described above is not an essential demand of Buddhism. Regardless of the contents
of this experience, the key point is that we can overcome our ordinary way of
perceiving things that is characterized by profound self-attachment. Even an
experience of enlightenment, wrongly assimilated, can be used to increase
self-attachment because certain delusive ideas can arise from grasping onto the
experience. For instance, one might interpret such an experience as something
exclusive and then feel exceptional and superior. This is a very easy trap to fall into,
especially when the experience of enlightenment is taken to be a goal in itself.
Nevertheless, enlightenment should not be seen in this way. The real goal is to ally
enlightenment with an after-insight-state that can enable us to understand the
separate self as a fictitious assumption. Thus, by means of this understanding, we are
able to dispense with self-attachment, and thus the existential sufferings of coming
into being, aging, getting sick and dying. This is what is meant in Buddhism by
‘awakening,’ a state where our distresses have been eliminated; a state—I dare say—
we are not very familiar with. In Buddhism, to stop sleeping and to awaken is
considered equal to attaining enlightenment. Both awakening and enlightenment
mean to free oneself from the woes and sufferings one has created for oneself.
Concerning the word ‘Buddha’ itself, it is not a proper noun making special
reference to a specific individual. As a common noun or adjective it can be used in
reference to anyone. Any awakened being is a Buddha. Gotama Buddha is only one
among an immense number of others who have awakened in this way. Consequently,
we too, if we awaken, are said to be Buddhas. By stressing this point, it becomes clear
that Buddhism’s main concern is to teach people that anyone can become a Buddha,
rather than to demand faith and worship of Gotama Buddha as though he were a god.
This was certainly the case in early Buddhism, when Gotama Buddha was not
taken to be an absolute being towards which religious worship was due. Gotama, as
the result of a spiritual process of growth, became a Buddha. That is why his followers
dedicate themselves to practices that, in all likelihood, could bring them similar results.
Emancipation from sufferingGotama Buddha’s basic way of thinking about the problematic of life and death can
be characterized as being an inquiry on the causes of suffering and whether or not
they originate from the fact that someone considers himself or herself to be a sufferer.
Therefore, his main concern is subjective, rather than objective suffering. From this
it can be said that Gotama Buddha’s teaching has little to offer to someone who does
not have the consciousness of being in distress. Anyone who does not perceive himself
as sick is, in all likelihood, beyond the reach of medicine.
Gotama Buddha’s first attempt to instruct others on the nature of suffering can be
found in the so-called ‘Four Noble Truths’: 1. There is suffering; 2. Suffering has a
cause; 3. Suffering can be extinguished; and 4. There is a method to extinguish
suffering. Considering that his personal suffering was the expression of something more
universal, related not only to him as an individual, but inherent in all human beings,
it can therefore be said to have been Gotama Buddha’s motivation to start preaching.
THE PROBLEMATIC OF MIND IN GOTAMA BUDDHA 231