Difficult question from my 15 y/o son

[Shoshin]

Whoah! Big questions!!!! Difficult to answer in a way. Since Jundo has already replied, I will just add to this as an exercise for myself to try to verbalize simply a response to this. Please, take it with some salt as mostly my own approach. From a Mahayana perspective, like Jundo says, one embodies buddhahood through body, speech and mind. Keeping the Precepts is essential for practice, practice leads to a natural keeping of the Precepts. Practice - Enlightenment - Precepts thus should be one.
From the perspective of other schools, that's more complicated. Enlightenment means different things. Attaining Nirvana, from a theravada perspective, is a long process that requires a gradual abandoning of defilements of the mind, plus a specific kind of morality and behavior. It is said, by the Buddha that, for example, someone who's killed their parents in this lifetime is not eligible for stream entry (entering the stream of the Eightfold Noble Path that leads to Nirvana), and thus, one can not attain Nirvana in this lifetime. There would be steps before attaining Nirvana that transform one fundamentally, to be ready for that Awakening.
Either way, it is difficult to say much about the topic, unless one knows what someone means by Enlightenment when they ask this question. I am sure your son asks about Enlightenment and in his mind he pictures a Buddha, like the ones in images and statues, who is described as perfect in wisdom, morals, ethics and understanding. On the other hand, I don't think the idea of the simple comprehension of oneness and unity does justice to the concept of enlightenment in buddhism, or as a matter of fact of the reality of it as action, as it lacks the aspects of cessation of greed, anger and delusion, of the perfection of Wisdom, of the fulfillment of the Noble Eightfold Path, of the keeping of the precepts, it leaves out Sila, Samadhi and Prajna etc...
Anyway, won't ramble for longer. It is awesome that your son has such deep questions.
Sorry for running long

Gassho

Thanks so much!
I'd like to learn more about Sila, Samadhi and Prajna. Where do you recommend that I learn about them?

Gassho
Satlah

[Koriki]

Then he asked:
"Can a bad person get enlightened? Let's say a person that commits a genocide. Can they? And if the get enlightened, will they become good people?"

I don't know the answer to this. I understand that practice of shikantaza and of the precepts is usually considered to be essential but, couldn't someone, theoretically, get enlightened spontaneously? And if it happened, in which ways would they be changed into a more compassionate person?

One comparison that you already know about Shoshin is when you realize that your food used to be a beautiful animal with natural instincts that they are prevented from experiencing and then is ultimately killed. Once you "see" the cruelty behind that you can't unsee it. I'd suspect that an enlightenment experience would have that kind of an effect.

Gassho,
Koriki
s@lah

[Seiko]

Always becoming Buddha.

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Houzan]

Great question from a reflected boy! I would do as Onsho recommends. Depending on his interest and nature, maybe try to feed his curiosity instead of providing an answer:

Where is this «bad» located in a bad person? Where is the «good» located in a good person? With some help he might conclude that there are no bad people. Only people doing bad things. Likewise, there are no good people, only people doing good. Their actions are simply a result of causes and conditions. We all start somewhere with a certain karmic baggage, and if practice is enlightenment…

And finally: You want to experience enlightenment? Come and sit with me!

Gassho, Hōzan
satlah

[Shoshin]

If her son is thinking that a Buddha is "perfect," and that anyone who has had a glimpse of enlightenment is "perfect" and will act perfectly, then that is a very common, but idealistic viewpoint. It is more like "yes, we are perfect, and have been all along, but we are also imperfect human beings who often act imperfectly ... perfectly imperfect, imperfectly perfect."

I just asked him why he thought that enlightenment might make someone a better person, he said that not "better" but more compassionate. He said that he saw Putin giving some flowers to a child and he wondered if everyone can be a more compassionate person if they get enlightened. I asked him what he things that enlightnment is, and he said "it is not thinking that something is good or bad, it is realising that good and bad doesn't exist" . I never told him that, he reached this conclusion by himself. But he has never meditated. Don't ask me why he knows
I wanted to talk more but he was too busy eating his noodles...

Gassho,
Satlah

[Shoshin]

One comparison that you already know about Shoshin is when you realize that your food used to be a beautiful animal with natural instincts that they are prevented from experiencing and then is ultimately killed. Once you "see" the cruelty behind that you can't unsee it. I'd suspect that an enlightenment experience would have that kind of an effect.

Gassho,
Koriki
s@lah

I very much like this ......

Gassho
Satlah

[Shoshin]

I like this, but I do not think that we can completely cease greed, anger and delusion while in human form, thus we need the Precepts and to continuously practice. We can be Buddha one moment, and the devil the next.

You know, it made me think of some interviews I saw with Manson, after the murders happened. The way he talked was almost guru like, saying all kinds of deep things that sounded very much buddhist in ways. It really is something to ponder how some folks can both sound like they have some deep wisdom, some clarity, while being absolutely horrible beings.

Oh, for sure! We have our own "dark side." Even some otherwise wonderful and insightful Zen teachers, like the Rinzai sexual predators Joshi Sasaki and Eido Shimano, were not immune. Some Soto Zen teachers, Theravadans ... bad apples scattered among the very caring and ethical teachers.

I agree that as humans we cannot be perfectly compassionate and free of delusions and greed and anger. But right now (and time and practice might teach me something different) I find it hard to believe that a person can be really wise and compassionate one day and a sadistic, a persol full of hatred or an abuser the next day. I tend to believe that some poeple are really good at pretending they are wise.
I'm very open to be corrected

Gassho
Satlah

[Shoshin]

These are really excellent questions! What a bright kid you have. Honestly, kids ask the best questions.

A Lay-opinion from me:

You don't know the answer, invite him to find out the answer with you. With all things dharma, there isn't a definitive, yes, and no to anything. I think this is a great way to talk about dependent origination and when one person does good, the universe is doing good. Dig into the idea of gray area, nuance and being comfortable in it. Are there good and bad people? Do hurt people, hurt people? Do people in the prison system deserve to be there? What really is a bad person? Let him try answer this question for himself.

I don't think enlightenment on its own is necessarily a cure to anything for example, people have managed to touch the absolute through means of drugs, music, mathematics, divine experiences ect. Integration that follows the experience is how it could be used for "good" or "bad". Using psychoactive substances is a very effective form of therapy if done properly, people with major blockages from trauma can use it to finally break down that wall and use their enlightened experience to put themselves back together.

From a non zen point of view-

Can a bad person be enlightened, absolutely, for a short time. And maybe they realize that by hurting others they are hurting themselves?

There are people that are physically and mentally unable to produce compassion, and sometimes they are given a lot of power. I personally do not dislike people, I dislike behaviors, and I don't think there are bad people.

There is so much opportunity here, good luck, this is a gift.

Gassho
Onsho
satlah

Thanks!!, yes, very important questions. I will bring them next time when I talk to Teo. He is a very philosphycal young man with a very interesting and complex inner world. He actually corrected me today: "I didn't say "better person" I said more compassionate". And I agree with you and with him: there are no bad or good people, only actions that bring happiness and wellbeing and actions thta bring pain.

You brought a very interesting question that I never thought about: can people unable neurologically to be compassionate get even a tiny glimpse of enlightenment? oh, my... this question is going to haunt me for a while....

"Integration that follows the experience": I never thought about this... I guess that if one, by any chance, gets enlightened without any, or little, previous practice and Dharma knowledge and no support from a teacher, it must be confusing and perhaps not conducive to much wisdom.
I'd be interested in see what Jundo and the teachers think about this too...

Gassho,
Satlah

[Shoshin]

I would recommend that you and your son read the Angulimala Sutta about the mass murderer turn arhat (https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipi....086.than.html). In my lay-perspective and as I work through my personal karma of things I have had to do in my military service, my repentance towards them, and my humbled attempt to live by the Bodhisattva vows, I would pose the question: If enlightenment was not achievable for the most vile creature, then what is the purpose for the Bodhisattva?

In the teachings of the Four Immeasurables: Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity we learn it is easy to hold those towards the ones we love, and the further removed to the ones we "hate" becomes more difficult. It could take infinite lifetimes to atone for the negative karma, though I feel our difficult task is to see the good in everyone that may not see in themselves.

These are just my personal opinions based on my readings so please take them with a bucket of salt.

Gassho,
Douglas

Sat/Lah

Huge thanks. Your answer brings so much clarity and compassion to my question

Gassho
Satlah

[Shoshin]

Excellent question.

In the first case of the Wumen's gateless gate collection often entitled Joshu's Dog it reads:

[I]A monk aske......

Thanks so much.
And I agree, no good or bad people exist

Gassho,
satlah

[Shoshin]

Hi Shoshin,

I can only speak from a limited perspective, and I have absolutely know street-cred as a Buddhist. Other more qualified voices have already spoken up so please feel free to ignore. But the question did spark my interest as an answer to it comes from experience of different 'states and stages' in another tradition that I've been part of for a lot longer. So I thought I might offer a perspective on that basis.

If you truly realise something, that's not simply intellectual assent, but an integration of something fundamental. Realisation in that sense, I feel, is like the knowledge that I am left handed, or the realisation that I am a human being and not a caterpillar. I know these things to the point where I can't not know them, they are part of my nature. Ignoring or going against such realisation becomes an act of violence and completely unnatural. Using my right hand, although I might be able to force the action, would be unnatural and probably not done well, at first!

Likewise, if I were enlightened in the way you describe (realisation of the unity of all things), then hurting another, or doing something that made me a bad person, would be as unnatural as sawing off my own arm (if all is one, then you are as much me as myself, so why would I hurt you?).

On that basis, and I believe that this comes closer to Buddhist theory, evil acts come from ignorance, so an enlightened person is by definition a good person.

I might also add that Buddhist writing is full of examples of bad people getting enlightened and becoming disciples. The murderer sent to kill the 6th Patriarch who later became his disciple springs to mind. I doubt he went on after that to live a life of crime.

As usual, I'm willing to be corrected if necessary.

Gassho
Sattlah
M.

Thanks. I tend to intuitively see it this way and your way of putting it into words helped me.
Gassho,
satlah