There are three ways in which words such as “enlightenment” are used, and these may also relate to the scopes of the Three Trainings.
However, I feel that this is a dangerous habit, and I strongly advocate using enlightenment and similar words to refer only to ultimate insights, meaning the stages of awakening in the high and traditional sense.
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While we may hear people speak of committing “enlightened” actions, or of thinking in “enlightened” ways, I have come to the conclusion that for spiritual training we either need to be very careful to explain that these are very conventional and relative definitions of enlightenment or not use such language at all.
Some traditions give some of the very high concentration states an ultimate status. I also advocate strongly against this, as did the Buddha.
These states are so compelling and seductive for some people that they imagine they are enlightened in the non-dual sense when they are merely having temporary unitive or unknowing experiences
(experiences where reality did something that was sufficiently lacking in specific qualities or intensity to be clearly known). Thus, I strongly suggest that such attainments never be associated with the language of enlightenment in any way.
Thus, I define enlightenment as permanently eliminating the basic perceptions that either duality or unity is the answer, and thus attaining to permanent non-dual realizations that are unshakable. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how things manifest and everything to do with some basic understanding of those things. I devote an entire chapter to explaining this more fully, but it is important for the discussion in between here and there to have been introduced to the strict and formal definition of enlightenment that I will be using.
These frameworks can also be useful for looking at other common issues such as thoughts of past and future that people run into when they get into meditation. Confusion arises when these pieces of advice are applied outside of the scope for which they were meant.
When working on our ordinary lives, i.e. within the scope of the first training, the content of our thoughts on past and future is very helpful, in fact absolutely necessary. With experience we generate a body of memory of what leads to what in this world, and with our predictive ability we can use this to try to craft a well-lived life, however we define that. However, when working on training in concentration, such thoughts are generally ignored or suppressed by deep concentration on another object. When doing insight practices, it doesn’t matter so much if thoughts of past or future arise, so long as we ignore their content, notice that they occur now, and notice the true nature of the individual 56
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sensations that make up those thoughts. It is common to hear of people trying to apply one piece of advice to a scope for which it was never intended, like trying to stop thinking when trying to deal with their daily life. This sort of practice would simply promote stupidity, and there is already more than enough of that. In short, when evaluating or applying a piece of spiritual advice, make sure you understand the specific context for which it was designed.
I thought it would be fun to envision the Three Trainings as characters and have them critique each other and then talk with each other about ways that they could reinforce each other. I will do this in the form of a short play in one act. While I will exaggerate and dichotomize their issues with each other for comic effect, I do think that each of the points made has some validity. Hopefully, you will see through the humor to the important points being illustrated.
Curtain opens. Morality, Concentration and Insight are sitting in a bar having a discussion. A large stack of empty shot glasses sits in front of each character.
Morality: You navel gazing, self-absorbed, good-for-nothing freaks! I go out and work hard all day long to make this world fit to live in while you two sit on those sweat covered cushions and cultivate butt-rot! I go out and make good money, keep food in our mouths, a roof over our heads, deal with our stuff, and you go out and spend our money up at that freak-house you call a meditation center when there is important work to be done! I want to work on my tan!
Insight: Who are you calling “self-absorbed?” I can’t be self absorbed by definition! If it wasn’t for me, you would be so stuck in dualistic illusion that you wouldn’t know your ass from your elbow, you conceptually fixated, emotionally mired, bound-up-in-manifestation-looking, twelve sandwich eating…
Concentration: Yeah! And by the way, Mr. Oh-so-worldly, you
should learn to lighten up sometimes! Work your fingers to the bone, whaddaya get? Bony fingers. That’s what. And that goes for you too, Mr. Enlightenment! If you didn’t have my skills, you’d be shit out of luck, unable to focus, and dead boring to boot! Who brings up the deep joy and wondrous mind states around here? I do, that’s who, so you two should just shut up!
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Insight: Oh, yeah? Well, Mr. La-la Land, if it weren’t for me, we’d be so caught up in your transient highs that we might just get arrested.
Somebody call the law! You two are so easily sucked into blowing things out of proportion that without me you two would have all the perspective of a dung heap!
