Don’t follow in the footsteps of the wise…

Here’s a good interview with Adyashanti, who I only heard about in passing for the first time last summer This was the first I’ve actually read anything about or by him. Seems like an interesting guy. What he says here is something I can relate to:

When I looked around at the Buddhist tradition, I realized that the success rate was terrible. People were in it for enlightenment, but very few were actually getting enlightened. If this were a business, I thought, we’d be bankrupt.

I didn’t reject anything. I just stopped blindly adhering to the traditional approach, and the energy bound up in following transferred to looking deeply into what’s really true. I felt very much on my own.

A lot of Buddhists I know don’t think much about Enlightenment or talk much about it either. When they do talk about the spiritual life it’s generally in terms of becoming a better person or becoming happier. That’s all good stuff, but not enough. This is an issue I brought up in my own spiritual community some years ago. This became an issue for me because I do think consciously about becoming enlightened. I even plan for it in some ways, in that I have a strategy I’m following (although I sometimes lose sight of it).

I don’t think the Buddhist tradition actually hold people back, but I think people hold themselves back because there’s not enough of an existential edge in their practice. We’re often too busy teaching, running institutions, and trying to learn teachings. Basho apparently once said, "Don’t follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought." And that’s what Adyashanti seems to be saying as well. Learning teachings is essential up to a point, but I don’t think it takes much actual information to get enlightened — you just have to really go with the information you have.

Many people are always looking for "higher teachings," forgetting that without deeper understandings there are no higher teachings. Don’t look for more teachings — that final aphorism that’s going to put you over the edge. Look deeply into your experience and compare it to what you know already.

Many Buddhists are very keen to tell you about their teachers and see "having a [proper] teacher" as being a validation of their own practice. Having someone as your teacher is no guarantee of anything. Your teacher can’t do your practice for you. You have to seek what your teacher sought, not follow his footsteps. I think attachment to "having a teacher" is a major hindrance to many western Buddhists. (Do I "have a teacher"? No. But I do have a teacher in the ordinary sense that I practice in a tradition with a founder, and his thinking and practice have affected my thinking and practice. I don’t actually try to replicate his path and attainments, which would be impossible anyway.)

And he’s right also that people are reticent when it comes to claims about enlightenment. They’re right to do so, of course, because there are deluded and fraudulent claims to spiritual attainment. But the skepticism tends to be blanket. The myth has emerged that in the East it’s considered bad form to talk about your attainments or to claim that you’re enlightened. But if you look at the Pali scriptures you’ll see people joyfully declaring their enlightenment for all to hear. Here’s Uttama, a Buddhist nun from the time of the Buddha:

Four times, five, I ran amok from my dwelling, having gained no peace of awareness, my thoughts out of control. So I went to a trustworthy nun. She taught me the Dhamma: aggregates, sense spheres, & elements. Hearing the Dhamma, I did as she said. For seven days I sat in one spot, absorbed in rapture & bliss. On the eighth, I stretched out my legs, having burst the mass of darkness.

Here’s Isidatta, a monk:

The five aggregates, having been comprehended, stand with their root cut through. For me the ending of stress is reached; the ending of fermentations, attained.

And of course the Buddha himself loudly and frequently declared his awakening.

When I get enlightened I’ll be sure to announce it. On Twitter, Facebook, on this blog, and from the rooftops.

One Response to “Don’t follow in the footsteps of the wise…”

Mandy says:

July 22, 2009 at 5:48 am

Hi Bodhipaksa
I’m relatively new to Buddhism and maybe haven’t got much of a grasp on what you’re talking about here, but your advice sounds really great.
On a related level, I know I frequently fall into a feeling of strain, particularly during sangha meetings when we are discussing topics rather than meditating – I begin pursuing something ‘out there’ and sometimes it seems to take weeks to relate what I see and hear to my inner ‘touchstone’, to ‘prove it’ in some sort of inner smelting room. I think this might be a particular danger for Westerners following an Eastern practise because one has to find a way to make quite alien imagery and ideas personal, rather than using them as a sort of escape from the self, and it’s my impression that this might take quite a long time.