"I see “enlightenment” and “arahantship” as highly idealized goals that a tradition built up over time, not as psychological states we’ve actually been able to demonstrate. When people keep saying “the Buddha said…”, it basically serves to pin those ideals onto one uniquely authoritative person, instead of admitting they were shaped by communities over centuries. From an Ernest Becker perspective, this kind of insistence also functions as an existential defense: it preserves a heroic narrative and a uniquely reliable guide in the face of mortality and meaninglessness, making it harder to acknowledge the more modest, human origins of these ideas. A much less ambitious—or heroic—and more historically grounded aim, and one that both history and modern psychology can support, is simply to live with fewer materialistic ambitions and to stay consciously aware of change, death, and the larger, not‑fully‑graspable character of existence—for example through experiences of awe or honest existential reflection on one’s life—because those shifts in values and perspective tend, on average, to be associated with better mental health and a greater sense of meaning. But giving up the “Buddha said” and enlightenment myths does not free us from the need for such meaning‑systems; it usually means that our heroic strivings reattach to other narratives—artistic achievement, national or ideological causes, romantic destiny, even the pride of being a rational, secular critic. The difficult question, then, is not whether to live entirely without illusions, but which necessary illusions we choose to inhabit or to half‑consciously suspend disbelief in—and it may turn out that, for some people at least, the relatively nonviolent, introspective myths of “the Buddha” and “enlightenment” are a more benign suspension of disbelief than many of the alternatives on offer".

JS