2 Types of Buddhist Enlightenment

Thanks for sharing!

I enjoyed it, went into mindfulness state of losing body consciousness while listening to these Buddhist talks.

Buddhism and my life are entwined life after life, so not surprised that I enjoyed and benfited from the talk.

Acharya Mun biography does talk about meeting six buddhas including our Gautama Buddha with his arahants for the next 6 days after his enlightenment. Each Buddha with their own set of arahants come and visit him and have a cute little fun conversation as a form of greeting!

But Acharya Mun says Buddhas come out of the nirvana or extinguishment of existence to conventional reality to relate with people of this side and they can got back to nirvana again.

First time, I too heard today in the video that psychically relating to higher spiritual beings like buddhas is also a form of enlightment and it is very hard to achieve and extinguishment is comparatively easier path.

This is interesting because Theravada Buddhism stresses heavily cessation of existence not in accessing spiritual worlds, it is more acceptable in Mahayana Buddhism and Vajrayana (Tibet) Buddhism.

Infact, Buddha stresses in Theravada Buddhism that people should not come to his path for the intention of becoming deity. Acharya Mun is an exception and no ordinary entity, so not sure how the rules apply in his case. Deities and Devas used to visit him so often to get his advice on many subjects, so by default he must be a higher entity from higher worlds.

Thanks for sharing your experience and the details from Acariya Mun’s biography. That provides context to the video exchange. I agree with all you said about Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana inclusion of devas and deities. It’s fascinating and probably a big distraction. I’ll continue to work on the enlightenment process for those without psychic powers. Actually, my teacher in Las Vegas told me from the very beginning that I didn’t have time to get enlightenment by the path of developing psychic powers. He said it takes too long. The faster path is through development of wisdom.

After watching this video, the energy took me to the biography book of Acharya Khao (main student of Acharya Mun). I read in few hours by the pull of the energy. Learned ton load of techniques from the book for purification. But one thing stood out when I finished the book.

He had an intesersting definition of nirvana. Acharya Khao says end of the hankering for rebirth here or there for dersires is called nirvana. It sounded like freely floating around without any compulsion for rebirth in comfortable or troublesome Worlds.

And Acharya Mun was appearing to him day and night even after he reaching his nirvana. Buddha also appears to him time to time.

In the pali cannons, Buddha defines nirvana as the ultimate goal where the nirvana is absolute of exitinguishment of once existence like blowing of the candle flame. Buddha asks where did the the flame go blown away? Which direction? That’s how once existence has to extinguish. That’s Buddha’s original aim.

So, a sincere question to you @Marcia Beloved, since you are senior Thai Buddhist follower and has close ties with acharya Mun lineage masters.

So, have they reinvented or readapted oringal nirvana (complete extinguishment) to state of no compulsive rebirths in this world or sensous worlds and mastering absolute sense control?

This is a sharp evolution of nirvana in Theravada buddhism.

Please share your insights!

Hello! In answer to your query......Firstly, I am not a senior in any respect. I think those who practice and study are worthy of being senior but I hardly study and I don't remember most of what I read or hear in talks. I soak in the words as I read or listen and then it is gone. I feel my way through the practice and I lean on noble teachers. It has been enough to make some progress.

Regarding nirvanna. Here is a simple, basic definition:

nirvana is the total cutting off of clinging and craving

10 years ago I asked Ajahn Chaiya what nibbana was. He said:

you don't go anywhere and you don't become anyone

Ajahn Suchart often says that nibanna is the "knowing element." I asked him in a zoom, "what is it like when the lamp goes out". He said that suffering goes out and the mind is radiant, happy and peaceful. He said there is merely knowing and that one experiences the bliss of jhana all the time. I commented that I was expecting a more mystical experience and he said it is the absence of greed, hatred and delusion. Just that.

Another time when I asked Ajahn Suchart about emptiness states he indicated that what is written in Buddhist texts about emptiness might be different from the actual experience of these states.

Buddha's path is the ultimate of simplicity. My first instruction from Ajahn Chaiya was to focus on the breath and stay in the present moment. If the mind wandered into the past or the future, I was to go back to breath focus. I said: That's it? He replied: That's it. It is, however, very difficult and a great accomplishment, to continuously stay in the present moment because the mind, by nature, wanders.

You asked:

So, have they reinvented or readapted oringal nirvana (complete extinguishment) to state of no compulsive rebirths in this world or sensous worlds and mastering absolute sense control?

I don't think so. Complete extinguishment does not include extinguishment of the "knowing element." Complete extinguishment means total eradication of greed, hatred, delusion, ignorance, clinging, craving, aversion, attachment, just to list all the commonly used terms. When these "go out" there is no possibility of compulsive rebirth anywhere. All the supports of sense identity are gone. This is the state of anatta. This was alluded to by Ajahn Chaiya as stated previously that nibanna means not becoming anyone or going anywhere. He also added that the destination of Pure Land Buddhism was not nibanna.

"Knowing" does not imply or require a self or a form. You can agree or disagree with this. One will know for sure by direct experience only.

I'm sorry that I probably did not respond very well to your question. I have offered what I can from my current level of understanding.

Thanks for the explanation.

That helps in filling some of my technical gaps in Buddhism.

From where does the "knowing" property come or to whom does it belong to?

Is "knowing" a eternal property of the mind/chitta ?

Because in Buddhism, it is an-atma ( no atma). So, it can't be atma, and the only remaining element is chitta or mind.

Is "knowing/awareness" same as "consciousness"?

In pali Canon, Buddha declares consciousness is one of the 5 impermanent things and ask his students to go beyond consciousness to extinguishment.

Can you explain more on "knowing" property of mind?

We all are well aware of the wandering nature of mind but not much on knowing aspect, even though it happens eternally.

I'd like to add to my response above.

Shortly after I wrote that reply, I read a section from the book titled AN UNENTANGLED KNOWING by Upasika Kee Nanayon. It's a little long but she brings everything around to the proper conclusion. She makes clear the distinction between mindfulness with discernment and just watching the mind passively.

Here it is:

GOING OUT COLD (May 26th 1964)

It's important to realize how to focus on events in order to get special benefits from your practice. You have to focus so as to observe and contemplate, not simply to make the mind still. Focus on how things arise, how they disband. Make your focus subtle and deep.

When you're aware of the characteristics of your sensations, then--if it's a physical sensation--contemplate that physical sensation. There will have to be a feeling of stress. Once there's a feelig of stress, how will you be aware of it simply as a feeling so that it won't lead to anything further? Once you can be aware of it simply as a feeling, it stops right there without producing any taste in terms of a desire for anything. The mind will disengage right there--right there at the feeling. If you don't focus on it in this way, craving will arise on top of the feeling--craving to attain ease and be rid of the stress and pain. If you don't focus on the feeling in the proper way right from the start, craving will arise before you're aware of it, and if you then try to let go of it, it'll be very tiring....

The way in which preoccupations take shape, the sensations of the mind as it's aware of things coming with every moment, the way these things change and disband: These are all things you have to focus on to see clearly. This is why we make the mind disengaged. We don't disengage it so that it doesn't know or amount to anything. That's not the kind of disengagement we want. The more the mind is truly disengaged, the more it sees clearly into the characteristics of the arising and disbanding within itself. All I ask is that you observe things carefully, that your awareness be all-around at all times. Work at this as much as you can. If you can keep this sort of awareness going, you'll find that the mind or consciousness under the supervision of mindfulness and discernment in this way is different from--is opposite from--unsupervised consciousness. It will be the opposite sort of thing continually.

If you keep the mind well supervised so that it's sensitive in the proper way, it will yield enormous benefits, not just small ones. If you don't make it properly sensitive and aware, what can you expect to gain from it?

When we say that we gain from the practice, we're not talking about anything else: We're talking about gaining disengagement. Freedom. Emptiness. Before, the mind was embroiled. Defilement and craving attacked and robbed it, leaving it completely entangled. Now it's disengaged, freed from the defilememts that used to gang up to burn it. Its desires for this or that thing, its concocting of this or that thought, have all fallen away. So now it's empty and disengaged. It can be empty in this way right before your very eyes. Try to see it right now, before your eyes, right now as I'm speaking and you're listening. Probe on in so as to know.

If you can be constantly aware in this way, you're following in the footsteps or taking within you the quality called "buddho," which means one who knows, who is awake, who has blossomed in the Dhamma. Even if you haven't fully blossomed--if you're blossomed only to the extent of disengaging from the blatant levels of craving and defilement--you still benefit a great deal, for when the mind really knows the defilements and can let them go, it feels cool and refreshed in and of itself. This is the exact opposite of the defilements that, as soon as they arise, make us burn and smoulder inside. If we don't have the mindfulness and discernment to help us know, the defilements will burn us. But as soon as mindfulness and discernment know, the fires go out--and they go out cold.

Observe how the defilements arise and take shape--they also disband in quick succession, but when they disband on their own in this way, go out on their own in this way, they go out hot. If we have mindfulness and discernment watching over them, they go out cold. Look so that you can see what the true knowledge of mindfulness and discernment is like: It goes out; it goes out cold. As for the defilements, even when they arise and disband in line with their nature, they go out hot--hot because we latch onto them, hot because of attachment. When they go out cold, look again--it's because there's no attachmoent. They've been let go, put out.

This is something really worth looking into: the fact that there's something very special like this in the mind--special in that when it really knows the truth, it isn't attached. It's unentangled, empty, and free. This is how it's special. It can grow empty of greed, anger, and delusion, step after step. It can be empty of desire, empty of mental processes. The important thing is that you really see for yourself that the true nature of othe mind is that it can be empty.....This is why I said this morning that nibbana does'nt lie anywhere else. It lies right here, right where things go out and are cool, go out and are cool. It's staring us right in the face.

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I'll conclude with part of a recent exchange I had with Ajahn Chaiya before he went into his annual solitary rains retreat.

Me: Does knowing arise and pass away as an activity of the citta (mind)? AC: Yes

Me: Is nibbana when the purified citta turns and "know" itself? AC: Right

Me: What is that steady state/zone of knowing when knowing is steady and objects just arise and pass away outside of the mind? AC: The steady state of knowing also arises and passes away.

The practice is investigative. It unfolds little by little. I hope you have found some thing useful here. Leave aside whatever isn't helpful.