Morality: Dung heap? You’d be lucky to have a dung heap if it wasn’t for me, you emptiness-fixated, I’m-oh-so-non-conceptual vibration-junkie. What good is having perspective if you don’t go out and use it?
Concentration: Yeah! And speaking of perspective, I give you guys more perspective than you have any idea of. Not only do I provide a bridge between our resident Save-the-world Poster Child and the Void-fixated Flicker-boy, I help you two get your twitchy little minds right! I help the Boy Scout here gain more and deeper insights into his screwed up emotional world and “stuff” than he ever could have on his own, and if it wasn’t for me, Mr. Ultimate would just be spinning his wheels in the parking lot! And further more, I am fun, fun, fun!
Insight: Yeah, maybe, but you don’t know when to stop, you
otherworldly space-case! If Relative Man and I hadn’t pulled you out of the clouds, you’d still be lost in some formless realm thinking you had half a clue. I’m the one with the clue! There ain’t nothin’ in the world like what I know, and without it, you two’s whole pathetic little sense of identity would be bound up in a world beyond your control. I am your salvation, and you know it!
Morality: Beyond my control my ass! I make things happen in this world, great things! I’m the one that really gets us somewhere! I make a difference! Who cares if there is no self when people are starving in Africa?
Insight: Who cares is exactly my point! There is no separate, permanent self that cares!
Morality: “I know you are, but what am I?”
Insight: Exactly!
Morality: Jerk!
Concentration: See? You guys gotta' chill out, get some balance and peace in your life. Take a few moments and just breathe! Leave your worries and cares behind, and fly the friendly skies! It’s free, legal, and 58
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oh-so-recommended. You can quit whenever you like! All your friends are doing it! Come on, just relax!
Morality: All right, Fly Guy, when are we going to deal with our emotional issues, huh? When are we going to save the world? We can’t just go on vacation forever.
Insight: Your problem is that you can’t see the sensations that make up these “issues” as they really are, so you make such a big friggin’ deal out of them. I mean, I see your point, but you are so reactive and blind that you are hardly the one for the job. You solidify these things into huge monsters, forget you have done this, and then freak out when they come running after you. You need a clue, you confused little shrew!
Morality: Oh, yeah! Don’t think that just because you can see the true nature of the issues that make up your reality that you won’t still have stuff to deal with! Now, that’s delusion!
Insight: It’s even more deluded to think that you can really have a completely healthy perspective on anything without me, you Monster Maker!
Concentration: Dude, do you see those angels floating through the wall?
Morality: Where in the Hell did I find you freaks?
Insight: Short memory, eh? You found us when you realized you couldn’t do it on your own. You needed us to really be able to do the job you wanted to do, to really make a difference and be as happy and effective as you could be.
Morality: Yeah? And when can I get rid of you?
Concentration and Insight: When you have mastered us completely.
Jinx, one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!
Morality: Bartender…
THE END.
If you find that you have gotten to the point when you cannot laugh at your own path, stop immediately and figure out why. I hope you have found this little, irreverent dialogue entertaining. While obviously a bit ridiculous, these sorts of tensions can arise until we really have a solid grasp of each training. When we have this, they will work together as they were meant to.
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8.THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
The Four Noble Truths, suf ferin g, its cau se , its end , and the path that leads to its end , are fundamental to the teachings of the Buddha. He was fond of summarizing his whole teaching in terms of them. Actually, when asked to be really concise, he would just say the first and third: suffering and the end of suffering. This was what he taught. Like the other little lists here, they have great profundity on many levels and are worth exploring in depth.
TRUTH NUMBER ONE: SUFFERING
The first truth is the truth of suf ferin g. Hey, didn't we just see that in the Three Characteristics? Yes! Isn't that great! We also just saw it in The Three Trainings Revisited. There must have been something important about it for it to start off something called the Four Noble Truths that is not immediately obvious. Why do we practice? Suffering, that's why! It is just that simple. Why do we do anything? Suffering!
