Enlightenment from a Sea Gull
by: Roger S. Gottlieb on March 9th, 2011 | 2 Comments »
What is spiritual fulfillment? What is reaching the heights of spiritual development? Or, to use the classic term — what is enlightenment?
Classical Buddhist sources describe it as a state of mind in which we no longer think: “I am this, this is mine, this is my self.” Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra defines it as the ability to control, and cease, the modifications of the mind. More emotionally oriented traditions offer images of total oneness with the universe, complete submission to God, or a limitless capacity for love and compassion.
Usually enlightenment is understood as a total state of being — something so completely present that the nagging demands of ego (greed, jealousy, envy, ambition, fear, resentment — that sort of thing) simply evaporate in the face of the Ultimate Truth. We are, at last, at peace, at one with the One, freed from sin, ignorance, and Really Bad Habits.
Here is another way, a very different way, to understand it.
I live in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, known for its parks and at least semi-natural areas of water and woods. A few days ago I was out pretty early walking my dog. Picture the gray winter sky, formed by low lying clouds, the dim light of early morning January, and the ice that covered Jamaica Pond, an actual lake 1 ½ miles around. The sun was just coming up, but only a few rays were making it through the cloud cover. As I let my eyes causally sweep the western horizon I saw a sudden, brilliant flash of white above the pond’s ice. As soon as I saw it, it was gone. And then a few moments later it reappeared, and then faded for good — a moment of purest white in a gray world.
It was nothing terribly exotic — just a sea gull’s white wings catching a bit of morning sunlight. The bird’s flight held the exact right angle for me to see the reflection for those two brief moments, and then it moved on and the light faded.
And that, I realized, is another image of enlightenment. Not something that will replace all my petty weaknesses or sweep away the larger grief I carry. Not something, which will, once and for all, take away my pain and doubt. No, it will just be a sudden unpredictable flash, seen briefly from a great distance.
Will I now feel really great all the time?
Hardly.
But I will know, forever, that it is there.
And that is enough.
I was reminded recently of the incident that Homer relates about Odysseus who returns from his voyages and meets his now grown son, Telemachus, who does not recognize him. At their meeting, a young woman also appears. Odysseus sees that she is Athena, the goddess who favored him. His son only sees a young woman.
In the Greek myths, epiphanies of the gods and goddesses were not commonplace but also were not extremely rare. It all depended on the mortal. It happened as a signal of a special event, some tragic others triumphant, as was the case with Odysseus, who found his son to have grown into an admirable adult..
Some hard-nosed philosophers are urging us to pay attention to nature re-enchanted. The old mechanical explanations only work for very narrow views. To study nature today, some can only hope to capture a record of what is here and gone in a flash. It’s even better than ghosts, because it is what any properly trained seeker can find.
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