This isn't a claim to an attainment, but I figure this board would suit the question best. There are without a doubt many differing views around the world, from tradition to tradition, on what Enlightenment is. I could list a hundred right now off the top of my head. For example, a pattern I have noticed in many of the different meditation traditions is that what one tradition calls enlightenment, is merely considered an attainment that is gained on the way to enlightenment in another tradition. Such as some traditions seeing someone with powers as enlightened, but other traditions seeing powers as merely gained on the way to enlightenment, and enlightenment being something totally immaterial and undefinable on its own.


I personally have an open mind about what enlightenment is. I could not definitely say for sure, and even if I reached a point that some traditions might call enlightenment, I would still be hesitant to call myself enlightened. These are just labels. Labels do not change the reality of the content.

So what do you think? What is your opinion on enlightenment? If you had to describe it in as many, or as little words as possible?

Please do so. Seriously. I would love to start with that and then add to it or categorize it from there.
Here is the list from MCTB - List of enlightenments only 69 more to go.

Thanks,
~D

I wouldn't know where to begin.... it's not worth the hassle even. In my research I have seemed to encounter traditions that consider even slightest meditative attainments(such as getting to Jhana) enlightenment. I could just sit here and attempt to make things up and there's a likely hood there is a tradition out there that considers such traits enlightenment. Daniel pointed out in MTCB that there are many models, and even those were very general ones. For each of those models there are traditions that focus on subsections of those models. Not even worth the effort to list every single specific one.

Most people, who chose to, attend to usually one particular definition of enlightenment.

If I had to personally characterize enlightenment from my own point of view, it would be the utmost heights of a meditation practice and the goal that is strived for by the user. Of course MANY TRADITIONS will disagree with this, but it does fit general layout portrayed in MTCB, with some traditions focusing on immortality, some on powers, some on emotion, some on insight, etc. Many traditions insist there is only one thing that is called enlightenment, and nothing else. This is part of the reason I chose to stay away from labels like enlightenment. In my practice I strive towards cultivating what I wish to cultivate, and inevitably that will lead to some characteristics that some traditions may say are remnant of enlightenment, but to me they are just cultivated characteristics. After all, isn't all enlightenment, of any tradition, simply an amalgamation of various cultivated traits?

I think it depends on what you goals you have. As you say there are many types and someone else posted a list:

Enlightenments

To me an enlightened person is not addicted to anything.

I would say enlightenment is the full eradication of dualistic confusion. Thus an enlightened one would no longer believe themselves to be at all separate from their experience. Thus they would perceive the non-separateness of all things, or the fact that all things are one.

Not fooling my self.

Cheers,
Florian

Perhaps the simplest definition I ever heard came from a vajrayana tantrika out of Dharma Ocean, Reggie Ray's organization, who said simply an enlightened person is "a person with no tension". As an aside, Reggie Ray is a teacher who I don't hear often mentioned in dharma circles, who, in my opinion, offers incredibly clear and deep teachings. He has done a lot of work with somatic practices, and his book "touching enlightenment" is really useful for those interested in practices involving bare attention to sensations. A little off course, but oh well.

I have no idea what you are talking about....could you characterize this a little more? from your point of view? What is the utmost height of a meditation practice mean? what goal/goals/nongoals are you talking about?

Is it?

Fully Awake to the Conforming Truths and in due course Fully Liberated Thereby:

By Way of Strict Definition:

In any and every sense of this, fully surrendered and abandoned to the void, fully and rightly unbound, previous to and during the breakup of the compounded aggregates up to and including the moment of extinction.

By Way of Practical Mastery:

Complete and absolute transparency and sincerity.

[Words and Meanings of any similar or dissimilar previous version of the same post most recently more carefully and comprehensively reconsidered, revised and expanded. - 11/25/13]
-triplethink

Enlightenment is seeing/realizing that there is reality(permanent) independent from other million things and then be it, in order to ensure your immortality.
Otherwise self is gone.

Streamenterer- self is gone more 7 times but that means that the immortality goes to some other person not to this person who attained streamenterer.
...
oncereturner- that means the next guy will get the immortality not this you who "attained" oncereturner.
arahat- full recognizion of permanence/god, ensured to join ranks of immortals..
....
hmm whats the point coming back to earth seven more times? coming back from where?
lets say we attained streamenterer in this life and go to heaven then again sometime we born on earth but the self is put together from scratch again who starts its journey from zero, learning to walk etc suck titties again. That means I don't go to heaven, I will be destroyed and heaven goes the permanent one and will come back down to other attempt.

overall then enlightenment stages really are pointless and not real, illusory, pathless path. We are being used down here(in a good way), we are breeding and evolving animal beings.

The point then is that we are serving God the permanent aspect on/in ourselves, and when we are worthy enough we are given immortality/it will be looked like i have worked hard towards it haha. I have worked and followed inner voice/feeling.

