OBSERVATION

The awakened state, also known as liberation, moksha, samadhi, nirvana, presence, or as Gerald Heard simply termed it, "this thing," is a condition of consciousness.

It is not, having said this, something a person can do something with, or to, as if it were an object.

Since there is no more fulfilling experience than this state, a person, once he has experienced it, wants to go there every waking moment, except that he can't.  Frustratingly, he can't, because he is the state.

The bonus to it is "attunement," as it is called.  A person finds that he and life are on the same wavelength suddenly, to where, as Taoists put it, he is in the flow of things, he is with the Tao.  Everything feels right, now.

THIS AWAKENING: A SHORT STORY

He had read all the books but at the end of the day had only his own experience of it, which as it happened was beyond description. 

The closest in words to what he had experienced, words here being an approximation, just pointers, was the Atman/Brahman description in Vedanta.  Indeed, for him it felt as if his Atman had awakened into Brahman, remembering that, ultimately, Atman and Brahman are one. 

Which was an important point in itself, since the destiny of an Atman is to awaken into Brahman, and certainly it felt that way to him when it happened, a sense of completion, and a long-in-coming completion at that.  It was like, "At last!"  And with it he felt "done," as it were.  He'd crossed the finish line.  And with this came the knowledge that he did not have to live any longer, as it startlingly felt to him, much less have to come back and do it all again, in another lifetime or more.

His question through all this, though, was how did it come about.  Was it something that he did or something that happened of itself.

At first blush, it seemed his own doing, given his life-long obsession with spirituality, especially with Eastern spirituality.  Yet, here, as he contemplated it, looking back over his life in its entirety, the sixty-six years of it, it seemed to him that he only appeared to be the cause of the awakening. 

So much so did he feel this, in fact, that he could only conclude that his life had been lived by something else rather than by he himself.  Or both he and something else had lived it possibly.

It seemed to him, furthermore, that every detail of his life, down to the most minute element, had been solely for the purpose of this awakening.

This was not to say that he, his egoic self, had nothing whatsoever to do with the awakening, only that it was going to happen no matter what he did or didn't do.  This was his Atman's time, to use the Vedantist model again, and it was going to happen no matter what.

And now that it was done, it was done.  The analogy of a chick hatching from its shell was a good way to describe the finality of it, how it felt to him.  Once the bird hatched, it was hatched.  There was no turning back.  It could not go back into its shell.

But then the next question was, now what?  Was there something that he was supposed to do at this point, or that the Atman was supposed to do?  Sri Ramakrishna said that once awakened, a person could do whatever he wanted, the same view Zen masters held, which was a relief on the one hand but a source of  frustration on the other.

He concluded that he needed a devotional practice of some kind.  At the very least, he needed a schedule of meditation.  Yet, after trying devotion and meditation, he found that they were inadequate, a  poor substitute for that extraordinary initial experience, the awakening, that left him so searching for words. 

Which was when he remembered something that Swami Prabhavananda had said.  The swami stated that if one wanted to feel spiritually involved, he need not engage in elaborate devotional ceremonies of every kind, or in hours of intense meditation, but, from time to time, should simply recall the awakened state.  It was sufficient.

What made this successful for him was the question, who was it that was recalling?  It brought him back to who, at the end of the day, was the real player in all this.  And it wasn't him.

BACKGROUND

A Vedantist and a guest were sitting in the backyard of the Vedantist's home. The Vedantist was talking about the necessity of a background for the perception of any figure.  He said to his guest, "Against what background do you see those flowers?"  His guest said, "Against the background of the hedge."  The Vedantist then said, "Against what background do you see the hedge?"  His guest said, "Against the background of the hills."  The Vedantist said, "And against what background do you see the hills?"  His guest said, "Against the background of the sky."  The Vedantist then said, "Against what background do you see the sky?'  His guest fell silent.  The Vedantist said, finally, "The background of consciousness."

THE BUDDHA IN HINDUISM

Indian--Hindu--views of Gautama Buddha are mixed and confused at times, if not contradictory.  On the one hand, he  is considered one of the greatest Indians ever to have lived, even as, on the other, his Buddhism is seen as merely one of many forms of an all-encompassing tolerant Hinduism.  Indeed, according to some Hindus, the Buddha did not intend to found a new religion at all, but merely sought a reformed, reasonable "middle path" in Hinduism.

The fact, meanwhile, that the Buddha did not mention God is taken as evidence that he was a Hindu who simply took God for granted, the obvious not needing elucidation. 

Scores of Hindu temples contain an image of the Buddha along with those of various deities and saints.  Pilgrimages to Bodh Gaya, the sacred site of the Buddha's enlightenment, and other Buddhist shrines in India, are also common in India. 

Such are the favorable views among a large number of Hindus, even while others, especially those with speculative or occultist minds, see the Buddha in a vastly different light.  They see him as sent to the world in order to mislead people, by opposing the teachings of the Brahmins.  They regard him as the embodiment of illusion and delusion.  To them, Buddhism is a sacrilege.

ABHIDAMMA TRADITION

The Pāli Canon,  the scriptures of Theravāda Buddhism, has three general categories called pitaka, from Pali pitaka, meaning "basket."  The canon is traditionally known as the Tipitaka (Sanskrit: Tripitaka) "the three baskets."  They are as follows:

1.Vinaya Pitaka (discipline basket), dealing with rules for monks and nuns.
2.Sutta Pitaka (sutra/sayings basket), discourses, mostly ascribed to the Buddha, but some to disciples.
3.Abhidhamma Pitaka, variously described as philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, etc.

Regarding the Abhidhamma Pitaka (abhidhammapiṭaka), tradition holds that the Buddha thought it out immediately after his enlightenment, then taught it to the gods some years later.  The Buddha then repeated it to one of his chief disciple Sariputta who then handed it on to the disciples.

Scholars, however, generally date the Abhidhamma to some time around the third century BCE, one hundred to two hundred years after the death of the Buddha. The consensus therefore is that the Adhidamma does not, for the most part, represent the words of the Buddha himself so much as the words of his disciples and commentators.

The Abhidhamma Pitaka consists of seven books:

Dhammasangani
Vibhanga
Dhatukatha
Puggalapannatti
Kathavatthu
Yamaka
Patthana

The importance of the Abhidhamma Pitaka is suggested by the fact that it came to have, like much of the canon, not only a commentary and a subcommentary on that commentary, but even a subsubcommentary on that subcommentary.

On the other hand, this relentless sub-commenting might be illustrative of what has been called "shastra-vasna" or "the lust for scriptures." 

In more recent centuries, Burma, now called Myanmar, has become the main center of Abhidhamma studies.

TWO CHIEF MALE DISCIPLES

The two chief male disciples of the Buddha were Sariputra (Pali: Sariputta) and Maudgalyayana (Pali: Moggallana). The nuns Khema and Uppalavanna are the two chief female disciples, although little is known of them.

Close friends, Sariputra and Maudgalyayana both renounced the world on the same day and in the beginning were disciples of the religious skeptic Sanjaya Belatthaputta. They left Sanjaya's tutelage because it did not address their unresolved imperative of ending ultimate suffering.

Sariputra and Maudgalyayana went on to become Buddhist arahants, "ones foremost in wisdom," or saints, and are often shown together with the Buddha. Several sutras describe interactions between the three.

Sariputra was highly respected for his teaching, and is considered one of the most important disciples of the Buddha. He was awarded the title of "General of the Dharma" (Pāli: Dhammasenāpati) for his propagation of the teachings and is regarded as the founder of the Abhidamma tradition.

Maudgalyayana was reputedly a master of supernatural powers. Varying accounts have him, for example, speaking with the deceased; he did this so he could explain to them their horrific conditions and how their suffering came about. He hoped that by doing this they would be released from their suffering. He was able to use other powers of his, such as mind-reading, to give good and fitting advice to his students.