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The Three Trainings Revisited
While we may hear people speak of committing “enlightened” actions, or of thinking in “enlightened” ways, I have come to the conclusion that for spiritual training we either need to be very careful to explain that these are very conventional and relative definitions of enlightenment or not use such language at all.
Some traditions give some of the very high concentration states an ultimate status. I also advocate strongly against this, as did the Buddha.
These states are so compelling and seductive for some people that they imagine they are enlightened in the non-dual sense when they are merely having temporary unitive or unknowing experiences
(experiences where reality did something that was sufficiently lacking in specific qualities or intensity to be clearly known). Thus, I strongly suggest that such attainments never be associated with the language of enlightenment in any way.
Thus, I define enlightenment as permanently eliminating the basic perceptions that either duality or unity is the answer, and thus attaining to permanent non-dual realizations that are unshakable. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how things manifest and everything to do with some basic understanding of those things. I devote an entire chapter to explaining this more fully, but it is important for the discussion in between here and there to have been introduced to the strict and formal definition of enlightenment that I will be using.
These frameworks can also be useful for looking at other common issues such as thoughts of past and future that people run into when they get into meditation. Confusion arises when these pieces of advice are applied outside of the scope for which they were meant.
When working on our ordinary lives, i.e. within the scope of the first training, the content of our thoughts on past and future is very helpful, in fact absolutely necessary. With experience we generate a body of memory of what leads to what in this world, and with our predictive ability we can use this to try to craft a well-lived life, however we define that. However, when working on training in concentration, such thoughts are generally ignored or suppressed by deep concentration on another object. When doing insight practices, it doesn’t matter so much if thoughts of past or future arise, so long as we ignore their content, notice that they occur now, and notice the true nature of the individual 56
