How do we know someone is enlightened?

Enlightenment. It's an appealing notion.

There I am, clueless, ignorant, unsatisfied, then bingo!, an enlightenment switch is flipped. Now I know what life is all about. I go around with a Buddha-smile for the rest of my days, blissed out because I'm no longer floundering blindly in cold cosmic darkness, but rather am basking on the always-sunny beach of enlightenment.

Only problem is...some questions. 

Does enlightenment exist? Could I tell if I've got it? Is it possible to know whether someone else is enlightened? Are there various types of enlightenment? 

Short answer: nobody knows.

Opinions abound. Demonstrable evidence is lacking. However, some people are able to address those questions I asked better than others. David Chapman, for example. (I've blogged about Chapman's Buddhist'y writings  before; the Great God Google will point you to my posts.)

A few weeks ago Chapman wrote about "Epistemology and Enlightenment." The entire piece is well worth reading. Here's some parts that particularly resonated with me.

Much of what we think we know must be wrong, because it changes so often. This is obviously true of factual knowledge; but perhaps more importantly of ethical knowledge. Within living memory, everyone knew that it was fine to dump rubbish in the ocean, and premarital sex was wrong. Now, everyone knows dumping rubbish in the ocean is wrong, and most people agree that premarital sex is fine.

Acting on mistaken “knowledge” often has bad results. Ways of sorting out what’s so are precious.

The great triumph of epistemology has been to point out that two traditional sources of knowledge—experts and holy books—are not necessarily reliable.

...Buddhism, and other religions, are attractive partly because they have supposed experts on meaning, who claim to have definitive answers.

Should we believe them? Why?

Buddhist answers usually involve “enlightenment,” or similar terms such as “bodhi,” “nirvana,” “kensho,” and so forth. I mostly find these answers unhelpfully abstract and theoretical. What can we know about enlightenment, and how?

...Different brands of Buddhism have stories about enlightenment that sound very different.

• How do we know which theory of enlightenment is right?
• Maybe none of them. Maybe there is no such thing! Most claims about enlightenment sound like silly spiritual fantasies—which is one reason many Westerners reject Buddhism.
• Maybe the theories only seem to disagree. Like the parable of the blind men, they are describing one elephant in different ways, or grasp different parts of the elephant.
• Maybe there are different, real things that different Buddhisms call “enlightenment.” Maybe they argue only because they don’t recognize they are using one word for more than one thing.

...Supposedly, only an enlightened person can say if someone else is enlightened. They have special magic insight. Ordinary people can’t tell. So how does that work?

A skeptical view is that a supposed enlightenment expert (such as a Zen master) will declare you to be enlightened if:

-- You have been practicing hard enough for long enough to get enlightened, according to the sect’s traditions
-- You can recite the sect’s dogmas as needed
-- You conform to the social norms of the sect
-- You show conspicuous loyalty to the sect vs. competing ones
-- You have some sort of odd experience which you describe using the sect’s jargon

...According to some Buddhist texts, and some supposed experts, enlightenment is unmistakable. If you experience it, you know it, and it removes all doubt.

This is particularly common in “experiencing Oneness” theories of enlightenment. When you first taste chocolate, you cannot doubt your own experience of it. You know what chocolate is like. Similarly, if you directly experience your Absolute Oneness With Everything, that is indisputable. You know The Ultimate Truth. No one can dispute this, because The Ultimate Truth is itself an experience, and like all experiences it is private and unmistakeable.

There’s a couple of problems with this. You can (apparently) be mistaken about what you have experienced, and (more importantly) you can be mistaken about what it means.

...Intense non-ordinary experiences often include what seem to be profound insights into the fundamental nature of reality. But the second problem is that those can be totally wrong.

...Buddhism is based on the dogmatic belief that:

There was this guy Gautama, who finally got it while sitting under a tree. He was totally transformed. Whatever he got is by definition the best thing you can get. He was as enlightened as it is possible to be.

