Letting go of ideas about enlightenment
This talk was given at the Festival of the Buddha's Enlightenment at Turning Wheel Buddhist Temple in December 2015.
Enlightenment isn't just an idea or a concept. The Buddha said he was enlightened about the nature of reality, which he expressed in the Four Noble Truths and other central teachings. It's no use us trying to reach our idea of what enlightenment is, as this idea is never reliable. We too must come to understand the real nature of things by letting go of our attachments. This is realisation in the sense of making it real in our lives.
Duration: 23:23.
The passage about the wrestler which is referred to is:
"Although all already possess wisdom as great as that of Buddha Himself, and have the same Dharma Body, their progress is obstructed by greed, hate and delusion. If Buddha had not shown us the way to overcome these, we would make the same mistake as the wrestler, losing the diamond that gleamed between his eyebrows by not knowing its value; were it not for Shakyamuni, we would have both forgotten and lost the Truth."
(From the Festival offertory which is recited during the ceremony.)
This talk was followed by a short talk about a related section of Dogen's Shobogenzo in which he says that "What you think one way or another before realisation is not a help for realisation."