Yes. "Enlightenment" is a western invention.
Well anyone can mean whatever they want by anything, sure. But if we're talking about what something means in the context of Buddhism specifically - presumably using the pali canon as an authoritative text - then some connotations are more accurate than others.
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Hahahahah. I'd sooner expect to find my Self than a central Buddhist authority.
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I mean... fuck it. Touché.
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The Hindus don't even agree on who the Supreme Being is, or if there even is one. Buddhism confuses with its endless reference to the Buddha, but those Buddhas are not the same. Nor are the ethics. Nor are the metaphysics. Nor, indeed, even the goals and means of practice.
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Maybe Buddhism embodies a range of concepts found in such a constellation in no other place. But even that, I suspect, is a lie. "Buddhist" is just a word.
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Well yes, "Buddhism" is itself a misleading term that is somehow supposed to serve as a blanket label for a huge variety of doctrines and practices developed over the course of millennia, over a huge geographic area, by a variety of different cultures.
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If you trace what you've said now to the start of the conversation, you will see why I've chosen to take issue with the way it was presented. Or so I'd imagine.
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Indeed. I suppose any discussion of Buddhism should by default begin with "what do you mean by Buddhism?".
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Situationally either a useful or terrible idea. I have no problem assenting to Kenneth's definition of enlightenment... for his use of the term.
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