[SonicPs]

How can confirming something for oneself be dogmatic doctrine? There's a world of difference between the two. If you want to entirely dismiss anything which can be established by ourselves through personal experience as "self-deception" and anything anyone else has to say as dogma, where are you going to start?

First of all has anyone presently involved in this conversation actually had the pervasive and perpetual experience of having no sense of "me", "I" or identity? In short, is anyone here claiming to be enlightened?

If not, then we're turning others' words about others' supposed experiences into doctrine.

In terms of someone that has supposedly experienced this: What I was meaning to say by that is, just because you experience something yourself, doesn't make it a universal truth. Claiming your experience as universal truth is, by definition, dogmatic.

The quote was: "Enlightened minds do not have a sense of 'me'."

What would probably be a less dogmatic way of stating this would be: "Some people, said to be enlightened, have claimed to not have a sense of 'me'."

In terms of the original statement: Are we going on what we've read, what we've heard, what we're supposed to believe if we're a Buddhist? If we are going on something we've subjectively experienced, how can we than translate into a universal definition of "enlightenment"?

The fact that there have been innumerable "enlightened" figures throughout history who came to conclusions that are diametrically opposed to this through their "enlightenment" shows that the discovery of not-self is not a necessary and inevitable component of "enlightenment." As I said before, their have been countless yogis that by all accounts were "enlightened" and talked about a great Self, the direct opposite of no self.

So you can't make blanket statements that are somehow supposed to apply to all people and all traditions.

What has been said is the equivalent of: If you haven't experienced no self as part of your enlightenment, then you're not enlightened.

Countless people would radically disagree.

Then there's also the self-deception aspect which I will go into as well.

The moment you listen to someone say some sort of "truth" about the "experience" of ultimate reality/enlightenment, it will inevitably influence (distort?) your experience of it, should you ever think you've come upon it.

Your experience is filtered, informed, and shaped by your perception, your perceptions through your beliefs, and your beliefs through what you have been taught (i.e., heard, so to speak).

This is why the same event can be experienced completely different by different people depending on their perception of reality, world-view, etc. If it has been said to someone that such-and such- event is "bad" then they are likely to have negative experience of the event. If another person has it said to them that this same event is "good" then they are likely to have a positive experience of it.

Which person's experience is "true"?

So, if you've ever had anyone (including any spiritual teacher/sage-past or present) say to you anything about reality, it essentially precludes you from any sort of "pure" unfettered experience of reality.

Unfortunately, experience is a rather unreliable guage of truth.

How many people have you heard say: "In my experience..." and then go on to describe something that you experienced completely differently.

If a Buddhist looks expecting to find no self because he has had that incessantly drilled into his head, he will likely find no self.
If a Yogi looks expecting to find a great Self, he will likely find a great Self.

As it's been said, people always have the convenient tendency of finding what they're looking for/expecting.