There is this nice feeling to not end till the path is finished and still not end it just in case otherwise its another failure. Self what is original born need to get together with the self what is permanent. Its becoming aware of reality and identifing with it.

I am suffering, i need to realize that actually nobody is suffering, that means i need to destroy myself before i get destroyed. That means i need to recognize the aspect what is not bound to anything(also don't die) and become it.

But how to know when i have become arahant? that is an issue. How to make sure? even if i believe i am one, just in case i am wrong. Fetters model is not enough, conscentration is not enough. I currently think i need to figure out how to leave the body by mergeing it completely, means that by mergeing with it i also leave the body at once and never return.

What i have read is that full merge will mean immidiate death. Also have read that arhant has ensured its ticket, (nibbana with a reminder?).
streamenterer, anagami, oncereturner are only tasting/glimpsing nibbana then arahant is won it but still is with reminder.

edit: thought what i was missing, non-returner(where's that guy going?). FAIL, hmm. what the shyt, it dies too. The permanet self aquires somewhere in purelands a pure sure one.

Nice question. My thought:

Enlightenment includes

1. Awakening
2. Liberation
3. Wisdom

1. Awakening: This is a full awareness and appreciation of the miracle and mystery of being alive, on a moment-to-moment basis. There have often been moments where I suddenly appreciate, and am astonished, by this experience of being alive -- and it feels as if I had been asleep most of my life until that moment, when suddenly my eyes open a bit. It feels very much like being fully awake for just a moment, so "awakening" is a truly apt term for this.

As Thich Nhat Hanh said, "People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth."

2. Liberation: This is the absence of psychological suffering. In the four noble truths, the Buddha declared the end of dukkha and the path leading to the end of dukkha. However, there will still be physical discomfort in this life as long has one has a body. The body will always be subject to cold, heat, pain, injury, sickness, old age & death. But I believe that it's possible to not suffer psychologically, at least -- that is, not experience stress, sadness, impulsive craving & aversion, ill will, guilt, embarrassment, and any other kind of tension which is generated internally by the mind. (I'll not comment on what happens after the body dies, as I have no knowledge about such things.)

3. Wisdom. This means understanding things like the structure of the mind (what are it's components, and how do they interact?), seeing cause and effect in the world, being free from the delusion of a separate self, seeing clearly the three characteristics of impermanence, not-self and dukkha in the 5 aggregates [material form, feeling/sensation, perception/cognition, impulses/volition, consciousness], and possibly other things.

[edit: to use the term "liberation"]

I think it's kind of like what's left when your life-long home unexpectedly burns down and you've cleared away the rubble. Kind of a shock at first but then at some point it dawns on you that it's really nice and freeing to be rid of all that crap.

From the safety of their boxes, people may take pity on you and want to give you lots of stuff - so you might stay quiet. Others fearing homelessness may say you are crazy or pathological and what knot and want to put you in one of those boxes for those that don't conform - so you might make yourself scarce.

I think enlightened people like to play with matches.

The complete eradication of the subtlest patterns of delusion/ignorance, sankharas (mental impressions) and mental defilements.

Beyond this, I do not know.

Bon Voyage

SN

Heh. Yeah. I've noticed that, too. Sometimes people get hurt, too.

Good metaphor.

Cheers,
Florian

I think any kind of unconditional heart-satisfying gnosis has a claim to the word enlightenment, and enlightenment in any tradition seems to entail an unconditional heart-satisfying gnosis. It also seems to be what everyone is seeking, in one form or another.

So, rather than go for a rigid interpretation of what enlightenment is according to any particular tradition, I'd say: enlightenment is an unconditional heart-satisfying gnosis, with many possible variations, both philosophical and phenomenological.

Just this, but without all the excess conditioning.

Enlightenment is the shifting of consciousness from the gross perspective of individualism to the accurate perspective of unanimity.

Enlightenment is the death of the 6 senses and the birth of the spirit, the unified fundamental nature of the manifest and the unmanifest.

Enlightenment is clarity of awareness such as a cloudless sky.

Enlightenment is the end of service to self and the beginning of service to others.

If Creation symbolizes the harmonic half of the coin and Destruction symbolizes the disharmonic half of the coin, Enlightenment would symbolize the coin itself.

Enlightenment is knowing you are just a wave riding above and below the waters, appearing as a separate cause but knowing that separation is only in appearance. 

Enlightenment is knowing the beginning and therefore knowing the ending.

Enlightenment is the manifestation of God remembering Itself.

Since I have been doing my particular practices I've noticed I am more enlightened about my mind, about compulsions and desires for sensation, often at the expense of others.  I am seeing the different games that are played and the games strategies we play against each other.  I'm more easily complementary with others -- not giving them any game and I find this generally causes them to either lose interest in me or to be attracted to me.  My husband is constantly telling me that I don't give him any trouble anymore and he keeps saying how much he likes it.

