The article relates Huntington's experience on a retreat where the teacher, when asked whether he was enlightened, replied:
As Huntinton observes, at the end of his critique of confusing Psychology with Buddhism:“I have never been enlightened;
I am not enlightened;
and I never will be enlightened.”
To practice vipassanā meditation—whether through some form of
mindfulness or any other technique—is to cultivate, refine, and deepen
this basic understanding, to weave it into the fabric of one’s intellectual,
emotional, and volitional life until the whole project of being an “ordinary
person” (puthujjana)—which is all I ever can be—is finally revealed
for what it is from the Theravāda point of view. According to this ancient
Buddhist understanding or insight, I can achieve a great deal of success
and self-satisfaction in life, I can be very happy with myself and my
world, but I cannot be “enlightened.” I can even, if karmic conditions
are favorable, be reborn as a long-lived deity in The Realm of the Gods
Who Lord Over the Creations of Others; but I can never, ever become a
buddha.
Not so long ago, the summer 2012 issue of Buddhadharma—a
popular Buddhist magazine that bills itself as “the practitioner’s quarterly”—
ran a splashy cover article on Western psychology and Buddhism, titled
“Heal the Self, Free the Self.” To imagine that there is a self that can be
“fixed up” or healed is, no doubt, the proper business of psychotherapy. To
imagine, however, that there is a self that can be “set free” is—from the perspective
of vipassanā—the ultimate triumph of a narcissism that knows no
bounds.
