The question arises "Which is Better: Gradual or Sudden Enlightenment?" Actually, in reality, neither is better than the other. This is because the two are based on very different metaphysical views of the world and human nature. As such they can not be ranked as superior vs. inferior. Also, here it should be made clear that although Sudden Enlightenment is associated with both the Soto (Ch. Tso-Tsung) and Rinzai (Ch. Lin-Chi) Zen (Ch. Ch'an) schools the following talk will focus only on the Rinzai attitude to Sudden Enlightenment, and what is said here does not necessarily apply to Soto.
Before comparing the Sudden and Gradual aspect of Enlightenment the following definition the low level or gateway experience Laya and the more indepth experience Satori is offered. As the two links will show, the definition presented here is not the only one possible and other definitions may challenge it, especially since it is very colored by the Rinzai tradition. The Enlightenment experience is a singularly intense experience which tells one his or her place in the scheme of things. This is a more often than not a once and for all experience which will cause the experiencer never again to doubt his or her relationship with or to the self, others, the world, and whatever one may believe is beyond the world. This experience is enormously validating or empowering, and is unlike any other experience one can have. An important aspect of this experience is that it is non-sectarian. This is to say that the experience can be found in Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic and many other religious traditions. Each tradition may impose its own dogmatic interpretation on it, but the initial experience seems to be psychological cross-cultural. Moreover, this experience, while it can occur under many different circumstances, most often happens in response to some severe intellectual, emotional or physical crises. When you read about these Awakening experiences in the lives of the great and not so great spiritual seekers you will see that these crises may, but not always, manifest as a deep question about divine justice, as some life threatening illness, as a state of despair at the loss of a loved one, an attempted suicide, or as a Near Death Experience, ending in the Death of the Ego.
Note: The definition for Laya or Satori does not say anything about the ability of the experiencer to teach others or in any way be of assistance to the spiritual needs of others. In this regard a clear distinction must be made between a person who has an Enlightenment-experience and an Enlightened Person. The latter category should be confined to those individuals who have the wisdom and moral character to rightfully influence others plus the charismatic abilities to do so in an entirely non-exploitive manner. This would define an Enlightened sage or holy person. Such a person may have had a Enlightenment-experience, sudden or gradual, OR may have a natural spiritual maturity which excludes the need for a Satoric-experience; although if we depend on historical records, a natural sage without an Awakening experience operating at or near the level of an Enlightened sage is far, far rarer than one having a similar or like natural spiritual maturity AND Enlightenment experience. For more along a similar line regarding sages, guides, and teachers, please visit: SPIRITUAL GUIDES: Pass or Fail? and accompanying links.
For the remainder of this talk, however, I will be focusing only on the Enlightenment experience itself without making any further distinctions between sages and non-sages. Having defined Enlightenment for the purpose of this talk it is now time to explain Sudden and Gradual in the context of Enlightenment.
In contrast to most other forms of Buddhism which are usually called Gradual Schools of Enlightenment, Zen (which from now on means Rinzai Zen), is called Sudden Enlightenment School. All Buddhist schools accept that the Enlightenment experience at the very moment it occurs is a sudden event, but this is not the only meaning of Sudden’ in the Sudden Enlightenment School context.
IN THE FIRST VIEW:
The world is considered a place of frustrating impermanence and dissatisfaction (dukkha), and human nature is the product of eons of karmic attachments to impure passions. In this view Enlightenment means the conquest and extinction of such impurities and a subsequent escape from life, the world and dukkha. To achieve such release requires adopting a homeless life and an ascetic practice of dissolving human wants and needs so as to transcend all ordinary human feelings and passions, be they positive or negative. Love, as much as hate, keeps one attached to the world. Only the person who can become indifferent to BOTH can qualify as being an Enlightened or passion free being (Arhat or Buddha). The Enlightenment process which goes along with this view requires a long and gradual process of ascetic discipline leading to gradated stages of Enlightenment. Each higher stage is characterized as a state of lesser attachment to the self and the world than the previous one. For the most part, Enlightenment in this view is not something achievable by an ordinary layperson. This gradation concept is completely justified if one holds to a pluralist understanding of reality which early Buddhism does.