Plenty of people balk at this, and say that they do lots of things because of reasons other than suffering. I suppose that to be really correct I should add in ignorance and habit, but these are intimately connected to suffering. This is worth investigating in depth. Perhaps there is something more to this first truth that they may have missed on first inspection, as it is a deep and subtle teaching. Actually, to understand this first truth is to understand the whole of the spiritual path, so take the time to investigate it.
The basic gist of the truth from a relative point of view is that we want things to be other than they are, and this causes pain. We want things that are nice to be permanent, we want to get what we want and avoid what we don't want. We wish bad things would go faster than they do, and these are all contrary to reality. We all die, get sick, have conflicts, and constantly seem to be running around either trying to get something (greed), get away from something (hatred), or tune out from reality all together (delusion). We are never perfectly happy with things just as they are. These are the traditional, relative ways in which suffering is explained, but these definitions can only take us so far.
At the most fundamental level, the level that is the most useful for doing insight practices, we wish desperately that there was some
The Four Noble Truths
separate, permanent self, and we spend huge amounts of time doing our best to prop up this illusion. In order to do this, we habitually ignore lots of useful information about our reality and give our mental impressions and simplifications of reality much more importance than they are necessarily due. It is this illusion that adds a problematic element to the normal and understandable ways in which we go about trying to be happy. We constantly struggle with reality because we misunderstand it, i.e. because reality misunderstands itself.
“So what's new?” one might say. Good point! It isn't new, is it? This has been the whole of our life! The big question is “Is there some understanding which makes a difference?” Yes, or we wouldn't be bothering with all of this spirituality stuff. Somewhere down in our being there is a little voice that cries, “There is another way!” We can find this other way.
Connecting with the truth of suffering can actually be very motivating for spiritual practice. Most traditional talks on the Buddha's teachings begin with this. More than just being motivating for spiritual practice, tuning into suffering is spiritual practice! Many people start meditating and then get frustrated with how much suffering and pain they experience, never knowing that they are actually starting to understand something. They cling to the ideal that insight practices will produce peace and bliss and yet much of what they find is suffering. They don’t realize that things on the cushion tend to get worse before they get better. Thus, they reject the very truths they must deeply understand to obtain the peace they were looking for and thus get nowhere. They reject their own valid insights that they have obtained through valid practice. I suspect that this is one of the greatest and most common stumbling blocks on the spiritual path.
There is a flip side to suffering which can help, and that is compassion, the wish for there to not be suffering. Wherever there is suffering there is compassion, though most of the time somewhat twisted by the confused logic of the process of ego. More on this in a bit, but it leads directly to the second Noble Truth, the cause of suffering.
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TRUTH NUMBER TWO: “DESIRE”
The Second Noble Truth is that the cause of suffe rin g is
desire , also rendered as craving or attachment. We want things to be other than they are because we perceive the world through the odd logic of the process of ego, through the illusion of the split of the perceiver and the perceived. We might say, “Of course we want things to be great and not unpleasant! What do you expect?” The problem isn't actually quite in the desire for things to be good and not be bad in the way that we might think; it is, in fact, just a bit subtler than that.
This is a really slippery business, and many people can get all into craving for non-craving and desiring non-attachment. This can be useful if it is done wisely and it is actually all we have to work with. If common sense is ignored, however, desiring non-attachment may produce neurotic, self-righteous, repressed ascetics instead of balanced, kind meditators. A tour of any monastery or spiritual community will likely expose you to clear examples of both sides of this delicate balance. So, don't make too much of a problem out of the fact that it seems that one must desire something in order to seek it. This paradox will resolve itself if we are able to experience reality in this moment clearly.
“Craving,” “attachment,” and “desire” are some of the most
dangerous words that can be used to describe something that is actually much more fundamental than these seem to indicate. The Buddha did talk about these conventional forms of suffering, but he also talked about the fundamental suffering that comes from some deep longing for a refuge that involves a separate or permanent self. We imagine that such a self will be a refuge, and so we desire such a self, we try to make certain sensations into such a self, we cling to the fundamental notion that such a self can exist as a stable entity and that this will somehow help. The side effects of this manifest in all sorts of addictions to mind states and emotions that are not helpful, but these are side effects and not the root that cause of suffering that the Buddha was pointing to.
