How to know if you're enlightened

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Think about it. An enlightened* person not knowing she's enlightened is not that bad, but an unenlightened person thinking he is, that's not good. That's wrong view that could lead to trouble.

• *Enlightened: Aryan, the Noble Ones, those along any of the any of the stages of awakening, meaning the various kinds of stream enterers, once returners, non-returners, and the fully enlightened arhats, which some could argue are the only real "enlightened" (bodhi) ones.

By practice, an ordinary human can reach it.

There is a strange characteristic feature of enlightened persons. Look within and check for it: They don't compare themselves to others. This is odd because, are they better or worse than others? They don't know in the sense that it does not occur to them to think it, ponder it, ask, or make comparison. (They're better, of course, from our point of view but not from theirs).

Do they have an inferiority complex, a superiority complex, or do they see themselves as EQUAL to others? Go back to the key sentence. They don't compare themselves to others and, therefore, they are neither nor the other. This was mind-blowing to see because, well surely from their point of view, the "nice" thing would be to think themselves equal to us, the lowly uninstructed (and therefore ignorant) worldlings.

• "Ignorant" sounds bad, but it just means we don't know yet, so it includes everyone. Even God (Brahma, Jehovah/YHWH/Yahweh, Allah, Asherah, Astarte, El, Elohim, Demiurge, Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.) is not omniscient, but there are two kinds of buddhas who may be, the samma-sam-buddha and the pacceka-buddha, the "supremely enlightened" and the "silent (nonteaching) enlightened." The Buddha was the first kind, and it is said that he could lay claim to being omniscient not in the sense that he knew everything all the but in the sense that he could know anything he put his mind to. (Things are not fixed, so did he really know what was going to happen or only what was most likely to happen?)

And this brings us to the next point, which is equally view-shattering: Do regular fully enlightened arhats know everything? I mean, it says "fully" right in their title, and if they have no ignorance, they must have full knowledge. No, they do not, far from it.

Not only can arhats likely not explain Buddhism, they may not know much of anything else (academic subjects, life lessons, trivia). They just happen to know the most important things, that which the Buddha was wise enough to winnow out and focus on. All the other things might be nice, but they are not essential for waking up.

What will I wear when I awaken, white linen with a Nehru collar? (arenasport.com)

• In Goenka's book, there's a wonderful parable called "Swimology." It goes something like this: One day, as the ship is about to leave safe harbor for the open seas, the young captain on his maiden voyage takes on an older able-bodied sailor who looks like he's been at sea all his life. The ship soon runs into trouble and gets lost. The captain consults the old sailor for help reading the map. But that salty seadog snaps back: "I don't know mapology!" The captain says, "You travel the sea but can't read a map? You wasted a quarter of your life!" In the hot sun, the men run out of water and start complaining. The captain asks the old sailor to fix the cistern, but he snaps back: "I don't know hydrology." The captain says, "You live on a ship depending on water, but you never learned plumbing? You wasted two quarters of your life!" Before long, they're completely lost, going in circles, running out of supplies. The captain orders him to grab a sextant to help navigate by the stars. The old sailor snaps back: "I don't know astrology!" The captain says, "You live under starry skies, and you can't read them for guidance? You wasted three quarters of your life!" At daybreak they spot land, but the captain being in a rush hits the rocks. The ship is wrecked and taking on water. The old sailor runs to the wheel to ask the captain, "Did you study swimology?" "What's that?" asks the captain. The old sailor yells for everyone to jump overboard and abandon ship. The ignorant old sailor, who never had an academic education, did study one thing and knew enough to save himself. He snapped back at the captain: "This ship is going down! Everyone who can swim can make it safely to shore. Those who can't are going to drown. You learned all those fancy ologies but skipped the most crucial lesson for a life at sea -- to be able to make to safety! You wasted your whole life!"
• So here we are, lost in Samsara (the Ocean of Life and Death), bobbing up and down about to drown, wasting our time swirling in confusion, asking so many questions about this, that, and the other, but never focusing on the most essential, the Dhamma (what the Buddha taught concerning the Seven Requisites of Enlightenment for salvation, for utter liberation or moksha). Like the captain, we're Smart Alecs with degrees in all kinds of ologies except the most valuable kind: Dharma Studies.
• [By the way, WHO can become enlightened? Any human or deva of average intelligence, no special quality necessary excepts, perhaps, having the karmic good fortune of coming into contact with the Buddha's Doctrine and Discipline (Dhamma-Vinaya). Sincerity is essential, and my teacher speculates that paramis (kusala-karma) are important, which he defines as "anything good done in the past with the idea of reaching enlightenment (bodhi) or nirvana (nibbana)."]

