Attaining Enlightenment - a New Paradigm

by David Jarry 

I will speak to you a little shovel of what is, or what is not enlightenment. Many wonder about this (rightly or wrongly), and struggle to find even an initial response. 

First of all, enlightenment is not enlightenment. These are two different things. 

Awakening is a different state of consciousness, close to the very young child, which offers a fresh, complete look at the world. To describe it is a challenge, for it goes beyond intellectual understanding, and to define it with words is therefore impossible. Words err, more than they guide, when they try to reveal something beyond the understanding. One could say that awakening is a state in which one is connected to everything, one feels everything, And we know that we are part of this whole ... without intellectually conceiving it. 

Paradoxically, is not it? In fact, we could talk about "real knowledge". In life, we know nothing. The human being is born and dies without knowing anything. But in awakening, the part of us that knows, is there, it communicates with us, and we know ... truly. 

Awakening is not something that is constant, nor is it acquired. One can attain enlightenment, and lose it in the next minute. One can be awake seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years, and suddenly no longer be. It is a little like joy, one experiences it randomly, one moment one is joyous, and that after it is no longer joyous. You can not really order this, but you can afford a life environment that encourages the emergence of joy. The same is true for awakening. 

A spiritual, serene life, close to nature, is more inclined to trigger in us the state of awakening. 

How to achieve awakening? Start by abandoning his search! Indeed, he who seeks awakening finds it only when he abandons. 

It is an approach that seeks to stop seeking to do one thing, to allow this thing to be done. 

In Chan, and Zen Buddhism, meditation is practiced without object or motive. This is the reason why many currents practice it against the wall. One does not meditate to attain enlightenment or enlightenment, one meditates, that is all. 

He who meditates to attain enlightenment totally misses the goal. 

The one who looks at the top of the mountain when he begins to climb it, is breathless from the first steps, and sees nothing of the landscape, nor of the rock in which he is going to take his feet. While he who looks at the path on which he is, and what surrounds him, without seeking to know where he is going, that one takes advantage of the landscape, avoids the pitfalls, And actually goes somewhere. For those who would like to have arrived, the path seems too long, for the one who takes advantage of the road, the latter seems very short. 

This is one of the meanings of "Here and Now" in Buddhism. We must have consciousness where we are and when we are. 

A Zen tale offers us a superb metaphor on this subject. In Japanese, the awakening is called "Satori". 

• One day a woodcutter heard of a rare and legendary animal called Satori. All the hunters asserted that one who would catch one, alive or dead, would be a true hero. Our woodcutter wanted to know more, and asked "where do we find such an animal?" He was told that he was found everywhere, It was so hard to see and catch, that it was lost. Returning to his forest to cut wood, he could not remove Satori from the head, he wanted to see this animal at all costs, and catch it. 
• Decided, he began to search the woods, discreetly, to find a trace of Satori. Every day he spent considerable time looking for him, but to no avail. One day, however, he heard a mocking laugh in the foliage, and a mischievous voice said to him: "You must be mad or naive if you think that one day you will catch me!" The woodcutter immediately recognized Satori, and decided to redouble his efforts, but nothing was done. He built traps, he tried to make noise to frighten Satori and push him to make a mistake in his haste, On the contrary, he tried to hide for hours, to scrutinize the undergrowth. 
• Nothing to do, not only did he not see Satori, but the latter had taken the habit of making fun of the woodcutter : "Did you really think that a trap so rudimentary would suffice to catch me?" As time passed, the lumberjack despaired. But what worried him the most was that he had left his work to be abandoned, and that the cold days would soon arrive. He was obliged to resolve to cut wood again, but Satori harassed him, making his work difficult. 
• Every time he tried to work, Satori said to her:  "Come on, you're not going to look for me today? Where it came from, and he found something stuck under the tree. He moved the trunk, and was struck with astonishment: it was Satori! 

In general, we have all experienced enlightenment at least once. As a child, we were close to this state. Sometimes, when we are absorbed by our work, or by one of our actions, that we are just present, and conscious, a few seconds of awakening come to enlighten us. 


When it is so short, it is hard to realize that something has happened. One felt "strange", one has the impression of having dizzy, or that for a moment one was like the spectator of the life, and even spectator of oneself. As if we were watching all this from "away". We say that " We have not slept enough, and we forget. Yet this was perhaps a fragment of awakening that was offered to us. 

Discourse by Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh

To attain enlightenment is to be present here, and now to be conscious, to be what we do. It is not to seek awakening. It is to do, not to seek to do. It is living a healthy life, eating healthy food. 

Achieving awakening can be done by anyone, in any situation. Healthy or sick, hungry, fit or tired, in meditation or at work, in full effort or at rest, in nature or in prison ... but a more serene, calmer, more posed life, more Healthy, and more natural, promotes the emergence of awakening, which then tends to manifest itself spontaneously, more often, And longer. The frequency, intensity, and duration of arousal could almost be a "measuring device", an indicator of the quality of our lives. There is nothing surprising that monks cultivating their land, eating good wholesome, close to nature and serene could speak of concepts such enlightenment more eloquently than anyone of 'other. Their living conditions favored this experience. 

Awakening allows us to see more things, to understand things, inside oneself, without the intellect, without thinking. It allows us to memorize what we see, to fix it in our soul, in our mind, as a pure crystal. These memories are then, once awakened, Like those of a distant dream. One has the impression that these memories are unreal, but paradoxically, they are of a clarity, and a precision out of the ordinary. Sometimes we get the impression that it is the memories of someone else that have been communicated to us. It is because these memories belong to a part of us that is beyond our ordinary consciousness. These are the memories of our being closer to what is divine. 

What is enlightenment then, 

• It is the state of being that is healthy. 
• It is the child who learns a language to perfection in just a few months. 
• It is the spark in the eyes of this child when he sees a tree, or an animal. 
• It is the opening of oneself to oneself. Awakening is our intellect which is effaced for the benefit of our soul. 
• It is the adult who sleeps while the child observes the stars. 
• It is the reflection of the moon on a sea of oil. 

How to achieve awakening? By not seeking it, and being just present, here, and now. 

As the "New Ageux" say: by letting go. By not seeking to act, nor by seeking not to act. Strange paradox ... do not try to do something, and do not try not to do this thing. Accept that Nature is incomprehensible, for beyond the intellect, and let it do. To follow it, to live it, quite simply. The awakening is non-dual, it is beyond the manifestation of experience. The awakening is so simple that we can not understand it.