Reply To: Questions about Enlightenment

#49911
Lal
Keymaster

Hello taryal,

1. You wrote: ‘The 5 aggregates are discrete, inconstant and illusory, i.e. they give the illusion of an “experiencer”. When one wakes up to this reality, they become enlightened.”

  • That is not what the Buddha taught. Those who say those things are the ones who mistranslate “anatta” as “no-self” and further interpret that to mean there is no “experiencer.”
  • There have always been two wrong views on two extremes: (i) One with uccheda ditthi believes that there is no rebirth, and with the death of the physical body, nothing remains or continues. (ii) The other extreme is to have “sassata ditthi“, i.e., to believe that there is a “permanent soul/aathma” associated with a person. Those are the only two views about existence in the absence of a Buddha.
  • The Buddha rejected both. A “person” exists as long as that “lifestream” is sustained via Paticca Samuppada (i.e., until the root causes of greed, hate, and ignorance exist in mind.) Conditions brought about by sensory inputs trigger those root causes. At the end of the Noble Path is Arahanthood. An Arahant has no greed, hate, and ignorance left in mind. At the death of the Arahant, he/she attains Nibbana and will not be reborn anywhere in this world of 31 realms. See “What Reincarnates? – Concept of a Lifestream”.

2. This question is not applicable per #1 above. Any human has free will. 

3. You wrote: “An arahant will lose the perception of self upon becoming enlightened.”

  • This is obviously wrong. Didn’t the Buddha (and many Arahants) live for many years and function as anyone else? One cannot live without perception (sanna.)

4. You wrote: “It seems like an arahant’s mindset won’t be discernible to us till we become enlightened ourselves.”

  • An Arahant‘s mind is not hard to comprehend. It is like any other mind, but without a trace of greed, hate, and ignorance.

5. You asked: “It is said that an enlightened mind can only be sustained by a dense human body. If so, how was Buddha able to travel to higher realms? I believe he used his mental body to do so. After leaving his physical body, should he not have instantly attained Parinibbana?”

  • There is a subtle “manomaya kaya” that sustains the physical body. Until the death of the physical body, that manomaya kaya is intrinsically connected to that physical body. But it is possible for the manomaya kaya to “come out of the physical body” temporarily. The Buddha traveled to Brahma realms with the manomaya kaya. While his manomaya kaya was in the Brahma realm, his physical body was on Earth, but they remained connected. That is exactly what happens in NDE situations described in the link below. Those experiencing NDE have their manomaya kayas move out of their physical bodies.
  • Even these days, many people can experience NDE. See, for example, “Near-Death Experiences (NDE): Brain Is Not the Mind.”

Buddha Dhamma is deep. It takes an effort to understand “previously unheard teachings,” as the Buddha stated.