For Buddhist, can you explain one of the Nine Characteristics for me?

Question

I don't understand what # 4 "well gone" means. Please explain if you can. Thanks in advance!

"The Blessed One is:
a worthy one
perfectly self-enlightened
stays in perfect knowledge
4.well gone
unsurpassed knower of the world
unsurpassed leader of persons to be tamed
teacher of the Divine Gods and humans
the Enlightened One
the Blessed One or fortunate one.

Answer 1

I think it means that he's past his ego self -- and this would mean that, while he's the most ordinary of human beings, he's also beyond everything in the world because, without the dualistic (seeing everything as separate things from oneself) concept of the ego/self, he's no longer really in the world, so to speak. He's there but everything is seen through the eyes of enlightenment which results in a very very different world.

Answer 2

Buddhism is a religion of self enlightenment and self experiance. To understand the teachings, you have to be able to understand others and their viewpoints. Empathy is godlike when trying to understand Buddhism and Zen.

You have two factors to consider when reading and studying this religion-
1) Nothing spoken is literal. It is all interpreted by you, who is reading, as an individual and what you believe it needs to say for you to understand it.
2) Translation can be crude from the Orient to the Occident. The Chinese language has over 100,000 verbs where English has only 5,000 and modern English has even less.
In my own studies, the people who have translated the fourth characteristic have translated it as "well done" instead of "well gone". My friends and I who were studying at the time joked about how you have to be cooked right in order to be enlightened.

Unfortunately, the only way to try to understand a religion is to understand the culture and language. Without reading the original script in the original language, we can only hope to be spoon-fed the correct words.

When in doubt when studying Buddhism-
If your concept is not the same as the writer, it does not matter. What matters is you have read and now know. Buddha was a jolly fellow. He never meant to make things seem difficult, but only to make things seem clearer.

Answer 3

well gone=sugato
There are four explainations.
1.He has gone without attachment by the 8 noble path.

2.He has gone to the deathless nibbana.

3.Has rightly gone,without returning back to the defilements abandoned at each path.

4.He speaks only fitting speech in the fitting place.

Answer 4

It means that he has cut off all ties to the material, that he has transcended worldly desires...

Answer 5

That he is past the obstacle of "self"...