Um, can we define ‘enlightenment’? Because I can’t see how a “phase of fundamental well-being where you stop feeling love for people” describes anything I’d remotely consider ‘enlightenment.’
Note: that box is supposed to represent an omitted letter using standard means, but Discourse does weird things.
Yup, that was the one–thanks!
Now, now. You’re letting your petty little human cravings interfere with your awareness of the grand, cosmic Big Picture. 
First thing the legendary Buddha did, years before he actually achieved enlightenment, was abandon his wife and kids. This freed him up so he could wander around, learn from freaky yogina, practice asceticism, meditate, etc. He did not achieve enlightenment working 9 to 5. Pretty harsh, but it sounds like right before he left he was not happy and not much fun to be around, and that was the only way for him to move forward mentally and spiritually. He really hurt his family, but I think they eventually forgave him.
My understanding is that he was from a royal family so it’s not as if his wife and children ended up as street beggars.
I achieved enlightenment in a dream once. It was pretty wild. I could fly and walk through walls and heal the sick and I could open other people’s minds with a touch.
It is not merely about material things. Imagine giving birth to your first child, and waking up the next morning to find your husband of 15 years missing. Sometime later you discover he has gone off to become a wandering ascetic or something, and what hurts the most is that the man you loved ostensibly did not respect you enough to discuss a little decision like that, or how he was dissatisfied with his life, with you beforehand.
If it helps, assume that he formally divorced her while providing a generous alimony and child support settlement. Or assume that he was unmarried at the time he took off to find himself.
We could assume that, but we are talking about a historical, or semi- or quasi-historical account and that is not what happened, or at least I do not remember anything like that.
There is a story that she was overcome by indescribable grief for years, never re-married, etc., and that when Siddhartha did show up seven years later she, at first anyway, did not speak to him.
The epilogue is that (some time later) both she and their son became monks as well, so there is a happy ending, sort of kind of.
Let’s face it; plenty of great men (and women) were assholes in their personal lives.
True, but we’re talking enlightenment here. I can deal with Bob Dylan writing amazing songs while being an asshole to the people he knew. But if ‘enlightenment’ means anything worthwhile, it should at least make the enlightened person a decent human being in the wake of their cosmic experience.
Hell, one would hope that even the search for enlightenment would make one a better person.
A few years ago, someone wrote an article speculating that Siddhartha Gautama was a kshatriya warrior suffering from PTSD. He speculated that “left the palace and became an itinerant ascetic” may have been code for “estranged from his family and became a homeless person”.
I’m not sure I buy it, but I think it is an interesting idea.
However he may have been before, he did not come back an asshole. He had also, I assume, encountered plenty of asshole gurus and charlatans and seen for himself how they treated people.
I agree, and I hadn’t heard that story about Siddhartha, but supposedly it happened before he was enlightened, because he wanted to find himself or whatever. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when he approached his family again. All I really know about the Buddha is that he tried a lot of different things before he found the Middle Path.
But I was really thinking about attachment more than love for your wife and kids. So someone might feel overwhelming cosmic love for every being, but not hold their wife and kids in higher regard than anyone else. If everyone has equal value, does everything you do for others then become a utilitarian calculation? I don’t know. Considering I only have thirty minutes a day to meditate and don’t do drugs, I don’t think I have to worry about reaching enlightenment.
I actually just started attending Zen temple services and I have a lot of questions. Like if everything is emptiness, why value compassion rather than nihilism? But Zen is a very specific view of Buddhism and enlightenment so you can’t even generalize about fundamental well being. I’m not even sure I fully understand emptiness.