IN THE SECOND VIEW:
Buddhism says that our dukkha is due to the deluded belief in a separate and autonomous self. Enlightenment in this case means a letting go of this unrealistic self concept or "self aggrandized I-ness" by Awakening to the fact that it is a delusion. The problem with the Gradual Enlightenment approach as far as this false ego view is, is that in the emphasizing of "I am working for Enlightenment," the sense of I-ness is actually being reinforced. Therefore, presumably the more one practices the deeper becomes one's delusion of a separate and autonomous self and the farther away from Enlightenment one moves. Mahayana Buddhism arose out of this idea of there being no real independent self, called Anatta, and extended this concept of no-self to include all reality. This meant abandoning a pluralist understanding of reality for a non-dual one. This is to say that every part of reality is so fully integrated that it can not under any circumstances be divided, especially into separate selves. Since all dualities are delusionary, there can not even be a duality between Samsaric, unenlightened or impure mind and Nirvanic, Enlightened or pure mind. Since non-dual reality can not be divided into incremental parts, it can not be grasped little by little as a Gradual Enlightenment approach implies. The non-dual must be realized all at once (Suddenly) as a whole or not at all.
When Buddhism went to China this inconsistency became problematic. This was due to the very non-Indian way the Chinese perceived the world and human nature. Unlike Indian thinking, which gave priority to the devine or the trans-human element of reality (see), Chinese thought gave priority to the human world. The traditional Chinese view was that people are born with an innate sense of goodness, purity and truth, and that the normal human passions are a part of this goodness and an Enlightened sage is someone who accepts this.
The earliest Buddhist view which saw Samsara as impure and Nirvana as pure could not be fully accepted by the Chinese without totally abandoning their own more optimistic Confucianist and Taoist traditions. However, the Mahayana teaching that Samsara and Nirvana were the same was easily integrated into the traditional Chinese view of life. If Samsaric passions were in Nirvana and vice versa then e Enlightenment requires no gradual dissolving away of ordinary human feelings, needs and wants. Enlightenment is merely becoming conscious that one is already in the unconditional state of Nirvana. Therefore, Enlightenment, rather than being a replacing of human nature with a trans-human-like passion free nature, as in standard Indian Buddhism, is instead just an adding on to ordinary human nature the non-dual awareness of one's innate nirvanic purity.
The Chinese, in accepting the non-dual Mahayana view, became fully cognizant of the inconsistency between non-duality and Gradual Enlightenment. This cognition was further heightened by the fact that Taoism, which also held to a non-dual view of reality, was more sympathetic to a Sudden Enlightenment approach. Hence, Sudden Enlightenment came to dominate Chinese thought, Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Because Sudden Enlightenment does not require a gradual monastic purification it can happen at any time and in any place within a monastic life or normal home life. This had great appeal to the non-ascetically oriented Chinese.
Thus, anyone, even the most attached to the world, can experience the Enlightened state. Of course, this possibility only make sense if Enlightenment is not dependent upon any kind of ascetic practices, not even the limited common moral restraints of the average person. Such Sudden Enlightenment must ultimately be attained outside of, or undeserving of, any own (ascetic or even meditational) effort. In fact, this effort would be appropriate only to Gradual Enlightenment. Sudden Enlightenment, not being dependent on practice, therefore, must be more or less accidental. The difference between the Gradual and the Sudden view effects the way each tradition perceives not only Enlightenment, but also the Buddha. Gradualism values Enlightenment as something which makes us far better persons, and it regards the Buddha as superior to all other beings. In Suddenism, being Enlightened does not make one superior or more valuable than the unenlightened. Since both have the same Buddha Nature or Nirvana within, they are both innately of equal worth or goodness. Not needing Enlightenment to make us better means that the Buddha is simply the first among equals according to Suddenism.
But, if we’re "already Enlightened" by our very buddha-nature, why does one "need" to practice—frequently for years a la Dogen Zenji for example? Or why did the Fifth Patriarch Hung-jen insist on the Stanza Competition that confirmed Hui-neng as the Sixth Patriarch rather than just set the robe and bowl symbolizing Patriarchship in the middle of the courtyard for any monk to pick up?
