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Introduction
What is enlightenment? Why is it valuable? How can we find it?
For our discussion here, I’d like to say that enlightenment is seeing things for what they are. It is seeing clearly. This is a simple thing to say, but its ramifications are extraordinary! When you see clearly it transforms you, because what’s really there is often not at all like what we normally assume.
This is a natural process we can see operating all the time. You see something and you have a certain understanding of it. But if you get to know it better, you gain a much deeper appreciation, one that transforms your initial impression, puts it into a far more complete context.
This happens with all kinds of things. People, skills, objects, places—everything. We meet someone and we think, this is who that person is. Then, if we allow it, something amazing happens. It turns out that person is something much richer. The first impression is laden with our own ideas, often it has more to do with ourselves than them. Our first take was only a small, skewed angle or perspective.
Seeing clearly tends to be more of a process of letting go of preconceptions so that our inherent power of observation can operate unimpeded, rather than learning more skills or information.
If we allow the process of letting things be what they are to continue deepening, it finds an even deeper layer which is incredible: it is a layer that is just like ourselves. There is a part of ourselves that is very deep, before thoughts and concepts, that just is. And that same deep essence is there in everyone else.
In fact, it’s there in everything. There is no thing, no phenomenon, no occurrence that when witnessed openly enough doesn’t reveal that essence that is both its own inner truth—and our own. This is a life-changing realization.
That change sheds light on the question of the value of enlightenment. When we are seeing clearly, everything can continue to operate, but we see in it an essence that is beautiful, that is connected to everything else. The essence is always there.
The essence and our ability to perceive are not different. The more directly we perceive the more our own essence gets a chance to come to the fore. The awareness-essence is most effectively obscured by 'knowledge' that is too firmly held.
It is an important insight that even the 'obscuring of reality' is a function of the essence. The essence remains undisturbed. When the essence shines, it is seen that everything, even darkness, confusion and misunderstanding has not in the least dimmed that light.
There is a part of us that lets us know that we are who we are through all the stages of life. That aspect that makes you still you, even though you look different, your surroundings are different, your opinions have changed,—everything has changed but you are still yourself. You can reflect back on your past self and project yourself into the future, but you remain. That is your essence. It recognizes itself in others, in all things. This spontaneous, unmediated recognition is the means of enlightenment, the approach to our third question: how to find it.
On a grand scale, that essence is the entire universe, changing but also enduring. The essence is the same in the tiniest and most vast things. The microcosm and the macrocosm share the same inner, ineffable essence.
What sometimes obscures the essence are the mind-models we carry around with us. These are the mental frameworks that we superimpose on everything. These mental patterns operate on our experiences, filtering them, organizing them, defining everything as it happens, instead of letting us actually experience them directly.
This awareness is always there, functioning. If it weren’t, nothing would exist. Whatever is outside of it is non-being. It is the basic witnessing which gives life its first hearing. Because it is always there, enlightenment is always there. Enlightenment is not in the future or far away or in somebody else’s control. Enlightenment is now.