More on enlightenment -- when we speak of an enlightened being, just who is that being? This is not a simple question, and it's a little out of my depth, but I'm bringing it up anyway.
As a Zen student, it's a bit jarring to me when practitioners of other traditions discuss the supernatural powers of an enlightened being. Zen doesn't go there. And yes, I understand one can find sutras claiming that arhats can see anything anywhere, read minds, and possess knowledge of all past lives. I claim no personal knowledge of what arhats can and cannot do.
But especially in Mahayana, when we speak of enlightened beings, we must take care how we understand this. If the confluence of attributes we identify as "me" have no self-essence, who is the being that is enlightened? It may be that an enlightened being knows all and sees all. But if we were to be enlightened, would is this enlightened being be the same person who brushes our teeth and wears our socks?
The Diamond Sutra in particular is full of admonishments about claims of and attachments to individual enlightenment, attributes or merits. Possession of attributes is an illusion, it says. Commentaries on the Diamond often point to the Trikaya, the three bodies of Buddha, and remind us that the Truth Body, the dharmakaya, displays no distinguishing attributes. The dharmakaya is all beings, undistinguished and unmanifested, so in the dharmakaya we can't separate anyone out and call him special.
But if we're talking about the body that walks around and farts and wears socks, we're talking about the nirmanakaya body. My understanding from Zen teaching is that this nirmanakaya body is still subject to cause and effect, and still subject to physical limitations, no matter how enlightened it is said to be. Of course, the three bodies are not really separate.
My understanding -- and this is provisional -- is that when we speak of an enlightened being, we are not talking about a physical individual who possesses some special attribute. It's more about a manifestation of the enlightenment that is what we all are.
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