What is Enlightenment?

Rajanaka Newsletter for March 9, 2024

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Aho’ Rajanaka,

I hope this finds you well.   It’s “spring break” here at the University.

Students asked me what I do on “break.”  Break?  If you can find the spaces, you can make connections.  Okay, so this reply was more than a little pedantic, even annoying but I am their college professor, right?  We need not wear masks over our true selves if we can become the many selves we need to be.

Students fled before my last class, which was attended by exactly one student.  It’s hard to blame them---it’s winter in Rochester till June and the sun is usually on holiday.  We’ve had exactly zero snow to speak of this winter but it ain’t just the weather that’s not going right.  

I feel for them, these young people.  We are in this together, including the weather.  How obnoxiously Boomer is it for me to say that I’m glad I did not grow up in their world?  How do we protect each other and make clear just how precarious and dangerous life is?   I tell them in classes that we must find ways to treat each other with humanity, that this requires developing critical thinking, not only feelings.  Not sure if I’m heard, unheard, or regarded merely irrelevant.  I want to give them something better than hope because hope is what you need when there isn’t any chance left.

Speaking of making the most of your chances, what happened to Siddhartha the prince of Kapilavastu when at last he resolved after nearly starving himself to death to find enlightenment or perish?  What is enlightenment?

The sources in the Pali Canon, amongst the earliest versions of the Buddha’s story, offer a detailed explication. These sources are not shy to express precisely what happens when one becomes awakened, a buddha.  Today we’re going there.  I’ll distill the sources, explain them as clearly as I can, and then rip them to shreds.  But in a nice way. 

To respect people’s views, we must be willing to take them seriously, giving every bit of benefit, consideration, and approbation.   It can be dangerous to assume people are acting in good faith, by that we mean honestly, but that’s part of the risk.  In the study of religion we call this being “charitable.”  (There’s nothing patronizing about that term, it’s means being open, listening carefully, and then willing to speak up, to ask for accountability.) We will do this today to the Buddhist sources because that is what we want done with us: to make us better with being serious, with the sometimes discomforting and honest, penetrating criticisms.  Our aim is not to demean or belittle but to raise the level of discourse, to be trenchant and attempt to appreciate our own biases.  It can sound harsh when we engage in “serious argument” and it might feel cruel but that’s another reason critical thinking has to be taught and practiced.

There is no more important spiritual practice than learning to how to create a constructive argument.  Arguments can devolve quickly into scolding, or we can take pleasure in disparagement.  That won’t do.  Tolerance doesn’t mean we agree, it means we have come to mutually comprehended terms so that we can decide what to do next.  We need to become more skillful so that we accommodate when we can, conciliate, forgive, or apologize when it’s helpful---but we must never give up the practice.  We aren’t born critical thinkers.  Not everyone will be as skilled though it is learned skill.   What is at stake is becoming more capable in communication so that we are compassionate, humanizing and incisive, composed, and honest.  Buddhism has much to say about such “skillful means” or upaya and that will factor into today’s conversation about just what happened beneath the Bodhi tree.  We will take to heart what the sources say best we can.  Join us.  5pm Eastern.

Zoom link: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268

Past RECORDING ARCHIVE HERE: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yted2ht281tfrn74ig0c2/h?rlkey=8j5bvomcf9ate80us41n2vj25&dl=0

Thursday Ganapati has been really fun, really worthwhile.  You can still join and the recorded Archive is there for you anytime.  7pm Eastern, Zoom here:  https://rochester.zoom.us/j/98183733328

Dropbox Archive is here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/aj2q0pqv6k62vaxy2h810/h?rlkey=ag6ijieez888x4yi9kjggthq2&dl=0

Sunday Mahabharta happens tomorrow.

@5pm Eastern.  It’s nothing like church and the stories are way more crazy but in a good way.  Zoom:

https://rochester.zoom.us/j/314987250

You can always listen to the Recordings here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bfqt15y3n0uglir/AAAB_89LiCOob0hJI1w8BK7_a?dl=0

There’s so much more but I need to get this going.  It’s dump day in Bristol---I bring the trash to the dump and, well, timing as it is in any good argument, is critical.

Saprema, Douglas