My friend Takuin Minamoto recently answered this question on his blog, and I was thrilled by his response. Takuin defined enlightenment as follows:
Enlightenment is limitless expansion within a limited field.
I love this definition because Takuin masterfully dropped all the centuries of spiritual baggage attached to this one simple word and took it directly to the heart of the matter. As he further explained, the limited field he is referring to is the world we find ourselves living in, the experiences that pass through our awareness moment to moment. It is a limited field, isn’t it? While it arises from the infinite, in and of itself it will always be contained, confined, bounded, limited. No question, our world is a limited field.
But enlightenment is the infinite, the limitless, expanding through the world of limitation. When we awaken, one of the first things we know is that what we thought we were isn’t. We get a taste for the aspects of limitlessness: nothingness and everything-ness. We know ourselves to be limitless, empty of all form and yet all form. Beyond, within, a part of and not a part of.
And as this limitlessness expands through the point in the limited field that we refer to as you, interesting and miraculous things begin to happen. As the false identity is shed, what is left in its place is nothing but this limitless expansion.
As a businessman once said, “Good ideas are borrowed, the best ideas are stolen.” Well, this is one case where I will merely borrow the best. My hat is off to Takuin for his excellent definition of enlightenment.
Takuin has comments ongoing on this post, so feel free to leave comments for him. I think I’ll open comments here, too, so I can see what’s on your mind. Namaste.
Awesome. I love it as well.
Thank you, Tom.
I’m very happy you’ve continued the discussion in your own house. And thanks, as always, for your support.
The thing that I’m finding is that it’s a subtractive process. It’s about shedding beliefs, attitudes, ideas, concepts, all of that. It’s not something you can “achieve” because “achievement” is a different kind of process. This spiritual awakening process is entirely about losing your baggage and seeing that all these supposed “limitations” aren’t actually limitations at all.
Which doesn’t answer the question “What is enlightenment”, mostly because I don’t know the answer to that.
CaterpillarWoman
As you yourself mention, what you are shedding is apparent limitations. What remains then is increasing limitlessness. This is the doorway to “limitless expansion” Tom and Takuin describe. It’s that simple.
Tom- thanks for opening comments. It’s great to say hello online too! I also enjoyed his post.
I like Takuin’s definition as well. I like CaterpillarWoman’s description of the process–it’s a process and it’s a process of letting go. Good to say hello online.
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Concepts such as ‘enlightenment’, ‘illumination’, ‘God’, ‘love’, etc, are human labels for those ideas that cannot be defined. Each of us is uniquely designed to experience these phenomena (if we choose to) in our own, individual way, and to attempt to define them to others is an exercise in futility. However, since we’re human, we’ll continue to attempt to describe and deine them to others. If we have to explain, you won’t understand. If yo understand, we don’t have to explain.