Chapter 43 Chapter 4 Nirvana Beyond the Concept-6

We might also wonder, if it is neither happiness nor unhappiness, what is this enlightenment?How does an enlightened being appear and function?How does it feel to discover our Buddha nature? In Buddhist scriptures, the answer to this question is usually that it is beyond our concept and cannot be expressed in words.Many people mistake this for a dodgy answer to the question.However, in fact this is the answer.Our logic and vocabulary are so limited that we cannot adequately express even the ordinary feeling of relief; let alone the experience of total relief, it is even more difficult to convey it to another person in words.If quantum physicists have difficulty expressing their theories in words, how can we hope to have words for enlightenment?Trapped in limited logic and language, and at the same time tightly controlled by emotions, in this state, we can only imagine the enlightened person.However, with diligence and deduction logic, we may get an approximate answer, just as you can infer that there should be fire when you see smoke on the top of a mountain.Using our existing abilities, we can begin to understand and accept that obscurations come from causes that can be manipulated and can eventually be purified.Imagining a state free of defiled emotions and negativity is the first step to understanding the nature of enlightenment.

Suppose you are suffering from a headache right now and your immediate desire is to get it cleared.This is possible because you know that headaches are not a natural part of you.Then you try to understand why you have the headache -- say, lack of sleep, and you take the appropriate remedy to get rid of the headache, such as taking aspirin or falling down to sleep and so on. * * * * When he first turned the wheel of Dharma in Varanasi, Siddhartha taught these four steps, which are known as the Four Noble Truths: knowing suffering;Some people may not understand why Siddhartha needed to point out "knowledge of suffering".Are we not intellectual enough to know that we are suffering?But it is only when pain is fully developed that we recognize it as pain.It is hard to convince someone who is happily licking ice cream that he is suffering.Then he thought about the weight loss that the doctor had warned him to lower his cholesterol.If you explore this seemingly pleasurable experience, from his first craving for an ice cream all the way to his worries about obesity and cholesterol, you will find that he is in constant anxiety.

We can accept that it is possible to control emotions such as hatred for an afternoon if they are treated with appropriate methods.But imagining that emotions can disappear permanently is psychologically difficult to accept.However, if we can imagine a person who is basically peaceful and serene with partial elimination of hatred, then we can go a step further and imagine a person with permanent elimination of hatred.But how does one who is above all emotions behave?The blind believer might imagine a docile old man sitting cross-legged on a cloud.And skeptics might imagine such people as vegetative, unresponsive and bored... if such people exist.

Even though the enlightened being cannot speak, and the enlightened being cannot be recognized by ordinary people, we can still ask, who is Siddhartha?What did he do that was so amazing and great?What unusual deed did he manifest?In Buddhism, enlightened beings are not identified by their supernatural abilities (such as flying), or by certain physical characteristics (such as a third eye).While the Buddha himself is often described as majestic, golden, soft-handed, and regal, such descriptions appeal mainly to ignorant bumpkins or jack-of-all-trades.In the rigorous Buddhist scriptures, there is no boast of the Buddha's ability to fly and the deeds of manifesting supernatural powers.In fact, in oral teaching, disciples are repeatedly warned not to be fooled by these unimportant qualities.Although he had this special ability, it was never considered his great achievement.His greatest achievement was knowing the truth, because knowing the truth frees us from suffering completely.This is the real miracle.It is also a miracle that the Buddha saw the same birth, aging, sickness and death as we do, but he devoted himself to finding the root cause of it.His realization of the impermanence of all combined things was his ultimate victory.He did not boast of defeating an external enemy, but discovered that the real enemy was the clinging to the ego, and defeating the ego was a greater miracle than any supernatural power, real or imagined.

Although scientists today think they have discovered that time and space are relative, Siddhartha reached the same conclusion 2,500 years ago, without any research funding or outside of a scientific laboratory; this is also a miracle.Unlike many of his contemporaries (or like many of us today), who could not escape the idea that liberation could only be achieved by grace bestowed on the outside, he discovered that every living being is inherently pure.Armed with this understanding, all beings are capable of self-liberation.The enlightened Buddha did not retire for life. Regardless of how difficult it was to teach and understand, he shared his breakthrough discovery with all sentient beings with great compassion.He designed a path with millions of methods, from simple incense offerings, sitting upright, observing breathing, etc., to complex methods such as visualization and meditation.This is his extraordinary strength.