The Arahant

The Arahant is he who has achieved Nirvanic enlightenment, freeing himself from the torturous wheel of Samsara, of life, suffering, and rebirth. But what does it mean in secular terms to be free of the cycle of incarnation? What even are incarnation and rebirth in a secular context? Furthermore, what constitutes enlightenment? And how is it that enlightenment frees man from the suffering intrinsic to being itself?

At once, an epigraphic excerpt included in author Joe Hyams’s Zen in the Martial Arts returns to mind:

One day it was announced by Master Joshu that the young monk Kyogen had reached an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers went to speak with him.
“We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?” his fellow students inquired.
“It is,” Kyogen answered.
“Tell us,” said a friend, “how do you feel?”
“As miserable as ever,” replied the enlightened Kyogen. (Hyams 134)

If the lessons of Zen Buddhism can be carried backward to its classical counterpart, the above passage reveals much about the state of enlightenment, particularly how it differs from common comprehension. To be enlightened is to be made light and to become light-like; therefore, monk Kyogen, upon achieving enlightenment, should be describable after this fashion if the analysis is done via the proper level of abstraction. So, what does the text say? According to the micro-narrative, Kyogen is in fact enlightened, and the other monks all expect Kyogen to feel differently as a consequence of his enlightenment. Also according to the text, Kyogen experiences are just as drab and miserable as ever, which means that enlightenment does not abolish suffering in the way most obviously and commonly assumed. What is it, then, which Kyogen has achieved?

Answer: a change of attitude, or disposition. It is not the suffering with is gone, but the desire for the suffering to not be which has been dissolved within the young, enlightened monk. He has become an arahant through acceptance of the conditions of his existence. And though this interpretation of enlightenment is very Taoist or Zen in its orientation, it opens the Buddhist concepts of Nirvana and Samara up for secular, symbolic, and archetypal understanding.

Nirvana is not infinite dopaminergic bliss, just as Samsara is not the repeated refitting of souls into suits of flesh. The former is liberation from self-imposed delusions about that which is good, right, true , and necessary. Free of these illusions, one’s mind is no longer under their sway. One becomes integrated with himself as opposed to at war with his instincts. He realizes what is true in accordance with his nature and the world, and his interpretation of pain changes, as does his interpretation of joy. In the latter case, Samsara is the continual need for individuation—the process described by Carl Jung of incorporating one’s unconscious psychic elements (i.e. instincts) into one’s ego-conscious awareness of life. To individuate is to facilitate a metaphorical death of an old aspect of the self so that room can be made for a new, more integrated potential. To be free from this cycle is to be fully incorporated; it is to be an arahant, one who hides and rejects nothing of himself or the world.

For someone
At the journey’s end,
Freed from sorrow,
Liberated in all ways,
Released from all bonds,
No Fever exists. (Buddha 23)

Demarcating the end of the Path describes precisely what kind of Path the practitioner is walking. It is one of overcoming conflict and contradiction. Sorrow is overcome by embracing sorrow; liberation is achieved via embracing restraint. The revealed wisdom here is that the conflicts and contradictions are internal and not external. They are false dichotomies projected onto the world by our minds. They are Mara, illusion, the recognition of which dispels the delusion, bringing about sanity, tranquility, serenity, peace:

In village, in forest,
In low land, in high land:
Delightful is the place
Where the arahant dwells.

Delightful are forests
Where the public does not delight.
There the passion-free delight,
Not seeking sensual pleasure. (25)

Notice the dichotomy, the differentiation between the arahant and the public. Thus is the difference between the high and the low, the master and the slave, even in Buddhist thought. Though one attains Nirvana by letting it go, one must first and paradoxically learn to let go by first holding on. The end of a journey requires first a journey. A goal, even if that goal is freedom from desire, first requires one to desire. It is a kind of Enantiodromia—a reversal of opposites well characterized by the practice of martial arts. In order to become proficient, one must first be willing to be horrendous. Otherwise, one will not even start. But if one is willing to take the necessary and painful steps on his journey, he will find himself transformed by the process.

And yet, despite the bounteous evidence of one’s adherence to Path and principles, because the changes are primarily internal and only tangentially external, the lowly, slavish public cannot see and refuse to believe that there is any such Path at all:

Like the path of birds in the sky,
It is hard to trace the path
Of those who do not hoard,
Who are judicious with their food,
And whose field
Is the freedom of emptiness and singleness.

Like the path of birds in the sky
It is hard to trace the path
Of those who have destroyed their toxins,
Who are unattached to food,
And whose field is the freedom of emptiness and singleness. (25-6)

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. The Dhammapada; Teachings of the Buddha, translated by Gil Fronsdal, Shambala Publications Inc, 2008.

Hyams, Joe. Zen in the Martial Arts, Bantam Books, 1979.