In my previous article, I talked about enlightenment and some of its benefits. In this article, I would like to discuss the path to enlightenment.

According to Buddha’s teaching, enlightenment is cessation of suffering. This includes physical, emotional and mental pain. But the term ’suffering’ used here is only one translation of the Pali dukkha (the earliest Buddhist scriptures). Dukkha means a lot of things, there is simply no single English word that can neatly describe its meaning.

It’s beyond the scope of this article to describe what dukkha means. If you want, you can visit Wikipedia to learn more. Just go to wikipedia.org and search for the word ‘dukkha’.In Buddhism, the path to personal enlightenment is called the Eightfold Path. This Path consists of 1. Right View, 2. Right Intention, 3. Right Speech, 4. Right Action, 5. Right Livelihood, 6. Right Effort, 7. Right Mindfulness, 8. Right Concentration.

Again, I’m not going to discuss each step. You can go to Wikipedia to learn the details.

In this article, I will attempt to simplify the path to personal enlightenment based on my own personal experience. Here are the simplified steps you can follow and apply immediately…

Look Inside Yourself. Most of us tend to look outside for scraps of pleasure, love, security, fulfillment, etc. We don’t realize that all these things can be found within. When you look inside often enough, you’ll be able to find the true nature of yourself, inner-peace and fully alert with the world around you. You don’t need to look outside and believe in any doctrine in order to achieve an inner-peace, you just need to look within.

Stop carrying the burden of your past. If you have had pain in your past, drop it like you drop a heavy baggage. You can refer to your past when necessary only to learn from it, but not to dwell on it. If you keep clinging onto your past, you won’t be able to live in the presence. And, if you can’t live in the presence, you’ll always experience pain and suffering.

Don’t try to live in the future. Many of us worry about what they will become in the future. This not only creates pain and suffering but also stress. When you’re trying to live in the future or wanting to become somebody else, you fail to live in the presence. Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be somewhere else. It’s like being torn apart. It’s nothing wrong to have a plan or desire to live a better life in the future. But we should live and carry out our plan in the present moment for it’s the only point of access to a better future. Without a presence, there is no future.

Let me sum up, in order to achieve personal enlightenment, you need to look inside yourself and accept the present moment unconditionally without any reservation. Only by fully accepting the present moment, you can eliminate the pain in your past and stop expecting to become something in the future.

Hence, living in the PRESENCE is key to personal enlightenment. If you can’t accept and live in your presence, no holy book or sacred doctrine in the world can help you to enlightenment. You see, enlightenment is not for some superhuman accomplishment, ordinary people like you and me can also attain it as long as we’re willing to accept and live in the presence, let go the past and stop expecting prizes from future.

If we can live our present moment well, our future will surely fall into place nicely!

how to achieve enlightenment, path to enlightenment, steps to enlightenment

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under Personal Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.