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Comment by kinleyd | Hacker News Reader

Again, you are right to say that there are many Buddhist ways, not one. While the goal is enlightenment, most Buddhist texts constantly talk about the different ways it has been achieved.

My view of Buddhism is heavily Mahayana and Vajrayana based, and I know little of Hinayana and the other 'vehicles'. In this context, emphasis is placed on one's teacher mainly because it is believed that it is very, very easy to understand things completely wrongly and to go off on a tangent that is harmful to oneself and others. The teacher is thus your guide, while the work of attaining enlightenment is still very much your own.

This of course is not to say that Buddhahood isn't possible without a teacher; it's just that it is rather more unlikely and difficult.

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The practice to awakening odds are pretty poor. If you were to ask your fellow practitioners how many of them felt as if they fully grasped (experienced) the teacher's teaching, I'd be shocked if more than 1 out of 20 said yes.

Add to that the fact that practice in the Buddhist world is almost always an ass kicker of the highest order (hello screwdriver in the knees), then one wonders why take it up in the first place? The whole process seems a bit like the Christian, "yours is not to reason why"; i.e. it will become clear(er) later.

Saying that, I did meet someone who awakened without a teacher. I suggested that he attend a couple of sitting groups that I used to go to. After the Dharma talk/discussion at each group, without having said a word, both teachers came up to him and basically said, how on earth did you do that?

Talking with him later he said he came into this life to awaken; i.e. it wasn't difficult and he was only just scratching the surface.

Pretty rare obviously, but then again, practicing for 5, 10, 20+ years and awakening is also not guaranteed.

That's an awesome story. I'm only scratching at the surface, and something tells me that it's going to take a lot longer than that, if ever, for me.

but then again, practicing for 5, 10, 20+ years and awakening is also not guaranteed.

For most of us, for sure. However, on the positive side, even many lifetimes of trying is but a mere tick on the clock of samsara. :)

"That's an awesome story. I'm only scratching at the surface, and something tells me that it's going to take a lot longer than that, if ever, for me."

Hang on a second, there is no you, how could you not be awakened?

Then why practice? Good question, it must be that delusions are endless; otherwise, we'd be lazy in the most wonderful sense of the word (see Ramana Maharshi for example).

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