Buddhism: From the Top, Down

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So let's begin with the most interesting and exciting aspect of Buddhism; mysterious enlightenment! When I first entered a Zen monastery almost thirty years ago, I was very egotistical, and thought that since I was so smart, I could become enlightened in a few weeks, maybe a month or two at worst. Hah.

I must admit, after six months of strenuous effort, something great did happen, but it was only the first step of a long and interesting journey. And after that first experience at Shasta Abbey, I couldn't see myself ever doing anything not involved with meditation.

So I started at the top, and over the years had to work my way back down to complete the steps that I was in too much of a hurry to take at the time. But I know that you won't believe me, so I will begin where I began, with enlightenment! First, however, allow me to give you a little background, if I may.

The Buddha once said that listening is similar to a vessel. If a vessel has a lid on it, nothing can enter. This would be likened to someone who listens to the Buddha speaking, but has his or her mind already made up.

And if a vessel has a hole in it, this would be likened to someone who hears but cannot retain a word, in which case the teaching is useless.

And if a vessel has some spoiled milk at the bottom, then any new milk that is introduced will be soon spoiled and useless. This is likened to someone who listens to the Buddha for the purposes of using the information to gain knowledge, which they can then use for their own recognition, instead of using the knowledge to train their minds and become enlightened for the good of all humanity.  

In some religions, faith might be paramount, or meditation and prayer. In Buddhism, however, faith is preliminary, and meditation is but a method. Transcendent wisdom is the goal.

Buddhism is broken down into three main components: Morality, mental development, and wisdom.

Morality, the first component, is separated into Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood.

Right speech involves restraint from lying, slandering, backbiting, and gossiping.

Right action involves not killing, lying, stealing, inappropriate sex, and intoxicants.

Right livelihood involves abstaining from slaughter, slave trade, arms, poisons and intoxicants.

Mental development is broken down into Right Effort, Right mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Right Effort involves enthusiasm, confidence and not being too tight or too loose. Also, Right Effort involves preventing unwholesome thoughts from arising, rejecting unwholesome thoughts once arisen, cultivating wholesome thoughts, and maintaining wholesome thoughts.

Right Mindfulness involves moment to moment awareness. Also, investigating the Four Foundations of mindfulness which are; body, feelings, consciousness, and mental objects such as thoughts and memories.

Wisdom is broken down into Right Thought, and Right Understanding.

Right Thought involves cultivating renunciation, love and compassion, avoiding either attachment or aversion, and observing the suffering involved with the cycles of birth and death.  

Right Understanding is at two levels; happiness and prosperity that involves this lifetime and the next, and freedom or nibbana, which is the ultimate aim of Buddhism. Right Understanding is not intellectual at the second level, but insightful. It involves seeing into the nature of things, enlightenment and nibbana. It involves the Three characteristics of existence: anatta, aniccca, and dukkha (no-self, impermanence, and suffering). Right understanding begins with study and observation, then examination of what one has studied, and finally meditation in order to directly instead of only intellectually.

And finally, Right Understanding involves the Four Noble Truths:

1. That this is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

2. That this is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.

3. That this is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and that relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it.

4. That this is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

So as you can see, enlightenment is one of the last things mentioned in the very last Noble Truth, and the last of the Eightfold Path: Right Understanding. The problem is that if we try to attain Right Understanding without integrating the remainder of the eightfold path simultaneously, our practice will become unbalanced, and instead of enlightenment, we will attain something, but not what the Buddha had in mind, and it will not be freedom at all, only continued bondage.

Therefore, my advice, if you truly want to attain enlightenment in this lifetime, is to embrace all of the above. Not only will your life and outlook improve, but you might just see things that few have ever seen, and be as shocked as I was thirty years ago in a Zen monastery. As always if you have any questions, please email eandjanet@aol.com.

E Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center. His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers.