For example, the man who went through stream entry you linked to seems to have spent several years doing nothing, and didn’t feel particularly bad for it.
He did, and then eventually his mind figured out a new set of motivations, and currently he is very actively doing things again and keeping himself busy.
Even apart from enlightenment, it is my own experience that one’s motivations may change in ways that are long-term good, but leave you adrift in the short term. At one point in my life I was basically driven by anxiety and the need to escape that constant anxiety. When I finally eliminated the source of anxiety, I had a period when I didn’t know what to do with my time anymore, because the vast majority of my habits (both physical and mental) had been oriented towards avoiding it, and that was just not necessary anymore.
Likewise, if people have trained learned to motivate themselves with guilt, then eliminating the guilt and trading it for a healthier form of motivation may be long-term beneficial, but leave them without a source of any motivation until their mind readjusts.
Whether enlightenment makes it easier or harder to change your values—I don’t know. Reducing craving means that you are less likely to cling to values that need revising, but may also eliminate cravings that had previously driven changes to your values. Certainly you can still spend time thinking about your values even if you are enlightened. (Though I am unclear to what extent anyone ever really changes their values in the first place, as opposed to just developing better strategies for achieving what, deep down, are their actual values.)
Personally I am not enlightened, but I certainly feel like developing deeper meditative insights has made it easier rather than harder for me to change my values. But human motivation is complicated, and which way it goes probably depends on a lot of individual factors.
He did, and then eventually his mind figured out a new set of motivations, and currently he is very actively doing things again and keeping himself busy.
Even apart from enlightenment, it is my own experience that one’s motivations may change in ways that are long-term good, but leave you adrift in the short term. At one point in my life I was basically driven by anxiety and the need to escape that constant anxiety. When I finally eliminated the source of anxiety, I had a period when I didn’t know what to do with my time anymore, because the vast majority of my habits (both physical and mental) had been oriented towards avoiding it, and that was just not necessary anymore.
Likewise, if people have trained learned to motivate themselves with guilt, then eliminating the guilt and trading it for a healthier form of motivation may be long-term beneficial, but leave them without a source of any motivation until their mind readjusts.
Whether enlightenment makes it easier or harder to change your values—I don’t know. Reducing craving means that you are less likely to cling to values that need revising, but may also eliminate cravings that had previously driven changes to your values. Certainly you can still spend time thinking about your values even if you are enlightened. (Though I am unclear to what extent anyone ever really changes their values in the first place, as opposed to just developing better strategies for achieving what, deep down, are their actual values.)
Personally I am not enlightened, but I certainly feel like developing deeper meditative insights has made it easier rather than harder for me to change my values. But human motivation is complicated, and which way it goes probably depends on a lot of individual factors.