Arr eu shur? Ai'm thee gretest g'nius.

I always imagined that when I became enlightened, I would go over to the university, convene a meeting of professors, researchers, scholars, and academics and solve their biggest problems for them.

• Yes, Einstein?
• Yez, vell, vee kno thut E=mc2...
• Ugh, actually, Albie, you left out ether (e) which accounts for your imprecision. So I want you to get back to the drawing board, confer to Nikola Tesla (he's in Dimension 7, Quadrant 5) and you should be able to see the error of your ways and get back to Earth to clean up the mess.
• Yes, Hawking?
• I-am-the-longest-lived-survivor-of-ALS-and...
• That's not what you had, Steve, and your idea that...
• Yes, Witten, why are you interrupting? Your view of string theory is all in knots, but here's how to resolve the equations...

I guess it's a silly thought, and it's completely wrong. What an enlightened person comes to know, overcoming all ignorance on these four things, can be summarized in the Four Enlightened (Noble) Truths:

1. what disappointment is,
2. its cause,
3. its full resolution, and
4. the path to that end.

Though such beings have glimpsed these things directly, that is not to say they can in any way articulate it for others. They might be able to. It would certainly be good to hear them, but they may not be inclined to speak about it at all.

For example, many monks in the Thai Forest Tradition are said to have gained realization, but are they able to explain it or effectively teach it to others to the point that that person experiences the liberating truth? That's very rare.

Ajahn Chah was able to, but are his accomplished students? Maybe Ajahn Brahm or Ajahn Sumedho. Why aren't they all famous with large retinues of noble disciples. The great Ajahn Jumnien personally knows more than most beings, but can he communicate it effectively?

The great Pa Auk Sayadaw, the Burmese meditation master, is rare among all Buddhist monastics in that he is both a scholar and an adept practitioner. He can teach it.

He is nevertheless limited by his students' limitations. He cannot impart it, nor can he read minds or flex the magical iddhi powers that might help him teach. He can advise, guide, reproach, encourage but he is without the iddhi powers to do more.

The Buddha had iddhi powers at his disposal. And using them he could not, as it were, get a horse to drink water though it had been led right to the refreshing stream.

