Avalokitesvara Enlightenment Day (8/1)

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva

This weekend (either Saturday or Sunday), Hsi Lai Temple will be conducting a noontime offering to the great Kwan Yin Pusa (Guanyin Bodhisattva), who began as the male deva Avalokita (Avalokitesvara).

It is unknown which day it will be because it is officially posted as "Sunday, 8/1, at 10:00 am, but Sunday is 8/2, Aug. 2, 2026. So maybe it starts on Saturday at 10 and culminates with noontime offerings at 12 the next day? Call the temple for proper details.

• Hsi Lai (Coming West) Temple
• 3456 Glenmark Drive (near 60 Fwy)
• Hacienda Heights, LA, CA 91745
• info@ibps.org, (626) 961-9697

It will be located in the Hsi Lai Temple main shrine at the top of the steps near the giant incense cauldron that looks like the Liberty Bell. Fortunately, for the Fo Guang Shan (lit. "Buddha's* Light Mountain") Movement Buddhists of the world and others, there will be a Livestream (live from Los Angeles):

Buddha's Light Mountain

Fo Guang Shan (FGS, Chinese 佛光山, Pinyin Fó guāng shān, lit. "Buddha's Light Mountain") is an international Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist organization and monastic order. It is based in Taiwan and practices Humanistic Buddhism, whose roots are traced to the Linji School of Chan Buddhism.

The headquarters, Fo Guang Shan Monastery, is located in Dashu District, Kaohsiung, Buddhist Taiwan, and is the largest Buddhist monastery in the island country .

[Of course, mainland China lays claim to Taiwan as an integral part of the PRC (People's Republic of China) just as it insists that Bon/Vajrayana Buddhist Tibet and similarly oppressed Muslim Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the northwest are part and parcel of the nominally communist actively capitalist post-kingdom].

• Buddhism in Taiwan
• Buddhism in China

The organization is also one of the largest charity organizations in Taiwan. Its counterpart for laypeople is known as the Buddha's Light International Association. Founded in 1967 by Hsing Yun, the order promotes Humanistic Buddhism and is known for its efforts in the modernization of Chinese Buddhism.

The modernist order is famous for its use of technology, and its temples are often furnished with the latest equipment [1, 2]. Hsing Yun's stated position for Fo Guang Shan is that it is an "amalgam of all Eight Schools of Chinese Buddhism." More

• (*Sadly, while it sounds like one big, united Buddhist family, in fact the Buddha in the title refers to the "Cosmic Buddha" Amitabha, as in Amitofu, not the historical one from Earth, who is lovingly called the Sage of Scythian Shakya/Saka Clan, Shakyamuni, Siddhartha Gautama) 
• Hsi Lai Temple, Los Angeles; CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit FGS

I've had it with God, Krishna and Jesus

(Life of BeerBiceps) How Lord Krishna and Jesus Christ are related: Sindu/Hinduism+Christianity

A Hindu's Crisis of Faith

(Neo Dharmism) I rejected "God" for years...until I had a real experience I couldn't explain

• NEW: (Neo Dharmism) I stopped feeling God's presence — Hinduism had an answer I didn't expect

• 

  Great Lord Krishna of Hinduism

  Hindu Lord Vishnu (the Preserver), Narayana, Hari, the Supreme god of Vaishnavism. [This is a beautiful avatar so much so that the Buddha, the Christ, and the dark Lord Krishna (whose name means "black" Kānha, Sanskrit कान्हा, "The dark-complexioned beloved one" 108 Names of Shri Krishna) are said to be avatars and incarnations or emanations of this god. Of course, in the case of the historical Buddha, this can't be quite right. It is a beautiful sentiment, indeed, but the Buddha is not reborn here or elsewhere, is not a "god," and rises beyond the gods.

• 

  Radha and Krishna=Jesus and Mary

  As for a historical Jesus, maybe, but surely most Christians (or perhaps they should more rightly be labelled Jesuits or Jesevites) would not like to think that their all-powerful, supreme controller, creator of the entire universe were an avatar of a neighboring faith, in spite of the fact that Jesus practiced Hinduism to some extent or was exposed to it in his 18 years of travel in Tibet and India (Nicolas Notovitch). However, the title avatar may well apply to Lord Krishna, the central object of veneration and faith in popular Hinduism today, sometimes rivaling Lord Shiva and the great Goddesses Lakshmi, Sarawati, Parvati, Kali, Ma Durga, and his consort Radha.]
• Ishtadeva or Ishtadevata (Sanskrit इष्ट देव(ता), iṣṭa-deva(tā), literally the "cherished divinity" from iṣṭa, "personal, liked, preferred, cherished" and devatā, "deity, divinity, godhead, tutelary deity" or deva, "deity"), is a term used in Hinduism denoting a worshipper's favorite deity [1, 2] or favorite form of the deity if approached from a monotheistic or henotheistic point of view. More

Could a Hindu godman restore faith?

(Supreme Yoga Vidya) When Ramana Maharishi revealed his powers

(experiences of Rangan, Maharishi's childhood friend)

Three religions, one teaching?

(Finding Meaning Project) If Buddhism says there's no self, what's reborn?

Are nuns 2nd-class citizens in Buddhism?

(Natasha Yehenara) Are Buddhist nuns, who are forced to accept the garudhammas or "Eight Additional Rules," second-class citizens?

Ayya Tathaaloka (Alliance for Bhikkhunis)

[They sure have been treated as such by sexist and patriarchal monks trying to enhance and preserve their worldly power as abuse-prone clergyman. But these additional rules are NOT historical, as revealed by the scholarship of Ayya Tathālokā Bhikkhunī of California looking into the Theravada Bhikkhuni Vinaya, were not laid down or approved by the Buddha, and have been shown to be later additions. For instance, on one occasion, the Buddha's mother, the first Buddhist nun in history, comes to the Buddha seeking clarification on some matter or other, which would never have happened IF such additional rules had been laid down by him. The fact that she asks what she does, as documented in a vinaya backstory preserved among the ancient Buddhist texts, proves the Buddha didn't do it. And the fact that monks at later Buddhist councils added such sexist and oppressive stipulations is tantamount to crimes against humanity and the Sangha, maybe even a "defeat" (parajika) offense of a schism between monk and nun communities. Wisdom Quarterly stands firmly on the side of nuns, Natasha, and all future female-embodied persons (because we can all be reborn any gender whether we like it or not) seeking enlightenment and liberation. We have covered this topic many times in the past.]

(Joe Rogan Experience Clips) The dark truth

behind the crucifixion of Jesus Christ

Desire can be "good" in Buddhism?

Don't look at my bikini butt, okay, you perverts? It's just flesh for sitting on toilet seats.*

.

Good (beneficial) "desire"

I want to meditate now to make progress.

Chanda: "intention," "desire," "will." 1. As an ethically neutral psychological term, in the sense of "intention," it is one of those general mental concomitants or factors (cetasika, Table II) taught in the Abhidhamma (the "Dhamma in Ultimate Terms"), the moral quality of which is determined by the character of the volition (cetanā) associated with it.

The Commentary explains it as "a wish to do" (kattu-kamyatā-chanda). If intensified, it acts also as a "predominance condition" (see paccaya 3).

• 

  OK, now shut up, Nerd (iStock)

  Definition of terms: "GOOD": wholesome, skillful, beneficial. "BAD": unwholesome, unskillful, leading to an increase in suffering when karma (deed) eventually ripens and fruits into karmic-resultants in spite of the fact that a deed performed now may seem to bring about an immediate increase in pleasant feeling.

2. As an evil quality it has the meaning of "desire," and is frequently coupled with terms for "sensuality," "greed," and so on, for instance: kāma-cchanda, "sensuous desire," one of the Five Hindrances (nīvarana); chanda-rāga, "lustful desire" (kāma). It is one of the Four Wrong Paths (agati, motivated by greed/chanda, hate/dosa, delusion/moha, or fear/bhaya).

Simplistic, wrong: Buddhism explained in 1 minute?

3. As a good quality, it is a wholesome (kusala) will, motive, or zeal (dhamma-chanda) and occurs, for example, in the formula of the Four Right Efforts (padhāna): "The meditator rouses will (chandam janeti)..." If intensified, it becomes one of the Four Roads to Power (iddhipāda).

Bad (harmful) "desire"

Oh, hells yeah, look at that butt!

Tanhā (lit. "thirst"): "craving," the chief root of suffering [behind ignorance], and of the ever-continuing cycle of rebirths [known as samsara].

"What, O meditators, is the origin of suffering (disappointment, unsatisfactoriness, off-kilter woe)? It is this craving that gives rise to ever-fresh rebirths and, bound up with [sensual] pleasure and lust, now here, now there, [continues wandering on, trying] to find ever fresh delight.

"It is [threefold:] sensual craving (kāma-tanhā), craving for [eternal] existence (bhava-tanhā), and craving for non-existence (vibhava-tanhā)'' (D.22).

Tanhā is the eighth link in the formula of the Dependent Origination (paticcasamuppāda). Compare also at the kinds of "truth" (sacca).

Corresponding to the six sense-objects, there are six kinds of craving, craving for:

1. visible objects (sights),
2. sounds (auditory experiences),
3. fragrances (aromas),
4. tastes (flavors),
5. tactile impressions (bodily contact),
6. mental impressions (rūpa-, sadda-, gandha-, rasa-, photthabba-, dhamma-tanhā). (M.9; D.15)

Corresponding to the threefold existence, there are three kinds:

1. craving for sensual existence (kāma-tanhā),
2. craving for fine-material existence (rūpa-tanhā) [in the many celestial/dimensional "heavenly" (sagga, deva-lokas) realms],
3. craving for immaterial existence (arūpa-tanhā) [in the four formless worlds] (D.33).

If I can't get butts, I'll scarf dopamine-chocolate

There are 18 "thought-channels of craving" (tanhā-vicarita) induced internally, and 18 induced externally; and as occurring in past, present, and future, which total 108. (See A. IV, 199; Vibh., Ch. 17 Khuddakavatthu-Vibhanga).

According to Dependent Origination, craving is conditioned by feeling; on this see DN 22 (section on the Second Ennobling Truth).

As for "craving for [continued or eternal] existence" (bhava-tanhā), it is said (A.X.62):

"No first beginning of the craving for [continued] existence can be perceived, O, meditators, before which it was not and after which it came to be. But it can he perceived that craving for existence has its specific [cause and] condition. I say, O, meditators, that craving for existence also has its condition that feeds it (sāharam) and is not [subsisting] without it. And what is that condition? It is 'ignorance,' one must reply."

Will robo-toilets or -dogs fix world?

(The Daily Show) Tech Yeah! AI actress film, "robo-toilets"? | Grace K

*Deposit used chocolate here.

Craving for [continued] existence and ignorance are called "the outstanding causes that lead to happy and unhappy destinies (courses of existence)."

(See The Path of Purification, Vis.M. XVII, 36-42).

The most frequent synonyms of tanhā are rāga ("lust," "greed," "passion") and lobha ("greed"). See the "roots" of good and evil, the skillful and the unskillful, at mūla).

• Karma: Ten Courses of Wholesome and Unwholesome Action
• The Roots of Good and Evil (Buddhist Publication Society, Wheel Series 251/252/253)
• Will Tilly Norwood be the new Gal "IDF Zionist" Gadot?
• Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary via palikanon.com (chanda and tanhā); Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Heart Sutra: Buddha's Mother: Perfect Wisdom

(Buddha's Wisdom) Who is PRAJNA PARAMITA? The mother behind the Heart Sutra

• The Buddha's [6] Mothers' Day (Prajna Paramita as 7th)

Perfection of Insight, Prajnaparamita (LACMA)

All hail the Goddess (Devi) Prajna Paramita (of Java), the Mother of the Perfection of Wisdom, the most tremendous, the most excellent of the Ten Perfections (paramitas) which the historical Buddha cultivated for aeons as the Bodhisatta (the "being bent on supreme enlightenment").

The Heart Sutra is the world's most popular Buddhist sutra. Sadly, from a young age, even I recognized something in its magical wording (Edward Conze translation). It had a small tract of it in English and Chinese, and I would approach Chinese friends to translate some of the incomprehensible parts -- one line in particular: "until we come to."

Sveta Sofia (Wisdom) of Bulgaria

What in the world? It turns out that was just Conze's way of saying "...". And other parts were explained to me as having been written in an archaic form of Old (liturgical) Chinese few people spoke, which they were very embarrassed to admit. The Berkeley Zen Center was even more forthcoming, suggesting it was just something to chant, not something one could hope to make sense of, like a Sanskrit seed-mantra. So they just chanted it, on the one hand, rote, mindlessly, thoughtlessly, with no investigation that it might actually mean something sensible. I, on the other hand, was tenacious, spending years making sense of it. And every year it made more and more sense.

The lost meaning has been recovered. 

My Theravada study of it revealed exactly what it was all about after a few years due to some key phrases that do not make sense on their own but make perfect sense as references to ancient Buddhist texts, such as lists of the BASES (ayatanas). The final crowning explanation came from Alan Watts* making sense of the strange wording, which might trip one up for years. I attribute this to a flexible way of translating any Sanskrit or Pali word, all of which have much wider valence, admitting to a range of translations, not one fixed English word to serve all situations.

• 

  A bodhisattva helping living beings

  The key secret is to realize that Śūnyatā ("Emptiness," void) is synonymous with the Pali suññatā ("impersonal" = anatta). Then everything else falls into place.
• This is because what the Heart Sutra (Prajñā-pāramitā-hṛdaya Discourse) is talking about are the Five Aggregates clung to as self, pointing out that every "heap" -- each one of the Five Aggregates -- is actually devoid of self. It is impersonal and is in that sense "empty." It has no "independent existence." What kind of existence does it have? It has a dependently-originated one. It is foolish to think there is nothing there at all as if all things were the void: There is no thing there, but there is something, some stuff, something is appearing. In the ultimate sense, "things" (dhammas, dharmas, phenomena) have an existence and so are called "things." The one thing that is not a thing is nirvana (the deathless, amata/amrita, the unconditioned element). Nirvana, being free of conditions, does not bear the (three universal) marks of "things." This "self" we cling to is just such a "thing," a conglomeration of other "things" (aggregates, groups, heaps), bearing the universal marks of being impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal.

• 

  Avalokitesvara (in basalt)

  "Self" arises in this way, not as a real entity but an illusion brought about by the presence of the aggregates. When one grasps that all there has ever been are phenomenal aggregates -- impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal -- then the heart naturally lets go with no prompting and becomes free of all clinging and all further suffering.
• It is called the "Heart" (hṛdaya) Sutra not because of emotions or sweetness but because it comes as the culmination, the brief summary, the pith, the essence of 100,000 lines or verses of detailed explanation. It is the essence of perfected wisdom. It is the key to stream entry, that which when not grasped keeps us as ordinary worldling but when grasped causes a "change of lineage" (gotrabhu) to the noble ones. The Buddha himself said it. There are not enlightened disciples to be found in other traditions, at least not in the Buddhist sense of the term bodhi ("awakened," "enlightened," "liberated") because nowhere else is this Doctrine of No-Self ever taught, ever revealed, ever explained, although all popular religions seem to have an innate understanding that being egoless is far wiser than being full of ego. For example, in popular Christianity, in the eyes of God, what is the worst sin? Pride.

Beloved Kwan Yin (Guanyin)

Better than [the Goddess of Compassion] Kwan Yin (the feminine form of Avalokiteshvara)? More beloved than [the Cosmic Buddha of Light] Amitabha? No, probably not, but what is higher and more exalted than wisdom?

The Buddha himself noted how popular and beloved Ananda was, whereas the monastics did not seem to realize the kalyana-mitta (noble/enlightening friendship) potential of Ven. Sariputta, the male monastic he declared foremost in wisdom. One can easily imagine the same thing must have happened among the females with the Buddha highlighting the value of the great bhikkhuni Ven. Khema, the nun he declared foremost in wisdom.

Sariputta and MM become disciples

Now, one may ask, Why is Avalokiteśvara -- who is later transformed into the Goddess or Personification of Compassion (Kwan Yin/Guanyin) -- addressing Ven. Sariputra of all people in this most famous of all apocryphal "discourses"?

UCLA Prof. Robert E. Buswell Jr. (who ordained as a monk in Korean Zen then Sri Lankan Theravada before becoming a Western academic) explained the reason to us in class. Brahminical/Chinese Mahayana is holding up the monk disciple (shravaka) the Buddha declared "foremost in wisdom" as a scarecrow, stick figure, or punching bag to mock his supposed "wisdom," as if he were a mere intellect, a clueless egghead, a Brahmin nerd, a clueless dork compared to their god (deva, deity) Avalokita, whom they declare an "enlightenment being" (bodhi-sattva) and "great being" (maha-sattva, a Mahayana maha-sthamaprapta).

• How the Western world personified Wisdom (Sophia): The personification of wisdom
• But there has to be a "self," right? No, here are some examples of in what sense there is not-a-self: Egoless Led Zeppelin (JBLZE) in Hollywood?

How to make the Heart Sutra simpler?

Rewrite it in modern English so readers get it

Holding lotus, symbol of blossoming

Wow, this perfection of wisdom is cool! It's eye-opening!

Avi, awake and wanting to awaken others, was reviewing the wisdom that has gone beyond. He looked down from on high and saw just five heaps, saw that in and of themselves they are impersonal, NOT A SELF, empty.

Herein, Sali, form implies emptiness, and emptiness implies form. Emptiness is not different than form, and form is not different than emptiness. They are mutually dependent. Anything that is empty, impersonal, and not-self is form.

• 

  The Zen ensō (zero, circle)

  [Conze translates these famous line as: "Form is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form; form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is emptiness, that is form; [whatever is form, that is emptiness;] the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses (cetana, volitions), and consciousness."
• What in the world does it mean? "Form" (Rūpa) and "Emptiness" (Pali Suññatā, Sanskrit Śūnyatā), Alan Watts explains in the video below, go together, are inseparable, are relational, one revealing the other, making no sense without the other. The instant one comes into being (arises), the other necessarily comes into being at the same time, for one cannot be without the other, just as opposite pairs depend on one another: being/nonbeing, birth/death, origin/cessation, yin/yang, figure/background. One would be meaningless without the other, for the other provides contrast and give it its definition.
• So it would, in fact, be more sensible (better for meaning) to translate this line as, "Form (shape, color) reveals (exactly is, is inseparable from, always goes with, is inseparably related to) emptiness..." or "Form (solidity, density, tangibility) is not (designated, defined, found) without emptiness (a hollow or void) because they co-arise mutually. "One (exhibits) brings out the fact of the other.]
• What is an Enso? (Lion’s Roar)

And the same is true of [of the other four heaps/aggregates] sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousnesses.

• 

  Sali is Ven. Sariputra in this scene.

  [Rather than a solid thing that can easily be grasped like form (Four Elements, maha-bhuta or dhatus, qualities of materiality of form-particles), the stream of consciousness is an impersonal PROCESS, not a static object.]

Herein [here within this Doctrine], Sali, all phenomena are impersonal. They bear the mark of being impersonal, empty: They are not produced and not stopped, not dirty and not clean, not missing something and not full.

So you see, Sali, in the impersonal, there is no form (no body composed of the Four Elements), nor sensations, nor perceptions, nor formations, nor consciousnesses.

Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva as "Avi"

There are no bases for these things [that are all dependently originated]: no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, nor the things that impinge on them: forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, or objects of mind, nor the things these sense depend on for their sensitivity: no element (sensitive tissue) of sight, and so forth, until we come to: no element (sensitive tissue) at the heart of consciousness.

[Why? It is because, after all, all things are impersonal, empty, not a self, so a bunch of them together don't make a self either).]

Devi Prajnaparamita of Java

Likewise, really, there is no ignorance, so there is no end of ignorance [since it doesn't really exist except as an illusion), and so forth, until we come to: There is no aging and death, no end of aging and death. There is no disappointment, no coming into being, no extinction, and no path to the extinction of disappointment. There is no knowing, no attainment, and there is no non-attainment of this realization.

And so, Sali, because of one's not-attaining anything that a being-bent-on-enlightenment, perfecting this wisdom that has gone beyond, dwells free of discursive thoughts. In their absence, one is free of trembling. One has overcome all that can upset and so realized nirvana.

Sophia (Library of Celsus)

All those who appear as supremely awakened teachers the three periods of time -- past, present, and future -- fully awake to this utmost realization, right and perfect awakening because they have perfected the wisdom that has gone beyond.

So, Sali, everyone should know this perfection of wisdom as a kind of mantra, the mantra of great knowing, the utmost mantra, the unequalled mantra, the allayer of all disappointment and ill. It's true; I mean, what could really go wrong except that it be an illusion?

By perfecting the wisdom that has gone beyond, this mantra becomes clear, and it runs like this:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

("Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, oh what an awakening, it's true!")

This is indeed the pith of perfect wisdom.

Self, in the ultimate analysis, does not exist

(Khenpo Sodargye's Teachings) If there is no self, who reincarnates? | National Taiwan U Q&A

*Alan Watts: "Form is emptiness, AND emptiness is form." Why?

(Alan Watts, Zen Reconsidered, Part 2) Alan Watts explains shunyata at Minute 32:34

We were happy just to CHANT it

Reciting Heart Sutra for Wisdom, Compassion, Purification; Om Gate Mantra (Buddha Weekly)

.

Is enlightenment possible for everyone?

 

Icon of Holy Wisdom (Vologda)

(Dalai Lama) Can everyone be enlightened? Moksha ("liberation," vimutti, "freedom" from samsara and suffering, "deliverance," salvation) is of two kinds, two levels, a happy life here and now [with possibly a heavenly rebirth for moral behavior hereafter] or attaining liberating-insight and final emancipation here and now in this very life through moral behavior, stillness (samadhi, settled calm, concentration), and vipassana (comprehending and cultivating Dependent Origination sufficient in theory and complete in practice).

• The Heart Sutra: Insights from Gautama Buddha's Teachings (Beetle Book Shop)
• Buddha's Wisdom (video); Dalai Lama (Q&A); Khenpo Sodargye (Q&A); Alan Watts (Zen Reconsidered, Pt. 2); Dhr. Seven (text), CC Liu (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

First stage of enlightenment: Heart Sutra

(Alan Watts Essential Membership)

(Swapnaloka) The biggest illusion is ME? (Maya, Lila) the Divine Illusion (Advaita Vedanta)

What must Bodhidharma have thought?

I was trying to read the Heart Sutra to chant it in Sanskrit. But it doesn't make any sense translated into English. At least it didn't until Wisdom Quarterly's Dharma editor explained it.* Now it's clear. Now I know why "enlightenment" eludes me. Now I know what to study and put into practice to know-and-see. Thanks, WQ!

• *The Heart Sutra: Buddha's Mother: Perfect Wisdom
• The Heart Sutra over the years (Wisdom Quarterly)

Do "I" even exist, Bhante?

(Buddhism) Do "I" really exist? Concept of anatta (not-self) in Buddhism

Stream-Enterer Sutra

The Scythian Sage: The Buddha

[At Savatthi the Buddha said:] "Meditators, there are these Five Groups clung to as self. What five groups?

1. The body-group clung to as self,
2. the feeling-group,
3. the perception-group,
4. the mental-formation-group,
5. the consciousness-group clung to as self.

"And when, meditators, the noble (Aryan = "enlightened," "awakened") disciple understands as they truly are:

• the arising and the passing away,
• the attractiveness and the danger, and
• the deliverance from the five groups clung to as self,

The Devi (Goddess) Pallas Athena (Klimt)

one is called a noble disciple who is a stream-winner, no longer liable to ever fall into subhuman states of woe [1], assured of full and final enlightenment."

• NOTE: 1. The "stream-winner" (sotapanna) is sure to become fully enlightened (an arahant) within seven rebirths and will not be reborn more than seven more times, and such a person will never again be reborn in any state lower than the human plane.

The beginning of wisdom

(Buddhism in English) Put ego away and humbly ask questions

1. the one "with seven rebirths at the utmost" (sattakkhattu-parama) ["one with only seven further rebirths at the utmost," is one of the three kinds of stream-winners (sotāpannas).
2. the one "passing from one noble family to another" (kolankola),
3. the one "germinating only once more" (eka-bījī, lit. "one seed" or perhaps "at most once more seeded").]

Watts on Hindu/Mahayana 'enlightenment'

Alan Watts reveals the big secret, reality, and LSD (alanwatts.org)

As it is said (e.g., Pug.37-39; A.III.87):

What is the greatest bliss? Seeing release.

(1) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three lower fetters (personality-belief, skeptical doubt, attachment to rites and rituals), see samyojana), has entered the stream [that leads inevitably to nirvana], that person is no longer subject to any rebirth in the lower worlds [anywhere below the human plane], is firmly established, destined to reach full enlightenment. After having passed among celestial beings (deva) and human beings (manussya) only at most seven times more through the Round of Rebirths, one puts an end to all suffering. Such a person is called "one with seven rebirths at the utmost" (sattakkhattu-parama).

I continued to practice to make an end of all ill.

(2) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three fetters.... is destined to reach full enlightenment, that person, after having passed among noble families two or three times through the round of rebirths, makes an end of all suffering. Such a person is called "one passing from one noble family to another" (kolankola).

(3) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three fetters...is destined to full enlightenment, one, after having only once more returned to the human plane, makes an end of all suffering. Such a person is called "one germinating only once more" (eka-bījī).

• See Sotāpatti-Samyutta (S.55)
• See also SN 55.24, Note 7:
• 7. This is an encouraging message for many! Compare it to the end of MN 22 and also the charming image of the newborn calf in MN 34. The Commentary (MA) to MN 22 says such people are termed "lesser stream-winners" (cula-sota-panna). This term is discussed in The Path of Purification (VM XIX, 27). [This term is more fully explained in The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga).] The stress laid here on the importance of faith (actually saddha, "confidence," "conviction," the trust sufficient to investigate that precedes personal verification) is interesting in view of later developments such as the Pure Land schools (e.g., Jodo-Shinshu or "Shin-Buddhism" in Japan).
• (SN 22.109 PTS: S iii 160 CDB i 9650)
• Maurice O'Connell Walshe (trans.), Sotapanno Sutta: The Sotapanna, "The Stream-Winner" Pali title based on PTS (Feer) edition; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly