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European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the long 18th century (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline. The Enlightenment ultimately gave way to 19th-century Romanticism.

The Enlightenments important 17th-century precursors included the Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, the Frenchman Renee Descartes and the key natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo, Kepler and Leibniz. Its roots are usually traced to 1680s England, where in the span of three years Isaac Newton published his Principia Mathematica (1686) and John Locke his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)two works that provided the scientific, mathematical and philosophical toolkit for the Enlightenments major advances.

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Did you know? In his essay 'What Is Enlightenment?' (1784), the German philosopher Immanuel Kant summed up the era's motto in the following terms: 'Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!'

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Locke argued that human nature was mutable and that knowledge was gained through accumulated experience rather than by accessing some sort of outside truth. Newtons calculus and optical theories provided the powerful Enlightenment metaphors for precisely measured change and illumination.

There was no single, unified Enlightenment. Instead, it is possible to speak of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment and the English, German, Swiss or American Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers often had very different approaches. Locke differed from Hume, Rousseau from Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson from Frederick the Great. Their differences and disagreements, though, emerged out of the common Enlightenment themes of rational questioning and belief in progress through dialogue.

Centered on the dialogues and publications of the French philosophes (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Buffon and Diderot), the High Enlightenment might best be summed up by one historians summary of Voltaires Philosophical Dictionary: a chaos of clear ideas. Foremost among these was the notion that everything in the universe could be rationally demystified and cataloged. The signature publication of the period was Diderots Encyclopdie (1751-77), which brought together leading authors to produce an ambitious compilation of human knowledge.

It was an age of enlightened despots like Frederick the Great, who unified, rationalized and modernized Prussia in between brutal multi-year wars with Austria, and of enlightened would-be revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, whose Declaration of Independence (1776) framed the American Revolution in terms taken from of Lockes essays.

It was also a time of religious (and anti-religious) innovation, as Christians sought to reposition their faith along rational lines and deists and materialists argued that the universe seemed to determine its own course without Gods intervention. Secret societiesthe Freemasons, the Bavarian Illuminati, the Rosicruciansflourished, offering European men (and a few women) new modes of fellowship, esoteric ritual and mutual assistance. Coffeehouses, newspapers and literary salons emerged as new venues for ideas to circulate.

The French Revolution of 1789 was the culmination of the High Enlightenment vision of throwing out the old authorities to remake society along rational lines, but it devolved into bloody terror that showed the limits of its own ideas and led, a decade later, to the rise of Napoleon. Still, its goal of egalitarianism attracted the admiration of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and inspired both the Haitian war of independence and the radical racial inclusivism of Paraguays first post-independence government.

Enlightened rationality gave way to the wildness of Romanticism, but 19th-century Liberalism and Classicismnot to mention 20th-century Modernismall owe a heavy debt to the thinkers of the Enlightenment.

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Enlightenment - HISTORY

About This GameEnlightenment is an action-shooter Roguelike game with a unlinear narrative. Players will venture into a Wasteland-inspired dungeon known as the Ark and experience a risky journey plagued by crisis.

The original inhabitants of this dim underground complex and those who have dared to enter it have either died or have lost their mind. Will you be the exception to the rule?

"...the asteroid hit the Earth in the end anyways, and fxxked everybody up."

"So let's cut this short: An asteroid wiped out civilization as we know it. Some wasteland tramp discovered that the asteroid shards grant possessors unexplained powers; so they founded this cult, calling it the 'Scientific Church of Enlightenment' and this 'Church of Enlightenment' built the Ark and they built a whole city around it. It's gonna be where the restoration of humanity starts, they said. But just look around you; these streets are all empty, not a soul to be seen at all now."

"Sounds worthy of your life to have a look... right?"

Mature Content DescriptionThis Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work: Frequent Violence or Gore, General Mature Content

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Enlightenment on Steam

When considering three major movements in world civilization and history; Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the Renaissance, one theme that runs throughout is that of rebellion. More specifically, this rebellion in all three movements was against past traditions and each of these periods in history was geared toward eradicating old ways of thinking. While the reasons for rebelling against the old social and artistic order vary for each of these movements, the fact remains that all three were successful at changing many aspects of society and all each movement has had an enormous impact on history and artistic expression.

Romanticism was a movement that took place in Europe throughout the latter part of the 18th century. This period in history was a direct rebellion against many of the artistic and societal values of the previous era, which was the Enlightenment. While the Enlightenment movement focused on ideas of reason, rationality, and empiricism, romanticism went the complete opposite direction and explored new ideas about emotions and beauty. The main part of this rebellion was centered around the notion that not everything could be coldly rationalized and that beauty and aesthetics were important parts of existence. Although it was in direct opposition to the Enlightenment, romanticism as a movement did also build off of some of the new ideas that were part of that period such as a renewed interest in the individual. Romanticism was a movement in history that went one step further and began to focus on individual experience as well as the human brainmostly as it related to feelings and personal thoughts. In general, however, it could be easily argued that without the Enlightenment movement there would not have been romanticism, mostly because the former had to exist for the rebellion in ideas to take place.

The Enlightenment, a movement in Western history that came just before romanticism, was itself a rebellious movement that developed out of a prior period that emphasized ideas such as religion. In addition, before this period, there was more weight given to speculations about god and the natural order of things whereas with the Enlightenment empiricism became one of the core ideas. During the Enlightenment movement new rebellious ideas about the nature of mans connection to the universe as well as the concept of the individual with natural rights emerged. These were rebellious notions, especially since before this time people viewed themselves as part of a hierarchy based on many religious and social notions such as class. Science and observation were at the forefront of this movement and many thinkers of the time wished to know the truth through their own experience and process of experimentation and hypothesis. This period in artistic history was a rebellion against the old order because before many people were content to believe in disprovable truths, such as the nature of the heavens or of things such as weather or medical phenomena. Although the Enlightenment sought to keep people rational, this would not be enough for later rebellious movements such as Romanticism, where people began to look behind facts and closer into the individual experience.

The Renaissance was a rebellious movement as well but not in the reactionary sense that the previous two movements in history discussed here were. This is because the Renaissance was more like an explosion in knowledge and learning that caused a huge intellectual shift throughout Europe, especially since it came on the heels of the advent of printing processes. What is, however, rebellious about this period is that it saw so many new ways of thinking and doing things. Artists, writers and philosophers were breaking out of the dark ages" and allowing themselves to experiment with new ideas. Men such as da Vinci were engaging with topics such as art, medicine and technology just as writers were finding new ways to tell stories or represent truths about their time period. What is most interesting about this movement is that it is in many ways the most rebellious since it saw so much change yet much of this change seems almost organic. It was rebelling against anything in particular but the changes were so vast and sweeping that it was the ultimate rebellious movement in Western civilization. Without the many new developments that arose out the of the Renaissance the world might never have experienced successive movements such as those discussed here.

Without rebellion there can be no history; time would just go on without anything to mark off significant or important periods. In these three movements it is possible to detect a string of rebellions that led to major intellectual shifts. It all started with the ultimate rebellion in thinkingthe Renaissance. After the Renaissance, new ideas, particularly about science and experimentation, went on to inform the events of the Enlightenment. After this, thinkers during the era of romanticism picked and chose some of the ideas of these previous movements and developed their own new, rebellious, and unique understanding of the world. In sum, all intellectual movements that influence history are part of a grand chain of rebellion and it seems that this will always be the case if history is any teacher.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives that are related to this topic include :Overview of Romanticism in Literature The Influence of the Enlightenment on The Formation of the United States The Influence of the Renaissance on Modern American Society Realism in American Literature

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Common Themes in Romanticism, The Enlightenment, and the ...

PeopleJohannSebastian Bach (16851750)

An enormously influential German composer whorose to prominence in the early 1700s.Best known by his contemporaries as an organist, Bach also wrotean enormous body of both sacred and secular music that synthesizeda variety of styles and in turn influenced countless later composers.

An English philosopher and statesman who developed the inductive method or Baconianmethod of scientific investigation, which stresses observationand reasoning as a means for coming to general conclusions. Baconswork influenced his later contemporary Ren Descartes.

An Italian politician who ventured into philosophy toprotest the horrible injustices that he observed in various Europeanjudicial systems. Beccarias book On Crimes and Punishments (1764)exposed these practices and led to the abolition of many.

A Czech educational and social reformer who, in responseto the Thirty Years War, made the bold move of challengingthe necessity of war in the first place. Comenius stressed toleranceand education as alternatives for war, which were revolutionaryconcepts at the time.

