Perfect Enlightenment...

I am not so sure that there is some kind of abstract "perfect enlightenment" that brings an absolute end to all human dysfunction on absolutely every level of experience.

Ajahn Chaa, the great Thai forest meditation master used to always say,

"if you let go a little, you will be a little free. If you let go more, you will be more free. If you let go a lot, you will be a lot more free. And if you let go completely, you will be completely free..."

Theoretically at least, someone could let go completely, but does that ever happen in any other context than hagiographical stories of the lives of saints or sages or founders of religions? I don't know about you and I certainly don't know for sure myself, but it is a question that arises for me anyway!

"Perfect enlightenment" seems like a pretty abstract concept to me. My sense is that the reality is more on a kind of continuum of clarity that can be more or less complete, but is never totally complete.


- Francis Bennett