From: sanders@iitmax.iit.edu (Greg Sanders)
Subject: Re: Enlightened Beings
Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 17:11:17 GMT

Sometimes famous stories are good responses.  I will hope that is true here.

In article <1992Aug20.183041.20826@qiclab.scn.rain.com> bguest9@bsg9.Corp.Sun.COM (Kristian Skrinak) writes:
>I don't like my Buddhas dead. There should be at least one real one on
>the planet.

Dead versus real...interesting opposition here.
A Zen master and a monk were standing at the side of the coffin of an
awakened disciple of the master.  The monk asked, "tell me, is he alive
or is he dead?"  The master replied, "I won't say, I won't say."  This is
a fairly famous Zen story, and for the sake of clarity I will point out
that Zen teachers generally say that the master cannot say.

>Many claim to be fully enlightened. Perhaps one that claims
>to be really is. 

No genuinely enlightened person would say, "I am enlightened."

    You mentioned Buddhas.  One of the stories about the Buddha that many
feel is probably historically accurate is an exchange between Ananda
and the Buddha.  (Notes: "the World-honored One" and the Tathagata are 
standard terms for the Buddha.  Also, Ananda was the Buddha's closest
disciple, and his cousin, but did not come to deep awakening until after
the Buddha's death.)  One day Ananda said to the Buddha, 
    "Methinks that in the past there has never been a master as great as 
the World Honored One, nor will there be as great a one in the future."  
    The Buddha replied, "have you known all the Buddhas of the past?"
    "No World-honored One."
    "Well, have you the power to know all the Buddhas of the future?"
    "No, World-honored One?"
    "Then surely, Ananda, you thoroughly know the Tathagata's mind."
    "No, World-honored One, not even that."
    "How, then, can you speak so boldly?"

>
>I'll settle for postings on any beings with flaming golden crown chakras
>(in the perception of the poster).

It is generally held in Zen that anyone who gives off the noticeable aura of
holiness is not yet fully realized.  A true master comes across as an
absolutely ordinary person.  There's a story about even this, in which a
guy living/practicing in a hut in the countryside came to an awakening.
Whenever he came outside the hut, songbirds would come and perch on his
shoulders and hands.  Then one day he had a deeper awakening.  The birds
no longer came.

I don't know whether there are any completely realized masters currently
walking around on the earth.  There are a number of deeply realized ones
though, and in a few deeply different traditions.  I would suggest that
you should find a tradition with which you have a deep affinity and seek
out a teacher within that tradition who is generally considered to be deeply
realized, even by persons outside that tradition, and with whom you feel
some affinity (the relationship between spiritual teacher and student, or
between master and disciple if you will, is personal, you and your teacher
have to have some affinity).  As you search for a teacher, keep both eyes
open, check out institutional "qualifications/credentials", be skeptical
within reason, but do pick a teacher.  Once you pick, shelve your search
and stick with your teacher, and plunge into your practice with the teacher.

--
sanders@iitmax.iit.edu (Greg Sanders)