Document Type
Article
Source
New Realities
ISSN
0147-7625
Volume
10
Issue
6
First Page
22
Last Page
24
Publication Date
7-1990
Department
Religion and Philosophy
Abstract
"...Mystical experiences can come and go, it seems, without altering the fundamental habit patterns and tendencies that vector our behavior. It is precisely this that separates mystical experience from the wider, deeper process of enlightenment. Enlightenment necessarily involves a lasting transformation of character (character is my shorthand for deep structural determinants of consciousness), while mystical experience does not. Enlightenment is an irreducibly moral notion and is, existentially speaking, inversely proportional to stinkerism. At least this is so for Buddhism, the tradition to which we owe, more than to any other, the very notion of enlightenment, and the tradition on which I base the assertions ventured here." ~ from the article
Rights
Copyright © 1990 Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
Included in
Buddhist Studies Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons