' December the Eight '...

The Buddha’s day of enlightenment is currently considered as December 8th in Japanese Zen traditions. It’s called “rohatsu”.

Here from the Buddha’s “Ariyapariyesana Sutta”, the Buddha describes the final stages of “awakening”. The demon, Mara, that he refers to, is his own ego, with its daydream facades of false beliefs and illusory mental constructions.

“Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of perceptions of physical form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not heeding perceptions of diversity, perceiving ‘Infinite space,' enters and remains in the dimension of the infinitude of space. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of space, perceiving ‘Infinite consciousness,' enters and remains in the dimension of the ‘infinitude of consciousness’. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the ‘infinitude of consciousness’, perceiving ‘There is nothing,' enters and remains in the dimension of ‘nothingness’. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the ‘dimension of nothingness’, enters and remains in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of (karmic) perception and (karmic) feeling. And, having seen that with discernment, his mental fermentations (karmic traces) are completely ended. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

“Having crossed over, he is unattached in the world. Carefree he walks, carefree he stands, carefree he sits, carefree he lies down. Why is that? Because he has gone beyond the Evil One's (karmic, egoic mind) range."

When first asked what had happened in his enlightenment, he said “I became Awake”. (Bodhi).

What he then explains for many years following his “Awakening”, is that his daydreaming mind ceased daydreaming; like awakening from a dream at night; the dreaming ceased.

Being present and awake means the absence of all daydreaming regarding the past, present and future. The mind is not engaged in any thought process containing conceptually believed thought constructions. There is no self construct, no “others” construct, no objects construct, no problems constructs, no identity construct, no imaginary constructs; there is only immediate “presence of awareness” absent all daydreaming or engagement in thought. Then, one lives an ordinary life of peaceful ease free of all stress, yet seeing with such brilliant, thought-free clarity, that all that needs to be done, gets done with a joyful ease of spontaneous action. This describes perfectly how a Dzogchen or Zen master would live when one’s “inner thought world” ceases...



- Unknown soul