Feast of the Enlightenment of the Buddha

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Feast of the Enlightenment of the Buddha

Today is the feast of the enlightenment of the Buddha – Gautama Siddhartha who lived about 2,500 years ago. On the Today programme this morning Thought for the Day was given by a Buddhist, who told us that the Buddha sat beneath a tree for one long night and emerged as the latest incarnation of an enlightened man. Which made me wonder, what is ‘enlightenment.’ Collins’ dictionary gave the following explanation:

‘Buddhism: the awakening to ultimate truth by which man is freed from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations to which all men are otherwise subject.’

Then there is the ‘Enlightenment’ – note the capitalised ‘e’. ‘An eighteenth century philosophical movement stressing the importance of reason and the critical reappraisal of existing ideas and social institutions.’

I have to admit being a tad impatient with all those do gooders who insist that they ‘only look for the good in everything,’ knowing that the overlooking of evil, applying size twelve blinkers if you will, allows evil to flourish. This Blog is dedicated to enlightenment, full uncompromising enlightenment, not the partial enlightenment of overlooking evil to concentrate on the good. For by my reasoning that route leads inevitably to chaos and a vacuum of social order as those dedicated to sleaze are allowed to get away with murder, larceny, corruption and criminal dishonesty. If we are to be freed from the endless cycle of chaos in our world should we perhaps enlighten ourselves about the evil which exists in our midst and show a will to deal with it? Enlightenment is not just self-knowledge, it is knowledge of the environment one inhabits. Let’s hope that we can all achieve enlightenment on this the feast day of the Buddha’s enlightenment.

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Buddha, enlightenment, cyber stalking, Oakham, Rutland, Rutland County Council, Rutland Police, Johnny Monks, Leicestershire Police, Helen Pender