Was the Buddha Enlightened?

How enlightenment isn’t what we’ve always assumed

Photo by abhijeet gourav on Unsplash

To ask if the Buddha was enlightened is to many not just sacrilegious, but it is as good as asking if the Buddha was not the Buddha. For the word Buddha itself means awakened or enlightened.

However, the question begs a bigger one: just what is enlightenment, anyway? And what does it really mean to be awakened?

In particular, what kind of emotions can we infer the Buddha felt? The Pali texts say that the Buddha, after enlightenment, was not emotionless, but that he had transcended “afflicted emotions,” i.e., emotions that afflict or cause suffering, such as anger, frustration, and greed.

I don’t believe many Western practitioners would claim to be fully “awakened,” i.e., to have transcended all “afflicted” emotions. In fact, I’d wager that even leaders of the mindfulness meditation movement in America — folks like Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Tara Brach — would not make such a claim.

We, practitioners of meditation, feel our daily practice brings calm and equanimity into our lives. We are less judgmental, less materialistic, more selfless and compassionate. But who among us can truly say we no longer feel moments of anger or frustration, even greed or jealousy? So, why is enlightenment so damn difficult to achieve?

Is something wrong with us Westerners? Do we have to ditch our iPhones, leave our families, don orange robes and become wandering monks in the forest?

How is it that the Buddha could sit under a fig tree for forty-nine days and nights and be freed from all afflicted emotions when many Westerners who have practiced his teachings for decades cannot make such a claim?

However remarkable the Buddha was, he was, after all, human (and repeatedly said so); and he was also emphatic that his followers could attain the same state as he did.

Is it not fair, then, to ask the question: did even the Buddha, after enlightenment, struggle with the same demons as all of us, albeit not to the same extent?

Is it even possible that the scribes who wrote and codified the Pali Canon “tweaked” his speeches and dialogues in order to put him on a slightly higher lotus pedestal? Of course, we’ll never know the Buddha’s actual state of mind, and most Buddhist scholars say it’s useless to try.

In a recent text message, I asked my friend and Buddhist scholar Matthew Kapstein what the tradition says about the master’s enlightenment. He replied,

“Mahayana Buddhism redescribed nirvana as a-pratishtha-nirvana, “non-static-nirvana,” nirvana-in-motion, so to speak. But even here, nirvana was conceived as a wholly transcendent end, beyond all entanglements of karma and klesha (Pali, kilasa, ‘afflictions’).

As such, it was to be approached, as Kant would have had it, asymptotically, that is, as a point of infinity that may be forever approached without ever being reached. The Mahayana called those on the path bodhisattvas, beings oriented to awakening. Buddhas, who have reached that final, endlessly regressing point, may happen, but at most once in an aeon. But because aeons and worlds are without limit, so too buddhas. Perfect awakening, it follows, is at once rare and plentiful.”

Notwithstanding the last sentence, it seems that the tradition maintained a firm grip on the notion that the Buddha attained a perfect state of mind that few, if any of us, might achieve.

But if the Buddha was so unique, such a spiritual genius, then why did he claim all humans could achieve the same awakened state that he did? Is it possible that we’ve got him all wrong?

Might he, too, have had his moments of anger when a chariot blew dust in his face or frustration when mosquitoes buzzed round his ears? Maybe he even desired a rich curry dinner once in a blue moon, or, God forbid, experienced sexual desire in the presence of one of his nubile young nuns. (After all, he was only thirty-five when he attained enlightenment.)

In one text, the Buddha is supposed to have taught: “Monks, even if bandits were to sever you limb from limb with a two-handled saw, he who gives rise to hatred on that account would not be carrying out my teaching.”

Really?

While this example could be an extreme “thought experiment,” might not the Buddha himself feel a few moments of intense anger or fear if exposed to such a situation?

Rather, I can imagine him saying, yes, I would experience moments of fear and anger, but I would then be able to overcome such negative emotions by resorting to my practice. He might point out that he would sit quietly and come back to his breath, feel the anger in his body, and employ the other strategies he so wisely discovered to remain calm and turn his anger into compassion for the man who brutalized him.

If that is the case, maybe enlightenment is more a verb than a noun. A continual process of awakening, rather than a static state of being awakened.

Maybe all those qualities that we associate with the Buddha (compassion, non-attachment, equanimity, as well as insights such as the impermanent nature of things and the notion that there is no soul) are more aspirational than absolute states to be achieved?

An awakened being, then, would be one who doesn’t necessarily live without any trace of passion or desire, but rather one who aspires to (and generally succeeds in) being less attached to worldly goods and success; and one who has the tools to manage even his or her worst impulses, such as anger, frustration, and greed when they arise.

What’s wrong with thinking the Buddha, too, struggled with some of Mara’s temptations and frustrations, just as we do, even after enlightenment?

Does thinking about the Buddha in this manner diminish him in any way? I say absolutely not. In fact, it makes him more real and the goal of achieving Buddha nature less out of reach. For me, at least, all emotions, even the so-called afflicted ones, make us human, and I have no desire to relinquish my human nature. What I cherish, however, is having the tools to manage suffering when such emotions arise. And that’s enough for me.

Ken holds a PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University. He has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1971, when he stumbled into the Burmese Monastery in Bodh Gaya, India, and joined Ram Das and other now-famous meditation teachers in a 10-day vipassana retreat led by the renowned teacher S.N. Goenka.