Having discussed Citta and its role in enlightenment, we now verify enlightenment in the Buddhist way. Globally, many people teach enlightenment, and enlightenment can mean various things to followers of different teachings. However, since Buddha defines enlightenment as a “no thought” mentality, the goal of enlightenment in Buddhism is for the enlightenment seeker to become enlightened through meditation by achieving a “no thought” mentality. When enlightened, the person should also show some understanding of Buddha’s teachings on the Ultimate Reality, a realm of quiescent, “no thought” mentality that Buddha deems an enlightened state.
This post examines the enlightenment experience of a contemporary American, Adyashanti. In the next post, the discussion will be on the enlightenment experiences of two prominent monks in Tang Dynasty China, both of whom verified the same hallmark feature that Adyashanti did: the vanishing of the universe upon their enlightenment.
Verifying the existence of the Ultimate Reality through third-party enlightened individuals is critical, as it also demonstrates that faith in Buddhism is not blind. With Ultimate Reality realized through meditation and non-luminosity understood through the quantum energy field, and with consciousness in the quantum energy field, no one should consider faith in Buddhism blind.
Adyashanti, “meaning ‘primordial peace,” is “an American born Stephen Gray on October 26, 1962,” and a “former spiritual teacher and author from the San Francisco Bay Area who offered talks, online study courses, and retreats in the United States and abroad.”
“At age 25, Gray began experiencing a series of transformative spiritual awakenings. While sitting alone on his cushion, Gray describes how he had a classic kensho, or awakening experience, in which he “penetrated to the emptiness of all things and realized that the Buddha I had been chasing was what I was.” “Besides his meditations and prayer, he also studied books about Christian mystics and the Gospels.” “For the next few years, he continued his meditation practice while also working at his father’s machine shop. In addition to sitting, he spent many hours in coffee shops writing answers to questions that spontaneously came to him. Finally, at 31, Gray had an experience of awakening that put to rest all his questions and doubts. In 1996, Adyashanti began teaching with the approval of his teacher, Arvis Joen Justi.” Today, “he is the author of numerous books, CDs, and DVDs, and, together with his wife Mukti, is the founder of Open Gate Sangha, Inc., a nonprofit organization established in 1996 which supports and makes available his teachings.”
In this guided meditation, “What is the Nature of Self?” Adyashanti stated his goal: “In this meditation, we are looking at the nature of self, or what we call ourselves. The nature of this thing called me. In this meditation, we are looking for ourselves. We are looking inside, so the attention gets directed inside. Where is this thing called self, me? Surely, it’s not simply a thought, a feeling. Surely, one is not simply a body, for there is always something more primary. There is what is seeing the thought. That which is feeling the feeling. That is that which is aware of the body.” “So, the attention gets directed inward. What is that that notices the thought? What is that that is feeling the feeling? What is it that is aware of the body?” “What is this thing called me, called I?“
Yet, “as we direct our attentions inward, we find something unexpected. The more we look for the essential nature of ourselves, the more we look for ourselves, the less we find.” “This elusive self never seems to appear. The more we look for ourselves, the less we find of it. Instead, we seem to bump into an ineffable mystery, a silence, a void.” “And yet, what is it that notices that void, that silence? What is it that is aware?” “Can we find a someone? Can we find a something?” “As we look from our own experience, we keep not locating this owner of awareness, this owner of consciousness, this me. And in looking at our whole definition of ourselves, it’s wordlessly called into question. This whole definition of ourselves, however we define it, must be called into question because when we look for it, we don’t find it.” “We have assumed that we are a something and a somebody.”
