"Arhats, when they attain arhatship, actually still live among
us and appear normally as one of us."
Now another question from me..coz I am not very much theravada
studies...how does WE know he is an arhat...???
"because only humans can cultivate to attain arhatship"
I didnt hear this before............
As far as I know, only humans can attain arhatship. Lower realms
are full of sufferings, lower realms cannot practice dharma. Only
human and deva realm can practice dharma, but devas have too much
pleasurable distractions to really want to learn the dharma.
However a minority of them may still practice the dharma, and
attain stages like Sotapanna. I have never heard of an arhat deva,
however. 4th jhana's pure abodes is different, because in the pure
abodes only Anagamis live there, and they take rebirth in that
realm before attaining arhatship in that realm.
As for how do we know whether they are arhat, if you are a
Buddha, of course you will know who are arhats, and the Buddha
recognised thousands of his students as having achieved Arhatship.
If you are a bodhisattva or an arhat yourself, you can also easily
recognise who is an arhat. Why? Because they can recognise where
the person is at by simply asking that person to describe his
current state of insight and experience, and possibly ask a few
more questions to confirm that he is truly speaking from authentic
experience instead of theory and am not confused with regards to
what he has said. But as for us, it is more difficult, but there is
also a possibility of recognising where one or another person is.
But in short, though as much as we wanted, there is no single way
to judge a person's attainment by just looking at him or even
observing his behaviors -- an enlightened person may on the surface
and appearance be seemingly ordinary and look just like us.
Hence the only truly reliable way is to check by the criteria of
insight alone, of meditative experience and insight to guage where
one is on the path. But it is a little bit complex and complicated
if you are not familiar with the maps of awakening and may not be
totally helpful. It is however good to be familiar with maps of the
stages of meditative experiences/insights/awakening in the sense
that one at least has an idea where he is on the path and how to
proceed and not be lost or stuck in any place. All these guidance
can however only come from the personal experiences of a true
enlightened teacher. The ancient maps (the goods ones) do however
give some important indications of the path. That said whatever it
is, continue to practice hard and that is the essential key to
progress.
As Ven Gunaratana said,
[...]
Meditation is a living activity, an inherently experiential
activity. It cannot be taught as a purely
scholastic subject. The living heart of the process
must come from the teacher's own personal
experience.
[...]
From:
Mindfulness in Plain English
—A Guide to Buddhist Meditation
by Venerable Henepola Gunaratana
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html
Regarding recognising the stages of awakening I have previously
posted:
As I said earlier, the criteria is that you have to be familiar
with the Good maps of enlightenment. Of course, if you are
enlightened yourself, you should be able to tell who is enlightened
and who is not. Or if you are enlightened + familiar with the maps
of enlightenment, that is even better. But if you are not, at least
you must be familiar with what enlightenment is really about and
the maps of enlightenment, then you can distinguish whether someone
is enlightened and to what degree. As I said earlier because I am
familiar with the maps I can sometimes tell whether one is
enlightened or even to what degrees, though not all the time. Of
course the greater benefit (of familiarity with the maps) is that
one is able to tell where one is when we develope certain
experiences.
But not all maps of enlightenment are good. Some are inaccurate,
some are dogmatic and some are entirely based on assumptions and
also the action and emotional models, such as what behaviors he wld
or wld not do. Enlightened people are definitely not restricted to
particular actions -- they are free to do whatever they can do
under various circumstances, but due to increased clarity and
wisdom it is more unlikely that they will do anything seriously
harmful to oneself and others.
There are other models of enlightenment that says that certain
emotions disappear after each stage of enlightenment, which is
somewhat true (but is actually more like how enlightened people
were able to see the true nature of their emotions that arise so as
to better manage them, then the emotions not really arising) but
then again, normal people may also lack certain emotions (such as
anger) if they are generally calm people or have good anger
management or are strong in shamatha and metta. And also there are
enlightened people who are seemingly angry, whether they are really
angry you don't know. Maybe they are simply showing the wrathful
form of Avalokitesvara. So again, the emotional and action models
fail at this point. They cannot really show you whether a person is
enlightened or not. Unlike what people think, enlightened people do
not *necessarily* need to appear calm and peaceful.
The only way to really know is, like I said, by the criteria of
their insights. Here comes the 'good maps of enlightenment' that
strictly based on stages of realisation in terms of insights into
ultimate reality, or stages of yogic insights. What are the good
maps of enlightenment? Those that speaks of the 'non-dual' models
-- models that talk about stages of increased perception/insights
of non-duality, luminous-emptiness, etc. I have said previously,
Dharma Dan's stages of the 4 paths is one of them. Others may
include the 10 bhumis as presented in terms of nondual experience
in Lankavatara Sutra, the Tibetan presentation of the 10 bhumis in
terms of yogic experience, the 5 ranks of Tozan, Thusness's six
stages of experience, (you can find some of them in my blog http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/)
and many more that are used in different traditions that actually
are very similar and related to each other. And in fact if you are
a lineaged teacher in the various traditions, that means you are
already enlightened. They don't let you be a real lineaged teacher
until you are enlightened. That is why they often say, seek a
teacher from proper lineages.
An example of the Tibetan presentation of the 10 bhumis in terms
of 4 stages of yogic experience (see http://www.khandro.net/Buddhism_maha_stages.htm)
and in this context of the Mahamudra system where the last 3 stages
are stages of an Arya (enlightened being):
Per
Gampopa
A lucid, unceasing
awareness of the moment is the one-pointed stage of
yoga.
Understanding the essential state of the awareness as
non-arising, transcending all conceptual modes, is the
free-from-elaboration stage of yoga.
Understanding the diverse appearances as being one from the
standpoint of their intrinsic nature is the one flavor yoga.
An unceasing realization of the union of appearance and their
intrinsic emptiness is the great equipoise of the non-meditation
yoga.
So anyway, knowing the various stages one will be able to tell
if someone else is enlightened by his dharma expression. Usually
his words and teachings wld reflect his experience, and if he is
truly enlightened then his understand will be in line with Buddha's
and with the nature of reality. What he say will one way or another
be similar essentially to the truly enlightened sages. If he is
still not that realised then his expression would be different
based on his current insight.
By the way, you may like to listen to this MP3 by Daniel Ingram
(Dharma Dan), http://www.trumix.com/podshows/2100538
It is called 'Enlightened Teachers'.
In our latest podcast with Theravada teacher Daniel
Ingram he breaches the taboo of enlightenment by discussing the
enlightenment of other teachers. Not only that but he argues for a
more transparent approach to enlightenment within certain teaching
circles, in hopes that enlightenment can become more attainable.
Listen and see why he thinks this will help.
