He does present some of the downsides of enlightenment in another video, admitting that it isn’t constant bliss and all these other misconceptions people have. He is also honest about undergoing psychotherapy many years after his enlightenment to get rid of some issues.

I don’t like the emphasis on the absolute at all, since we are all living in the relative world full of conflict, mind-bodies with identities.
And i don’t see why one should use illusions to “attract” people (okay, any concept is illusory, but there are degrees of truthfulness).
The ending (in practice: a large diminishing) of psychological suffering is enough reason to become more aware of one’s life and to dig deeper, no?
This possibility should be known by everybody, and it is only logical that without any guidance, one will most likely lose a lot of time and/or will get trapped somewhere along his/her path.

DGA

so my understanding is that Duncan’s main concern here is whether enlightenment should be presented as a “commodity or value.”

my suggestion is to consider “enlightenment” *as if* it’s the *ultimate well-being* of a person (from an individual perspective that is). in this way we can consider teaching enlightenment as teaching people to “improve” their health/well-being. with this perspetive the teaching is then akin to “health care” service. wherein the goal (or product) is enlightenment (i.e. as if it’s the ultimate well-being).

with the above metaphor we can then make justifications for teachers charging reasonable amount of money for their services (like health care professionals). and we can also look at enlightenment as a “commodity” (note: i’m aware that this metaphor would cause some issues for people who don’t consider health care as commodity. but for the sake of this discussion, let’s refrain from opening that can of worms and just consider this as a metaphor ).

“Enlightenment is impossible to commodify because it isn’t a thing, or even an action or a ’skill’.”

in a sense i agree. but we have to consider different perspectives when we’re talking about enlightenment. from a first-person perspective, i think you are correct. there is nothing in there any more. no-self as thing. but from a second or third-person perspective, you are still Duncan to me (and to others who see you as an individual).

in the Buddhist doctrine there’s the two-truths doctrine: 1) the absolute truth; 2) the relative truth; people who abide in the absolute truth no longer sees distinction, but distinction always comes back even for the enlightened. i imagine enlightened people shifting between the absolute truth and relative truth (without preference). whereas most people spend all their waking awareness in the relative truth.

i imagine in the absolute truth there’s nothing really worth talking about. it’s just is. everything is perfect the way it is. but in the relative truth, i believe there’s no escaping “commodification” of any teaching. teachers has to communicate it with the language and rules of the relative world so that people will become aware of their own ignorance on this matter. since time immemorial enlightened masters presented this enlightenment “carrot” as something for people to yearn for. to give them the illusion of the goal and motivation for practice. this is “using illusion to fight illusion.”

my two cents.

~C

I like this. Well said. Almost all the “selling points” of enlightenment are the after effects of what enlightenment is. They are merely how enlightenment manifests in the world. But they are NOT enlightenment.

For instance, I’m quite certain as Nisargadatta or Ramana lie dying from cancer, the pain was quite nasty. Yet, you can almost hear Nisargadatta: “but the pain has nothing to do with ME! This body is experiencing pain, but I’m not!” Or how about Jesus hanging on the cross? That had to SUCK from a bodily, physical, limited point of view. But how would enlightenment see that? Ah, no suffering because what I am in beyond the suffering and yet is the suffering.

It’s all about identity as I see it. The only way “I” can suffer is if I’m an “I” a single, a body, the ego persona. But what am I? I’m more than simple that. I am that, but I am everything else, too. In effect, I have no identity. How can everything have an identity?

Lastly: “But demonstrations cost twenty quid.” Cool, a nice talk and a floor show, too. All for $35 (at today’s exchange rate). Although, how good is the floor show? Dancing girls? Or just a few parlor tricks?

It’s not enlightenment that is being sold, it’s the teacher’s time and effort in helping someone practice and develop right view and understanding.

Agreed. But does the student know that? And can these things be taught? If these are valid questions then, in fact, it’s far from clear what’s being sold.

I’ll give you ten quid if you’ll tell me more about [enlightenment]…

I’ll happily talk about it for a tenner. But demonstrations cost twenty quid.

Duncan wrote this article!

@Duncan: Its’ not enlightenment that is being sold, it’s the teacher’s time and effort in helping someone practice and develop right view and understanding.

Also, there are plenty of things you can say about enlightenment, as you have done above: ‘Enlightenment is the seeing-through of what suffering appears to be’. Sounds good to me! I’ll give you ten quid if you’ll tell me more about it…

To be honest, though, I’m more interested in the striking similarities between Marx’s critique of value and the Buddha’s theory of dependent origination than the moral implications of students paying for teaching.

Reality (or ‘the means of manifestation’ as we magicians like to call it!) is limited; there are only so many possible kinds of economic relationships between students and teachers – and Duff seems to have kindly listed all of them!

