Truth is stranger than fiction
Buddhism Teaches Us That Enlightenment Doesn’t Exist
Sorry to break it to you but it's just another trick of the ego.
When I started writing on Medium, I was amazed by the number of people that described themselves as ‘Enlightened Mystic’ or whatever.
They put it in their description like they’re writing their CV or as if they won in it a poker game. They expect you to give a shit and worship them. And, for the record, many people oblige.
What is Enlightenment?
From the Buddhist perspective, the concept of enlightenment is a trick.
Like everything in Buddhism, it is a method used to trip up and unmask the ego. The promise of enlightenment is the spiritual carrot on the end of a stick.
It is what brings us onto the path of undoing our self-imposed lies.
As you traverse that path towards ‘the great awakening’ — if you are doing it right, you realise there is no such thing.
The problem with the concept of enlightenment is that it is a dualistic concept.
For enlightenment to exist, there has to be non-enlightenment and, if non-enlightenment exists anywhere, then it is not enlightenment.
In other words, the goal of the Buddhist path is to recognise the equality of all things. No good or bad, existence or non-existence, enlightenment or non-enlightenment.
I’m not trying to be clever with words here.
I’m trying to help those trapped by what Jigme Lingpa calls faults.
As Jigme Lingpa teaches in The Lion’s Roar, when practitioners at this stage of mere intellectual understanding practice meditation, experiences of bliss, clarity and non-thought will arise. If they cling to these and think they have arrived at the ultimate Great Perfection, they will be bound and hindered by this partial, incomplete understanding of the meaning of the teachings — Nyoshul Khenpo
If you believe you are enlightened and you see others that aren’t enlightened, it is because you aren’t enlightened.
You need to backtrack, watch the mind that believes in its enlightenment and ask ‘who is the one that is enlightened’.
It all sounds pretty complex, but it isn’t.
Have you ever wondered why actual enlightened beings don’t describe themselves as enlightened?
Why do you think the Dalai Lama describes himself as ‘an ordinary monk’?
Sure, he is being humble. But he is also stating his truth. At his level of realisation, the concept of enlightenment doesn’t make sense.
This doesn’t mean that Buddhism is a fake path.
But, it is a path to nowhere.
It’s leading you right back to where you already are — sans bullshit.
There is no superhero lycra to wear, no cape and no superpowers. Just the boring truth. Sorry about that.
If you are wearing the mask of enlightenment, take it off right now. It may not even feel like a mask, but it is.
When you peel an onion, you take off each layer. With each new layer you think:
Ah, there is the onion.
But it isn’t. It’s just another layer.
Maybe you will get to the point where you realise that there isn’t any onion — there are only layers, and perhaps that realisation is the onion you were looking for all along.
Perhaps the actual onion is the realisation that there is no onion.
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