| | When I say I am fully enlightened, what I mean is I have the highest attainment, or non-dual insight, possible. I’m not saying I’m necessarily more enlightened than anybody else, I simply mean that I am possessing of the highest attainment possible. If there are others who are fully enlightened, their enlightenment cannot surpass my own and likewise I do not surpass them, but equal their attainment exactly.
What do I mean by highest attainment possible? Perhaps my statement could be interpreted as egoism, “I am the most enlightened, there is no own more enlightened than myself”. While it could be construed this way, this would be wrong. The truth is that I have reached a point at which further progression is not possible. It is clear that this is the complete and final stage of enlightenment.
We might imagine the path to enlightenment as a linear path, continuing upwards seemingly indefinitely. Indeed, until one has reached the final stage the path does continue indefinitely, for there is always more to go. When one is on the path one can only witness from one’s current viewpoint. This allows for a panoramic view of the past, but no direct knowledge of what is yet to come. Though we may read books in which people claiming to have high attainment detail future stages of development, ultimately we will not know for certain if these stages exist until we reach them and thus know of them directly.
This said, for those on the path there are several reasons why a final end point might seem remarkable. For one, as I have stated, there is the fact one can never truly verify such a statement for oneself without direct experience. Further, more the direct experience practitioners have would seem to contradict this, as their development keeps on occurring. Why should this not be the case for all people? How can we trust someone who says they have reached the end?
The path of meditation is based on overcoming our unfounded and innate belief in being separate lasting self’s. Thus one could quite theoretically suppose there is a point at which this issue is overcome. This point would be the end of all dualistic belief, the full eradication of any notion of separateness. When speculation occurs on this issue, there is widespread confusion as to how it would work.
The experience of the complete eradication of dualistic belief is the one of complete contact with the phenomenal world. All abstract notions of self are absent. What remains is an awareness experiencing the world. Now you might say here that this seems dualistic, an awareness experiencing a world seems to imply two separate things. However this is where the ability to express non-conceptual experience in conceptual terms breaks down.
Prior to any attainment or partial enlightenment, one believes wholly that their thoughts are objectively real. The world is not known, as it appears, unique to any conceptual interpretation. Instead we know only our own conceptualized version of the world, in which our ideas about things are taken to be reality. We experience our lives’ though concept innately, there is no conscious choice. We are born with a conceptual mind filter that automatically transfers our experience into conceptualization, which we then experience. We are innately, completely fixed on our conceptual interpretation of the world. The process of enlightenment entails gradually coming to see beyond this conceptual fixation, gradually coming to undo the innate and automatic conceptualization of experience so that we experience life directly, without conceptual filters.
As one ascends the path, conceptual fixation falls away gradually as one progressively come to understand the falsity of concept and to establish deeper contact with that which lies beyond. In Buddhism, the terms relative truth and ultimate truth refer to the relative world of concept, and the ultimate world on which the concept is based. Concepts, relative truth, can never touch the genuine reality of the world, ultimate truth. Relative truth only provides a snapshot, or fixed glimpse of a dynamic and ever-changing reality. The nature of reality, or ultimate truth, is such that is cannot be encapsulated in concept. It is forever separated, existing unmarred by its attempted conceptualization.
As previously stated, full enlightenment means coming to the complete end of dualistic beliefs. Our dualistic beliefs are the result of our innate conceptual fixation, of our immersion in a world of relative, conceptual truth. Relative truth is so named because concepts exist in relation to other concepts. Thus, when our experience is based on concept, it is natural that we separate things into different categories, as to do so gives these categories meaning. ‘I’ am not a ‘chair’, I am not a ‘table’, ‘I’ am a distinct entity, inherently existing separate from these external objects. ‘I’ am my body…
Upon full enlightenment, all fixation on thought is removed. As conceptual thought creates the idea of separation, all notions of being separate from the world in any way are absent. Instead one’s own experience, or awareness, is perceived as the root of all phenomena. Nothing is separate from experience itself. No longer is awareness classified as mine, or this observing that. At the ultimate stage, nothing is separate from awareness. One's individual awareness has merged with the phenomenal world, like water poured into water.
In this sense, there can be no further progression. Dualistic belief has been entirely seen through such that none remains. Instead of experiencing a world broken into separate and discrete components, we experience it most basically, how it appears before the imposition of concept. Thus the entirety of experience is unified. No longer subject to dualistic notions, at the ultimate level all of reality exists as a fundamentally united whole. We cannot experience it more basically. We have reached the most basic level. Things are fully unified, un-separated. Imagine a circle, could this become more of a circle? Once it is at the most basic level, improvement is impossible.
To conclude, the very nature of the problem we face is such that a final end resolution is to be expected. What we face is the imposition of dualistic confusion into a system that is innately perfect and whole. While we may believe things to be separated, ultimately this is a false belief, for things inherently exist such that they are indivisible from one another. All of reality shared a common and united nature. We can access this true nature of reality. We can realize that we ourselves are a part of it, that our own experience is the nature of reality itself.
This final perfect realization is merely an overcoming of false belief to recognize the way things truly appear. On the path to enlightenment we do not become greater individuals, building on our weakness. Instead we transcend, or clean off, the dualistic muck that obscures our true nature and so return to a state of perfection. The state of perfection is the true nature of all phenomena, the way all things truly appear. To realize this represents overcoming our false beliefs and returning to a genuine acknowledgement of true reality, that which inherently exists.
Thus: an ultimate reality exists, but is obscured by conceptual thinking. Attainment represents progressive insight into the falsity of concept and recognition of the ultimate nature that lies beyond. Full enlightenment is the end of concept, and thus the complete recognition of our ultimate nature. At this point concept is completely transcended such that none remains in our minds explicitly, in the form of belief about the world. At this point one need not continue the path of meditation, as its basis, the desire to eradicate false conceptual belief, has been entirely overcome.
And thus there are two potential ways to identify an enlightened practitioner. One is that they no longer need to meditate, and can hope for no improvement. Second is that they see no basic differences in the world of phenomena. They themselves are not supremely enlightened individuals while the rest of humanity wallows far below them in conceptual muck. Upon enlightenment, the recognition that all things share the same basic nature, no difference is seen in individuals. All are inherently no different from oneself, and oneself is merely the nature of experience. All experience is not separate from experiencing, in fact it is indivisible. Experience is in full union. |