Finally, Adyashanti acknowledged, “You are presented with a mystery. You can’t find yourself, and yet, whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware. Whatever you may be, whatever you are, obviously is here.” “This confuses the mind because the mind only thinks in terms of you being a thing, being a someone.” “As we look in this way, our whole notion of the self can begin to transform because you begin to see for your own self that what you are isn’t a somebody, isn’t a something, it cannot be found.” “So what is there in the absence of somebody? What is there in the absence of something? This that notices the absence of the self, this awareness that notices the complete lack of entity is an opportunity to open to what you are beyond a thought. Maybe you are not a thing at all, a somebody at all. It cannot be found. So, maybe, just maybe, you never were a something or a somebody. Maybe it couldn’t be found because it doesn’t exist.” “What can this thing called I be?”
In summary, when Adyashanti searched for the nature of his being, he was “presented with a mystery” because “you can’t find yourself.” Instead, he found himself in a “void.” However, even though he couldn’t find himself, he was aware that “whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware.” Furthermore, even with “the absence of somebody,” “the absence of things,” he was aware that the “void” he was in is an “ineffable mystery,” with a “complete absence of definition.”
In other words, with everything absent, the only thing left with Adyashanit was his awareness.
Adyashahti now teaches that “You Are Awareness” and “you and awareness are not two different things.” Additionally, Adyashanti teaches that “resting in awareness is not a state of doing, it is a state of being.” Indeed, in awareness, Adyashanti has found the true nature of his being.
Let’s discuss what Adyashanti’s enlightenment reveals to us.
1) Awareness – The Nature of the Self
Adyashanti began the meditation seeking the answer to “What is the Nature of the Self?” At the end of meditation, he got his answer, “You are Awareness.”
2) Samadhi and Experiential Content.
One can be confident that Adyashanti did not understand these relationships through studying. If he did, there would be no need for him to inquire it through meditation.
Instead, as discussed in Post 7, Adyashanti’s knowledge could only have come from the “experiential contents” when, upon his enlightenment, he encountered the state of Samadhi. As discussed then, when in Samadhi, the enlightened individual can become one with Citta to form a non-dualistic state of enlightened mentality, with his enlightened mind serving as the “experiencing subject,” and Citta serving as the “experienced object.”
When the two minds become one, the enlightened individual can access the “experiential contents” embedded in Citta, i.e., knowledge about nature. In Adyashanti’s case, that knowledge about Citta is that it is “Nothing but Awareness,” because, as a quiescent mentality, Citta is “Nothing but Awareness.”
However, “you are awareness” applies not only to his own “physical” self but also to everything in the universe deemed “physical,” because all of them disappear. In other words, the nature of everything in the universe is also awareness. Indeed, as discussed in Post 4, this is what Buddha teaches in Mohe Zhiguan: “in the cosmos, there is only Citta and Rupa, citta gives rise to Rupa, and all are essential mentality (Chinese:不出色，心, 色從心造, 全體是心).”
The disappearance of all things in the universe, of course, speaks to their illusory nature. Indeed, this is what Buddha teaches in the Diamond Sūtra.
“All conditioned phenomena are like the illusions of dreams or shadows of bubbles (Chinese: 一切有為法, 如夢幻泡影),
Like dew or lightning, this is how to view them correctly.” (Chinese: 如露亦如電).”
3) The Void – No Empirical Forms
As discussed in Post 6, the “void” Adyashanti experienced is known as Emptiness in Buddhism.
Emptiness (Chinese: 空), according to The Dictionary Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, also known as “void,” is a “central notion of Buddhism….Shunyata is often equated with the absolute in the Mahayana since it is without duality and empirical forms.”
Indeed, the “void” Adyashanti experienced existed because there were no empirical forms in the “void” for him to experience, i.e., there was nothing to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Or, as Adyashanti said, there is no “somebody” or “something.”
Upon enlightenment, a person becomes an Arhat (Chinese=阿羅漢), which according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, in Sanskrit, means a “worthy one” who has attained the highest of the Hinayana, that of “no-more-learning” in the supramunda path, and who possesses the certainty that all defilements and passions have been extinguished and will not again in the future. The fruition of arhatship is nirvana with a vestige of conditions (Romanized Sanskrit: sopadhishesha-nirvana (Chinese: 有餘涅槃).”