A French philosopher and scientist who revolutionizedalgebra and geometry and made the famous philosophical statementI think, therefore I am. Descartes developed a deductive approachto philosophy using math and logic that still remains a standardfor problemsolving.

A French scholar who was the primary editor of the Encyclopdie,a massive thirty-five-volume compilation of human knowledge in the artsand sciences, along with commentary from a number of Enlightenmentthinkers. The Encyclopdie became a prominent symbolof the Enlightenment and helped spread the movement throughout Europe.

American thinker, diplomat, and inventor who traveledfrequently between the American colonies and Europe during the Enlightenmentand facilitated an exchange of ideas between them. Franklin exertedprofound influence on the formation of the new government of theUnited States, with a hand in both the Declarationof Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

A German author who wrote near the end of the Aufklrung,the German Enlightenment. Goethes morose The Sorrows ofYoung Werther (1774)helped fuel the Sturm und Drangmovement,and his two-part Faust (1808, 1832)is seen as one of the landmarks of Western literature.

A French feminist and reformer in the waning years ofthe Enlightenment who articulated the rights of women with her Declaration ofthe Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791).

A Dutch scholar who, like Czech John Comenius,lived during the Thirty Years War and felt compelledto write in response to it. The result, a treatise on war and internationalrelations titled On the Law of War and Peace (1625),eventually became accepted as the basis for the rules of modernwarfare.

A German-English composer of the late Baroque period whose Messiah remainsone of the best-known pieces of music in the world. Handel was anactive court composer, receiving commissions from such notablesas King George I of England, for whom his Water Music suitewas written and performed.

A philosopher and political theorist whose 1651 treatise Leviathan effectivelykicked off the English Enlightenment. The controversial Leviathan detailedHobbess theory that all humans are inherently self-driven and eviland that the best form of government is thus a single, all-powerfulmonarch to keep everything in order.

A Scottish philosopher and one of the most prominent figuresin the field of skepticism during the Enlightenment.Hume took religion to task, asking why a perfect God would evercreate an imperfect world, and even suggested that our own sensesare fallible, bringing all observations and truths into question.Humes skepticism proved very influential to others, such as ImmanuelKant, and was instrumental in the shift away from rationalistthought that ended the Enlightenment.

American thinker and politician who penned the Declarationof Independence (1776),which was inspired directly by Enlightenment thought.

A German skeptic philosopher who built on DavidHumes theories and brought the school of thought to an evenhigher level. Kant theorized that all humans are born with innateexperiences that then reflect onto the world, giving them a perspective.Thus, since no one actually knows what other people see, the ideaof reasoning is not valid. Kants philosophies applied the brakesto the Enlightenment, effectively denouncing reason as an invalidapproach to thought.

Generally considered the founder of the Aufklrung,orGerman Enlightenment,who injected a bit of spiritualityinto the Enlightenment with writings regarding God andhis perfect, harmonious world. Also a scientist who shared creditfor the discovery of calculus, Leibniz hated the ideaof relying on empirical evidence in the world. Instead, hedeveloped a theory that the universe consists of metaphysical buildingblocks he called monads.

An English political theorist who focused on the structureof governments. Locke believed that men are all rational and capable peoplebutmust compromise some of their beliefs in the interest of forminga government for the people. In his famous Two Treatisesof Government (1690), he championedthe idea of a representative government that would best serve allconstituents.

The foremost French political thinker of the Enlightenment,whose most influential book, The Spirit of Laws, expanded JohnLockes political study and incorporated the ideas of a divisionof state and separation of powers. Montesquieus work also venturedinto sociology: he spent a considerable amount of time researchingvarious cultures and their climates, ultimately deducing that climateis a major factor in determining the type of government a givencountry should have.

A genius Austrian composer who began his career as a childprodigy and authored some of the most renowned operas and symphoniesin history. Mozarts music has never been surpassed in its blendof technique and emotional breadth, and his musical genius placeshim in a category with a select few other composers.

An English scholar and mathematician regarded as the fatherof physical science. Newtons discoveries anchored the ScientificRevolution and set the stage for everything that followed in mathematicsand physics. He shared credit for the creation of calculus,and his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica introducedthe world to gravity and fundamental laws ofmotion.

English-American political writer whose pamphlet CommonSense (1776)argued that the British colonies in America should rebel againstthe Crown. Paines work had profound influence on public sentimentduring the American Revolution, which had begun just monthsearlier.

A French economist whose Tableau conomique (1758)argued against government intervention in the economy and inspiredScottish economist Adam Smiths seminal Wealthof Nations (1776).

An eclectic Swiss-French thinker who brought his own approachto the Enlightenment, believing that man was at his best when unshackledby the conventions of society. Rousseaus epic The SocialContract (1762) conceived of a systemof direct democracy in which all citizens contribute to an overarchinggeneral will that serves everyone at once. Later in his life,Rousseau released Confessions(1789),which brought a previously unheard-of degree of personal disclosureto the genre of autobiography. The frank personal revelations andemotional discussions were a major cause for the shift toward Romanticism.

An influential Scottish economist who objected to thestifling mercantilistsystems that were in place duringthe late eighteenth century. In response, Smith wrote the seminal Wealthof Nations (1776),a dissertation criticizing mercantilism and describing the manymerits of a free trade system.

A Dutch-Jewish lens grinder who questionedtenets of Judaism and Christianity, which helped undermine religiousauthority in Europe. Although Spinoza personally believedin God, he rejected the concept of miracles, the religious supernatural,and the idea that the Bible was divinely inspired. Rather, he believedthat ethics determined by rational thought were more important asa guide to conduct than was religion.

A French writer and the primary satirist of the Enlightenment,who criticized religion and leading philosophies of the time. Voltaires numerousplays and essays frequently advocated freedom from the ploys ofreligion, while Candide (1759),the most notable of his works, conveyed his criticisms of optimismand superstition into a neat package.

Another name for the German Enlightenment.

A system of faith to which many of the French philosophes andother Enlightenment thinkers subscribed. Deists believedin an all-powerful God but viewed him as a cosmic watchmaker whocreated the universe and set it in autonomous motion and then neveragain tampered with it. Deists also shunned organized religion,especially Church doctrines about eternal damnation and a naturalhierarchy of existence.

A trend in European governments during the later partof the Enlightenment, in which a number of absolute monarchs adopted Enlightenment-inspiredreforms yet retained a firm grip on power. Frederick the Great ofPrussia, Maria-Theresa and Joseph II ofAustria, Charles III of Spain, and Catherinethe Great of Russia are often counted among these enlighteneddespots.

A revolution in France that overthrew the monarchy andis often cited as the end of the Enlightenment. The French Revolutionbegan in 1789 whenKing Louis XVI convened the legislature in an attempt tosolve Frances monumental financial woes. Instead, the massive middleclass revolted and set up its own government. Although this newgovernment was effective for a few years, internal dissent grew andpower switched hands repeatedly, until France plunged into the brutallyviolent Reign of Terror of 17931794.Criticssaw this violence as a direct result of Enlightenment thought andas evidence that the masses were not fit to govern themselves.

The name given to the bloodless coup dtat in Englandin 1688, whichsaw the Catholic monarch, King James II, removed fromthe throne and replaced by the Protestants William and Mary.The new monarchs not only changed the religious course of Englandand the idea of divine right but also allowed the additional personalliberties necessary for the Enlightenment to truly flourish.

One of the cornerstones of the Enlightenment, a philosophystressing the recognition of every person as a valuable individualwith inalienable, inborn rights.

The economic belief that a favorable balance of tradethatis, more exports than importswould yield more gold and silver,and thus overall wealth and power, for a country. Governments tendedto monitor and meddle with their mercantilist systems closely, which Scottisheconomist Adam Smith denounced as bad economic practicein his Wealth of Nations.

The general term for those academics and intellectualswho became the leading voices of the French Enlightenment duringthe eighteenth century. Notable philosophes included Voltaire,the Baron de Montesquieu, and Denis Diderot.

Arguably the foundation of the Enlightenment, the beliefthat, by using the power of reason, humans could arrive at truthand improve human life.

Another fundamental philosophy of the Enlightenment, which declaredthat different ideas, cultures, and beliefs had equal merit. Relativismdeveloped in reaction to the age of exploration, which increasedEuropean exposure to a variety of peoples and cultures across theworld.

A movement that surfaced near the end of the Enlightenmentthat placed emphasis on innate emotions and instincts rather thanreason, as well as on the virtues of existing in a natural state.Writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and JohannWolfgang von Goethe both contributed greatly to the developmentof Romanticism.

