SELF-REALISATION
SELF-REALISATION
SELF-REALISATION IN BUDDHAHOOD
In
OLD PATH WHITE CLOUDS: Walking in the
Footsteps of the Buddha (Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, 1991),
Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, world-renowned Vietnamese Zen monk-scholar-writer,
has insightfully and skilfully retold the spiritual life and teachings of the
Buddha Shakyamuni (the Name cherished by Mahayana Buddhists, and the First and
Foremost Dharma Teacher universally revered as Siddhartha Gautama Buddha).
Siddhartha was the first human being to become fully and perfectly enlightened as
a Buddha in recorded history.
Following the highly-intensive seven-week
course of profound meditative concentration (samadhi), Siddhartha completely destroyed and eradicated the
karma-bound defilements of ignorance and craving; having totally purified his
heart-mind, he attained the Supreme, Perfect Enlightenment of Buddhahood. The
pure light of the full moon and the radiance of the rising morning star marked
the dawn of the Buddha’s Consummate Enlightenment, over two and a half
millennia ago.
Having made the ultimate spiritual
breakthrough for a human being, Siddhartha saw for the first time with the
Buddha-eye of infinite vision, that all sentient beings have the same potential
of becoming Buddhas. For all human beings, Homo sapiens (who first appeared two
to three hundred thousand or more years ago on this blue planet called Earth,
an estimated total of 100 billion including the present global population of over seven billion), it
means that Buddhahood is intrinsically their spiritual birthright.
According to Siddhartha Gautama Buddha,
all human beings and all other sentient beings are ultimately destined to
become Buddhas. Only a Buddha can see all of them in their original state of perfection
and purity.
As narrated by Thich Nhat Hanh (p. 122):
Siddhartha gazed at the morning star and exclaimed out of deep compassion, “All
beings contain within themselves the seeds of Enlightenment, and yet we drown
in the ocean of birth and death (samsara)
for so many thousands of lifetimes!”
This absolutely amazing message and its transformative
ontological revelation that every human being can rightly aspire to become a
Buddha, comes with the Dharma, the Buddha’s Teaching of the Four Noble Truths
of existential suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its
cessation -- the Noble Eightfold Path to Enlightenment and the bliss of Nirvana;
the Dharma of Buddhahood is Siddhartha’s greatest gift to humankind, to all
those who come after the Buddha.
Seeking
Within: Self Nature, Buddha Nature
As narrated by Thich Nhat Hanh (p. 132):
“... Living beings did not need to seek enlightenment outside of themselves
because all the wisdom (omniscience) and strength of the universe was already
present in them. This was the Buddha’s great discovery and was cause for all to
rejoice...”
Seeking within, as Siddhartha found out, is
the way to fully liberate and enlighten oneself.
For
within is the spiritual treasure: Buddha Nature, Self Nature, the inherent
potential for Buddhahood: the ultimate
self-realisation and the crowning glory for every human on this blessed Earth.
“Every one of us contains Buddha-nature. We
can all become a Buddha,” Kondanna (Gautama Buddha’s first disciple) taught a
gathering of nearly three hundred people whom he had inducted into the
two-year-old Sangha, the spiritual community formed by the first wave of 60
arhats, saints and sages who had graduated
spiritually and attained the goal of the holy life.
“Buddha-nature is the capacity to awaken
and transcend all ignorance,” Kondanna explained (p. 185).
“If we practice the way of awareness, our
Buddha-nature will shine more brightly every day until one day, we, too, shall
attain to total freedom, peace, and joy (of Nirvana). We must each find the
Buddha within our own heart...”
At a private session in the 11th
year of His ministry, the Buddha taught His young son Rahula and Svati, an
untouchable buffalo boy, the practice of mindfulness,
the first of the seven factors of enlightenment. This particular lesson
focussed on the practice of mindfully observing the breath.
“...When you are aware of your breathing,
you dwell on mindfulness,” Master Gautama taught the two young men, both very
close and good friends (p. 322).
“Dwelling in mindfulness, you cannot be
led astray by any thoughts. With just one breath, you can attain awakening.
That awakening is the Buddha-nature that exists in all beings...”
The seven factors of enlightenment are:
mindfulness, effort, investigation of mental states, rapture/joy, tranquillity,
concentration, and equanimity.
The first factor of mindfulness is the most basic, the most fundamental, and the
pre-eminent factor.
Mindfulness is the cause for the other six
factors of enlightenment to arise. In this sense, mindfulness has been called
“the mother of all Buddhas”.
The great clarifying force of continuous
and sustained mindfulness can indeed generate a very powerful mental purifier.
In the Sutra on the Enlightenment Factors, the Buddha has expounded that
“when developed and cultivated, they (the seven enlightenment factors) lead to
direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nirvana...”
“Liberation and enlightenment do not exist
outside of your own self,” the Buddha has taught in the Sutra on the Dharma Seal, in one of His last and most important
teachings.
“We need only open our eyes to see that we
ourselves are the very essence of liberation and enlightenment,” said the
Buddha (OLD PATH WHITE CLOUDS p.
460).
“All dharmas, all beings, contain the
nature of full enlightenment within themselves.
“Don’t look for it outside yourself. If you
shine the light of awareness on your own self, you will realise enlightenment
immediately...
“You already are what you are searching
for...”
Self-nature/Buddha-nature is the alpha and
omega of self-realisation in Buddhahood.
“To see one’s Self-nature (Buddha-nature)
enables the swift attainment of Buddhahood, because when ignorance (the root
cause of existential suffering in countless lifetimes) is recognised as void (and
when finally eradicated), there is nothing left to break off (to detach,
release),” Grandmaster T’an Hsu has explained.
“When our adventitious (ignorance-bound)
defilements are abandoned, we understand that a Buddha has been there (within
the heart and mind) primordially,” Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay, a contemporary
Nying-ma lama has written.
The Pure Land Path to Buddhahood
In
Pure Land faith and practice, the realisation of the Supreme, Perfect
Enlightenment is to be achieved through a two-stage process of self-transformation:
(1) Attaining spiritual
liberation through rebirth in the Pure Land of
Amitabha Buddha of Infinite Light
(Omniscient Wisdom) and Infinite Life (Great Compassion)
(2) Further spiritual
cultivation in the Pure Land at a very high level of non-retrogression on the
path of Bodhisattvahood to Ultimate Nirvana.
“Sakyamuni Buddha (also known and revered
universally as Siddhartha Gautama Buddha) taught the method of reciting
Amitabha Buddha’s Name, seeking rebirth in the Western Pure Land, in order to
help sentient beings resolve the problem of Birth and Death (to attain complete
spiritual liberation) in this very lifetime,” Pure Land Patriarch Yin Kuang (1861-1940)
has taught.
“Buddha Recitation (the mindful practice
of chanting/reciting the Buddha’s Name) is the perfect shortcut to escape from
the wasteland of Birth and Death (Samsara)...
“You should know that the very words Amitabha Buddha, if recited to the
level of one-pointedness of mind (samadhi),
have ample power to lead sentient beings to Buddhahood...”
Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua (1918-1995),
Abbot of Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco, taught his American
disciples and students on the Saturday evening of 23 August 1975:
“To
become a Buddha, all you need to do is to recite the
Buddha’s Name...”
NAMO
AMITABHA
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