THE STAGES OF ENLIGHTENMENT | Getting The Buddha Mind

It is very difficult to speak of enlightenment with detail or precision. Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Taoists, Sufis, and Jewish mystics all describe enlightenment experiences. Are all such experiences the same? So long as you practice sincerely, regardless of the path, any experience which gives you a more profound view of life, and which has a powerfully positive effect on your character, can be called “enlightenment.” But these experiences differ in their depth, and in this sense they cannot be said to be exactly the same. Even the same person will experience different levels of enlightenment at different times.

In Buddhism there are nine levels of samadhi. The first level is not true samadhi but rather a “pre-samadhi” stage. At this level you are clearly aware of the environment, yet you are not aware of your own existence. There is simply no separation between yourself and the world. There is no sense of big or small, external or internal, good or evil. Your mind is completely relaxed and in a state of delight. You feel no suffering, no tension, no vexation. Although this is only the pre-samadhi stage, it is a very good experience. Some people already call this stage “enlightenment” and there is nothing wrong with this.

One level higher than pre-samadhi is “initial samadhi.” This is the first stage that is considered genuine samadhi. In this state there is a very cool expansive feeling accompanied by radiant light and beautiful sounds.You feel that time and space do not exist. People who reach this level are attached to meditation because they desire this “joy of samadhi.” It would be very difficult for them to obey a command not to meditate. Many people would also be tempted to call this initial samadhi stage “enlightenment.” However, from the Buddhist point of view this is not genuine enlightenment, at least, not deep enlightenment. But if people want to call it enlightenment, again, there is nothing seriously wrong with it.

I have just described the first of eight levels of genuine samadhi, which is called “the stage when samadhi arises and you feel happiness and contentment.” I will not go into the other seven levels now. But it is important to know that there are many levels of samadhi. In fact, even the experience of pre-samadhi would be of great help to us in life. So it is quite all right for people who have been dramatically changed by these experiences to call it enlightenment. I do not want to negate their significance. I just want to emphasize to the serious practitioner that this is just the beginning.

Is it possible to say what genuine enlightenment is? Indeed, if Sakyamuni Buddha described himself as enlightened then he would not really be a Buddha, because a Buddha would not have such a thought. Actually, Sakyamuni only claimed to have found a way for sentient beings to liberate themselves from suffering. Besides, any description of enlightenment would be inadequate since it would use language, and enlightenment transcends language. Finally, it can even be said that there is really no such thing as genuine enlightenment, only various kinds of experiences that seem to correspond more or less to an ideal.

Nevertheless, we refer to it because in teaching the Dharma, it seems to be necessary. We have to point to a goal even if we can’t describe it.

How do you establish a real foundation that can lead to enlightenment? Very simply, you must start from the beginning and go through a process of training and practice. After a long while this may culminate in what can be called “gradual enlightenment.” When you finally reach that point, however, that single dramatic event can be considered “sudden enlightenment.” It’s like going on a trip; you have to take the first step before you can reach your goal. But after many steps, suddenly you are there. There’s no reaching a distant goal without taking many steps. In this sense there is no such thing as sudden enlightenment if by that is meant leaping right into it with no work or preparation. Nevertheless there have been many who had no prior practice, yet got enlightened very quickly. Others practice for a whole lifetime without results. Why is this?

When enlightenment comes very quickly, we call it “sudden enlightenment”; when it takes a long time, we call it “gradual enlightenment.” We say that people who get enlightened quickly have “sharp karmic roots, ” and people who do not, have “dull karmic roots.” Where do these distinctions between sudden and gradual, sharp and dull come from? In Buddhism we believe that the time span of a life includes one’s past as well as future lives. When we meet someone with sharp karmic roots, we believe that they must have practiced diligently in past lives to have such good karma. Such people have a good chance of becoming enlightened in this life, or some life in the near future. Conversely, we believe that people of dull karmic roots did not practice too well in prior lives, but may sharpen their karmic roots by being diligent now.

Taking into account that a person’s history spans over many lives, we can see there is really no difference between sudden and gradual enlightenment, or sharp and dull karmic roots. It is a very gradual process which sometimes ripens very quickly, in a flash of joyous awakening. So, as Buddhists, we believe that the fruition of practice depends on how diligently one has practiced in both the past and the present.
The important thing is whether people believe in rebirth. This belief is often difficult to accept in its entirety even among practicing Buddhists. But those who do not believe in rebirth have no way of explaining the differences in people’s achievements in the practice. They can merely imagine that some are more fortunate than others. From the standpoint of a single life, yes, there is good and bad fortune. But from the standpoint of many lives over eons of time, the force of karma applies equally to all. This is the law of karma, of cause and effect.

I would like to illustrate at least two stages of enlightenment by relating two stories. The first appears in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. It goes like this: At one time the Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng was staying at a certain temple. Two young monks there were observing a flag on a pole. One monk said, “See how the flag moves in the wind!” The other responded, “No, the flag can’t move, it is the wind that is moving.” The Sixth Patriarch, overhearing this debate, said, “Neither flag nor wind moves. Mind is moving.” Upon hearing this, the two monks realized his meaning. What level of enlightenment does this remark indicate?

The first monk’s comment that the flag was moving is a simplistic observation. The second monk, who said that the wind was moving, at least had some scientific knowledge. But the Sixth Patriarch tried to help them reach a higher stage with his remark. I just now talked about the pre-samadhi stage, when the mind was already stationary. The world still exists then, but you sense no distinction between yourself and the world. So it is at this stage that your mind and everything else is unmoving. The Sixth Patriarch was in effect telling the monks they should practice harder, since their perceptions were off the mark. After experiencing the pre-samadhi state, one will realize that it is the mind that moves, not external objects.

Another version of this story appears later. After the Sixth Patriarch, there was a sect of Ch’an called Ts’ao-tung (Soto in Japanese). Ts’ao-Shan, the second patriarch of this sect, had a nun disciple, named Miao-Hsin, whose duties at the temple included taking care of the accomodations of visiting monks and nuns. Once, seventeen monks arrived from faraway Szechuan Province to pay respects to the Second Patriarch. But that night the monks stayed up, talking about Ch’an and the Sixth Patriarch and, in particular, the story about the flag. They talked about flag moving, wind moving, and mind moving. The nun, who was listening, finally said, “Hah! Let’s see how long you people can continue moving!” She then retired to her own quarters. Hearing this remark, the monks were very impressed. They felt that the nun’s words had great significance. So they marched in single file to ask her to expound on her remark. But she only said, “All this talk about flag moving, wind moving, mind moving? There is nothing moving!” The monks were stunned.

They realized that while they eagerly awaited her words, their minds were moving. So they packed up and left in the middle of the night, feeling unqualified even to pay respects to the Second Patriarch. What level of enlightenment does this story indicate?

As I said, in the pre-samadhi stage the mind is not moving. However, it still exists. This means that the practitioner has not yet reached a genuinely enlightened state. The nun was saying that even if you get to a stage where the mind is not moving, you still have to move on to a stage where the mind itself does not exist. And so the monks, whose minds were still moving as they listened to the nun, realized that they
were at least two stages away from genuine enlightenment.

To repeat, when the mind is not moving, that is samadhi and a good state, but not genuine enlightenment. A genuine enlightenment corresponds to the state of “no mind, ” and that is the same thing as “no self.” The mind moving corresponds to a very narrow sense of self, or “small self.” The mind not moving corresponds to a very expanded sense of self, or”large self.” From the point of view of Ch’an, only the stage of “no mind” is the beginning of genuine enlightenment.

How is this “no mind” different from the stages of samadhi? There’s a great difference because throughout the nine stages sensations still exist; even in the highest stage there is a sensation of nothingness ─ no time, no space, no thoughts. People who reach this stage may very well feel that they have attained ultimate liberation, but this very feeling shows that their mind still exists. A person who practices well but without good guidance may reach the ninth level of samadhi and mistake this for final liberation. In the state of true enlightenment, however there is no feeling of being liberated, nor is there a feeling of being unliberated.

PREVIOUS: THE EXPERIENCE OF WU | Getting The Buddha Mind
NEXT: A DREAM | Getting The Buddha Mind