At the end of the previous episode I discussed non-self and my experience of what I called a great awakening. Hearing that, one might assume that great awakening instantly makes a person a Buddha. At the time I too gave the impression that I had become an arhat. Unfortunately, I did not become one immediately. I knew far too little about awakening.
This is one reason I created the Seeing Buddhism Clearly channel. I had long acted as a student of Buddhism and thought I had examined religions and philosophies. Yet I lacked information about the actual condition of awakening, knew none of its stages, and had no guidance about what should follow. I was missing its most important instructions.
I did not know what had happened when affliction disappeared
During that great awakening, extreme quiet arrived suddenly. I did not manufacture it. Afflictions and discursive thoughts disappeared, and the stillness continued. Yet I could not explain what had occurred. I now want to discuss the stages of awakening and the changes of mind that I did not understand then.
Even if a great teacher had been beside me, I probably would not have become complete on the spot. Awakening has progressive stages. Buddhism calls them the four paths and four fruits. If we speak only of the fruits, the first is stream-entry.
A stream-enterer has entered the current of awakening
Stream-entry means entering the flow. I compare it to a river leading toward awakening. The ocean of complete awakening lies ahead. A person who had watched from the bank suddenly jumps into the water. Having entrusted the body to the current, that person must eventually flow toward the ocean. This is the first awakened person, the stream-enterer.
The first awakening matters greatly. It is not merely an idea but an experience undergone through body and mind, delivering a powerful mental and physical shock. Life before and after differs sharply. I am not promoting mysticism. I mean an actual transformation in which something that had bound the mind for years becomes untied.
I do not interpret once-returning only as rebirth in another life
The next stage is once-returning. Many explain it through rebirth: after this life, the practitioner returns once to the desire realm and becomes a Buddha in a later birth. That is not how I understand it.
I describe the desire realm through the present mind’s movement between brightness and darkness. When immersed in dark desire and affliction, one has fallen into the desire realm; when the mind brightens and briefly escapes, one has left it. After my first awakening, I lived in great brightness for roughly six months to a year. From 1995, darkness returned.
Thereafter some new understanding would brighten me again. I would live comfortably and then fall back into the desire realm. This alternation between wakefulness and darkness continued across my life. I connect the “return” of once-returning with these present transformations of mind.
Because I did not make concentration a way of life, brightness did not last
One reason I repeatedly fell back was that I had not integrated concentration into daily life. This is why I now value it. I spent my time thinking about awakening, but awakening is like crossing an extremely difficult mountain pass.
My experience did not occur without conditions. My father’s death had taken place, and before it I had released attachments with a sense of emptiness and futility. In a state resembling light concentration, I contemplated his death and impermanence deeply. It may also be called contemplation of death. Impermanence, non-self, and dependent arising are not separate objects but one body.
Such contemplation deepens when the mind temporarily reaches a state outside the desire realm. Concentration is a way of entering that mind. Awakening may happen when conditions align by chance, but we should ordinarily train through concentration so that the mind remains close to brightness. Although I knew something of practice, I did not make concentration central. Thus I repeatedly escaped the desire realm only to fall back.
Months of brightness alternated with long periods of darkness
At my first awakening in 1994 I was young, and the force of the experience kept the bright state for a relatively long time. Later, however, distraction, affliction, and confusion returned. When I asked, “Why am I like this? Why did I live this way?” and understood something again, the mind brightened. That brightness lasted at most two or three months before darkness returned.
With concentration, I could have prolonged the bright condition without falling into the desire realm. This is the first reason I emphasize concentration.
No one told me what stage I had reached
The second problem was that even after studying Buddhism from 1994 onward, I did not know my stage. The world had changed completely across the experience, so I knew something momentous had happened. No one explained that it was a first awakening or showed the road ahead.
Even my father merely asked me, “Who are you?” He did not explain what stage this was or how I should practice next. I believe he too had fallen back into the desire realm and continued studying Buddhism while remaining at the first-awakening level rather than becoming a complete arhat. He therefore could not pull me into the next stage.
Stream-entry loosens the three fetters and abandons part of attachment
The first awakening is stream-entry. The Buddha said that a stream-enterer has escaped the three fetters. Not every attachment has vanished, but a portion has been broken through in lived experience.
While seeing impermanence, I discovered my desire and attachment trying to make the impermanent permanent. I understood that this grasping caused pain, and in that moment I escaped suffering. For six months to a year I remained away from the darkness of the desire realm.
Once one accurately understands what creates suffering, it becomes difficult to cling to that fully seen object in exactly the old way. One cannot simply cancel the understanding by force. Complete understanding makes the direction of life irreversible to that extent.
Even a small awakening that changes life is liberation by wisdom
I call this understanding liberation by wisdom. Other traditions may reserve “liberation” for the Buddha’s final great awakening. I use the word more broadly. If even a small insight opens the eye of wisdom, reveals why one suffers, and changes one’s life through that understanding, there has been liberation in that area.
Liberation of mind accompanies it. This is the release of a mind imprisoned by affliction and mental pain. It feels like leaving a prison. When extreme quiet arrives, it can even seem that the mind itself has disappeared.
At the first awakening, this liberation transforms the mind. Subtle joy spreads through the chest, and one becomes deeply happy. Elements resembling the rapture and happiness of concentration continue in ordinary life. With further awakening, everyday consciousness can remain similar to a concentrated state. A mind released from affliction’s bondage is extraordinarily peaceful and happy.
Do not mistake the first awakening for final enlightenment
Someone hearing this may think that even the first awakening sounds overwhelmingly great. Indeed, after a powerful experience, people sometimes proclaim that they have become a complete Buddha or Jesus or achieved a final mystical state.
Even if one flash changes life, one must examine whether it was final arhatship or a first insight. I propose the comprehensive question “Who are you?” If that question has not fully disappeared and the fire of personal attachment has not gone out, one is a first awakened person who has tasted liberation of mind, not a fully awakened one.
Do not use awakening as a reason to torment others
A first awakened person who is not complete must be especially cautious. Believing oneself a Buddha or Jesus can lead to tormenting people nearby, particularly family members, by forcing beliefs and practices upon them. I did not understand this danger.
An arhat or Buddha does not drag others around after awakening. If one aches to preach and wants to pull everyone into a religion or practice, one has not fully awakened. The path cannot forcibly carry someone who does not wish to walk it.
If people are naturally moved by a practitioner’s character, speech, and conduct and ask, “How can you live that way?” guidance may be offered. But do not jab, push, and harass others in an attempt to teach. The newly awakened are particularly likely to fall into that trap. I will continue discussing stages of awakening and their changes of mind in the next episode.
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