There is zero evidence for this, and zero rational argument. It’s pure mythology.

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether there was such a guy, or whether he really got it. The important thing is that the myth hides the unexamined assumption that there is exactly one thing to get.

My guess is that some of the theories of enlightenment, told by different Buddhisms, describe real things—but they are about different things. That makes talk about “enlightenment” inherently confusing. It’s like a barroom debate about whether Spain’s La Roja or the New York Giants are the greatest football team, without anyone noticing that they play two completely different games that both happen to be called “football.”

...The most popular modern Buddhist theory of enlightenment is that you discover that All is One, so your True Self is in fact The Entire Universe. This is taught by many Zen masters and some prominent Theravadins. There is some basis for it in the Mahayana scriptures, but it totally contradicts traditional Theravada. It probably comes mainly from Western monist mysticism.

The theory is obviously false. All is not one; chalk is not cheddar. (Try making a melted chalk sandwich.) You are not the entire universe. You are about six feet tall, whereas the universe is about six hundred trillion miles across. Your mind is not the entire universe, either. You know nothing about most of it.

(I’ve written more about problems with monist mysticism here.)

...As it happens, I think the Oneness experience does contain an important insight. It’s just that mystics misunderstand it. What the experience actually points to is the fact that there is no objective separation between you and your immediate surroundings. That’s quite different from your being the same as the entire universe; and it stands up to rational scrutiny.

...Some neuroscientists have an interesting guess about the mystical “Oneness” experience. If you are a monkey swinging through dense jungle, it’s critical to keep track of where all your body parts are. You always need know where you end, and the air or branches begin. Otherwise, you’ll slam into something. So, probably there is an evolved brain mechanism that keeps track of the physical self/other boundary at all times. Maybe what happens in the Oneness experience is that it stops functioning. You misinterpret your inability to feel where your body ends as having melted into the entire universe.

Comments

[tucson]

In this post there is the assumption that there is "someone" to be enlightened in the first place.

But the core of Buddhism holds that there is no such entity. Therefore, no such state.

So, how could one imaginary entity ascertain another imagined entity possesed that which does not exist?

But to contradict myself, if someone was "enlightened" then it would appear that "everyone" is enlightened whether they know it or not. Otherwise, everyone appears clueless.

[Malcolm]

Personally, I believe there are people who know. I myself do not know, I just believe the most likely thing I have heard, as follows: no one becomes enlightened, because the idea of being an individual is just an illusion, and enlightenment consists of the realisation that there really is no one to become enlightened.
We insist on regarding ourselves as individuals, and as long as we go on seeking for enlightenment it's never going to happen.

Sorry for "pouring from the empty into the void," as a certain well known person once said.

[at Peace]

To all,

On the subject of enlightenment does anyone know if Mr Rajinder or supreme master of the highest highest highest order master Ching Hai is enlightended. They certainly are more flamboyant than the Beas Masters. Are they possibly "even more more" enlightened.
And any information on Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev would be most welcome.

[cc]

I know that my sense of who I am, who others are, and the world in general is a necessary, though inaccurate illusion, so if I can't get it right, I reckon, I must get rid of the illusion altogether and live with things exactly as they are. But is this possible? I don't think so, but I'm open to any explanation as to how it might be.

[Brian Hines]

cc, I also have no idea what living "with things exactly as they are" means. Our dogs certainly disagree with me about this.

On dog walks I keep saying "come on!" as they pause to obsessively sniff a patch of ground which OBVIOUSLY has nothing of interest in it. I can't smell anything, and my nose is working normally, so clearly the dogs are just pretending they're smelling something.

My attitude about this is homing in on relaxation/flowing. I can't get rid of how I see the world, or how the world is. But I can enjoy more fully how I see the world and how the world is through not resisting.

Example: I've taken up longboarding (non-tricky skateboarding) at the age of almost-64. I've discovered the joy of pushing with a stick, rather than my foot, which makes longboarding a lot more stable. Still, when I come to a bump in the path, or a cutout in a curb, there's a moment where I start to worry about getting over the mini-obstacle.