Gathering places for wealthy, intellectually minded elitesduring the years during and prior to the Enlightenment. The salonstypically held weekly meetings where upper-class citizens gatheredto discuss the political and social theories of the day.

A gradual development of thought and approaches to thestudy of the universe that took place from approximately 1500 to 1700 and pavedthe way for the Enlightenment. Coming from humble beginnings withbasic observations, the Scientific Revolution grew to a fever pitchwhen scientists such as Galileo Galilei, RenDescartes, and Johannes Kepler entered the sceneand essentially rewrote history, disproving Church doctrines, explainingreligious miracles, and setting the world straight on all sortsof scientific principles. The result was not only new human knowledgebut also a new perspective on the acquisition of knowledge, suchas the scientific method.

A political idea, developed by John Locke andthe Baron de Montesquieu,that power in governmentshould be divided into separate branchestypically legislative,judicial, and executivein order to ensure that no one branch ofa governing body can gain too much authority.

A philosophical movement that emerged in response to rationalism andmaintained that human perception is too relative to be consideredcredible. David Hume brought skepticism into the spotlightby suggesting that human perceptions cannot be trusted, and then ImmanuelKant elevated the field when he proposed that humans are bornwith innate experiences that give shape to their own, individualworlds.

An idea in political philosophy, generally associatedwith John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau,stating that a government and its subjects enter into an implicitcontract when that government takes power. In exchange for cedingsome freedoms to the government and its established laws, the subjectsexpect and demand mutual protection. The governments authority,meanwhile, lies only in the consent of the governed.

Literally meaning storm and stress, the name given toan undercurrent of the German Enlightenment duringwhich German youths expressed their angst by rebelling against thepleasant optimism of the time. Influenced partly by JohannWolfgang von Goethes The Sorrows of Young Werther,participants in the Sturm und Drang movement harboreda depressed, more archaic idealism. Though it revealed a decidedone-sidedness of the German Enlightenment, the movement did notsustain itself for very long.

A brutal, destructive conflict in Germany between 1618 and 1648. TheThirty Years War began when Bohemian Protestants revolted out ofa refusal to be ruled by a Catholic king. The battle would eventuallyspread throughout Germany and involve many other countries on bothsides, resulting in the death of nearly a third of the German populationand unfathomable destruction. Enlightenment thinkers such as JohnComenius and Hugo Grotius reacted against the warwith treatises about education, international relations, and the natureof war itself.

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SparkNotes: The Enlightenment (16501800): Key People & Terms

The Vision of Nonduality explains methods of Vedanta in his survey of spiritual techniques, pairing theory with practice and explaining the myths and realities behind an enlightened state. From reflections on moving to a larger living space and clutter to assimilating experiences, How to Attain Enlightenment is a powerful survey any new age library needs. (The Bookwatch, May 21, 2010)

How to Attain Enlightenment explains and focuses on Vedanta, the science of self-inquiry, and considers the myths behind the state of enlightenment and its connections to happiness. The ancient teachings of Vedanta form a foundation of knowledge and practice that has questioned the nature of reality itself, and this survey of love, lifestyle, experience and more offers a fine survey perfect for new age libraries.

(Midwest Book Review)

Though based on the ancient wisdom and knowledge of Vedanta, it comes as a breath of fresh air. A biased outlook may regard this information as old and musty, but the modern perspective displays a new approach to this gleaming and invaluable treasure.

Any worldly and material knowledge is incomplete, for it is merely a minuscule part of the whole Universe. But self-knowledge, which emphasizes oneness and the non-dual, presents knowledge which is complete and whole.

This book goes through the entire gamut of topics covered by the Vedas, making use of yoga, detachment, the ego, karma, dharma, love, meditation and much more, to bring about an inner growth, wherein is visible the enlightened and luminous self.(East and West Magazine)

Sentient Publications presents its next best-seller, How to Attain Enlightenment:The Vision of Nonduality by acclaimed author James Schwartz, who offers his ample wisdom on the ancient teachings of 'Vedanta.'

In Hinduism, Vedanta is a system of philosophy that further develops the connotation in the philosophies that add to the theology of ancient Hinduism.

In his first chapter, Inquiry into Object Happiness Schwartz holds the key to what it means to discover enlightenment rather, a higher sense of awareness and consciousness to receive guidance and be in unison with the power of the Universe:

'What we call reality is governed by the uncertainly principle,' writes Schwartz, 'Because our source of food, animal or vegetable, is unconcerned about our need to survive, we are forced to either pursue it or cultivate it. Shelter does not simply happen on its own but requires effort to obtain.' The same principle holds true in what he further elaborates that even when material needs have been met, individuals often find that they are still not completely fulfilled or satisfied in their livesthis is where having and maintaining a state of Vedanta helps soul seekers to be at one with the self and with the Universe, regardless of life circumstances.

If you are on a quest for wisdom and are ready to manifest a heightened state of consciousness so that you can become liberated and freed from the limitations that negate your personal and spiritual happiness, then gain the knowledge you need that Schwartz offers in his book How to Attain Enlightenment through a vast array of teachings, meditations, and more.

(CarolAnnB)

Would you like to learn how to attain enlightenment? Well regardless of the semantics of whether enlightenment is something to be attained, welcome to the enlightenmentdudes.com review of How to Attain Enlightenment by James Swartz.

This really is a handbook of enlightenment. He covers what enlightenment is not, such as not an experiential state, and then gets into what enlightenment is. He talks about qualifications, or a background of spiritual maturity the seeker needs to have. And he explains what self inquiry really is.

Swartz also spends time debunking enlightenment myths and exposing the inaccuracy of the teachings of neo-advaita (primarily western) instant enlightenment spiritual teachers.

The book reminded me of how it is to enter a relationship. It started off well, but then you reach a point where you ask yourself whether you want to go on. There was a period where I was wondering what kind of point he was trying to make and if it was actually going anywhere. Like weathering a relationship through the tough times, I went on, and Im glad it did.

Swartz is very funny in parts of the book, and it was refreshing to see a guy write in a fashion that uses descriptive terms that dont have you reading the words consciousness, awareness or pure being in every paragraph. There are too many spiritual books full of that crap, and Swartz is a very pleasant departure from that.

The writer has a very keen understanding of self inquiry and other methods on the spiritual path, and he discusses the benefits of each. Swartz spent considerable time in India learning self-inquiry and has a chapter dedicated to questions about Ramana Maharshi. Swartzs teacher was not a Ramana follower so there are areas where he differentiates from Ramana. He also discusses how ones lifestyle has a major impact on enlightenment and he differentiates terms awakening and enlightenment as being two different things.

Overall, if you can get through the slow parts, this is an excellent and comprehensive book. Youll realize when you get through it that slow parts actually were part of a plan and have importance. Enlightenmentdudes.com highly recommends this book, and gives it an 8 out of 10 on our infinity scale.(Enlightenmentdudes.com)

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Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism."Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization.Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory.

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Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present ...

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PORT 68 will unveil a new showroom in Atlantas AmericasMart for the upcoming International Gift and Home Furnishings Market, July 10-16.The Chicago-based producer is moving up the corridor in AmericasMarts Building 1 to area 14 E-22...

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enLIGHTenment - The Lighting Industry Trade Publication

Alternative Titles:kyamuni, Gautama Buddha, Gotama Buddha, Sage of the kyas, Shaka, Shaka Nyorai, Shakyamuni, Siddhartha Gautama, Siddhattha

Buddha, (Sanskrit: Awakened One)clan name (Sanskrit) Gautama or (Pali) Gotama, personal name (Sanskrit) Siddhartha or (Pali) Siddhatta, (born c. 6th4th century bce, Lumbini, near Kapilavastu, Shakya republic, Kosala kingdom [now in Nepal]died, Kusinara, Malla republic, Magadha kingdom [now Kasia, India]), the founder of Buddhism, one of the major religions and philosophical systems of southern and eastern Asia and of the world. Buddha is one of the many epithets of a teacher who lived in northern India sometime between the 6th and the 4th century before the Common Era.

His followers, known as Buddhists, propagated the religion that is known today as Buddhism. The title buddha was used by a number of religious groups in ancient India and had a range of meanings, but it came to be associated most strongly with the tradition of Buddhism and to mean an enlightened being, one who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and achieved freedom from suffering. According to the various traditions of Buddhism, there have been buddhas in the past and there will be buddhas in the future. Some forms of Buddhism hold that there is only one buddha for each historical age; others hold that all beings will eventually become buddhas because they possess the buddha nature (tathagatagarbha).

