Sax Ma'am:
Forgive me for thinking that the commanly stated goal of Buddhist meditation, enlightenment or nirvana, is a common term in this discussion forum and that there are those who claim this achievement.
The term itself may be a common term used in various Buddhist fora, but that doesn't mean that its definition is commonly understood or held by each individual who uses it. All I was endeavoring to clear up was the definition of the word that you were going by.
Sax Ma'am:
I couldn't find what I was looking for in MCTB (Kindle search not as handy as I hoped it would be). Found this on the web and I think it captures somewhat what I remember reading there.
"Enlightenment - The Wisdom of Emptiness... The wisdom
that arises from the direct experience of all phenomena being
empty of independent existence."
By neuroticism I mean non-adaptive traits/behaviors/emotions such as excessive anxiety and unreasonable fears. The current meaning of neuroticism seems to indicate a personality trait, "psychology characterized by anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy."
The question: Does enlightment make one less neurotic in ordinary living?
So now we get down to the question you asked.
I can work with these two definitions. The honest answer to your question is an ambiguous one, based upon my experience and observation. And that is because it depends upon the individual one is observing and how much work they have done on themselves to overcome elements of their neurotic behavior. In my experience, enlightenment alone is no guarantee that one's neurotic behavior will always eventually fade away on its own. If one does not take care to observe it and remove it, it will remain as an underlying condition, and may pop up at any time.
I'll give you an example. I trained with a man who, if he didn't outright claim it, certainly implied that he was enlightened (at least according to some definition that he had in mind, and I don't think it would be too far from the truth to say that he would agree with the definition mentioned above). When I first met him one of the things that impressed me was that he definitely appeared to be someone who had his life together. Things simply didn't seem to bother him too much. He was intelligent, knowledgable, polite, very capable in a wide variety of areas of life (could make and sew his own clothing, knew auto mechanics, was knowledgable about farming having grown up on a farm, as well as being capable in many other areas), a priest, and always seem to be able to answer intelligently any question you put to him.
He didn't seem to be afraid of many things and was always pushing us (his students) to achieve more and more. He knew how to probe and uncover traumatic pain in his students to help them "blow off" the energy valence that was holding them psychologically hostage. He was quite gifted in that ability. He never let anything become an insurmountable obstacle in his life (and I witness many circumstances in which he overcame things that might have laid a lesser man down in defeat). He possessed a can-do personality.
So far, he sounds like an ideal teacher, yes? Like someone that one might like to emulate. Those were all the positive impressions I had of him during the first two years of our association. He could also, to use a phrase, "throw the fear of God" into you if you did something that he didn't approve or he wanted to correct your behavior. At the same time, he was very charismatic and likeable. He could also (I later learned) be a control freak.
However, when he accepted you into his circle of associates, and you got him alone, the truth would occasionally come out. He would admit that much of his public personality was an act, and that this was how you "played the game" that life dealt you. Then, when you lived with him for seven years, as I did, you were privy to many more inconsistencies in his behavior.
Also, he was clairvoyant. Had been born with that ability. And much of the time considered it a curse (as well as a blessing) that he had to live with. It cause him a great deal of stress with which he had to deal. As a result of this resistance to being able to see "pictures" all the time and having no way to turn them off, he developed certain defense mechanisms. In order to slow the pictures down so that he could have an occasional respite from them, he found that smoking pot and drinking beer helped "bring him down" from the raw high energy level that was his normal conscious environment. As a result, he had become an alcoholic. Both the pot and the alcohol acted as a kind of depressant on his unmedicated nervous activity.
My father had been an alcoholic who socialized with other alcoholics, so I was well familiar with an alcoholic's behavior. The only thing that kept me hanging around him (in addition to wanting to soak up as much knowledge as I could) was that he also seemed to be able to function proficiently while under the influence, and for the most part did not lose his reasoning ability as many alcoholics that I knew were not able to do. Still, though, it took its toll on him over the years that I knew him, and was a contributing factor to my eventually leaving him.
From the above description, it may sound like he was a complete fake and a fraud. But that, too, would not be the whole truth either. There were many good qualities about him, and during his time, he ended up helping quite a few people over their mental illnesses, myself included. Yet, what he was never quite able to do was to do the work necessary to help himself.
I'll give you an example of one of his irrational fears. One day he and I and one of the Brothers in the Order I was in were all sitting around a kitchen table talking. A yellow jacket wasp found its way into the kitchen through a hole in the window screen and as soon as he realized it, he jumped up and started screaming for one of us to kill it. He had been stung by one when he was a child, and was deathly afraid of them. I got up very calmly, found an empty jar and was able to capture it against the wall. I put some cardboard over the end of the jar and took it outside to release it. I knew that if you didn't become excited and provoke the insect, that it likely wouldn't attack you. And that is how I remained so calm. We all had a good laugh after it was over.
But his example is an extreme example. Yet, too, it is also illustrative. By extreme I mean, he was an extraordinary person set into extraordinary circumstances. In one's lifetime, you would be lucky (or unlucky, depending on the circumstances) to meet and get to know a person like him. He's a one in a million type person. Extraordinarily rare. So, perhaps he's not an exemplary model for the question you had in mind. Yet, he does illustrate my point quite well.
The definition of enlightenment that you chose to associate yourself with – "the wisdom of emptiness" – is only applicable to lessening one's neuroses to the degree that one can maintain their awareness of this truth throughout their life's journey, and the degree to which they are able to work on eliminating their own demons, which in truth may take a lifetime to do.
But for a general answer to your question that may be applicable to the common ordinary man or woman, it is conceivable that the "enlightenment" as defined may very well eliminate many of the neurotic tendencies that are common ailments to any human being. Enough such that they are able to experience more moments of happiness and contentment than of restlessness and worry.
In the end, it is up to the practitioner to take responsibility for his (or her) own psyche's well being. There are no guarantees in this life. It's all up to you how you deal with things.
In peace,
Ian