If I tense up, I make things worse. Then any jerkiness transmitted to the board gets transmitted directly to my body, and I get thrown a bit (or a lot) off balance. But if I bend my knees, relax, then I move with the longboard. No problem. Lots of activities, both mental and physical, are like this. Relaxing makes them go better.

So worrying about whether I'm fully in touch with life as it is strikes me as self-defeating. My worry becomes my biggest problem; tension about whether I'm enjoying life as much as I could be prevents me from enjoying life.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

When you stated "I can't smell anything, and my nose is working normally, so clearly the dogs are just pretending they're smelling something" - I inferred that you were speaking ironically. I hope so at any rate. (So does Max, the dog.)

Please confirm that this is so.

Robert Paul Howard

[Brian Hines]

Robert, I guess you could say I was being "ironic." But if so, this applies to a whole lot of other people also.

Like, everyone who claims that they had a personal spiritual experience which proves the existence of God. This is like me saying that since I can't smell what my dogs are smelling, they are deluded and I'm the only one in touch with reality.

All anyone knows is what their experiences allow them to know. If experiences can be corroborated, then we have a shared subjective experience. But that still isn't objective reality. There's no such thing as objective reality absent a consciousness aware of some aspect of reality.

[Mike Williams]

Hi Peace,
Rajinder and Summa Ching Hai are not
enlightened. There are no Radhasoami
masters that are enlightened. They all
have scandals and are not good people.

The inner planes are not real, only
mental.

http://www.well.com/user/jct/

[Mike Williams]

"enlightenment consists of the realisation that there
really is no one to become enlightened."
quote Malcolm

That is true, but there is more to it.

The realization that ones self cannot
be personalized is the key.

Depersonalization is the secret. Not one
idea at a time, but all at once.

We have no self except as a belief. If
you try to find your self, you cannot.

Our lives are dictated by a false belief
in our notion of our self. We take action
to wax this false image.

[Jesse]

Sri Sant Maharaj Brian Blogger Sahib Ji,

I know you've answered these questions millions of times,but may I ask if you ever had a subjective experience in meditation that you found to be meaningful or that revealed something of value to you,personally? Not necessarily a RS meditation or any specific lights or sounds but just something that left you in a state of deeper self reverence or lasting tranquility.

Master Jesse

PS
I'm done with the honorifics.It was funny to me momentarily.My apologies if it's annoying.

[cc]

I'm enlightened when I realize the verifiable truth about something; when I can demonstrate the actuality or the impossibility of something. And by "demonstrate", I mean, not just to my satisfaction, but to anyone else who can acknowledge facts.

So if I'm enlightened in the way the Buddha supposedly was, my life demonstrates it. But who or what is to say it's a demonstration of enlightenment? Anyone doing better than I could be considered enlightened, so from my point of view, being enlightened is being one-up on me.

Perhaps life is just one enlighteneing realization after another until you're dead. The more realizations you have, the more enlightened you are until the ultimate enlightenment: realizing you're dead.

[Brian Hines]

Jesse, not only did I reply to your question, I replied almost a thousand words worth. Which either amount to nothing, or something, or neither. See:

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2012/09/have-i-ever-had-a-meaningful-valuable-meditation-experience.html

Thanks for the question. It was a good one.

[udaya pandit]

i hate words..

[Brian Hines]

Me, too! Words are useless!

I always like to say, "Those who speak do not know; those who know do not speak."

And, damn it, I'll keep on saying that until people realize how freaking enlightened I am!

[cc]

If you have an idea of what "enlightened" means, you can believe that someone is the living embodiment of that idea, hang on his every word and devote yourself to him. Or, if you're highly suggestible, you can believe that you are enlightened. But ultimately, if enlightenment is anything, it is realizing what you are not, what you don't know, and how mistaken you can be.