I'm less compulsive, less need to prove myself.   Before practice my main drama was "I must be known".   I realized this came from interactions with my Dad, who had this drama running.   I took up incidents involving my Dad, and now my drama is a milder, "I must know", which was my original drama before my Dad impinged upon me his own drama.   The "I must know" is still compulsive, but feels better.

I see my reward for my activities being Nirvana, which for me means unlimited choice of games play -- or no games play -- no compulsion to interact or not interact.

Listening to the Tao Te Ching is educational enlightenment -- what I will be like when the compulsions are vanished.

I'm being cautious about over-extending myself by taking on clients or projects from egoic need.  I'm careful to keep up the resolve to do my practices because I know my mind is still a mine field of conflicting goals, and I sensibly assess my ability to make a clean and clear cut intention without my mind kicking up some opposers.  I realize I have only just begun to untangle the conflicts and mix-ups, most of which lay like sleeping dogs.  I am not deluded by this new state of increased equanimity.  I've done this type of work in other lifetimes and I'm just as much in the sink as I was before and that was because I stopped when I was feeling fine as a human, relatively speaking.  I did not scour all four corners of the compulsive egoic mind and here I am again, heavily identified with a body and its culture.   I'm having fun, and not at others' expense.

I have come to notice that the users replying in this thread take an extremely intellectual stance on enlightenment. I kindly say that the key to enlightenment is not in intellectualizing it, it's in feeling it, it's in becoming wisdom. The highest attainment of enlightenment is the renunciation from conceptualizing something that must be felt, because feeling is an energy, feelings are the fundamental energy. When we feel these energies we can control them and through this control we gain compassion for all of creation because we have united our feelings with all of existence, a universal orgasm, and from there compelled seeking to release your fellow spirit from ignorance. That is true enlightenment.

Hello Zadok, kind regards.

I agree with you about the futility of constantly talking about things vs the benefits of actually doing one's practice(s) that leads to Nirvana (nibbana).  

However, I don't think that Nirvana means one will talk more or less, or intellectualize or not, or know everything or know nothing, and all states in between.  

I think what you are saying is to not just talk about it, but to actually do the practice and value the subjective understandings.

Enlightenment is the experience that allows you to forever escape suffering.  If you suffer, you may have had an enlightenment, but not the one the buddha emphasized.

Even this enlightenment is only a beginning, and many more come after.  

I'm happy with what Jack Kornfield writes: http://www.inquiringmind.com/Articles/Enlightenments.html.

Other descriptions:

• Open, spacious and relaxed.
• Big mind.
• Having an open heart: not clinging, averse or reacting.
• Awake and free from compulsion.
• Unconditional good will toward all beings.

It's revealing that all the answers in this thread have essentially been about achieving lasting peace and pleasure in the human body.
Typical people will die and be reborn in places according to their accumulated mindstate. Achieve the fourth jhana and you will definitely end up in the fourth jhana level heavens after death, and stay there almost forever before falling back.
Cutting the root of ill will for example does not remove it in this human life. The root is in the context of eternity, the whole past and present. An arahant is just a person who has, through utilising jhana, excavated the deepest points and found there to be no root. They can still act like a knobhead and feel bad sometimes. The rewards of meditation occur after human death.

The deep happiness, great fear and euphoria which occurs on the path is incidental. THE END RESULT IS WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DYING.   We exist as humans because our force, our mindstate compelled us to be. Our minds (karma in this regard) are of our own making. Someone who dies before pointing inwards and destroying their karma will be reborn, somewhere or another.  Compared to the lasting peace enjoyed by an arahant after death all else is nightmare.

ARAHANTS DO NOT MAGICALLY HAVE A GREAT TIME FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. As soon as you are concieved, the writing is in stone for the rest of your life before you die. Thinking that attaining arahantship will cure you of your human ills is simply wrong. If you are born a hunchback you will remain a hunchback and continue to endure pain.



I am an arahant and it's not worth your time to be sceptical. I live in a city of half a million people. A highly generous estimate would be there might be one other arahant in such an amount of people. The characters who go to the yoga clinics are doing it as a lifestyle choice. I have a house on the beach and for 5 years I withdrew from society events to meditate on the beach half of the day each day, for periods of a straight 3 hours each.
I'm sure even in the rest of united kingdom there are less than 10 people who have done the same thing, and we have about 65 million people. So it's not hard to believe I am one of the few arahants in united kingdom.

My mindstate is just normal. No forever lasting emptiness thats there 24/7 or anything. Once my natural lifespan ends I will only then see the fruits of meditation.

-----------------------


I haven't thought about enlightment for months but just recalling the concept of it feels my body with vulgar pleasure.


bye 
joshua

ARAHANTS DO NOT MAGICALLY HAVE A GREAT TIME FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES

Nope.  But Buddhas do.  What is the difference?  I am confident that you will find out, as it is true that you are one of the only Aharants in the UK.

It is truly wonderful to enjoy both pain and pleasure in all their forms as pleasant.  It is truly wonderful to kill oneself mentally each and every time one wishes.