Bhikkhu Bodhi, what is enlightenment?

Bodhi ("enlightenment"), what does it actually mean? with scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi

Isn't the homelife harder than the left-home life?

(Daniel Aitken) Watch the full episode at dharmachats.com. In this Dharma Chat, renowned American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk and translator of the Pali canon Bhikkhu Bodhi (one of Wisdom Quarterly's root-teachers through his scholarship, BPS.lk editorship, and one-on-one communications, the New Jersey born/California-trained Jewish-Buddhist Dr. Jeffrey Block, Ph.D., Claremont, who still teaches us and leads us in meditation every Wednesday evening live from Chaung Yen Monastery in Carmel to our base in Los Angeles) sheds light on the meaning of his own monastic Buddhist name, "Bodhi." Join him as he unveils the multifaceted nature of the word bodhi (awakening to the ultimate truth and thereby realizing complete liberation as nirvana).

• What has Bhikkhu Bodhi translated and written?
• VIDEO: The truth about enlightenment (bodhi)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, if the Buddha means "the Enlightened One," what does buddha mean?

Expectations impede attainment of enlightenment

Enlightened (bodhi-fied persons) are not called buddhas because that term is reserved for two very rare and special types of awakened individuals, the private (nonteaching self-awakened) and public (supremely self-awakened teaching) buddhas. Other "noble ones" are noble disciples (enlightened students), whose experience of enlightenment is the same as the buddhas with the difference that buddhas have other additional knowledges and powers like the dasa-balas or "Ten Powers of a Tathagata") which distinguish a supreme (samma-sam-bodhi) teacher from his successful students who have awakened to the same ultimate truths by pursuing the path he has pointed out. It may sound like a technical difference between these three kinds of individuals, "Enlightened Ones," as it were but it is key to comprehending how extraordinarily rare a supreme-enlightened-teaching buddha is, how rare and extraordinary pacceka-buddhas (nonteaching buddhas with the same knowledge but not the capacity to teach), and how relatively less rare (but still extraordinarily rare) disciple-arahants ("enlightened beings") are.

What does "Buddha" mean? An article by Bhikkhu Bodhi may change some minds

(Doug's Dharma) Let's take a look at a recent article by American scholar-monk and Pali canon translator Bhikkhu Bodhi on the meaning of Buddha and his related realization.

Some contemporary scholars have argued that bodhi ("enlightenment") should be translated as "awakening" and the historical Buddha should therefore be understood to mean "the Awakened One."

Bhikkhu Bodhi prefers a different option, and we'll see why.

• 00:00 Intro to the dispute
• 05:17 1. English definitions of the terms
• 07:48 2. Looking at Pāli language usage
• 08:56 3. Early metaphors and similes
• 14:08 A hidden irony or contradiction [by analogy bodhi is spoken of as enlightenment or awakening, whereas 

NOTE: A recent article by Western Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Anālayo calls Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of this term into question. Doug Smith has done a follow up video discussing that response here:

• What does "Buddha" mean: A Live Controversy...

✅ Articles mentioned

• Bhikkhu Bodhi, “On Translating ‘Buddha’” JOCBS 2020 (19). academia.edu/44864912...
• “In Defense of ‘Enlightenment’” Tricycle Magazine tricycle.org/magazine/enlight...

✅ Book mentioned

• Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark — amzn.to/3yGFLgy

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✅ Video mentioned: Gauging Progress on the Buddhist Path: The Traditional Four Stages — [of Enlightenment].

✅ Suttas (Pali canon sutras) mentioned: suttacentral.net/mn4/en/bodhi (Appears at 4.34) suttacentral.net/an3.53/en/bodhi

• Bhikkhu Bodhi (BAUS.org/en); Daniel Aitken, Jan. 26, 2024; Doug Smith (Doug's Dharma), Aug. 9, 2021; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly