A variation of this is the bald man paradox. A man with a full head of hair loses one hair a day. At what point will he be considered bald? Surely not when he’s lost every single hair. So there must be a point somewhere between bald and not bald where there is some hair left.

I think this is the way it is with Buddhist practice. The point of practice to get rid of all the qualities that bind a person to samsara, the perpetual wandering through cycles of death and rebirth. The end is Nibbanna (Nirvana). These qualities are many and are listed as defilements (kilesa), taints (asava), hindrances (nivarana), fetters (samyojana), and so on.

With practice, though, you can pluck these one at a time until eventually you will be more “awakened” than not – even though there may be lots more work to be done. Skills develop over time and wisdom comes in stages. My skills may not be perfect nor my wisdom complete, but I gladly accept today’s skillfulness and wisdom over yesterday’s. The same will be true tomorrow. Just as I will have less hair tomorrow as I do today.

This is standard practice, I’m told. First establish brand loyalty through the use of expensive, high-quality ingredients, then gradually pull back on the quality to reduce costs. Most users won’t notice. Some users may discern a difference and try something else, but to those loyal to the brand it’s still the same great product they’ve always used. Quite likely their children will use it too.

I’m not concerned here about deception in the soap-making business or brand loyalty, but about change, truth, and discernment. Discernment – also knows as wisdom – is one of the ten perfections.

If my recent post came across as parochial, it wasn’t my intention. Although I do have my preferences, I have no interest in promoting one form of Buddhism over another. There are many schools and sects and points of view of how the Buddha’s teachings should be interpreted and how Buddhism should be practiced. How else could it be? Buddhism spread slowly through many disparate lands and cultures. Commentaries and other new texts were composed, rulers made edicts, and cultural influences and traditions pushed here and pulled there. Throughout the Northern and Southern Transmissions, Buddhism evolved here independently of how it evolved there. And Buddhism continues to be the object of pressures from without (e.g, China’s affect on Tibetan Buddhism) and within (e.g., the recent bhikkhuni ordination in Perth and the Thai Sangha’s reaction to it).

In the beginning, though, there was the Buddha. He taught one thing: suffering and the end of suffering. He discovered the four noble truths and laid out the eightfold path, which he declared to be the Middle Way to the end of suffering. The eightfold path begins with right view. There is a way to see and understand the world. If there is one right view that is a factor of the path, there must also be wrong views that are not. And the Buddha doesn’t hold back on what those are. If a person doesn’t accept right view, then the rest of the eightfold path has no meaning. If a person does not accept the four noble truths, then why bother with Buddhism at all?

I came to Buddhism because I had lost faith the religion I grew up with. I was spiritually bereft, but I didn’t seek out Buddhism. I wasn’t seeking enlightenment or any secret teachings of the mysterious Orient. Rather, I stumbled onto it. I tried meditation with the hope that it could help me get control over depression. Ignorantly, I didn’t see back then the significant link between meditation and Buddhism. It was only later that I discovered, first, how Buddhist philosophy would affect my thinking and, second, how Buddhist practice would affect my life.

What’s important – to me anyway – is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching about suffering and the end of suffering. My goal is not to have some mystical experience, but to experience the end of suffering.

With Buddhism there is no judge to determine whether people have been good or bad during their lives, no benefactor to grant rewards, no warden to mete out punishment. Rather, the results of one’s actions simply follow along. Good actions bring good results. Bad actions bring bad results. It’s the law of cause and effect. This is true for anyone, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, whatever. Being a Buddhist and being a good person are not mutually exclusive. Anyone will reap the benefits of acting in accord with what is right and true. So it doesn’t matter what Buddhist school or sect one follows. It’s a personal choice and, fortunately, one that no being, supreme or otherwise, will judge as right or wrong. Whatever the school, the Dharma is common to each of them, and the law of cause and effect works as efficiently as the law of gravity.

Discerning what is right and true, now that’s a challenge. Every religion stakes its claim on truth. Yet not everyone can be right. What’s necessary, for me anyway, is to take a look at not only what I believe but how I have come to believe it. There are five ways in which people come to believe the things they do and take them for truth. I may believe something is true because I have faith that it is, because it’s agreeable to me, because of tradition (brand loyalty?), because reason and logic tell me it’s true, and by accepting something as true after reflecting on it. In each case, there are only two possibilities about my beliefs: I am right or I am wrong, because none of these five ways leading to belief is a guaranty of truth. (Majjhima Nikaya #95, the Canki Sutta. Read my comments on this sutta and how truth can be discerned here.)

I adopted Buddhism for all but one of these reasons. Not having grown up in a Buddhist culture, I was no more influenced by Buddhist traditions than than I was by Maori or Eskimo traditions. But I have come to accept certain things as true. I could be wrong about all of it. Yet I have faith I’m not wrong. It’s faith that the Buddha knew what he was talking about, faith in the practice, and the example of others who share that faith that keeps me striving on.

I need something to believe in. Don’t we all? But this practice I’ve adopted is not just some other means to fill the time, some other way to keep me engaged with others, some other trendy “path” that leads to the same mysterious yet desirable destination called enlightenment or salvation or whatever. In the course of it all I have to determine for myself what I believe and why. And along the way I must strive to discern what is in accord with the teachings and what is not. The law of cause and effect is the only determining factor.

In a previous post I wrote about The Island: An Anthology of the Buddha’s Teachings on Nibbana, by Ajanhs Pasanno and Amaro. Nibbana/nirvana is a state of being that is often described as the deathless or the unconditioned. It is a state where there is no more suffering of any kind. It is the cessation of becoming.

As I understand it, the Buddha woke up to Nibbana, making a transition between one state to another just as a person transitions between sleep and wakefulness each day. The Buddha, however, remained in Nibbana until his death, and he was not born again into the cycle of life and death known as samsara. The Buddha’s awakening took six years of focused preparation (not to mention many lifetimes of perfecting the virtues necessary to making the transition from a bodhisatta to a buddha). The conventional expression of the Buddha’s experience is “enlightenment.”

There are two kinds of enlightenment: spiritual and intellectual. Spiritual enlightenment is what happened to the Buddha on the night of his awakening. Intellectual, or secular, enlightenment is what The Age of Enlightenment was all about. Ajahn Punnadhammo, abbot of Arrow River Hermitage, writes about the difference here.

Patrick Kearney, in his essay “Still Crazy after all these Years: Why Meditation Isn’t Psychotherapy,”* suggests that were it not for The Enlightenment, we would not be using “enlightenment” to describe the Buddha’s awakening.

“I have never been able to find any Pali or Sanskrit word which corresponds to the English word “enlightenment.” This word was selected some time late last [19th] century by English translators as a label for the goal of Buddhist practice because of its resonance with the 18th century ideal of the Enlightenment. The European Enlightenment was a movement which idealised progress, science and reason – the “light” in “Enlightenment” refers to the light of reason. In Victorian Britain, sympathetic English scholars wanted to present Buddhism in as favourable a light as possible, and they did so by portraying the Buddha as the perfect Victorian gentleman. He was presented as rejecting the priestly mumbo-jumbo of the brahmins (who for the Victorian English corresponded to the Roman Catholic clergy) in favour of a religion of reason and morality (Almond: 70-4**). The only thing that spoiled this picture was undeniable evidence in the Buddhist texts that the Buddha taught and practiced some kind of bizarre self-hypnosis or cultivation of trance states – what we today call meditation. The word “enlightenment” referred to a state of enlightened reason attained by the Buddha which, however, existed only in the imagination of Victorian scholars. Unfortunately the word has stuck, and with it the confusion.”

Assuming it’s true that the use of the word “enlightenment” grew from a desire to make Buddhism more palatable to the Western mind, it presents three problems. First, it shows how easily words can be used to manipulate public opinion. This is nothing new, of course. It happens every day in advertising, politics, and religion.

Second, it shows how words evolve and how, over time, they can come to mean something other than what they meant initially.

Third, it suggests that Buddhism is changeable, something that can be molded to fit the circumstances of its surroundings.

A teacher I know has said many times that Buddhism changes every culture it touches, and Buddhism is changed by every culture that touches it. This is undeniably true on the surface, but it’s not a justification for the manufacturing of a new kind of Buddhism, a “Western” Buddhism – which is what the teacher was endorsing.

Certainly there are cultural differences in the ways Buddhism is practiced in, say, Sri Lanka and Japan, because each of these forms developed in different cultures separated by space and time. So to assume there is just one kind of Buddhism is a mistake. To assume there is just one kind of Japanese Buddhism also is a mistake. “Zen” and “Buddhist” are not synonymous.

Even though people have found many different ways to practice Buddhism, there remain four inescapable truths regarding this human world we all are a part of. Without each one of these truths, Buddhism is meaningless. The fourth truth – a very precise path of practice – is not something that can be changed to fit our varied lifestyles and beliefs.

If it’s a mistake to assume there is only one kind of Buddhism, it’s also a mistake to assume there are many different means to realizing the goal.

As Ajahn Pasanno writes in The Island:

“There are many ways of practice but some of them may, in actuality, not accord with the teachings or the true Way. They may be popular or comfortable, but yet not be Dhamma [emphasis mine]. For practice to yield results, it must conform to truth or correct principle.” (p. 288)

The eightfold path – the Middle Way – is very specific. You either practice Dhamma or you don’t. The law of conditionality can’t be skirted. Living in a cloud of delusion has a major drawback: delusion. It’s not easy to discern what’s skillful, especially when people – teachers and students alike – tinker with meanings and practices to suit themselves.

“Enlightened” was used to (incompletely) describe the Buddha to Victorian England as one who behaved with reason, logic, and morality. But the Age of Enlightenment is no longer part of our social psyche. We – as a culture – are as far removed from reason, logic, and morality as social guides as those enlightened 18th century Europeans were from the Dark Ages of the 15th century. Instead, we use “enlightened” to refer to (among many other things) all manner of blissed-out states that incorporate – in the spirit of diversity – anything and everything spiritual.

And now, from the entertainment realm, we have the new sit-com, “Enlightened”. The situation evoking the comedy is where “a self-destructive woman…who has a spiritual awakening and resolves to live an enlightened life – which causes chaos at home and at work – after suffering a serious meltdown.” Entertaining, maybe, but hardly enlightening.

I avoid using “enlightenment” as the goal of spiritual practice (my spiritual practice, anyway) because it connotes gaining something magical and mystical (something so Zen) instead of achieving the simple end of suffering. This is my goal. I’ve had enough suffering. I am willing to work for it – I do work for it – but my effort is toward getting rid of rather than gaining something. Unless that “something” is understanding what’s really going on.

Coming to the understanding of reality, however, takes more than reason and logic, says Ajahn Pasanno. It “is direct and intuitive, rather than intellectual or rational, learned from books, memorized from others, or arrived at through speculative thinking.” (p. 296)

It’s not so simple as turning on a light.

*As its title suggests, this lengthy paper attempts to sever any imposed connection between Buddhism and psychotherapy. I don’t recommend it to anyone enamored with the idea of  a Western Buddhism. Kearney isn’t kind to a few high-profile teachers who seem to embody the idea.

**Almond, Philip. The British discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

But “there” is a bit misleading. Nibbana is not a place nor is it a thing to be acquired. The Buddha himself describes it this way:

There is an island, an island which you cannot go beyond. It is a place of nothingness, a place of non-possession and of non-attachment. It is the total end of death and decay, and this is why I call it Nibbana.

The Buddha lived and died in India during a specific time of history. India is more than a physical location, though. It is a culture as well that incorporates thousands of years of Hindu mythology and cosmology that influenced how the people of the day viewed their physical and spiritual worlds.

Nibbana, during the time of the Buddha, was a term that had less to do with a spiritual goal than to explain a common occurrence. It was a matter of fact in those days that fire was bound to its fuel. One of the constituents of wood, for example, was heat. As a piece of wood burned, the two – fire and fuel – were bound together in an agitated state. When the fire went out, both were liberated from the struggle. The extinguishing of fire, which allowed for cooling, was nibbana.

Relative to Buddhism, the fuel that is in a constant state of burning agitation are the five aggregates that make up a human being: the body, feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. The intention of Buddhist practice is to extinguish the bonfire of the aggregates, thus liberating the individual from all the interent pain and suffering.