• In the simplest terms, since we have defined "enlightened" (bodhi) to mean "having reached any of the stages of enlightenment, one need only concern oneself with the first stage: get there, and everything will be all right within seven lives. Of course, reaching it, there's no reason to stop. Keep striving, or start striving now that you are 100% sure what the Buddha taught is real and works.
• For simplicity let's say there are four such stages, though the Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga) lists the other kinds of stream enterers -- and an additional two kinds of preenlightened folks, the saddhānusārī and dhammānusārī (confidence-devotee rooted in faith and Dharma-devotee rooted in wisdom). What are the characteristics of the person who has undergone that stage (knowing-and-seeing described in two parts as path-and-fruit)?
• The stream enterer is the first person to be safe in this interminable sojourn, this samsara, this Wheel of Life and Death, for this person has for the first time in all these aeons put a limit on suffering (dukkha). Other beings may go on suffering for as far as the mind can see, but such a noble one now has to endure no more than seven rebirths. And all of these rebirths will be on the human plane or higher, never lower. This is one of the wonders of enlightenment.
• Now, indeed, what could go wrong? Nothing that happens can matter much because one is sure to get out. For example, say we were all serving life sentences and one of us got a reprieve, a pardon, and held a letter for the warden that had to be heeded. That person is already free in theory and now need only wrap it up and go from our h*ll hole or choose to stay longer to help others, or putter about, or fulfill karmic obligations and promises or waste away on trivialities like more sensual enjoyments for their own sake (though how this is done if one knows better is hard to fathom).
• One wrong view many hold, which seems to be a part of Theravada (Pali canon) lore, is that a stream enterer can do no moral wrong. This is completely mistaken. There are certainly at least five things one cannot do, but everything else, it's possible. (Those five cannot be done because they would entail an immediate result in the very next rebirth on a subhuman plane, which now one is no longer liable to fall into). For evidence that such exalted beings can behave badly, be immoral, do wrong, be bad, commit an offense, one need only read the Ratana Sutta ("Jewel Sutra"). Though one engages in whatever misconduct, one will nevertheless not fall into worlds more miserable than this, nor will one reappear anywhere more than seven more times.
• Furthermore, of course stream enterers can have lapses if even arhats might violate Monastic Disciplinary Code rules, which are listed indicating which rules those are that even an arhat might slip up on.
• Of course, it must be that this does not sound good to most people -- who are people (human or deva) because they are beset by greed (lust, attraction, clinging), hatred (aversion, fear), and delusion (wrong view, ignorance) -- because we want to go on, have more rebirths (ignorant of the countless number that have already transpired and the countless yet to come as we engage in karma and those deeds work themselves out).
• When one knows-and-sees, directly has knowledge-and-vision of some past lives and how this life and this present suffering came to be (which is the knowledge that arises from the practice of Dependent Origination, which most people do not know is a practice rather than a theory), one will be able to let go.
• Moksha or liberation is possible by letting go, but letting go is only really possible as a result of knowing-and-seeing. So it is not willpower or brute force or strong determination (a triumph of will) that does it. It is practice (bhavana, kammatthana, sadhana) that brings about knowledge and vision. For instance, say you had a warm bowl of rice in the dark and would not part with it for the world, not to give away not even to share with anyone. And someone told you to throw it away. You would think them mad. Throw away this thing I'm about to devour and have so much greed/attraction for that I don't even want to share a grain of it with anyone else? You cling to the rice bowl. And again the person advises, admonishes, and asks you to let go and toss it. Do you? Could you? Do you possess the faith (saddha) to take that person's word for it and do it? Probably not. So what is it going to take that person to have to do since words won't work? What now if that person were to get you to turn on the light or bring a candle or step out of the dark and look into the bowl? And say that in doing so, you were to perceive what was really there all along -- maggots not rice grains? How hard would it be to let go now, how hard to throw away, toss, discard, abandon? Not hard at all, right? It takes no willpower, no force, no faith even. What does it take? Knowing-and-seeing, direct perception for oneself so that one need never rely on another for what is true and what is not.
• How does that tie in? We have lust. Who or what do we lust after? Beautiful objects. Why are they "beautiful"? It is exactly because we do not see their true nature but just their appearance. Skin is beautiful, complexion, hair, scent, softness... How deeply do we need to look into it to see what's really there? Worms, blood, flesh, gore, guts, partly digested food, mucus, urine, oil, feces... Ahhh! How fast can you let go?
• One cannot do it fast enough -- and with no willpower, no force, no sense of loss, no triumph of will, not even any faith. Faith can be a great thing but, ultimately, it is not the necessary and sufficient thing. It is excellent for starters, but we need to know and see for ourselves. That is what the Buddha promises. That is the path to enlightenment.
• With the attainment of stream entry, these mental defilements go away:
• With the attainment of stream entry, one will instantly gain unshakeable faith in three things: the Teacher, the Teaching, and those successfully Taught (Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha). Why? It is because now one knows for sure that they were all three right.
• Through the path of stream entry (stream-winning, sotāpatti-magga) one "becomes" free (whereas by realizing the fruition, one "is" free) from the first three fetters (samyojana) that bind beings to existence in the Sensual Sphere, namely:
  • (1) personality-view (sakkāya-ditthi; see ditthi),
  • (2) skeptical doubt (vicikicchā),
  • (3) attachment to mere rules and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa; see clinging upādāna).

