Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
Locked
Mukunda
Posts: 295
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:54 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by Mukunda »

tiltbillings wrote:For all that is being said above

Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

While there may be profound moral development and some degrees of insight, if there is no teaching and realization of paticcasamuppada, there is no awakening as the Buddha taught it.
So, who gave Shakyamuni the teaching of paticcasamuppada? Did he not realize it, despite his earlier religious training?
User avatar
m0rl0ck
Posts: 1193
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:51 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by m0rl0ck »

Was the buddha a buddhist?
If the truth is the truth it has to be the same truth for everybody, so to the degree that enlightenment is the truth it should be the same for everybody.
Buddhism is a conditional conceptional framework to be used and discarded.
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.” ― Robert M. Pirsig
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by tiltbillings »

Mukunda wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:For all that is being said above

Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

While there may be profound moral development and some degrees of insight, if there is no teaching and realization of paticcasamuppada, there is no awakening as the Buddha taught it.
So, who gave Shakyamuni the teaching of paticcasamuppada? Did he not realize it, despite his earlier religious training?
And who else, all by themselves, has realized it?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by tiltbillings »

m0rl0ck wrote:Was the buddha a buddhist?
If the truth is the truth it has to be the same truth for everybody, so to the degree that enlightenment is the truth it should be the same for everybody.
That assumes that what one calls "enlightenment" is actual the awakening as understood and experienced and taught by the Buddha. A lot of stuff out there gets called enlightenment, but is it the awakening taught and experienced by the Buddha?
Buddhism is a conditional conceptional framework to be used and discarded.
So? That does not mean that any claim of "enlightenment" is the same as the awakening the Buddha experienced and taught.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Mukunda
Posts: 295
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:54 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by Mukunda »

tiltbillings wrote:
Mukunda wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:For all that is being said above

Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

While there may be profound moral development and some degrees of insight, if there is no teaching and realization of paticcasamuppada, there is no awakening as the Buddha taught it.
So, who gave Shakyamuni the teaching of paticcasamuppada? Did he not realize it, despite his earlier religious training?
And who else, all by themselves, has realized it?
But the question is "Can non-Buddhist become enlightened?" not "How many non-Buddhists have become enlightened?" Since there was no Buddhadhamma to be taught, hence no "Buddhism", until the Buddha achieved enlightened the answer is most logically, "Yes", since Shakyamuni was not a Buddhist when he became enlightened.
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by tiltbillings »

Mukunda wrote: But the question is "Can non-Buddhist become enlightened?" not "How many non-Buddhists have become enlightened?" Since there was no Buddhadhamma to be taught, hence no "Buddhism", until the Buddha achieved enlightened the answer is most logically, "Yes", since Shakyamuni was not a Buddhist when he became enlightened.
Cutely clever, but not quite to the spirit of the OP, it would seem, but it does make my point that awakening involves paticcasamuppada.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
grasshopper
Posts: 60
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 4:40 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by grasshopper »

Awakening/Enlightenment is the eventual fruition of following and putting into practice the Noble 8 Fold Path, period. It has nothing to do with being Buddhist or identifying with it. All the humans who went onto become Sammasam Buddhas and Pacceka Buddhas were not Buddhist.

Saying that only Buddhists can attain Enlightenment takes away the open-mindedness.

We could extend it to even humans who went onto become Arhats just after hearing a verse. Were they Buddhist until then? I doubt it.

just my 2 cents.
User avatar
Dan74
Posts: 4531
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:12 pm
Location: Switzerland

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by Dan74 »

sounds right to me...
_/|\_
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19943
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by mikenz66 »

Could we take out that "Buddhist" word to avoid the rather pointless (in my view) issue of whether or not Gotama Buddha was a "Buddhist", and re-phrase the question to be:

"Can someone who is not following a path that is essentially equivalent to that taught by the Buddha(s) become enlightened?"

To which, again, I would answer:
"According to the Buddhist teachings, no."

We could then argue about what "essentially equivalent" would have to mean, rather than about whether one labelled it "the noble eightfold path", etc...

Mike
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by Ben »

well said, Mike!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by tiltbillings »

mikenz66 wrote:
We could then argue about what "essentially equivalent" would have to mean, rather
Mike
Sure; however, do not forget that following the EFP means realization of the FNT, which is an expression of interdependent conditionality, which I have yet to see expressed in other spritual disciplines.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19943
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by mikenz66 »

tiltbillings wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:
We could then argue about what "essentially equivalent" would have to mean, rather
Mike
Sure; however, do not forget that following the EFP means realization of the FNT, which is an expression of interdependent conditionality, which I have yet to see expressed in other spritual disciplines.
Yes, I agree, but I was leaving open the possibility there may be people who have those insights without knowing that those insights were taught by the Buddha. On the other hand, this hypothetical awakened person would not necessarily be independent of the Buddha Sasana, since it would be quite plausible for them to have picked up the ideas here and there without paying attention to where the information came from.

Sariputta is said to have become a stream enterer on hearing only the two lines from one of the Buddha's disciples:
Of all those things that from a cause arise,
Tathagata the cause thereof has told;

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... 090.html#i" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Perhaps someone in the present day, with the right disposition, might see a verse from the Buddha in a book, on a website, or on a billboard, and have a similar awakening...

Mike
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by tiltbillings »

mikenz66 wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:
We could then argue about what "essentially equivalent" would have to mean, rather
Mike
Sure; however, do not forget that following the EFP means realization of the FNT, which is an expression of interdependent conditionality, which I have yet to see expressed in other spritual disciplines.
Yes, I agree, but I was leaving open the possibility there may be people who have those insights without knowing that those insights were taught by the Buddha. On the other hand, this hypothetical awakened person would not necessarily be independent of the Buddha Sasana, since it would be quite plausible for them to have picked up the ideas here and there without paying attention to where the information came from.
Who knows? But simply, just because someone claims enlightenment or it is claim of him or her, that simply does not we are talking about the awakening Buddha realized and taught.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
PeterB
Posts: 3909
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:35 pm

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by PeterB »

Well thats part of the problem isnt it ? The claims made for example about Jesus being a Buddha or Bodhisattva are never made by Christians, even by those Christians like Thomas Merton who know more about Buddhism than do most Buddhists.
Such Christians start from a more honest perspective..to whit that whatever commonalities are to be found between Christianity and Buddhism are not to be found in doing intellectual violence to the world views of those religions.
Not in other words by projecting for example Buddhist views onto the early Christians by refernce to unverifiable speculation about Jesus " travelling to Kashmir " and other proliferations, proliferations that are rejected out of hand by any Christian who is consistant to her or his own Religion.
Respect for another religion is not best expressed by an attempt to reduce it to a previously unrealised version of ones own religion.
There is no difference in describing Christianity as "hidden" Buddhism on one hand, or in describing Buddhism as a forerunner of the full Christian revelation to come on the other. Both miss the point and are mildy insulting.
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: Can non-Buddhists become enlightened?

Post by tiltbillings »

Baha'is claim that all religions are one and that Baha'u'llah is the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the next Buddha, the next avatar, the messiah, the second coming. The problem is, however, that the earlier religions have lost the true message over time requiring a new manifestation of god to renew god's word and plan. it is through Baha'i that all other religions can truly be understood. What does not fit the Baha'i paradigm is a later accretion or a corruption of the true teaching of the early manifestations of god. (Sort of like the Lotus Sutra.)

The point is, as Peter pointed out, it really is inappropriate to try to cram other religions into a Buddhist mold (or some sort of meta-mold), no matter how warm and fuzzy it might one feel believing they are all saying the same thing or that they are all leading to same place or that all claims to "enlightenment" are about the same thing, which is all nice warm and fuzzy male bovine coproforms.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Locked