Dogen struggled with the problem of Original Awakening, that is, an awakening fundemental or innate in everyone, and Acquired Awakening, an awakening attained or acquired through practice. Dogen rejected both, breaking through the relativity of original and acquired, opening up a deeper ground. He wrote: "The principle of the Buddha-nature is that it is not endowed prior to Enlightenment...the Buddha-nature is unquestionably realized simultaneously with Enlightenment." The Shobogenzo eloaborates quite lucidly his concerns with the matter, written by him in an Enlightened state following his own Realization under the guidance of Chinese Zen Master Ju-ching (1163-1228).
Dogen does not maintain that there is any ultimate difference between cultivation (shu) and authentication (sho) or between Original and Acquired Enlightenment. Hence, Dogen would not want to say that he is describing "Zen consciousness" or "Enlightened consciousness" to the exclusion of "ordinary consciousness." Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where we differ is that we place a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience and then proceed to make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself rather than to be an "expression" (dotoku) of the "occasion" (jisetsu) in which we think or talk about the given experience. In a sense, we have a double layered description. First, there is the prereflective, not yet conceptualized, experience--what we all share, Zen master and the rest of us alike. Second, there is the expression or characterization of any experience within a particular situation or occasion. If the speaker brings no personal, egotistic delusions into this expression, the occasion speaks for itself, the total situation alone determines what is said or done. Thus, in the case of the Zen master, what-is-said is simply what-is. In the case of the deluded person, however, the "what-is" includes his excess conceptual baggage with its affective components, the deluded ideas about the nature of "self," "thing," "time," and so on that constitute the person's own particular distortion of what actually is. (source)
THE KEY:
In fact, this Sudden view of Buddhahood says that our dukkha, or fearful attachment to life and death, is because we doubt our present absolutely unconditioned worth (Buddha Nature). Enlightenment is a total letting go of this doubt to intuitively realize our equality with the Buddha. There comes a moment when there has to be realizied an overcoming of the
Fear of Enlightenment. Being liberated from our dukkha, we become content with ourselves and others just as we are.In Suddenism a simple intellectual realization of the above forces one to let go of pride in one's own effort to seize Enlightenment. This lack of pride, or humility, in the face of the characteristic accidental nature of Sudden Enlightenment is a form of letting go of self as a source of dukkha and thus, actually a kind of pre-enlightenment Enlightenment. Actually, just this alone is for some people sufficient Enlightenment, while for others this preliminary kind of Enlightenment means a greater chance for a breakthrough to something more. This is especially true with a preparatory practice in place. Preparatory practice must be clearly distinguished from the practice that involves Gradual Enlightenment. While no form of pre-enlightenment practice is a requirement for Sudden Enlightenment, and can certainly not cause or ensure such Enlightenment, it nonetheless has an important function.
We can use the analogy of rain here. Rain, like Sudden Enlightenment, cannot be forced into coming; it arrives on its own. Moreover, when it falls, it does so equally on fertile and infertile ground. If it falls on the former, there is luxurious growth; if on the latter, there is nothing but wet soil. To develop a pre-enlightenment practice is to ensure fertile soil when the rain of Sudden Enlightenment falls. To have no practice is to almost surely end up losing what one hoped to gain. This preparatory practice is not to be viewed as any kind of gradual coming closer and closer to the Enlightenment experience because there are no stages to it.
In other words, unlike a Gradual Enlightenment oriented practice, in which you can usually see progress occurring, such as a greater and greater sense of detachment from the world; no such progress is evidenced in a sudden practice. Moreover, whereas in a gradual oriented practice it is usually assumed that the practice will involve a considerable span of time, a few too many years before clear results occur; this is not assumed in a non-gradual practice. Since Sudden Enlightenment does not depend on practice of any kind, and can come with or without it, Enlightenment may break through after a single day, or on the other hand, not for many years. For this reason, a non-gradual oriented practice may be far more frustrating than a practice which demonstrates clear progress towards the goal.
The advantage however, to a non-gradual practice, and in fact one of the reasons for its development, is that it is as practicable outside of a monastic environment as it is in such an setting. This is especially true of such a specific non-gradual practice technique as the classical Chinese Kung-an...but not necessarily the Japanese Koan.
