person, sentient being, or life-span, she or he is not a bodhisattva."
(ch 3)

See the whole of ch 9.

"World-honored One, when the Tathāgata studied under Dīpaṃkara Buddha, there was, in reality, nothing that he attained in the dharma."
(ch 10)

This teaching of "nothing to be attained" is in many sutras, even in the Heart Sutra.

[Anders]

Dzogchen, 100%.

Just after empowerment? before or later?

Is not Rainbow body the stage of full enlightement?

Forgive my ignorance...

No problem. There are 21 capacities of Dzogchen practitioners divided into best, medium and average. The best achieve buddhahood in this life. The next 19 achieve buddhahood in the bardo. The last, the average of the average, achieve buddhahood in a nirmanakāya buddhafield without ever returning to samsara.

On that note, I guess we can also say:

Pure Land: 100%

[Wayfarer]

This teaching of "nothing to be attained" is in many sutras, even in the Heart Sutra.

Thankyou Astus, it is something I have to keep remembering.

[muni]

Not sure if this is the right place for this request but here I go.

I'm looking for references about enlightenment success rate references in any kind of buddhist doctrine or collective.

For example I recall reading in some book by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (I think it was "Clarifying the natural state") that two thirds of the monks with some master reached the one-taste Mahamudra yoga but none of them was into non-meditation yoga.

I'm sorry for not being more specific in my example I can't recall more details...

Are there other references like this? (Mahayana or Vajrayana)

Thank you a lot.

I bow to Vajra Dakini.

1
Mahamudra cannot be taught, Naropa,
But your devotion to your teacher and the hardships you’ve met
Have made you patient in suffering and also wise:
Take this to heart, my worthy student

2
For instance, consider space: what depends on what?
Likewise, mahamudra: it doesn’t depend on anything.
Don’t control. Let go and rest naturally.
Let what binds you let go and freedom is not in doubt.

3
When you look into space, seeing stops.
Likewise, when mind looks at mind,
The flow of thinking stops and you come to the deepest awakening.... -->
http://www.naturalawareness.net/ganges.html

[Astus]

No problem. There are 21 capacities of Dzogchen practitioners divided into best, medium and average. The best achieve buddhahood in this life. The next 19 achieve buddhahood in the bardo. The last, the average of the average, achieve buddhahood in a nirmanakāya buddhafield without ever returning to samsara.

On that note, I guess we can also say:
Pure Land: 100%

Here is a classic on the question on the success rate from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta:

59. Then the wandering ascetic Subhadda approached the Blessed One and saluted him courteously. And having exchanged with him pleasant and civil greetings, the wandering ascetic Subhadda seated himself at one side and addressed the Blessed One, saying: "There are, Venerable Gotama, ascetics and brahmans who are heads of great companies of disciples, who have large retinues, who are leaders of schools, well known and renowned, and held in high esteem by the multitude, such teachers as Purana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambali, Pakudha Kaccayana, Sañjaya Belatthaputta, Nigantha Nataputta. Have all of these attained realization, as each of them would have it believed, or has none of them, or is it that some have attained realization and others not?"

60. "Enough, Subhadda! Let it be as it may, whether all of them have attained realization, as each of them would have it believed, or whether none of them has, or whether some have attained realization and others not. I will teach you the Dhamma, Subhadda; listen and heed it well, and I will speak."

"So be it, Lord."

61. And the Blessed One spoke, saying: "In whatsoever Dhamma and Discipline, Subhadda, there is not found the Noble Eightfold Path, neither is there found a true ascetic of the first, second, third, or fourth degree of saintliness. But in whatsoever Dhamma and Discipline there is found the Noble Eightfold Path, there is found a true ascetic of the first, second, third, and fourth degrees of saintliness. Now in this Dhamma and Discipline, Subhadda, is found the Noble Eightfold Path; and in it alone are also found true ascetics of the first, second, third, and fourth degrees of saintliness. Devoid of true ascetics are the systems of other teachers. But if, Subhadda, the bhikkhus live righteously, the world will not be destitute of arahats.