Instead, I’m grabbed by this idea that awakening by definition involves the seeing-through of all commodities and values. (Which it *must*, it seems to me, if the meaning of dependent origination / emptiness is grasped.) Yet it’s difficult to see how this understanding itself can be presented in anything other than in terms of a commodity or value.

For instance, enlightenment is often presented as ‘the end of suffering’. But it’s not. ‘The end of suffering’ is a thing, an idea, a potential commodity. Enlightenment is the seeing-through of what suffering appears to be. There are still shitty days after enlightenment, but it’s ‘just shit’. Enlightenment is impossible to commodify because it isn’t a thing, or even an action or a ‘skill’.

There’s just nothing there ‘to sell’… And yet, what the heck else are we going to do with it!

On the whole, in our western society that freely and obviously uses money as a means of exchanging value for value, as several commenters have said, it is quite simply a useful means to an end: providing a service to the student and a livable income to the teacher. I think if we try to read too much more into that simple fact we are just going to get into a pointless debate. In fact, is this really any different than a student showing up at the monastery and doing work in the vegetable garden so the senior monks have food on the table?

That said, something is inherently “off” about teachers who charge exorbitant sums for a week of teaching. I may be off myself, but almost every teacher I have encountered in the US who seems like the genuine article has the following characteristics:

1. Charges a moderate fee. For instance, Adyashanti’s retreats are $325 for 5 days, $75 for a 2 day weekend.

2. If you can’t afford the moderate fee, there are always scholarships, freebies, etc, simply for the asking. There is almost always a non-profit involved that takes donations to help folks who can’t afford.

3. Books, cds, all products are reasonably priced, ie, 6-7 hours of recordings for $70, and you can always ask for a freebie.

4. LOTS of freely available teachings online.

5. A reasonable income for the teacher.

6. Money has no allure for them, there is little in the way of outward grasping at more and more bucks.

That’s what I’ve observed, your mileage may vary.

However, I’m intrigued by a notion that arose as I read the above comments. What would it look like if you didn’t charge a single dime and just passed the hat around after? Obviously, you really couldn’t do that with books and cds (Amazon and B&N want their cut), unless you made the products free for download in addition.

I think the method would work. Actually, I do believe that’s how most churches function in the US. Although, many that I know in the more main stream denominations call each member into the head office and PUSH them to donate and tithe and pledge so much of their income each year. Hard sell salvation, I suppose.

However, I don’t see the above as necessary. I think a simple model of charging modest fees and allowing for generous freebies is a very clean, acceptable way to go. Many, many teachers do just that, and it doesn’t stink up the place.

As someone alluded to above, I think to some degree we take the world as it is. Enlightenment may clean out the vessel and bring Beingness more fully into the world of form, but the world of form is still what is experienced. Beingness moves within this world, our seemingly screwed up world, with all of its flaws and faults. It encounters those flaws and faults, and works within and through what it finds. Nothing is to be avoided. It is to be met with love and compassion.

That said, as for Genpo Roshi and his $50,000 to spend 5 days with him, well….

Finally, I would like to suggest that most people who are “anti-capitalist” have not read some of the better works on capitalism written by classical liberal economists or libertarian writers. Marx is not the sole source of information on the market economy! A great economist by the name of Murray Rothbard does a wonderful job of explaining free market economics. Also, the more you read on the subject, the more you realize that 9 times out of 10, the “bad capitalism” stuff people rail against is almost always some sort of corporate/government enmeshment that creates huge distortions in a market economy. Look no further than Goldman Sachs. They wouldn’t be paying $2 billion in bonuses without their privileged position. Sorry, didn’t mean to get all economic on you, but you can see one of my former passions. LOL

Great topic. Thanks. Be well…. Tom

I don’t think anyone wants to claim that this is exactly what the Buddha taught; but, maybe this is just enlightenment in a romanticized, Oprahized package? And what’s wrong with that, if it works?

I don’t know if it works or not, but I suspect that spiritual hedonism is attractive because it lets us enjoy all the pleasures of consumer capitalism guilt-free. What matters most is that it nourishes your soul and opens you up to the richness of life — regardless of the system of domination and exploitation that produced it.

Of course, spiritual hedonists care about those things too! But not so much that they actually want to disrupt the status quo. We get to enjoy our lattes, but to feel a little better, we pay a little extra for the fair-trade organic coffee beans at a locally-owned business that exploits its workers slightly less than usual and call it a day. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s better than nothing — the problem is that we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking that this is an adequate response to the problem, that we’re “making a difference”.

In the end, the packaging matters, not just what’s inside. When Buddhism became Zen in Japan, it may very well have led to authentic awakening, but that particular packaging also supported an oppressive, militaristic feudal regime. If Buddhism repackaged as consumer hedonism contributes more suffering to the world, we should fully oppose it.