Enlightenment

[d_guy1024]

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What does attaining enlightenment or Buddhahood mean for us? It does not mean that one day we suddenly turn into a Buddha or become magically enlightened. In a sense, attaining Buddhahood means that we have securely entered the path, or orbit, of Buddhahood inherent in the cosmos. Rather than a final static destination at which we arrive and remain, achieving enlightenment means firmly establishing the faith needed to keep advancing along the path of absolute happiness limitlessly, without end.

[Gwynhuever]

enlightenment for me is self realization....knowing and believing that God is within.....and that happiness flows because you feel the love and you express it...it is all about LOVE.....

[d_guy1024]

Enlightenment is not a mystical or transcendental state, as many might assume. Rather it is a condition of the highest wisdom, vitality and good fortune wherein we can shape our own destiny, find fulfillment in daily activities and come to understand and appreciate our purpose in being alive.

[tolstoi]

enlightenment for me is knowing that there is GOD..realizing that there is an omnipotent ONE who created all the things around us.

[d_guy1024]

Buddhism teaches that our experience of life is not the responsibility of an external, all-powerful being. Rather, this philosophy starts with the individual. Each person has - in broad terms - similar attributes. We wake and sleep. We eat, drink and have bodily functions. We talk and we listen. We have the potential to fight and to love, to create and to destroy. Buddhism teaches that in the heart of every person there is incredible potential, which for the most part remains hidden.

Imagine a reservoir of the best qualities that life has to offer. And imagine this reservoir deep in your own life, and of an enormous, unimaginable volume. What will you find there? You will find the necessary ingredients to experience joy, happiness and good fortune here and now.

Is all this a fantasy? Buddhism teaches that we all have this reservoir. Perhaps we are aware that those qualities trickle out to some extent, but how often have we found that the trickle dries up when we really need it?

This reservoir is known as the Buddha state, or Buddha wisdom, and the teachings of Buddhism exist so that we can reveal it in daily life. From this we can understand that the Buddha is an ordinary person. Buddhahood is not an unattainable life-condition, but a potential that is within all life and within each of us, right here, right now.

'If you wish to free yourself from the sufferings of birth and death you have endured since time without beginning and to attain without fail unsurpassed enlightenment in this lifetime, you must perceive the mystic truth that is originally inherent in all living beings. This truth is Myoho-renge-kyo. Chanting Myoho-renge-kyo will therefore enable you to grasp the mystic truth innate in all life.'

A Buddha is an ordinary human being alive in this world who realises that the reservoir is there, draws on it at will, and encourages others to do the same. Nichiren Daishonin said that all the teachings of Buddhism pointed to this fact: we all have this potential and the way to experience it is to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

[tolstoi]

^^did Buddha taught you 'who' or 'what' created life in the first place?..you can't experience these resevoirs and stuffs if anything in the universe did not exist.

[d_guy1024]

'Myoho' explains at least two major principles of life: the relationship between life and death, and the relationship between our most enlightened, or Buddha, state and all our other nine conditions or states of life. Let's not tackle the 'ten states of life' or 'ten worlds' as of the moment.

How do the teachings of Buddhism view the relationship between life and death? We all have a birthday. That is, quite simply, the day when we emerged into the world as a baby. We also have some idea of what was happening to us in the nine or so months before we emerged from the womb. Before that, however, other than the knowledge that a sperm and an egg came together at a particular moment, things are not so clear. Biologists cannot give definitive answers as to where or what our consciousness was before conception and philosophers have also struggled to explain this. Buddhism teaches that all our constituent parts, not just physical ones, but mental and spiritual as well, existed in a state of latency, waiting for the right conditions to emerge before we could start the process of being born after conception. Before conception, we are latent, or 'myo'. This means that our life energy is waiting for the necessary circumstances before it can take on a physical form. 'Ho', which means law, or phenomena, describes the manifest state and particularly the emergence of the new-born baby into the world. We remain alive - manifest - until the point when, for whatever reason, our bodies can no longer support our lives. The body dies, and the constituent parts separate. At this point we cease to be 'ho' and return once more to the latent state of 'myo'.

Buddhism teaches that life is a cycle. We emerge from 'myo', become 'ho' and return to 'myo' again. This rhythm continues forever. The cycle of the seasons echoes this process. We see new growth in spring, maturity in summer, harvest and decline in autumn before a period of apparently bleak withdrawal in winter. But winter never fails to turn into spring once more, and the cycle starts again. We feel our Buddhahood at work because our chanting has caused it to appear according to another fundamental life principle: 'renge', which is about how the effect exists simultaneously with the cause.

[d_guy1024]

^^did Buddha taught you 'who' or 'what' created life in the first place?..you can't experience these resevoirs and stuffs if anything in the universe did not exist.

Buddhism teaches the three integral aspects of the truth, or ultimate reality, as the truth of non-substantiality, the truth of temporary existence, and the truth of the Middle Way.

The truth of non-substantiality means that phenomena have no existence of their own; their true nature is non-substantial, indefinable in terms of existence or nonexistence.

The truth of temporary existence means that, although non-substantial, all things possess a temporary reality that is in constant flux.

The truth of the Middle Way means that the true nature of phenomena is that they are neither non-substantial nor temporary, though they display attributes of both. The Middle Way is the essence of things that continues either in a manifest or a latent state.

The unification of the three truths teaches that the truths of non-sub-stantiality, temporary existence, and the Middle Way are inseparable aspects of all phenomena. It explains the three truths of non-substantiality, temporary existence, and the Middle Way as an integrated whole, each of the three containing all three within itself.

[tolstoi]

^^another way of saying that buddha didn't wanted to know the ultimate truth of life [life's origin] because he couldn't comprehend it himself, hence he deviced teachings on 'non-substantiality of the truth' in order to create verbal metaphors on the subject...am i right?

fact here is, searching for the ultimate truth of life will definitely lead you to WHO/WHAT created it..and that means searching also about GOD.

[d_guy1024]

^^another way of saying that buddha didn't wanted to know the ultimate truth of life [life's origin] because he couldn't comprehend it himself, hence he deviced teachings on 'non-substantiality of the truth'Â* in order to create verbal metaphors on the subject...am i right?

fact here is, searching for the ultimate truth of life will definitely lead you to WHO/WHAT created it..and that means searching also about GOD.

The ultimate reality or the three truths were not just deviced, it is the truth the Buddha has perceived, or was enlightened. It's okay if you don't believe it as of now, you may try chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and try disproving it, I hope you are inclined to do so...In Buddhism, you are encouraged to doubt what the Buddha had taught more than 2500 years ago, as he himself teaches, "small doubts lead to small realization, great doubts lead to great realization, but no doubt leads to no realization".