And in the Uttiya Sutta:

Master Gotama, when having directly known it, you teach the Dhamma to your disciples for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow & lamentation, for the disappearance of pain & distress, for the attainment of the right method, & for the realization of Unbinding, will all the cosmos be led [to release], or a half of it, or a third?

...

Uttiya, suppose that there were a royal frontier fortress with strong ramparts, strong walls & arches, and a single gate. In it would be a wise, competent, & knowledgeable gatekeeper to keep out those he didn't know and to let in those he did. Patrolling the path around the city, he wouldn't see a crack or an opening in the walls big enough for even a cat to slip through. Although he wouldn't know that 'So-and-so many creatures enter or leave the city,' he would know this: 'Whatever large creatures enter or leave the city all enter or leave it through this gate.'

In the same way, the Tathagata isn't concerned with whether all the cosmos or half of it or a third of it will be led to release by means of that [Dhamma]. But he does know this: 'All those who have been led, are being led, or will be led [to release] from the cosmos have done so, are doing so, or will do so after having abandoned the five hindrances — those defilements of awareness that weaken discernment — having well-established their minds in the four frames of reference, and having developed, as they have come to be, the seven factors for Awakening.

[Malcolm]

No problem. There are 21 capacities of Dzogchen practitioners divided into best, medium and average. The best achieve buddhahood in this life. The next 19 achieve buddhahood in the bardo. The last, the average of the average, achieve buddhahood in a nirmanakāya buddhafield without ever returning to samsara.

On that note, I guess we can also say:
Pure Land: 100%

If you believe that, then practice Pure Land. If you don't, practice something else.

[Astus]

If you believe that, then practice Pure Land. If you don't, practice something else.

I don't see much difference between the Dzogchen and the Pure Land version. And that difference is the very small percentage of superior practitioners who achieve buddhahood in this life, while the rest are beyond normal human perception, just like the Pure Land itself. Apparently both have a faith based 100% success rate.

[Malcolm]

If you believe that, then practice Pure Land. If you don't, practice something else.

I don't see much difference between the Dzogchen and the Pure Land version. And that difference is the very small percentage of superior practitioners who achieve buddhahood in this life, while the rest are beyond normal human perception, just like the Pure Land itself. Apparently both have a faith based 100% success rate.

Yes, of course you don't see any difference between Dzogchen and Pure Land because you do not know Dzogchen and thus do not understand its path. That can be remedied.

[Astus]

Yes, of course you don't see any difference between Dzogchen and Pure Land because you do not know Dzogchen and thus do not understand its path. That can be remedied.

I didn't say their paths are the same, but their promises of success are very close.

[Malcolm]

Yes, of course you don't see any difference between Dzogchen and Pure Land because you do not know Dzogchen and thus do not understand its path. That can be remedied.

I didn't say their paths are the same, but their promises of success are very close.

Yes, but your error is claiming that both are faith-based. One is, the other is not.

[frank123]

Dzogchen, 100%.

Just after empowerment? before or later?

Is not Rainbow body the stage of full enlightement?

Forgive my ignorance...

No problem. There are 21 capacities of Dzogchen practitioners divided into best, medium and average. The best achieve buddhahood in this life. The next 19 achieve buddhahood in the bardo. The last, the average of the average, achieve buddhahood in a nirmanakāya buddhafield without ever returning to samsara.

Isn't there an element of faith in your statements here? How can you know this to be the truth first hand?

[Astus]

Yes, but your error is claiming that both are faith-based. One is, the other is not.

Do you mean that with Dzogchen you necessarily gain the divine eye and can perceive other practitioners attaining buddhahood in the intermediate state and in buddha-lands?

[Malcolm]

Just after empowerment? before or later?

Is not Rainbow body the stage of full enlightement?

Forgive my ignorance...

No problem. There are 21 capacities of Dzogchen practitioners divided into best, medium and average. The best achieve buddhahood in this life. The next 19 achieve buddhahood in the bardo. The last, the average of the average, achieve buddhahood in a nirmanakāya buddhafield without ever returning to samsara.

Isn't there an element of faith in your statements here? How can you know this to be the truth first hand?

When one understands that the teaching of the Great Perfection is based on direct perception, and not theories, concepts, and so on, then you can understand that there is no need to take anything on faith at all.