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By Alex Bunard, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Spirit And Sky
Top Spiritual Site
2004

I have originally posted the following article on June 24 1998 to the alt.zen newsgroup (after reading numerous discussions related to the possibility of recognizing this most uncontrollable experience). There is quite a number of people today who seem to distrust any spiritual authorities (and in a way, it's hard to blame them). The pressing question nowadays is: since I don't want to subject myself to the potential brain-washing and mind-controlling personality cultists, how can I know if I'm on the right track?

It is important to remember that it was the historical Buddha himself who left us the simple, sincere message: be the lamp unto yourself; personally examine and verify by experience anything that a spiritual authority (a guru) may tell you. And also, in the spirit of authentic Zen: do not confuse the finger with the moon that the finger is pointing at!

I am re-posting the original article here because I think it may be useful for clarifying the overall discussion on Reality.
 

At the very outset, this question (How can one recognize enlightenment?) may be meaningless to the core. However, repeatedly we come across people who ask such questions, and it really doesn't help if we try our best to enshroud this issue in the cloud of ineffability. The experience of enlightenment may be incommunicable, but the "finger pointing at the moon" may, in some circumstances, make all the difference in the world. Also, Katsuki Sekida (in his book "Zen Training") expressed his unwavering faith that one day, a zen genius will appear who will be able to elevate the practice to even higher grounds and to tear asunder some widely accepted barriers. This proposal sounds very reasonable to me, although, as of this moment, no such geniuses have made themselves known to us.

With this in mind, let us first dismiss with some of the cliché answers. Like, the perennial one: "if you have to ask for clarification or verification, then you certainly don't have it", or the other answer that is a staple of all spiritual debates: "it is self-validating beyond the trace of a doubt", etc.

The fact of the matter is that the experience of enlightenment is so overwhelmingly rich and devastatingly fulfilling that it takes a lifetime to digest, incorporate and integrate into one's everyday life. It is a small wonder, then, that volumes have been filled with the afterthoughts.

Let us start with one thought from Bhagavad Gita; in it, Krishna says to Arjuna: "What is day for me is night for all beings, and what is night for me is day for all beings." In my view, this is the best description of the enlightened mind in everyday terms. It is extremely difficult, though, to understand it thoroughly. People don't like that quote. People frown when you bring it up. It goes against the grain, and it undermines the very fabric, the very root of human existence.

However, human beings who have reached the other shore and returned to the source (that is, to everyday life) all testify that this is true. Still, it is very hard to grasp, and it's even harder to embrace it.

Consider this: in our everyday state of consciousness, we regard our body to be extremely limited. What's more, we feel that this body is the major source of all our sufferings -- the feelings of pain arise in the body, the fear of illnesses and death are intimately connected to the body, etc. On the other hand, we think bright, encouraging thoughts about our minds, and our imaginative capabilities. Whilst the body is weak, limited and prone to breaking down easily, the mind is sovereign, it is our sanctuary and can give us a glimpse of the victory over our humiliating conditions. Our conscious thoughts seemingly know no bounds -- we can fantasize to our hearts content about ideal conditions, distant lands, nice, heartwarming events and circumstances. We can easily imagine pigs with wings -- something that's impossible for the nature itself to accomplish. What can possibly stop our imagination? And look, it's not only idle daydreaming -- all the achievements that the science, technology, art and philosophy can boast of, all have their origin in our imagination.

Well, the experience of enlightenment changes all that. Strictly speaking, it turns things on their heads. Upon opening our mind's eye, we see that it is our conscious mind that is extremely limited, feeble, and prone to easily break down. Our body, which we have despised so much, turns out to be the wondrous limitless reality -- we can go anywhere, climb any mountain and hill. Our body enables us to truly live. With this provisional introduction, I'd like now to briefly outline some of the characteristics of the experience of enlightenment that are hard to find in other areas of our existence:
 

1. The experience of nothingness.

No other state of human existence gets to be permeated with the all-encompassing feeling of nothingness. Regularly, we go through life by experiencing the feelings of gain or loss. We reach for something and attain it, or we fail to attain it and then have to cope with the rejection. Or, the flip side of the coin would be that we try to avoid the unpleasant situation and manage to succeed doing it, or fail and have to face the consequences of enduring the unpleasant ordeal. Whichever the case may be, there is no place in this busy enterprise of ours for any feelings of nothingness to creep in.

Upon suddenly seeing into our true self-nature, we are left with that unique 'aroma' of nothingness. Some people think that it is a literal, black-and-white nothingness (meaning either everything becomes pitch black, or totally white, with no discernment and differentiation.) Not true. Everything is as it is, and if at that moment a car is rushing toward you, you would see it and you'd move out of its way. So, in this respect, it is important to stress that enlightenment is not a state where all the cortical neural activity has ceased. You continue to function as every other sentient being.