Of course, the paradox of any pre-enlightenment practice for Sudden Enlightenment is that, for those who pursue it, this means nothing short of going through the frustrating experience of seeking for what one already has, namely unconditional Buddha worthiness. This means that one is constantly asking one's self why am I doing this? Why can't my mind just let me experience my true nature? Maybe this whole thing is a lie. Maybe I'm just wasting time and energy, further deceiving myself. This doubt is a natural part of preparation for Sudden Enlightenment and it requires a faith equal to the doubt to keep the practice going. This is where a teacher and a spiritual community come in, for the teacher who has gone through the struggle can give hope and the community of like-seekers can function in a supportive capacity.
Neither the Gradualist nor the Suddenist approach can guarantee Enlightenment, but each in their own way can give one a chance at gaining it. For the person who can commit him or herself to a fully monastic life the Gradual way may offer more hope than the Sudden way. For those who can not make such a dramatic commitment it may be the Sudden way that offers the hope. Like all religious and philosophical views various rational arguments can be made to support either a Gradualist or Suddenist approach, but the bottom line is that neither can be logically proven nor disproven. Both, in the final analysis, depend largely upon faith. Indeed, all schools of Buddhism, if not all religious traditions, require a strong faith component before any real Spiritual Awakening can occur.
As for the Sudden Enlightenment school of thought the event could be like the First Death Experience that swept out of nowhere encompassing the the very being of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, an event backed-up years later by the Bhagavan's little known but most excruciating Second Death Experience. Sudden Enlightenment could be triggered by a spiritual desperation on the part of the seeker. It could be a combination of factors, including some intuitive awareness beyond expression. For whatever the reason, it is often the coming together of the results of inner and outside forces, some within one's control, some without --- usually incorporating some form or the other of one's mind being ripe. Many of those forces coming together can be found most eloquently in the results as they unfold in the following:
SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI: THE LAST AMERICAN DARSHAN
RECOUNTING A YOUNG BOY'S NEARLY INSTANT TRANSFORMATION INTO THE ABSOLUTE DURING HIS ONLY DARSHAN WITH THE MAHARSHI
It should be noted that Adam Osborne, who, as a young boy grew up at the Ramana ashram and the son of one of the foremost Ramana biographers Arthur Osborne, played a prominent role in the Last American Darshan as linked above.
APPENDIX
In medieval China and Japan there developed a form of Buddhist school called Pure-Land (Ch. Ching-t'u; J. Jodo). This school taught that due to the corruption of the world and mankind's overwhelming amount of bad karma, no degree of human effort would be great enough to allow an individual to liberate him or herself. However, because of a vow to save all beings made millenniums ago by the celestial Buddha Amitabha (Ch. O-mi-to; J. Amida) any and all persons, be they good or evil, who in sincere faith called upon this Buddha for liberation would receive it. In traditional Pure-Land beliefs this liberation takes the form of the consciousness upon death being reborn into the heavenly paradise of Amitabha. This absolute dependency on the divine power of another to gain liberation was called the "other power path" (tariki in Japanese).
Because Zen taught no such faith in the grace of an external other power to liberate oneself, it was called an "own power path" BY the Pure-Land school. This designation was repeated so often through the centuries that it finally stuck, so that today even the Zen school often uses it when differentiating itself from the Pure-Land school. However, this is very misleading. Own power’ implies that the individual is in full control of the liberation process. This is more true of the non-Zen Gradual Enlightenment schools. In those schools the individual, solely through his or her own effort, purifies the self and works towards the goal. But to the degree that Zen Sudden Enlightenment is accidental, there should not be talk of own effort or own power. Rather, the accidental aspect of Sudden Enlightenment should be called an Other Than Own Power influence. Calling Zen an own power’ school hides the accidental aspect of its Sudden Enlightenment. Another way of saying this is to give a second definition of Sudden Enlightenment. It is the interruption of the other into the ordinary. It is the radical discontinuity in the flow of everyday life. See also: OBEAH.
MEDITATION APPS
The past several years has seen a proliferation of smartphone meditation apps come on the market, all designed in such a way to ease, assist, familiarize, and put into use meditation techniques for almost anybody interested in learning and implementing the various ins-and-outs of meditation, at least as the manufacturers of the apps view meditation.