All forms of Buddhism celebrate various events in the life of the Buddha Gautama, including his birth, enlightenment, and passage into nirvana. In some countries the three events are observed on the same day, which is called Wesak in Southeast Asia. In other regions the festivals are held on different days and incorporate a variety of rituals and practices. The birth of the Buddha is celebrated in April or May, depending upon the lunar date, in these countries. In Japan, which does not use a lunar calendar, the Buddhas birth is celebrated on April 8. The celebration there has merged with a native Shint ceremony into the flower festival known as Hanamatsuri.

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Buddhism

from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: Awakened One), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era). Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played a central role in the spiritual, cultural, and

The clan name of the historical figure referred to as the Buddha (whose life is known largely through legend) was Gautama (in Sanskrit) or Gotama (in Pali), and his given name was Siddhartha (Sanskrit: he who achieves his aim) or Siddhatta (in Pali). He is frequently called Shakyamuni, the sage of the Shakya clan. In Buddhist texts, he is most commonly addressed as Bhagavat (often translated as Lord), and he refers to himself as the Tathagata, which can mean either one who has thus come or one who has thus gone. Information about his life derives largely from Buddhist texts, the earliest of which were not committed to writing until shortly before the beginning of the Common Era, several centuries after his death. The events of his life set forth in these texts cannot be regarded with confidence as historical, although his historical existence is accepted by scholars. He is said to have lived for 80 years, but there is considerable uncertainty concerning the date of his death. Traditional sources on the date of his death or, in the language of the tradition, passage into nirvana, range from 2420 bce to 290 bce. Scholarship in the 20th century limited this range considerably, with opinion generally divided between those who placed his death about 480 bce and those who placed it as much as a century later.

The Buddha was born in Lumbini (Rummin-dei), near Kapilavastu (Kapilbastu) on the northern edge of the Ganges River basin, an area on the periphery of the civilization of North India, in what is today southern Nepal. Scholars speculate that during the late Vedic period the peoples of the region were organized into tribal republics, ruled by a council of elders or an elected leader; the grand palaces described in the traditional accounts of the life of the Buddha are not evident among the archaeological remains. It is unclear to what extent these groups at the periphery of the social order of the Ganges basin were incorporated into the caste system, but the Buddhas family is said to have belonged to the warrior (Kshatriya) caste. The central Ganges basin was organized into some 16 city-states, ruled by kings, often at war with each other.

The rise of these cities of central India, with their courts and their commerce, brought social, political, and economic changes that are often identified as key factors in the rise of Buddhism and other religious movements of the 6th and 5th centuries bce. Buddhist texts identify a variety of itinerant teachers who attracted groups of disciples. Some of these taught forms of meditation, Yoga, and asceticism and set forth philosophical views, focusing often on the nature of the person and the question of whether human actions (karma) have future effects. Although the Buddha would become one of these teachers, Buddhists view him as quite different from the others. His place within the tradition, therefore, cannot be understood by focusing exclusively on the events of his life and times (even to the extent that they are available). Instead, he must be viewed within the context of Buddhist theories of time and history.

According to Buddhist doctrine, the universe is the product of karma, the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and nonvirtuous actions create pain. The beings of the universe are reborn without beginning in six realms: as gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The actions of these beings create not only their individual experiences but the domains in which they dwell. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara (literally wandering), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from that suffering. The means of escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes, a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the path out of samsara and then compassionately revealing that path to the world.

A person who has set out on the long journey to discover the path to freedom from suffering, and then to teach it to others, is called a bodhisattva. A person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally passing away). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of time and because only they reveal the path to liberation (moksha) from suffering (dukkha), the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event in the history of the universe.

The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the bodhisattva path before the achievement of buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha, in the form of both his teachings and his relics, after he has passed into nirvana. The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the 7th buddha; according to another he is the 25th; according to yet another he is the 4th. The next buddha, named Maitreya, will appear after Shakyamunis teachings and relics have disappeared from the world. The traditional accounts of the events in the life of the Buddha must be considered from this perspective.

Accounts of the life of the Buddha appear in many forms. Perhaps the earliest are those found in the collections of sutras (Pali: suttas), discourses traditionally attributed to the Buddha. In the sutras, the Buddha recounts individual events in his life that occurred from the time that he renounced his life as a prince until he achieved enlightenment six years later. Several accounts of his enlightenment also appear in the sutras. One Pali text, the Mahaparinibbana-sutta (Discourse on the Final Nirvana), describes the Buddhas last days, his passage into nirvana, his funeral, and the distribution of his relics. Biographical accounts in the early sutras provide little detail about the Buddhas birth and childhood, although some sutras contain a detailed account of the life of a prehistoric buddha, Vipashyin.

Another category of early Buddhist literature, the vinaya (concerned ostensibly with the rules of monastic discipline), contains accounts of numerous incidents from the Buddhas life but rarely in the form of a continuous narrative; biographical sections that do occur often conclude with the conversion of one of his early disciples, Shariputra. While the sutras focus on the person of the Buddha (his previous lives, his practice of austerities, his enlightenment, and his passage into nirvana), the vinaya literature tends to emphasize his career as a teacher and the conversion of his early disciples. The sutras and vinaya texts, thus, reflect concerns with both the Buddhas life and his teachings, concerns that often are interdependent; early biographical accounts appear in doctrinal discourses, and points of doctrine and places of pilgrimage are legitimated through their connection to the life of the Buddha.

Near the beginning of the Common Era, independent accounts of the life of the Buddha were composed. They do not recount his life from birth to death, often ending with his triumphant return to his native city of Kapilavastu (Pali: Kapilavatthu), which is said to have taken place either one year or six years after his enlightenment. The partial biographies add stories that were to become well-known, such as the child princes meditation under a rose-apple tree and his four momentous chariot rides outside the city.

These accounts typically make frequent reference to events from the previous lives of the Buddha. Indeed, collections of stories of the Buddhas past lives, called Jatakas, form one of the early categories of Buddhist literature. Here, an event reminds the Buddha of an event in a past life. He relates that story in order to illustrate a moral maxim, and, returning to the present, he identifies various members of his audience as the present incarnations of characters in his past-life tale, with himself as the main character.

The Jataka stories (one Pali collection contains 547 of them) have remained among the most popular forms of Buddhist literature. They are the source of some 32 stone carvings at the 2nd-century bce stupa at Bharhut in northeastern Madhya Pradesh state; 15 stupa carvings depict the last life of the Buddha. Indeed, stone carvings in India provide an important source for identifying which events in the lives of the Buddha were considered most important by the community. The Jataka stories are also well-known beyond India; in Southeast Asia, the story of Prince Vessantara (the Buddhas penultimate reincarnation)who demonstrates his dedication to the virtue of charity by giving away his sacred elephant, his children, and finally his wifeis as well-known as that of his last lifetime.

Lives of the Buddha that trace events from his birth to his death appeared in the 2nd century ce. One of the most famous is the Sanskrit poem Buddhacharita (Acts of the Buddha) by Ashvaghosa. Texts such as the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya (probably dating from the 4th or 5th century ce) attempt to gather the many stories of the Buddha into a single chronological account. The purpose of these biographies in many cases is less to detail the unique deeds of Shakyamunis life than to demonstrate the ways in which the events of his life conform to a pattern that all buddhas of the past have followed. According to some, all past buddhas had left the life of the householder after observing the four sights, all had practiced austerities, all had achieved enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, all had preached in the deer park at Sarnath, and so on.

The life of the Buddha was written and rewritten in India and across the Buddhist world, elements added and subtracted as necessary. Sites that became important pilgrimage places but that had not been mentioned in previous accounts would be retrospectively sanctified by the addition of a story about the Buddhas presence there. Regions that Buddhism entered long after his deathsuch as Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and Burma (now Myanmar)added narratives of his magical visitations to accounts of his life.

No single version of the life of the Buddha would be accepted by all Buddhist traditions. For more than a century, scholars have focused on the life of the Buddha, with the earliest investigations attempting to isolate and identify historical elements amid the many legends. Because of the centuries that had passed between the actual life and the composition of what might be termed a full biography, most scholars abandoned this line of inquiry as unfruitful. Instead they began to study the processessocial, political, institutional, and doctrinalresponsible for the regional differences among the narratives of the Buddha. The various uses made of the life of the Buddha are another topic of interest. In short, the efforts of scholars have shifted from an attempt to derive authentic information about the life of the Buddha to an effort to trace stages in and the motivations for the development of his biography.

It is important to reiterate that the motivation to create a single life of the Buddha, beginning with his previous births and ending with his passage into nirvana, occurred rather late in the history of Buddhism. Instead, the biographical tradition of the Buddha developed through the synthesis of a number of earlier and independent fragments. And biographies of the Buddha have continued to be composed over the centuries and around the world. During the modern period, for example, biographies have been written that seek to demythologize the Buddha and to emphasize his role in presaging modern ethical systems, social movements, or scientific discoveries. What follows is an account of the life of the Buddha that is well-known, yet synthetic, bringing together some of the more famous events from various accounts of his life, which often describe and interpret these events differently.

Many biographies of the Buddha begin not with his birth in his last lifetime but in a lifetime millions of years before, when he first made the vow to become a buddha. According to a well-known version, many aeons ago there lived a Brahman named (in some accounts) Sumedha, who realized that life is characterized by suffering and then set out to find a state beyond death. He retired to the mountains, where he became a hermit, practiced meditation, and gained yogic powers. While flying through the air one day, he noticed a great crowd around a teacher, whom Sumedha learned was the buddha Dipamkara. When he heard the word buddha he was overcome with joy. Upon Dipamkaras approach, Sumedha loosened his yogins matted locks and laid himself down to make a passage across the mud for the Buddha. Sumedha reflected that were he to practice the teachings of Dipamkara he could free himself from future rebirth in that very lifetime. But he concluded that it would be better to delay his liberation in order to traverse the longer path to buddhahood; as a buddha he could lead others across the ocean of suffering to the farther shore. Dipamkara paused before Sumedha and predicted that many aeons hence this yogin with matted locks would become a buddha. He also prophesied Sumedhas name in his last lifetime (Gautama) and the names of his parents and chief disciples and described the tree under which the future Buddha would sit on the night of his enlightenment.

Over the subsequent aeons, the bodhisattva would renew his vow in the presence of each of the buddhas who came after Dipamkara, before becoming the buddha Shakyamuni himself. Over the course of his lifetimes as a bodhisattva, he accumulated merit (punya) through the practice of 6 (or 10) virtues. After his death as Prince Vessantara, he was born in the Tusita Heaven, whence he surveyed the world to locate the proper site of his final birth.

He determined that he should be born the son of the king Shuddhodana of the Shakya clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu. Shortly thereafter, his mother, the queen Maha Maya, dreamed that a white elephant had entered her womb. Ten lunar months later, as she strolled in the garden of Lumbini, the child emerged from under her right arm. He was able to walk and talk immediately. A lotus flower blossomed under his foot at each step, and he announced that this would be his last lifetime. The king summoned the court astrologers to predict the boys future. Seven agreed that he would become either a universal monarch (chakravartin) or a buddha; one astrologer said that there was no doubt, the child would become a buddha. His mother died seven days after his birth, and so he was reared by his mothers sister, Mahaprajapati. As a young child, the prince was once left unattended during a festival. Later in the day he was discovered seated in meditation under a tree, whose shadow had remained motionless throughout the day to protect him from the sun.

The prince enjoyed an opulent life; his father shielded him from exposure to the ills of the world, including old age, sickness, and death, and provided him with palaces for summer, winter, and the rainy season, as well as all manner of enjoyments (including in some accounts 40,000 female attendants). At age 16 he married the beautiful princess Yashodhara. When the prince was 29, however, his life underwent a profound change. He asked to be taken on a ride through the city in his chariot. The king gave his permission but first had all the sick and old people removed from the route. One old man escaped notice. Not knowing what stood before him, the prince was told that this was an old man. He was informed, also, that this was not the only old man in the world; everyonethe prince, his father, his wife, and his kinsmenwould all one day grow old. The first trip was followed by three more excursions beyond the palace walls. On these trips he saw first a sick person, then a corpse being carried to the cremation ground, and finally a mendicant seated in meditation beneath a tree. Having been exposed to the various ills of human life, and the existence of those who seek a state beyond them, he asked the king for permission to leave the city and retire to the forest. The father offered his son anything if he would stay. The prince asked that his father ensure that he would never die, become ill, grow old, or lose his fortune. His father replied that he could not. The prince retired to his chambers, where he was entertained by beautiful women. Unmoved by the women, the prince resolved to go forth that night in search of a state beyond birth and death.

When he had been informed seven days earlier that his wife had given birth to a son, he said, A fetter has arisen. The child was named Rahula, meaning fetter. Before the prince left the palace, he went into his wifes chamber to look upon his sleeping wife and infant son. In another version of the story, Rahula had not yet been born on the night of the departure from the palace. Instead, the princes final act was to conceive his son, whose gestation period extended over the six years of his fathers search for enlightenment. According to these sources, Rahula was born on the night that his father achieved buddhahood.

The prince left Kapilavastu and the royal life behind and entered the forest, where he cut off his hair and exchanged his royal robes for the simple dress of a hunter. From that point on he ate whatever was placed in his begging bowl. Early in his wanderings he encountered Bimbisara, the king of Magadha and eventual patron of the Buddha, who, upon learning that the ascetic was a prince, asked him to share his kingdom. The prince declined but agreed to return when he had achieved enlightenment. Over the next six years, the prince studied meditation and learned to achieve deep states of blissful concentration. But he quickly matched the attainments of his teachers and concluded that despite their achievements, they would be reborn after their death. He next joined a group of five ascetics who had devoted themselves to the practice of extreme forms of self-mortification. The prince also became adept at their practices, eventually reducing his daily meal to one pea. Buddhist art often represents him seated in the meditative posture in an emaciated form, with sunken eyes and protruding ribs. He concluded that mortification of the flesh is not the path to liberation from suffering and rebirth and accepted a dish of rice and cream from a young woman.

His companions remained convinced of the efficacy of asceticism and abandoned the prince. Now without companions or a teacher, the prince vowed that he would sit under a tree and not rise until he had found the state beyond birth and death. On the full moon of May, six years after he had left his palace, he meditated until dawn. Mara, the god of desire, who knew that the prince was seeking to put an end to desire and thereby free himself from Maras control, attacked him with wind, rain, rocks, weapons, hot coals, burning ashes, sand, mud, and darkness. The prince remained unmoved and meditated on love, thus transforming the hail of fury into a shower of blossoms. Mara then sent his three beautiful daughters, Lust, Thirst, and Discontent, to tempt the prince, but he remained impassive. In desperation, Mara challenged the princes right to occupy the spot of earth upon which he sat, claiming that it belonged to him instead. Then, in a scene that would become the most famous depiction of the Buddha in Asian art, the prince, seated in the meditative posture, stretched out his right hand and touched the earth. By touching the earth, he was asking the goddess of the earth to confirm that a great gift that he had made as Prince Vessantara in his previous life had earned him the right to sit beneath the tree. She assented with a tremor, and Mara departed.

The prince sat in meditation through the night. During the first watch of the night, he had a vision of all of his past lives, recollecting his place of birth, name, caste, and even the food he had eaten. During the second watch of the night, he saw how beings rise and fall through the cycle of rebirth as a consequence of their past deeds. In the third watch of the night, the hours before dawn, he was liberated. Accounts differ as to precisely what it was that he understood. According to some versions it was the four truths: of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering. According to others it was the sequence of dependent origination: how ignorance leads to action and eventually to birth, aging, and death, and how when ignorance is destroyed, so also are birth, aging, and death. Regardless of their differences, all accounts agree that on this night he became a buddha, an awakened one who had roused himself from the slumber of ignorance and extended his knowledge throughout the universe.

The experience of that night was sufficiently profound that the prince, now the Buddha, remained in the vicinity of the tree up to seven weeks, savouring his enlightenment. One of those weeks was rainy, and the serpent king came and spread his hood above the Buddha to protect him from the storm, a scene commonly depicted in Buddhist art. At the end of seven weeks, two merchants approached him and offered him honey and cakes. Knowing that it was improper for a buddha to receive food in his hands, the gods of the four directions each offered him a bowl. The Buddha magically collapsed the four bowls into one and received the gift of food. In return, the Buddha plucked some hairs from his head and gave them to the merchants.