What is this nothingness business then all about? It is the very clear and vivid realization of nothingness of having nothing to learn, nothing to attain, nothing to explain, and nothing to do. There simply is no way that you could ever gain something or lose something. No attachments and no rejections.

In this respect, and from the standpoint of everyday consciousness, enlightenment is a very unsophisticated state of affairs (if one can use this term). To the mind that used to harbor lofty ideals and grand plans, it is a very disappointing incident indeed. You may be saying to yourself: "All these years I have spent building a more perfect head to put on top my own head, and now I see how it's been totally in vain!"
 

2. Everybody else is also enlightened

The insight that everybody and everything has surfaced to the enlightened state of mind simultaneously with you is definitely accompanying the very moment of realization. This is why you know that the reality is perfect. It is not perfect in its potentiality, it is perfect in its fully actualized state, standing with you hand in hand, face to face.
 

3. Immediate welcome

Somebody, something, somehow welcomes you. It is a silent welcome (a thundering, deafening silence), but you definitely feel it in your marrow -- your liberation is being silently celebrated throughout the reality. This is probably why we read that on many accounts people, upon attaining liberation, have exclaimed: "The patriarchs and the Buddhas have not deceived me!" Or, that people say how fish swim in the trees, birds chirp and flutter in the depths of the ocean, and mountains straddle the river.
 

4. No need to talk about it

This feeling is extremely pronounced in the first several weeks following the enlightenment. Talking, even thinking about it is felt to be as superfluous as asking a fellow passenger on a train: "Are you, too, traveling in this train?" It's meaningless. Since everybody else is also enlightened, what's there to talk about? You just live.
 

5. The profound body of spiritual literature falls short of capturing it

You may start developing a mild urge, after several days or so, to go and re-examine and compare your experience with the accounts recorded in the holy scriptures. Prepare yourself for a very disappointing experience. All the exalted words will look very pale and lifeless when put side by side with what you've been through.

Actually, the entire body of the world literature that was accumulated in thousands of years of written history looks like no more than twenty six letters of the alphabet when compared to the richness of the experience of enlightenment. Learning and mastering the entire human thought, as it is recorded in the world, would amount to no more than grasping the alphabet. From there on, you'd have to learn to form the words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books. Immeasurably much more work lies ahead.

No wonder then that accomplished zen masters speak about the stink of enlightenment (or, the sickness of it). It can get unbearably grand.
 

6. The realization of the sublime cosmic joke

Earlier we said that the all-pervading feeling of nothingness means that there is nothing to transmit, nothing to get, nothing to lose, nothing to achieve, nothing to learn, etc. Now is the time to discuss how the enlightened being realizes that the enlightenment is just a first step, and that the learning has just begun. This is the paradox, or the cosmic joke, but only in the linguistic sense. In actuality, it is something of a koan.

Another way to look at it is to recognize that what is characteristic for an enlightened being is to be in the state of the perennial beginner. This, of course, has to do with the freshness of the general attitude, and with the mind's emptiness (or the lack of experience thereof) which is making the process possible. But, the beginner can exist only in relation to the accomplished master. So, one realizes that at all times, one is the beginner and the accomplished master simultaneously. Since there is no way to express it otherwise, we refer to it as a cosmic joke.
 

7. All the questions have been answered and exhausted

Typically, a person who experiences the wondrous enlightenment is a person who's been on a long, intense journey, searching for something. Usually, such person has some pressing questions, something approaching the matters of life and death in its seriousness and importance. In addition, it is very likely that such person has been through some inordinately strong, long phase of suffering. This may not always be the case, but it's more likely than not. What the enlightenment does to such person is it dissolves all those things. Everything's gone up in a puff of smoke! The search is once and for all over (but don't fool yourself -- the new one begins!) I will make a very bold statement here and say that if, after attaining what seems to be an enlightenment, you still have some of the old questions pressing as hard as before, you may have to work some more on your breakthrough.

Not to be mistaken, though, we should stress that usually the first breakthrough is somewhat shallow and will not manage to uproot all the seeds of the habitual consciousness. So, the pressing questions will most definitely return (although they've been so gracefully dissolved), but never with the same life-and-death intensity. This time around, the suffering such thoughts may give rise to will be similar to the suffering we feel upon waking from an unpleasant dream: there are all the symptoms of suffering and uneasiness, but at the same time we don't really care, knowing that it's only a dream. As the great guitarist John McLaughlin once said: "Everything's there but nothing is traumatic."

Yours in faith,
 
Alex