Don’t fall for the “enlightenment” myth

We all suffer, although the wise suffer much less.

In Buddhist circles, there are many myths and misconceptions about enlightenment. One very common myth is that enlightened people(i.e. the Arahants) no longer suffer. There is a widespread belief that the enlightened ones live in perpetual bliss. But is there empirical evidence for that? To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever produced any life specimen of a suffering-less Arahant.

In the Pali Canon, there are multiple accounts of senior monks and Arahants getting sick and experiencing anxiety and severe pain. One such example is the case of Assaji(see the Assaji Sutta). Some even committed suicide. Three widely-known cases of senior monks committing suicide are Godika, Vakkali and Channa. Buddha clearly stated that Godika and Vakkali had attained Nirvana, thus were Arahants. Typically, the Buddhist establishment rationalizes such monk suicides by saying that although enlightened people no longer have suffering(emotional pain), they can still have physical pain. Physical pain is okay because it is natural and unavoidable. Thus, Arahants can have physical pain but not emotional pain.

But this seems to be a semantics game used to define away suffering. Why discriminate against emotional pain? It too can be natural, even instinctual. It is true that the long practice of…