He was unsure as to what to do next, since he knew that what he had understood was so profound that it would be difficult for others to fathom. The god Brahma descended from his heaven and asked him to teach, pointing out that humans are at different levels of development, and some of them would benefit from his teaching. Consequently, the Buddha concluded that the most suitable students would be his first teachers of meditation, but he was informed by a deity that they had died. He thought next of his five former comrades in the practice of asceticism. The Buddha determined through his clairvoyance that they were residing in a deer park in Sarnath, outside Varanasi (Banaras). He set out on foot, meeting along the way a wandering ascetic with whom he exchanged greetings. When he explained to the man that he was enlightened and so was unsurpassed even by the gods, the man responded with indifference.

Although the five ascetics had agreed to ignore the Buddha because he had given up self-mortification, they were compelled by his charisma to rise and greet him. They asked the Buddha what he had understood since they left him. He responded by teaching them, or, in the language of the tradition, he set the wheel of the dharma in motion. (Dharma has a wide range of meanings, but here it refers to the doctrine or teaching of the buddhas.) In his first sermon, the Buddha spoke of the middle way between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification and described both as fruitless. He next turned to what have come to be known as the Four Noble Truths, perhaps more accurately rendered as four truths for the [spiritually] noble. As elaborated more fully in other discourses, the first is the truth of suffering, which holds that existence in all the realms of rebirth is characterized by suffering. The sufferings particular to humans are birth, aging, sickness, death, losing friends, encountering enemies, not finding what one wants, finding what one does not want. The second truth identifies the cause of this suffering as nonvirtue, negative deeds of body, speech, and mind that produce the karma that fructifies in the future as physical and mental pain. These deeds are motivated by negative mental states, called klesha (afflictions), which include desire, hatred, and ignorance, the false belief that there is a permanent and autonomous self amidst the impermanent constituents of mind and body. The third truth is the truth of cessation, the postulation of a state beyond suffering, called nirvana. If the ignorance that motivates desire and hatred can be eliminated, negative deeds will not be performed and future suffering will not be produced. Although such reasoning would allow for the prevention of future negative deeds, it does not seem to account for the vast store of negative karma accumulated in previous lifetimes that is yet to bear fruit. However, the insight into the absence of self, when cultivated at a high level of concentration, is said to be so powerful that it also destroys all seeds for future lifetimes. Cessation entails the realization of both the destruction of the causes of suffering and the impossibility of future suffering. The presence of such a state, however, remains hypothetical without a method for attaining it, and the fourth truth, the path, is that method. The path was delineated in a number of ways, often as the three trainings in ethics, meditation, and wisdom. In his first sermon, the Buddha described the Eightfold Path of correct view, correct attitude, correct speech, correct action, correct livelihood, correct effort, correct mindfulness, and correct meditation. A few days after the first sermon, the Buddha set forth the doctrine of no-self (anatman), at which point the five ascetics became arhats, those who have achieved liberation from rebirth and will enter nirvana upon death. They became the first members of the sangha, the community of monks.

The Buddha soon attracted more disciples, sometimes converting other teachers along with their followers. As a result, his fame began to spread. When the Buddhas father heard that his son had not died following his great renunciation but had become a buddha, the king sent nine successive delegations to his son to invite him to return home to Kapilavastu. But instead of conveying the invitation, they joined the disciples of the Buddha and became arhats. The Buddha was persuaded by the 10th courier (who also became an arhat) to return to the city, where he was greeted with disrespect by clan elders. The Buddha, therefore, rose into the air, and fire and water issued simultaneously from his body. This act caused his relatives to respond with reverence. Because they did not know that they should invite him for the noon meal, the Buddha went begging from door to door instead of going to his fathers palace. This caused his father great chagrin, but the Buddha explained that this was the practice of the buddhas of the past.

His wife Yashodhara had remained faithful to him in his absence. She would not go out to greet him when he returned to the palace, however, saying that the Buddha should come to her in recognition of her virtue. The Buddha did so, and, in a scene often recounted, she bowed before him and placed her head on his feet. She eventually entered the order of nuns and became an arhat. She sent their young son Rahula to his father to ask for his patrimony, and the Buddha responded by having him ordained as a monk. This dismayed the Buddhas father, and he explained to the Buddha the great pain that he had felt when the young prince had renounced the world. He asked, therefore, that in the future a son be ordained only with the permission of his parents. The Buddha made this one of the rules of the monastic order.

The Buddha spent the 45 years after his enlightenment traveling with a group of disciples across northeastern India, teaching the dharma to those who would listen, occasionally debating with (and, according to the Buddhist sources, always defeating) masters from other sects, and gaining followers from all social classes. To some he taught the practice of refuge; to some he taught the five precepts (not to kill humans, steal, engage in sexual misconduct, lie, or use intoxicants); and to some he taught the practice of meditation. The majority of the Buddhas followers did not renounce the world, however, and remained in lay life. Those who decided to go forth from the household and become his disciples joined the sangha, the community of monks. At the request of his widowed stepmother, Mahaprajapati, and women whose husbands had become monks, the Buddha also established an order of nuns. The monks were sent out to teach the dharma for the benefit of gods and humans. The Buddha did the same: each day and night he surveyed the world with his omniscient eye to locate those that he might benefit, often traveling to them by means of his supernormal powers.

It is said that in the early years the Buddha and his monks wandered during all seasons, but eventually they adopted the practice of remaining in one place during the rainy season (in northern India, mid-July to mid-October). Patrons built shelters for their use, and the end of the rainy season came to mark a special occasion for making offerings of food and provisions (especially cloth for robes) to monks. These shelters evolved into monasteries that were inhabited throughout the year. The monastery of Jetavana in the city of Shravasti (Savatthi), where the Buddha spent much of his time and delivered many of the discourses, was donated to the Buddha by the wealthy banker Anathapindada (Pali: Anathapindika).

The Buddhas authority, even among his followers, did not go unchallenged. A dispute arose over the degree of asceticism required of monks. The Buddhas cousin, Devadatta, led a faction that favoured more rigorous discipline than that counseled by the Buddha, requiring, for example, that monks live in the open and never eat meat. When the Buddha refused to name Devadatta as his successor, Devadatta attempted to kill him three times. He first hired assassins to eliminate the Buddha. Devadatta later rolled a boulder down upon him, but the rock only grazed the Buddhas toe. He also sent a wild elephant to trample him, but the elephant stopped in his charge and bowed at the Buddhas feet. Another schism arose between monks of a monastery over a minor infraction of lavatory etiquette. Unable to settle the dispute, the Buddha retired to the forest to live with elephants for an entire rainy season.

Shortly before his death, the Buddha remarked to his attendant Ananda on three separate occasions that a buddha can, if requested, extend his life span for an aeon. Mara then appeared and reminded the Buddha of his promise to him, made shortly after his enlightenment, to pass into nirvana when his teaching was complete. The Buddha agreed to pass away three months hence, at which point the earth quaked. When Ananda asked the reason for the tremor, the Buddha told him that there are eight occasions for an earthquake, one of which was when a buddha relinquishes the will to live. Ananda begged him not to do so, but the Buddha explained that the time for such requests had passed; had he asked earlier, the Buddha would have consented.

At age 80 the Buddha, weak from old age and illness, accepted a meal (it is difficult to identify from the texts what the meal consisted of, but many scholars believe it was pork) from a smith named Chunda, instructing the smith to serve him alone and bury the rest of the meal without offering it to the other monks. The Buddha became severely ill shortly thereafter, and at a place called Kusinara (also spelled Kushinagar; modern Kasia) lay down on his right side between two trees, which immediately blossomed out of season. He instructed the monk who was fanning him to step to one side, explaining that he was blocking the view of the deities who had assembled to witness his passing. After he provided instructions for his funeral, he said that lay people should make pilgrimages to the place of his birth, the place of his enlightenment, the place of his first teaching, and the place of his passage into nirvana. Those who venerate shrines erected at these places will be reborn as gods. The Buddha then explained to the monks that after he was gone the dharma and the vinaya (code of monastic conduct) should be their teacher. He also gave permission to the monks to abolish the minor precepts (because Ananda failed to ask which ones, it was later decided not to do so). Finally, the Buddha asked the 500 disciples who had assembled whether they had any last question or doubt. When they remained silent, he asked two more times and then declared that none of them had any doubt or confusion and were destined to achieve nirvana. According to one account, he then opened his robe and instructed the monks to behold the body of a buddha, which appears in the world so rarely. Finally, he declared that all conditioned things are transient and exhorted the monks to strive with diligence. These were his last words. The Buddha then entered into meditative absorption, passing from the lowest level to the highest, then from the highest to the lowest, before entering the fourth level of concentration, whence he passed into nirvana.

The Buddha had instructed his followers to cremate his body as the body of a universal monarch would be cremated and then to distribute the relics among various groups of his lay followers, who were to enshrine them in hemispherical reliquaries called stupas. His body lay in a coffin for seven days before being placed on a funeral pyre and was set ablaze by the Buddhas chief disciple, Mahakashyapa, who had been absent at the time of the Buddhas death. After the Buddhas cremation, his relics were entrusted to a group of lay disciples, but armed men arrived from seven other regions and demanded the relics. In order to avert bloodshed, a monk divided the relics into eight portions. According to tradition, 10 sets of relics were enshrined, 8 from portions of the Buddhas remains, 1 from the pyres ashes, and 1 from the bucket used to divide the remains. The relics were subsequently collected and enshrined in a single stupa. More than a century later, King Ashoka is said to have redistributed the relics in 84,000 stupas.

The stupa would become a reference point denoting the Buddhas presence in the landscape of Asia. Early texts and the archeological record link stupa worship with the Buddhas life and the key sites in his career. Eight shrines are typically recommended for pilgrimage and veneration. They are located at the place of his birth, his enlightenment, his first turning of the wheel of dharma, and his death, as well as sites in four cities where he performed miracles. A stupa in Samkashya, for example, marked the site where the Buddha descended to the world after teaching the dharma to his mother (who died seven days after his birth) abiding in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods.

The importance given to the stupa suggests the persistence of the Buddha in the world despite his apparent passage into nirvana. Two types of nirvana are commonly described. The first is called the nirvana with remainder, which the Buddha achieved under the Bo tree, when he destroyed all the seeds for future rebirth. This first nirvana is therefore also called the final nirvana (or passing away) of the afflictions. But the karma that had created his present life was still functioning and would do so until his death. Thus, his mind and body during the rest of his life were what was left over, the remainder, after he realized nirvana. The second type of nirvana occurred at his death and is called the final nirvana of the aggregates (skandha) of mind and body or the nirvana without remainder because nothing remained to be reborn after his death. Something, in fact, did remain: the relics found in the ashes of the funeral pyre. A third nirvana, therefore, is sometimes mentioned. According to Buddhist belief, there will come a time in the far distant future when the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha will disappear from the world and the relics will no longer be honoured. It is then that the relics that have been enshrined in stupas around the world will break out of their reliquaries and magically return to Bodh Gaya, where they will assemble into the resplendent body of the Buddha, seated in the lotus posture under the Bo tree, emitting rays of light that illuminate 10,000 worlds. They will be worshiped by the gods one last time and then will burst into flame and disappear into the sky. This third nirvana is called the final nirvana of the relics. Until that time, the relics of the Buddha are to be regarded as his living presence, infused with all of his marvelous qualities. Epigraphic and literary evidence from India suggests that the Buddha, in the form of his stupas, not only was a bestower of blessings, but was regarded as a legal person and an owner of property. The relics of the Buddha were, essentially, the Buddha.

The Buddha also remains in the world in the form of the texts that contain his words and statues that depict his form. There is no historical evidence of images of the Buddha being made during his lifetime. Indeed, scholars of Indian art have long been intrigued by the absence of an image of the Buddha on a number of early stone carvings at Buddhist sites. The carvings depict scenes in which obeisance is being paid, for example, to the footprints of the Buddha. One scene, considered to depict the Buddhas departure from the palace, shows a riderless horse. Such works have led to the theory that early Buddhism prohibited depiction of the Buddha in bodily form but allowed representation by certain symbols. The theory is based in part on the lack of any instructions for depicting the Buddha in early texts. This view has been challenged by those who suggest instead that the carvings are not depictions of events from the life of the Buddha but rather represent pilgrimages to and worship of important sites from the life of the Buddha, such as the Bo tree.

Consecrated images of the Buddha are central to Buddhist practice, and there are many tales of their miraculous powers. A number of famous images, such as the statue of Mahamuni in Mandalay, Myanmar, derive their sanctity from the belief that the Buddha posed for them. The consecration of an image of the Buddha often requires elaborate rituals in which the Buddha is asked to enter the image or the story of the Buddhas life is told in its presence. Epigraphic evidence from the 4th or 5th century indicates that Indian monasteries usually had a room called the perfumed chamber that housed an image of the Buddha and was regarded as the Buddhas residence, with its own contingent of monks.

Some four centuries after the Buddhas death, movements arose in India, many of them centred on newly written texts (such as the Lotus Sutra) or new genres of texts (such as the Prajnaparamita or Perfection of Wisdom sutras) that purported to be the word of the Buddha. These movements would come to be designated by their adherents as the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle to enlightenment, in contradistinction to the earlier Buddhist schools that did not accept the new sutras as authoritative (that is, as the word of the Buddha).

The Mahayana sutras offer different conceptions of the Buddha. It is not that the Mahayana schools saw the Buddha as a magical being whereas non-Mahayana schools did not. Accounts of the Buddhas wondrous powers abound throughout the literature. For example, the Buddha is said to have hesitated before deciding to teach after his enlightenment and only decides to do so after being implored by Brahma. In a Mahayana sutra, however, the Buddha has no indecision at all, but rather pretends to be swayed by Brahmas request in order that all those who worship Brahma will take refuge in the Buddha. Elsewhere, it was explained that when the Buddha would complain of a headache or a backache, he did so only to convert others to the dharma; because his body was not made of flesh and blood, it was in fact impossible for him to experience pain.

One of the most important Mahayana sutras for a new conception of the Buddha is the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika-sutra), in which the Buddha denies that he left the royal palace in search of freedom from suffering and that he found that freedom six years later while meditating under a tree. He explains instead that he achieved enlightenment innumerable billions of aeons ago and has been preaching the dharma in this world and simultaneously in myriad other worlds ever since. Because his life span is inconceivable to those of little intelligence, he has resorted to the use of skillful methods (upuya), pretending to renounce his princely life, practice austerities, and attain unsurpassed enlightenment. In fact, he was enlightened all the while yet feigned these deeds to inspire the world. Moreover, because he recognizes that his continued presence in the world might cause those of little virtue to become complacent about putting his teachings into practice, he declares that he is soon to pass into nirvana. But this also is not true, because his life span will not be exhausted for many more billions of aeons. He tells the story of a physician who returns home to find his children ill from having taken poison during his absence. He prescribes a cure, but only some take it. He therefore leaves home again and spreads the rumour that he has died. Those children who had not taken the antidote then do so out of deference to their departed father and are cured. The father then returns. In the same way, the Buddha pretends to enter nirvana to create a sense of urgency in his disciples even though his life span is limitless.

Such a view of the identity of the Buddha is codified in the doctrine of the three bodies (trikaya) of the Buddha. Early scholastics speak of the Buddha as having a physical body and a second body, called a mind-made body or an emanation body, in which he performs miraculous feats such as visiting his departed mother in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods and teaching her the dharma. The question also was raised as to whom precisely the Buddhist should pay homage when honouring the Buddha. A term, dharmakaya, was coined to describe a more metaphorical body, a body or collection of all the Buddhas good qualities or dharmas, such as his wisdom, his compassion, his fortitude, his patience. This corpus of qualities was identified as the body of the Buddha to which one should turn for refuge.

All of this is recast in the Mahayana sutras. The emanation body (nirmanakaya) is no longer the body that the Buddha employs to perform supernatural feats; it is rather the only body to appear in this world and the only body visible to ordinary humans. It is the Buddhas emanation body that was born as a prince, achieved enlightenment, and taught the dharma to the world; that is, the visible Buddha is a magical display. The true Buddha, the source of the emanations, was the dharmakaya, a term that still refers to the Buddhas transcendent qualities but, playing on the multivalence of the term dharma, came to mean something more cosmic, an eternal principle of enlightenment and ultimate truth, described in later Mahayana treatises as the Buddhas omniscient mind and its profound nature of emptiness.

Along with additional bodies of the Buddha, the Mahayana sutras also revealed the presence of multiple universes, each with its own buddha. These universescalled buddha fields, or pure landsare described as abodes of extravagant splendour, where the trees bear a fruit of jewels, the birds sing verses of the dharma, and the inhabitants devote themselves to its practice. The buddha fields became preferred places for future rebirth. The buddhas who presided there became objects of devotion, especially the buddha of infinite light, Amitabha, and his Western Paradise called Sukhavati. In the buddha fields, the buddhas often appear in yet a third form, the enjoyment body (sambhogakaya), which was the form of a youthful prince adorned with the 32 major marks and 80 minor marks of a superman. The former include patterns of a wheel on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, elongated earlobes, a crown protrusion (usnisa) on the top of his head, a circle of hair (urna) between his brows, flat feet, and webbed fingers. Scholars have speculated that this last attribute derives not from a textual source but the inadequacies of early sculptors.

The marvelous physical and mental qualities of the Buddha were codified in numerous litanies of praise and catalogued in poetry, often taking the form of a series of epithets. These epithets were commented upon in texts, inscribed on stupas, recited aloud in rituals, and contemplated in meditation. One of the more famous is thus gone, worthy, fully and completely awakened, accomplished in knowledge and virtuous conduct, well gone, knower of worlds, unsurpassed guide for those who need restraint, teacher of gods and humans, awakened, fortunate.

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When the mind is somber, broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits. When the mind is clear, a dark room has its blue sky. That which is self-concious and ulterior is far from the Truth. That which is Mindless, is near. Taoist poem.

Theres a common saying in Zen that says after Satori (Enlightenment, there sits the ordinary old man.

Something extraordinary happens through Enlightenment, but nothing at all. Vedanta the philosophy Buddhism originates from translates to the end of knowledge.

If Enlightenment is the end of knowledge, the end of struggles and the end of suffering, what is left in life? What is there left to do after the struggle is gone? After all, isnt part of the beauty of life the struggle, the tears, the heartache and finding healing and peace through it all?

If theres nothing left to do, if theres nothing left to strive for, whats the point of living? Whats the point of living when life itself has no point? Whats the point if the game of life isnt worth playing?

There is a point though; the creation of your story. The only difference is after Enlightenment and the realization of One Taste, we no longer identify with the drama.

But detachment does not mean not participating. Its not an escape from life; its simply creating your story with the awareness that you are not the story. It doesnt bother you when your life takes a wrong turn or when something goes awry. In the same way you can celebrate when something wonderful in your life happens, but you dont get attached because you realize that your story is not you.

Everything in life is a story. The evolution of the Universe, from unconscious matter to becoming conscious, is a story. The Eros of human consciousness, how we evolve from duality and separateness to Enlightenment and union, is a story.

The search for meaning and beauty outside ourselves, and realizing that happiness can only come from within, is yet another story. We turn even the most mundane things (like washing the dishes) into a story. We have all sorts of feelings about everything and we use those feelings and associations to mold our story. Life is a series of stories.

In The Voice of Knowledge, Don Miguel Ruiz makes the point that we are all artists. We are all constantly dreaming, constantly creating and molding our stories. Based on the investment of our beliefs, we shape our story. Since were always perceiving new things and events, we filter some out and accept other information and ideas based on how it aligns with the story we want to create.

Like Ruiz, I think its a much more powerful paradigm to see ourselves as artists and not just people. Even if you dont think youre the creative type, you are creating all the time. You cant not create. Every time you breathe, move, or open your mouth, you are creating.

Have you ever taken a step back and just observed life, while thinking How the hell am I here? Its in that stupefying moment you realize that youre the architect of life, but theres no blueprint. We have this mysterious internal compass, but beyond that were on our own. We have to fend for ourselves and make things up as we go along.

We have to take control and steer through life the best we can. Whats most is that we take the wheel and dont live on accident. What matters is that we dont give up our power and relinquish the ownership of our minds.

We have to realize the power of:

There is a lot of credit (and merit) given to creating a beautiful space. We spend inordinate amounts of time decorating our homes, buying new clothes and products in the effort to make our lives more desirable.

But not much credit is given to the beautification of our minds.

We adorn our homes and spaces with expensive things. We often associate the value of our lives with the value of our possessions. Once we buy or obtain the object of our desire, within a few days or hours were thinking about our next purchase. The illness of materialism has a stranglehold on us; we are always in need of our next fix.

The reality is that this search for the beautification of our bodies and our spaces will never satisfy us. We have more luxury and more convenience than a lot of Royalty had a few hundred years ago. In fact, royal servants now have more luxury than the same Kings they served a few hundred years ago. Obviously something is seriously wrong. Our value system is distorted. If internal wealth is the greatest asset you can have, why is it so overlooked? Because you cant see a luxurious mind. You cant brag to your friends about it. You cant say Hey Jim, look at the shiny mind Ive got. Your internal space looks like a pile of shit.

So if we can Feng Shui our external space, can we Feng Shui our minds?

I think so. Its something Ive been personally vying for.

As I said earlier, the problem with creating a luxurious inner space is that you cant exactly see a beautiful mind. You cant measure it, you cant compare it. Paradoxically, I think this misconceived flaw is its most attractive quality. Our obsession with measurement quantification seems unhealthy at best, anyway.

Creating a beautiful mind is about placing permanent fixtures of beautiful ideas in the corners of your mind. Its about cleaning the cobwebs of self-limiting beliefs. Its about creating the auto-response to be impeccable with your word, and to not ever use your mind against yourself. Its about coming to terms with your practical mind, and creating a relationship between your head and your heart. Its about taking ownership of your mind, and realizing that that is the most powerful and precious gift that you have.

If youre at all like me, its easy to see yourself as an artist for a little while. You might last a few hours or a few days. But then the routine and monotony of life sinks back in. Everything seems to be a repeat of the day before. Every day seems exactly the same.

Ive found that the best way to combat slipping into the black-hole of monotony is by realizing each moment is brand new. Past and present are illusions. Even if you feel like youve been doing the same thing, you really havent. This moment is all there is and each time you do something, its for the first time. Actually, it isnt even the first; that would imply that theres a second and a third. Rather this is the only time youve done whatever youre doing now, and it always will be.

Each moment, each day, we write another page in our story. Its hard not to get caught up in the routine of life. Each day seems the same and we take for granted our artistic power. We put off the beautification of our minds. Another day, we think. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes.

The truth is, if we dont keep ourselves present and realize that with each day we are creating, we will never get to it. Well wake up 10 years later and wonder what the hell happened.

We can choose to make our stories a masterpiece, or mediocre. But the point is that we choose now. If we put off our choice, we give up our power. I dont know about you, but I cant afford to put it off anymore. I cant betray myself any longer.

I admit I dont have all the answers, and I havent quite figured out how to completely resist reverting into a routine. What can we do to make our lives more like a work of art, and less like a colorless repeat of yesterday? I would personally love to hear your thoughts on how you remember the artistry of your life and how you resist living uniformly.

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Whats the Point of Life After Total Enlightenment? - Paid ...

The pair sped through DeVoes consciousness to find his good side, only to find him dead in his classroom. Instead, the pair realized that if Ralph gained control of his body again, DeVoe would disappear. DeVoe sent multitudes of copies of himself after the two, but they both managed to come out on top and Ralph gained control of his body again just in time to save Cecile from being choked to death by the Clifford.

The pair sped through DeVoes consciousness to find his good side, only to find him dead in his classroom. Instead, the pair realized that if Ralph gained control of his body again, DeVoe would disappear. DeVoe sent multitudes of copies of himself after the two, but they both managed to come out on top and Ralph gained control of his body again just in time to save Cecile from being choked to death by the Clifford.

However, just before losing control of the body, DeVoe had put his consciousness into his hoverchair, which then activated a hologram of himself and caused the satellites to fall from the sky. However, Marlize deactivates the chair, while Barry, Cisco, Ralph, and [[Nora Allen II|Nora Allen]] managed to stop all of the satellites from killing any civilians, leaving the Enlightenment a complete failure.

However, just before losing control of the body, DeVoe had put his consciousness into his hoverchair, which then activated a hologram of himself and caused the satellites to fall from the sky. However, Marlize deactivates the chair, while Barry, Cisco, Ralph, and [[Nora|a mysterious speedster]] managed to stop all of the satellites from killing any civilians, leaving the Enlightenment a complete failure.{{Ep|We Are The Flash}}

*The Enlightenment is very similar to [[Genesis (event)|Genesis]] which was created by [[Damien Darhk]]. Both were the end game of the Big Bad of Season Four of a show, both events intended to reshape the world on a global scale, and both events are biblical references. Also, when both plans are foiled, both villains decide to submit destroy the world instead.

*The Enlightenment is very similar to [[Genesis (event)|Genesis]] which was created by [[Damien Darhk]]. Both were the end game of the Big Bad of Season Four of a show, both events intended to reshape the world on a global scale, and both events are biblical references. Also, when both plans are foiled, both villains decide to submit destroy the world instead.

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Enlightenment - tvsignals.com