Another example of the Buddha’s use of analogy regards his teachings on Three Fires. The causes of all suffering are fires of greed, hatred, and delusion (clinging, aversion, and ignorance, or a number of other synonyms). Suffering is ended and liberation realized when the Three Fires are extinguished through the practice and perfection of generosity, kindness, and wisdom.

One of the Ten Fetters that binds a person to samsara – the ongoing cycle suffering – is adherence to rites and rituals as a means to spiritual achievement. As explained in The Island, the ancient Vedic texts dictated that the brahmin householder keep three ritualistic fires burning day and night. The brahmin’s maintenance of the three fires was one of those rites and rituals that prevented spiritual growth. “Put out the the three fires,” the iconoclastic Buddha said. “By keeping them burning, you bind yourselves to infinite lifetimes of suffering.”

To the modern, liberal-minded person the imperative to keep three fires burning to ensure salvation may seem quaint and easily put aside. But the ever-present suffering of life is not so easily dismissed. Snuffing the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion is no easy task.

Constantine's Dream, Piero della Francesca

A recurring dream-theme of mine is of trying to get away from something but being unable to move faster than a crawl. I need to run, but my legs are so heavy I must drag myself along, digging my fingernails into the pavement. What I’m trying to escape from (which doesn’t reveal itself) never catches up with me. It’s nothing more than a vague threat, but I’m fearful and unable to get away fast enough. I don’t know what it means.

I don’t know what any of my dreams mean, and I’ve never put much effort into trying to find out. I don’t know what I’d do if I were able to figure out my dreams – assuming they mean anything in the first place. Analysis of dreams aside, dreams are not reality. Reality is what reveals itself when I awake.

Or is it?

While meditating under the Bodhi Tree 2,500 years ago the Buddha had his moment of awakening. It was not an awakening from the dreams of sleep, but from the dream of common, everyday existence into the reality of the way things really are, unclouded by delusion.”Bodhi” and “Buddha” come from the same root, which means to awaken, to understand.

“Life is but a dream,” sings the the nursery rhyme. The Diamond Sutra – which predates the rhyme by almost 1,000 years – backs up the relatively contemporary refrain:

“So I say to you –
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:

“Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.

“So is all conditioned existence to be seen.”

Thus spoke the Buddha.

Diamond Sutra, Chapter 32

Contemplating the nature of delusion – my own included – I  see how delusion is the perfect condition for people to create such a mess of things. There is no better illustration of this than the national news – especially when it involves politics and religion.

Coming to awakening, enlightenment, nibbana, nirvana – whatever you want to call it -means transcending the dream of reality and the reality of truth. So I make my way slowly along the path, fearing only the effects of my own ignorance.

To someone – me – steeped in dualistic thinking so as not to know anything different, the non-dual approach was attractive. The attraction was through its mysterious differentness.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Light and dark, hot and cold, you and me, self and no-self, good and evil… all are illusions! To realize the oneness of everything by seeing through the illusion of separateness was the worthy goal. This was interesting stuff to fathom as I pondered the Tao Te Ching, puzzled over Zen, and dug into the writings of Ken Wilber.

But it seems to me there really are distinctions between opposites, that they are not always – if ever – just two sides of the same coin. As an example I will use the dualities of hot and cold. Heat is something created through the expenditure of energy. Cold is nothing more than the absence of heat. This is the principle behind air conditioning and refrigeration. To make your house cool in the summer or keep your meat frozen for months, you don’t “create” cold air. Through the use of energy you remove the warm air. What’s left over is cold. Cold and hot are not “not two,” they are two distinct conditions. To describe cold as a condition, however, is incorrect because cold is what’s left after removing everything that is hot. Cold is not created. It just is.

This is how I came to understand the Theravada position on Nibbana. Nibbana, or Nirvana in Sanskrit, means extinction or extinguishing, as in the extinguishing of a flame. The flames to extinguish are the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion, which keeps a being in a constant state of samsara. This is the never-ending cycle of suffering. Remove the sources of heat, what’s left is Nibbana. Nibbana is not created. It just is.

For an in-depth examination of dualism and Buddhism, read Bhikkhu Bodhi’s essay “Dhamma and Non-duality” on Access to Insight.