Beyond the manufacturers advertisement and promotions, for every page that shows up on the internet or elsewhere in support of using the apps, there is an equal number of pages knocking their use. What the knocking their use people are selling varies, but the in support folk seem to be in line with the app builders and promoters because if nothing else, the apps sell --- and sell big time, especially so the two top brands, Headspace and Calm.
People use all kinds of things to enhance or increase their ability to accomplish things. They wear glasses to improve the clarity of their physical vision. Some use dental implants and dentures to chew, eat, or look better. The same for the use of prosthetics, crutches, canes, or wheelchairs. They help people get things done and walk or move about who otherwise might not be able to. But, if glasses to read or see aren't needed, or implants or dentures, or canes, crutches, or wheelchairs, why use them? Initially, with meditation, other than a coming to know what meditation is and what it can do if you do it, nothing much than the desire to do so and then doing it is required Painting legs on a snake doesn't make it walk any better. Electronically painting photon-pushing meditation legs to swath your synapses with trompe l'oeil may be for some, better than nothing. However, and this is one of the biggest however's ever, it is that better than nothing that makes it not, not nothing, the goal of meditation.
HEADSPACE OR CALM FOR MEDITATION: NEEDED OR NOT NEEDED?
FACT OR FICTION? SUDDEN TRANSFORMATION
(please click image)
SEE ALSO:
ZEN AND THE TRANSMISSION OF SPIRITUAL POWER
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
(PLEASE CLICK)
ZEN ENLIGHTENMENT IN A NUTSHELL
CLICK
HERE FOR
ENLIGHTENMENT
ON THE RAZOR'S
EDGE
THE WANDERLING
(please click)
Gracefully provided by:
International Buddhist Meditation Center
Los Angeles, California USA
Below are pictures of three gurus, who, in their own respective worlds would be or were/are considered to be major teachers of sort. The picture on the far left is what the writer Bill Parker and artist C. C. Beck that wrote and drew Captain Marvel respectively thought Billy Batson's ancient, wise, and mysterious wizard Zhazam should look like. Older, white beard, white robe, aquiline-like nose. In the middle picture the person depicted on the left is the Hollywood version of what the venerated Indian holy man in the William Somerset Maugham novel The Razor's Edge was conceived to look like --- and how he was presented to the movie-going audience in the black and white 1946 movie based on the Maugham novel. Again, older, white beard, white robe, aquiline-like nose. The picture on the far right is what the in-real-life venerated Indian holy man the movie version is based on actually looked like, the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.
---
---
(select and click graphics or use links below)
ZHAZAM-----THE RAZOR'S EDGE-----SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI
The black and white graphic above center, from the movie, shows Larry Darrell, the central character in the story, meeting with the holy man for the very first time. To see a YouTube video excerpt showing that meeting and the discussion between the two click HERE.
Fictional or real life, all three played major roles in my life. In real life I was fairly young when the Captain Marvel Origin Story, partially presented above but found in full at the link below, first came out in 1940 and I have no strong remembrance of it specifically one way or the other. However, his origin was fairly clear all through and up to 1953 when Captain Marvel ceased publication. As for myself, if I hadn't actually seen his origin story specifically, as a fan growing up I was quite familiar with the story as it was often interjected or repeated in one version or the other over the years. The original origin is found in the first link below and a second version, published much later, in the second link:
CAPTAIN MARVEL: HIS ORIGINS
TWICE TOLD TALE
THE BEST OF THE MAUGHAM BIOGRAPHIES:
- WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Good biography. Lots of Maugham graphics, from early childhood to late adult.
- W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A BIOGRAPHY
- MAUGHAM
- LITERARY AMBULANCE DRIVERS
Everybody knows Hemingway drove an ambulance during WWI, nobody knows Maugham did.
- THE ART COLLECTION OF W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
SPIRITUAL GUIDES, GURUS, AND TEACHERS INFLUENTIAL IN DARRELL'S LIFE OTHER THAN THE MAHARSHI:
- SWAMI RAMDAS
- YASUTANI HAKUUN ROSHI
- FATHER ENSHEIM
Includes a section on the missing years of the Razor's Edge- KOSTI