The seven groups (sets) of noble disciples are as follows:

1. (1) the faith-devotee (saddhānusārī),
2. (2) the faith-liberated one (saddhāvimutta),
3. (3) the body-witness (kāya-sakkhī),
4. (4) the both-ways-liberated one (ubhato-bhāga-vimutta),
5. (5) the Dhamma-devotee (dhammānusārī),
6. (6) the vision-attainer (ditthippatta),
7. (7) the wisdom-liberated one (paññā-vimutta).

What is the significance of these groupings? I've asked Bhikkhu Bodhi and other scholar-monks only to hear that there are limited references in the Pali canon. They offer hope because it is said by some (mentioned in Ven. Bodhi's endnotes to his Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikaya) translation) that such beings as 1 and 5 will not pass away until becoming stream enterers. Why this is said or what the proper understanding is remains to be seen. (Dhamma-viyama is a strange and fascinating subject).

• What if a better list of the "noble ones" can be argued for: (1) saddhānusārī (the faith-devotee who will not pass until attainment), dhammānusārī (the Dharma-devotee who will not pass until attainment), (3) the stream enterer (who is now destined to no more than seven rebirths), (4) the once-returner (who will return to this world at most one more time but will be reborn in the Pure Abodes and make final attainments there), (5) the non-returner (who will no longer be reborn on the human plane but in the Pure Abodes until final attainments), (6) the arhat with remainder (still in human form, experiencing the results of past karma, making no new karma only kriya), (7) the arhat without remainder (no longer in form of any kind, no longer experiencing any karmic results, utterly freed from delusion, having entered final-nirvana). (The suggestion that the "change of lineage" or gotrabhu is another "noble one" makes no sense since all of the noble ones are this. The reason there are four stages yet "eight individuals" is because they are distinguished between path (magga) moment and fruition (phala) moment, which by orthodox tradition is explained as meaning one nanosecond of difference as one mind-moment (citta) supplants the previous one and one goes from gaining the path and experiencing the moment or change of lineage inherent in gaining the path-moment. It is not a satisfying explanation for such a big distinction as to list Eight Individuals among the "Noble or Enlightened Ones."

So until Ven. Analayo (who exhaustively defined Mindfulness in Early Buddhism, Journal of Buddhist Studies, Vol. XI, 2013) makes a dissertation of it, the Buddhist Dictionary entry Ariya ("Noble Ones") by Ven. Nyanatiloka will have to do. The Apadana Commentary gives a little explanation.

So to answer the question, "How to know if I'm enlightened?" it's as easy as 1-2-3 (which is not to say it's easy to reach, because it is extremely rare, but easy enough to know for yourself):

1. Do I have perfect, unshakeable faith (confidence, conviction) in the Triple Gem or "Three Jewels" (Buddha, Dhamma, and Noble Sangha, the Teacher, Teaching, and the successfully Taught), because I have glimpsed nirvana and seen what they had seen (when we were all set free by the Truth)?
2. Am I no longer inclined, and does it no longer make sense, to compare self to others (seeing as how one has understood it is all impersonal and there is no self, no ego, no soul to cling to but there is, and one has directly seen, that all things arise based on Dependent Origination with the sole exception of nirvana, which is the only thing that is not a "thing," not a constituent composite, not a conditioned phenomenon, and is therefore called the "unconditioned element" or the asankhata dhatu)?
3. And have I irreversibly put an end to three of the defilements/hindrances: personality-view, skeptical doubt, and clinging to mere rites and rituals as if they could ever bring about enlightenment.

• NOTE: As for morality and monastic rules (vinaya), there are different lists of what we might generally call "defilements," such as: āsava, kilesa, nivarana, samyojana, and very generally the Three Roots or Three Poisons. They are all overcome by an arhat. More
• Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; story by S.N. Goenka (dhamma.org); Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines