Below are the accounts of several individuals who experienced Awakening in the present day world. By Awakening, we are talking Enlightenment as described in the historic texts and Sutras of the masters, BUT with everyday people going about their everyday business. True, two had particpated in more formal religious contexts, one being a Buddhist Monk, the other of the two being a "non-traditional Advaita Zen Master," but the rest were just "regular" people. One was a teenage boy, three were women, of which one was with child waiting for a bus one day and one was an American business woman in a hotel waiting to start her days work. However they all had one thing in common, when Attainment occured for all it was outside the Doctine.
What does any of it mean for YOU? Basically it means if the Awakening Experience can unfold for the people cited below, it can also unfold for you.
Invariably when people read the accounts below as well as DARK LUMINOSITY, describing a modern era Enlightenment experience in the Zen tradition, that is, outside the Doctrine and in the present day world, they start jumping up and down quoting all kinds of things such as " To know is not to know, Not to know is to know," and "One who knows, speaks not; one who speaks, knows not", quoting the Taoist Lao Tzu without ever citing the source (Tao Te Ching, Chapter LVI, Verse 28). If Lao Tzu was an Enlightened being himself, or even existed, is never made clear, but the same people that are so quick to use the above quotes seldom quote the all time champion of Enlightenment, the Buddha, who, according to the Sutras said flat out and in plain everyday language that he himself was indeed Enlightened. See:
THE ARIYA-PARIYESANA SUTRA, Majjhima Nikaya MN 26
Of course, there are a number of other ways to resolve such issues, however not everyone, primarily because of drawing conceptual construct inferences while being firmly implanted in the Samsaric side of any equation, are willing to do so. Most related arguments can easily be hammered out or diffused in a sufficient fashion by going to and reading wholeheartedly such sources as:
- ENLIGHTENMENT: Can You Do It?
- How to Recognize Enlightenment
- The Ten Fetters of Buddhism
- Sudden or Gradual Enlightenment
- LUANGPOR TEEAN: A Biography of an Awakened Master
- DARK LUMINOSITY: An Enlightenment Experience in the Zen Tradition
- JOHN WREN-LEWIS: A Near-Death Experience Opens the Door to a Permanent Transformation
- AZIZ KRISTOF: Non-traditional Advaita Zen Master
- METTA ZETTY: A Spontaneous Experience Into Awareness
- ANN FARADAY: An Account of Realization of Emptiness
- SUZANNE SEGAL: A Collision with the Infinite
- "A CHILD OF THE CYBER-SANGHA"
- ALFRED PULYAN: American Zen Master Without the Zen nor the Buddhism
- EDWARD MUZIKA: Awakened Follower of Robert Adams in Direct Lineage From Sri Ramana
In a similar vein, and thus then possibly of some interest to you as well, the following is offered:
One of the things that most certainly never ceases to amaze me is how much effort in the Enlightenment business invariably ends up so self-serving by selling one's own books, workshops, audio tapes, teeshirts, and ballpoint pens ...especially when the person pushing the stuff extols so stringently hand-in-hand that "their way and their way only" is the only TRUE avenue toward Awakening. The following regarding the deeply admired Indian sage, Baba Faqir Chand, parallels:
Thus Faqir Chand became quite outspoken about how gurus, masters, prophets, and mystics, posing as all-knowing beings, have deceived millions of followers by duping them into believing that they have omnipresence and omnipotence when in fact they have neither.
What Enlightened sages possess, rather, is access experientially to a higher spectrum of awareness, which, in turn, reveals not final or absolute truth, but a growing awareness of how truly mysterious life really is.
And to be sure, as for myself, such a viewpoint is NOT a reflection of some holier than thou attitude either, as I fully well realize that the Right Livelihood is one of the Buddha's Eight Noble Paths. However, in that IT resides in you then it follows you must already have it. If you already have it, how then would it be possible for another individual, organization, or anybody or anything else to expect some sort of payment or compensation in exchange for something you already have, or at the very least, they have no power in giving or producing in the first place? If it is because, before the Enlightenment-experience, you feel grateful for an assist in some fashion, there would be no need, as Attainment would not have unfolded yet. If it is post Enlightenment there would be no need because it resided in you in the first place, so what would you have received?
Although I am not in total agreement with every subtle nuance by everybody on everything concerning Enlightenment and the Awakening experience of the people cited on the list above, I do go along with the view, and very much so, with something Lee Lozowick said in his interview with What is Enlightenment? Magazine that goes something like:
"I was criticizing every other teacher, like I was the only teacher on the face of the planet who was real. That's such a ridiculous posture. As time has gone on, I've become much more willing to just relax and acknowledge other people's strengths."
That is a close refelection of what most of my meager Zen droppings scattered throughout the internet is all about, and WHY my emphasis on the accomplishments of OTHERS along the path. If they can do it, YOU can as well, especially so, because if you stop to think about it a second, NONE of them had access to their OWN books or workshops PRIOR to their experience.
True Enlightenment, as experienced by the Buddha and transmitted through the patriarchs, is independent of verbal explanations, including the record of the Buddha's teachings (i.e., scriptures) and later doctrinal elaborations. (source)
A special transmission outside the scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing to the soul of man:
Seeing into one's own nature and attainment of Buddhahood
When it comes to teachers, gurus, masters, mentors and so on, there are those that insist on or only consider such things as Lineage and who and what others of credible status may think, and in many cases, justifiably so. It may matter, it may not.
It is often said that when you truly need a teacher, one will appear. This may due to some inexplicable serendipity. It may be due to the fact that the seeker has searched deeply within himself or herself and determined what sort of instruction seems to be required. It could be swept over him or her like the first death experience of the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, or the Bhagavan's little known Second Death Experience, or a spiritual desperation on the part of the seeker, or maybe no more than a successful sales pitch by a teacher (sincere or not). It may be a combination of the previous factors, or some intuitive awareness beyond expression. For whatever the reason, the saying often applies and the coming together of the results of inner and outside forces, some within one's control, some without, can be found most eloquently as they all come together in the following:
SEE ALSO:
By going to the Google search engine for example, and typing in the word wanderling, the Google Web Directory as well as DMOZ and others such as the Data Segment Web Directory, etc., the following comes up under the Open Directory Project category, which you can click through here:
society >religion >spirituality >buddhism >zen >teachers and masters
and lists the following:
The Wanderling - http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/ZenEnlighten01.html
Anonymous self-proclaimed Zen Master. Founder of Awakening 101.
While it would be an accurate statement to say that I am truly most grateful and humbled to be included and listed in such prestigious internet resources as the ones above, surrounded on the list by many extraodinarily impressive teachers and masters of the Dharma, it is not quite accurate to say that I am a "self-proclaimed Zen Master." So saying on two counts because, first, the following quote, which is mine, appears throughout my works, either in actuality or in essence: "Being neither teacher nor guru, and since from the first not a thing is, the most one can do is to offer a glimpse or help point the way. In the end it resides in you" Secondly, by accessing the link suggested above by the directories and reading through to Page Two, you would come to the following: "...at age 31, after an intermittent slow start followed by Sri Ramana Maharshi is universally accepted and recognized as being fully Awakened to the Absolute. My Zen mentor studied under Ramana and is well documented and known throughout literature and various writings. (see) I inturn studied under my mentor, as well as Yasutani Hakuun Roshi (without much success I might add). Third, as to being Anonymous, the following is offered: "Tom, Dick, and Harry think they have written the books that they sign (or painted the pictures, composed the music, built the churches). But they exaggerate. It was a pen that did it, or some other implement. They held the pen? Yes, but the hand that held the pen was an implement too, and the brain that controlled the hand. They were intermediaries, instruments, just apparatus. Even the best apparatus does not need a personal name like Tom, Dick, or Harry."
From the thoughts and mind of Wei Wu Wei
Previously,in the above text, you may recall I wrote:
The question arises, if such is the case, that is that "it can also unfold for you," IT being Enlightenment or Awakening as found in the texts of the ancient masters, can it unfold for not only you, but every Tom, Dick and Harriette that comes down the pike? You must buy the possiblity in some sense for yourself that if Enlightenment is not a full possibility it is at least not a totally remote out of the question possibility either. How about for Paris Hilton? Completely out of the question? Why? See:
"What does any of it mean for YOU? Basically it means if the Awakening Experience can unfold for the people (so) cited, it can also unfold for you."
