All enlightened beings have the following in common:

1. They have seen through the illusion of self.
2. They have achieved permanent release from the cycle of rebirth.
3. As a byproduct of their enlightenments, they possess spiritual powers (five eyes, six spiritual powers), including that of the extinction of ouflows.

Becoming enlightened “is like opening a lock…on a door. You have to have a key to get it open. The key was made to fit the lock, and that’s what opens it now. How do you find the key? It’s by working hard at your cultivation, constantly keeping yourself at it, doing inquiry while sitting in meditation, reciting the Buddha’s name, holding mantras, reciting sutras—in all of that, you’re looking for the key. When you find it, you’ll open the lock in your mind. What’s the lock?…It’s ignorance. It locks you up in the dark.…” [FAS-PII(1) 232-233]

When someone becomes enlightened, an auspicious earthquake occurs. Although the earth moves in six ways, no one is injured. In order for enlightenment to be accepted as genuine, it must be certified. In the Śūraṅgama Sutra the Buddha said this about claims of enlightenment:

I command the Bodhisattvas and Arhats to appear after my cessation in response-bodies in the wdharma-ending age, and to take various forms to rescue those in the cycle of rebirth.…

But they should never say of themselves, “I am truly a Bodhisattva’; or ‘I am truly an Arhat”.…

How can people who make such claims, other than at the end of their lives and then only to those who inherit the teaching, be doing anything but deluding and confusing living beings and indulging in gross false claims?” [SS VI 48-55]

悟 [wù]