Those who have realised enlightenment are always kind and ethical

 

 

I titled the last blog ‘Are enlightened people always kind and ethical?’ I cited examples of people widely considered to be enlightened who apparently behaved unkindly and/or unethically towards other people. 

In addition, given that most of us are not ‘widely considered to be enlightened’, I proposed that it is probably a good idea for those of us on a spiritual path to consider developing our understanding of the nature of kindness and ethical behaviour, and to work on developing them. 

I ended that blog by saying that, in this blog, I would write about ways of developing greater kindness. I may well still do that in a future blog, but in the meantime, I felt inspired to put the case that those who have genuinely awakened or realised enlightenment cannot be anything but kind and compassionate towards others, and will always have their best interests at heart.

So, my plan here is to mention a concept used by a famous psychologist, and that a Japanese philosopher then built on, that provides a plausible foundation for the idea that genuinely awakened people will also be kind and ethical. I will then go on to quote spiritual teachers who draw on their experience to make the same point. Finally I add a subjective meditation experience that was consistent with all these and which therefore made it credible to me too, not just as an idea but as a living reality.

One of the founders of the whole field of psychology was the American psychologist William James, who wrote about his idea of ‘pure experience’, the basic building block of all subsequent cognition, in an essay, ‘A World of Pure Experience ‘ (James, 1904). This pure experience was what James said that everything else – perceptions, thoughts, memories, plans, insights and more – was built on. James though, did not see this pure experience as something that could actually be consciously experienced except, perhaps, by new-born babies. However, the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida, founder of the Kyoto School of philosophy, a movement that sought to synthesise Western ideas with Eastern thought, building on James’ idea, did see non-conceptual, pure experience as something that could be experienced. In fact Nishida saw such experience as the basis of genuine spiritual or religious awakening and of moral awakening.

Nishida said that this pure experience appears in conscious awareness as an intuition. In other words, as a wordless, concept-less knowing – a way of experiencing the inner nature of reality. In fact he saw it as a higher cognitive faculty as it gave direct insight into reality without the intrusion of unreliable, conceptual thinking. He further described it as the basis of new scientific understandings, of moral insights and of artistic creativity.

For Nishida, the source of pure experience could be described as ultimate reality or, what he called ‘absolute nothingness’, which I would equate with what others call the ‘ground of all being.’ It is the place where the individual and the Absolute are one. Nishida was quite happy to call this God. 

For those who want to take a deep dive into the detailed ideas of Kitaro Nishida and how they fit together, I recommend Krueger (2015), for which there is a link below. In that paper, Krueger directly addresses the point of this blog when he writes the following about Nishida’s understanding of pure experience:

Awakening to pure experience—or an experience of God qua absolute nothingness—is therefore coextensive with a profound ethical awakening, according to Nishida. The ontological and ethical truths of Nishida’s formulation of pure experience are therefore simply two sides of the same fundamental reality. When one has awakened to the ontological truth of pure experience, one has simultaneously realised a comprehensive ethical awakening. 

So Nishida gave a plausible psychological / philosophical path whereby spiritual awakening experiences can simultaneously lead to ethical awakening and kindness, as well as other types of insight and creativity.

Without being as specific as Nishida about the pathway involved, a number of contemporary spiritual teachers make the same point about the connection between spiritual awakening, ethics and kindness. For example:

    • The Dalai Lama has linked these specifically over the years. In ‘The Art of Happiness’ he wrote, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” He suggests that awakening to the interconnected nature of all beings fosters a deep sense of compassion, thus making kindness a hallmark of true spiritual growth.
      
    • In ‘The Power of Now,’ Eckhart Tolle describes awakening as a shift from (using his terms) egoic consciousness to presence, which leads to empathy and kindness. He proposed that an awakened person, free from the ego’s self-centredness, acts with compassion because they see others as part of the same universal consciousness.
      
    • Pema Chodron, in ‘When Things Fall Apart,’ also links awakening with compassion. She says that awakening to the truth of interconnectedness leads to kindness towards the suffering of others.
      
    • In his talks, Thich Nhat Hanh often described awakening as cultivating mindfulness and compassion simultaneously. In ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching’, he wrote, “When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace, and love. This love manifests as kindness in action.”

As far as possible I like to link ideas, such as those described by Nishida above, to my own practice before writing about them in this blog. One of my regular practices is jhana meditation. This, to paraphrase the Buddha, is a short term experience of enlightenment,  although any practice that evokes awakening experiences or union with the divine, would be relevant here. Anyway, experience of the jhana states, particularly the immaterial states, convinced me that Nishida’s ideas are credible,. Here is a short note from a recent meditation diary I wrote:

Awareness of the day-to-day self [what some people call the ego] gradually diminished at each jhana up to the 8th. At this point there was awareness of very occasional, wispy thoughts and memories associated with a self / ego, but mostly there was no self.

In other words, by the time 'I' had reached the 8th jhana, there was no experience of a sense of self that is separate from anything or anyone. The idea of being unkind or behaving unethically towards others became impossible, not least because, at that point, there were no ‘others’. 

So, to the best of my knowledge and experience, someone who is genuinely enlightened simply cannot behave in a way that would harm another person, while they are in that state.

Conclusion

Here, the case has been made psychologically, philosophically and experientially, that those who are genuinely enlightened and those who are not fully enlightened but are having what some call an awakening experience, are always kind and ethical while in that state. Indeed I would go as far as to suggest that they must be so! Thus, to be specific about it, I am also saying that those who have a reputation for being enlightened but who behave in an obviously unkind and/or unethical way, are not enlightened, although they may have had occasional glimpses of it.

P.S.

As a small aside, I wrote in my previous blog that I had not come across any records of someone achieving enlightenment purely through being kind. While that is still true, I have since come across an intellectual argument by an Oxford academic (now retired), Richard Gombrich, who says that he thinks an early Buddhist text suggests that such a thing is possible. Rather than refer you to the very academic texts on the subject, I have included a link below to an episode of ‘Doug’s Dharma’ in which he provides an accessible discussion of the pros and cons of that argument. 


Sources

Dalai Lama, & Cutler, H. C. (1998). The art of happiness: A handbook for living. New York: Riverhead Books.
James, W. (1904). A world of pure experience. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1(21), 533–543.
Krueger, J. W. (2015). The Varieties of Pure Experience: William James and Kitaro Nishida on Consciousness and Embodiment. Retrieved from https://philarchive.org/archive/KRUTVO
Nhat Hanh, T. (1998). The heart of the Buddha's teaching: Transforming suffering into peace, joy, & liberation: the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path, & other basic Buddhist teachings. Parallax Press.
Pema Chodron. (2013). When things fall apart: Heart advice for difficult times. Shambhala Publications.
Smith, D. (2021, 1 November). Can Practicing Kindness Bring Us to Nirvana? One Professor's Controversial Claim [Video]. You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD5dQa4xqag&t=285s
Tolle, E. (2001). The power of now: A guide to spiritual enlightenment. Hodder Paperback.

Key words

awakening, enlightenment, ethics, kindness, morals, philosophy, psychology, pure experience, spiritual development, spiritual practice, 

Link

https://herethewaking.blogspot.com/2025/10/those-who-have-realised-enlightenment.html

Image

Kitaro Nishida: Philosopher of Nothingness

Archived at

https://cantab.academia.edu/PeterForster