“There is lots of disagreement about whether the enlightenment I describe is the same as the enlightenment that [the suttas / the Visuddhimagga / etc.] describe, or whether there are other methods that lead to something even better than it.”
Since I first read your article I’ve listened to tens, possibly over a hundred, hours of Alan Watts’ talks on the essential ideas of Hinduism/Daoism/Buddhism and how meditation relates to them and I now tend to agree with the view that your interpretation of enlightenment and meditation is not what Buddhism is really about. Key differences:
Buddhist enlightenment is the direct experience/feeling of yourself as inseparate from the rest of the physical world, a feeling of everything that happens being “you”, of the surface of your bag of skin being no more relevant as a distinction between “you” and “not-you” than your skull or the walls of your room. As such, its benefits are primarily emotional and motivational rather than intellectual, because once you realize that there is no definite and localized “you” that can be under any meaningful threat or pressure from “not-you”, all your previous worries and conflicts in life just melt away and you become free to “just be”. (I should note that I currently understand this at a purely intellectual level—and not even completely at that—and have not experienced it directly; that’s the hard part: overcoming the genetic predispositions and years of reinforcement of the delusion that “I” is something that is bound by a layer of skin and that everything beyond that layer of skin is “non-I”.)
Buddhist meditation is not supposed to be a technique executed for a purpose but rather an act of life performed for its own sake, just like any other act of life, especially like the “truly” artistic ones—singing, dancing—that are the most satisfying for everyone involved when they’re the least attached to any ulterior motive.
“There is lots of disagreement about whether the enlightenment I describe is the same as the enlightenment that [the suttas / the Visuddhimagga / etc.] describe, or whether there are other methods that lead to something even better than it.”
Since I first read your article I’ve listened to tens, possibly over a hundred, hours of Alan Watts’ talks on the essential ideas of Hinduism/Daoism/Buddhism and how meditation relates to them and I now tend to agree with the view that your interpretation of enlightenment and meditation is not what Buddhism is really about. Key differences:
Buddhist enlightenment is the direct experience/feeling of yourself as inseparate from the rest of the physical world, a feeling of everything that happens being “you”, of the surface of your bag of skin being no more relevant as a distinction between “you” and “not-you” than your skull or the walls of your room. As such, its benefits are primarily emotional and motivational rather than intellectual, because once you realize that there is no definite and localized “you” that can be under any meaningful threat or pressure from “not-you”, all your previous worries and conflicts in life just melt away and you become free to “just be”. (I should note that I currently understand this at a purely intellectual level—and not even completely at that—and have not experienced it directly; that’s the hard part: overcoming the genetic predispositions and years of reinforcement of the delusion that “I” is something that is bound by a layer of skin and that everything beyond that layer of skin is “non-I”.)
Buddhist meditation is not supposed to be a technique executed for a purpose but rather an act of life performed for its own sake, just like any other act of life, especially like the “truly” artistic ones—singing, dancing—that are the most satisfying for everyone involved when they’re the least attached to any ulterior motive.
It’s hard to summarize everything in just a couple of paragraphs, but this piece might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhOpuY8NO0A