According to the Mahayana tradition, Arhats have overcome the afflictive obstruction, one of the two obstructions that must be overcome; the second obstruction is the cognitive, or noetic obstruction.
Avarana (Chinese: 障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘obstruction,’ ‘obstacle,’ or ‘hindrance.’ In Mahayana literature, two types of avarana are commonly described: ‘obstructions that are afflictions,’ or ‘afflictive obstructions,’ and ‘cognitive or noetic obstructions, viz., ‘obstructions to omniscience.'”
- Afflictive Obstructions (Romanized Sanskrit=klesavarana; Chinese: 煩惱障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, are “in Sanskrit, obstructions that are the afflictions, and first of the two obstructions that the Mahayana holds must be overcome in order to complete the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood.” Furthermore, “overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).”
- Cognitive or Noetic Obstructions (to Omniscience) (Romanized Sanskrit: jneyavarana; Chinese: 所知障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “The second of the two categories of obstructions, together with the afflictive obstructions, that must be overcome in order to perfect the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood. In the Yogacara and Madhyamaka systems, cognitive obstructions are treated as subtle hindrances that serve as the origin of the afflictive obstructions and result from fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality. According to Yogacara, because of the attachment deriving ultimately from the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena, conceptualization and discrimination arise in the mind, which lead in turn to pride, ignorance, and wrong views. Based on these mistakes in cognition, the individual engages in defiled actions, such as anger, envy, etc., which constitute the afflictive obstructions. The afflictive obstructions may be removed by followers of Sravaka (Chinese: 聲聞), Pratyekabuddha (Chinese: 緣覺/獨覺), and beginning Bodhisattva paths by applying various antidotes or counteragents (Pratipajksa) to the afflictions (Klesa); overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth. The cognitive obstructions, however, are more deeply ingrained and can only be overcome by advanced bodhisattvas who seek instead to achieve Buddhahood by perfecting their understanding of emptiness. Buddhas, therefore, are the only class of beings who have overcome both types of obstructions and thus are able simultaneously to cognize all objects of knowledge in the universe; this is one of the sources of their unparalleled skills as teachers of sentient beings. The jneyavarana are therefore sometimes translated as “obstructions to omniscience.”
In other words, the reason a person suffers from affliction is because of “the attachment deriving ultimately from the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena.” As mentioned in the very start of Post 1, it means that “If you look out the window, see a beautiful world, and deem it real,” you suffer from attachment and affliction. The “you,” of course, refers collectively to humanity. The reason, as will be discussed in the section on non-luminosity, is that enlightenment is innate in humanity.
“Defined actions” are generally categorized into three groups, known in Buddhism as the three poisons (Romanized Sanskrit: trivasa, Chinese: 三毒):
- Desire or Greed (Romanized Sanskrit=raga or lobha; Chinese: 貪)
- Hatred, Aversion, or Ill Will (Romanized Sanskrit: dvesa; Chinese: 瞋)
- Confusion, Benightedness, or Foolishness (Romanized Sanskrit=Moha, Chinese: 癡)
As defined in Arhat, an Arhat enters “nirvana with a vestige of conditions (Romanized Sanskrit=sopadhishesha-nirvana (Chinese: 有餘涅槃).” In other words, Arhats are forever liberated from cycles of rebirth, also known as samsara (Chinese: 輪迴).
Of course, being liberated from the cycles of rebirth is a tremendous achievement and a huge reward for the enlightened. However, Arhats have yet to overcome cognitive obstructions to fulfill Buddha’s soteriological goal. As defined in cognitive obstructions, it takes “advanced bodhisattvas who seek instead to achieve Buddhahood by perfecting their understanding of emptiness” to overcome them. In Post 28, we will discuss how Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, an advanced bodhisattva, overcame his cognitive obstruction by understanding the equality of emptiness and the Five Aggregates, thereby satisfying the Buddha’s soteriological goal and becoming a Tathagata.
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