Do you think this might contribute to the stunning lack of accomplished Buddhist practitioners who will openly talk about awakening?

Consider: If awakening is how I describe it, what do you think that would mean for many of the traditional Buddhist organisations and hierarchies?

Two points to consider:

If awakening (which is a wisdom/panna thing) takes care of any and all moral challenges, well, What’s the point of having the training in morality, sila, in the noble eightfold path?

Is it the unwholesome qualities that awaken (and are thereby transformed)? That would imply that you are your unwholesome qualities, wouldn’t it?

Cheers,
Florian

Okay. I understand why you might adopt this view. But consider it from this angle for a moment. Imagine that you reach the moment of your enlightenment. In which of these scenarios (below) are the asavas totally destroyed; in which would you be more free from suffering; in which is the ego more thoroughly defeated?

1. You are totally transformed into an ethically perfect person. You become an ideal being incapable of badness or thinking bad things.

2. You remain human, exactly the same, but have by non-supernatural means reached a level of understanding where you can now see clearly the roots of your own imperfection. Simply, what you thought was ‘you’ turns out to have been a misperception all along.

Which is the better place to be in, in terms of acting freely and ethically: suddenly becoming perfect, or remaining human and seeing clearly all the time how you are imperfect? Because how could being perfect not include being human, being ordinary – if it didn’t include this then surely ‘prefection’ would be lacking something?!

And if enlightenment exists, which of these do you think enlightenment is more likely to be? Our ego-based ideal of perfection, or the radical understanding of our very real imperfection?

Best wishes!

“The awful truth about awakening (and this has taken me a while to really understand with a degree of clarity) is that the self, ego, personality and even the subject don’t go anywhere, which means that selfish, egotistical, personal and subjective behaviour all remain. If you are greedy, angry and homophobic before awakening, chances are you’ll still be greedy, angry and homophobic afterwards.”

I wish I could pluck all the scriptural references out that refute this but I’m just not that well read! The stages of enlightenment / awakening entail the dropping away of negative qualities, and full awakening entails the total destruction of the ‘asavas’, the unwholesome roots of greed, aversion and ignorance. (No I have not yet realized this, I’m a inquirer / seeker). But I don’t think I would seek any kind of awakening where I was not literally transformed, where due to clearsighted vision, the abuses you mention (such as enjoying fame, even sexual favours) could not arise. By extension, any guru / teacher who abuses his / her students in this way has not fully awakened in the sense intended by the Buddha. If you still feel that you have to be watchful so as to not do these things, you still have some work to do before full awakening is attained. (I do not doubt that you have had some very deep meditation experiences, however). I’m not doing this to try to minimize you in any way, but to help, as (I have experienced myself) it is very easy, when we access blissful meditative states, to overestimate our level of attainment.

What seems to be missing in this discussion is how, “with a little help from my friends” you can become aware (if that needs be) how your behaviour, or the things you say, do harm to others. Playing the guru-thing can be a hell of a lonely job; constantly being admired can lead to some pretty ridiculous self-admiration. Having friends who can give you some honest critique is needed most as an antidote for immoral and selfish acts.

Long lasting intimate relationships can help too. It’s usually your girlfriend who’s the least impressed with your new status as an “enlightened one”, since she also discusses with you the things that need to be bought at the grocery.

Morality is within the field of human interaction.
It is therefore open for discussion, dependent on circumstances and interpretation, history and intent. It has no indisputable absolutes. It is far removed from the pristinity of emptiness and enlightenment.

It’s where self meets others. And this is not being resolved by calling it the acts of no-self.

I like the way you describe this, shanti. It’s easy to confuse uniqueness with having a self. All we are is a bundle of uniqueness (perspective, mind objects, and so on) but with no permanent essence…. not a self to be found in there.

But the real definition of ego (which is different from what modern day psychology teaches) is that it simply is “the mind’s definition of self”. It’s the laundry list of things your mind points to when it tries to answer the question “Who are you?”.

So you never really lose it. The mind always tries to have a definition of what it believes to be you. What actually happens post-enlightenment is that the ego is altered to include the experience of… and new knowledge included within… awakening. From your ego’s standpoint, you are not who you were yesterday because a new understanding exists. But at the same time you somewhat are the same, as that some of the details have not changed… just the core… with a drastically different understanding of the true nature of your self.

It is unfortunate that some “gurus” let themselves be led of the path by desire and attachment after awakening. I think these are the people who do the most harm in leading people astray in their spiritual development.

Peace,
-From a Non-Buddhist Buddha

So even an enlightened “gesture” (individual) will still have a unique character, body, habits, moods, whatever . . .

The difference is the thinning of the overall mental chatter for that individual, and also the rather laser like insights and experience of the “is-ness” of it all ongoing (i.e.: non-duality).