Jetsun

That is quite a difficult question for me to answer, but I would say something like spontaneous direct knowing which is prior or deeper than the mind, because it is connected to everything it is operating with the intelligence of the whole rather than the local mind which only operates with its localised intelligence and memory.

I didnt say getting enlightened through the ordinary mind is a sin, but trying to go that way is a sin in Zen because it is a waste of time and effort because it is impossible. It is basically what everyone is doing all the time anyway... and failing. Buddhists question everything to go beyond their mind not to stay trapped by it. To destroy concepts and positions. What do you think the point of Koans is? they lead directly beyond the regular mind to something else where there is a greater intelligence which they call prajna.

Yet another thread turned into Karl's views on logic, aren't we lucky. In Zen trying to get enlightened through the regular mind is considered one of its cardinal sins: "To seek Mind with the discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes" Hsin-Hsin Ming - Verses on the faith-mind So I guess we can say that all this talk of logic is a good example of how to avoid awakening and enlightenment.

So you think enlightenment is just about getting old? Most the children I know I consider more enlightened than the majority of adults I know because they have beginners mind and are not fixated into rigid ego positions yet.

Never mind any asteroid, I would say that the popularity of the Daily Mail Online is a stronger sign that the world is coming to an end, or at least severely regressing.

I don't think it has to do with having no thoughts, it is more about realising that you are not defined by your thoughts and about the falling away of separate identity from within the heart and waking up as awareness. Your mind could be racing at 100 miles an hour but as long as you are rooted as awareness it makes no difference to awakeness because ultimately all thoughts arise within awareness and don't define it. This is how Ric Weinman talks about his awakening "Susanne [my wife] asked me if I thought I was enlightened now. The question seems very funny. For an I to say it's enlightened just looks terribly funny, because the experience of I now is just part of this cloud of mind around me. How can it possibly be enlightened? And that I hasn't changed. If it wasn't enlightened before how could it be enlightened now? Even the awareness that has emerged has always been there, aware, but immersed in the sense of I. It hasn't changed either. So what could have gotten enlightened? For the first time enlightenment feels like a concept which belongs to the I, it's hopes and dreams and projections. This new experience doesn't feel anything like what I had associated with that concept, so how can I equate the two? I have no clue what 'enlightenment' means now. It seems like I knew more about enlightenment before this awakening than I do now." - P30 "Awakening Through the Veils" book The confusion comes because some translators have translated the Buddha as talking about awakening as being equated with enlightenment, but I don't think many modern people who talk about it mean it in the same way. My own personal thought is that both awakening and enlightenment are constant processes rather than destinations, we are constantly being awakened and enlightened, but the enlightened are ones who have worked through most of their stuff, while the awakened are just going into a new transition out of strict identification with being a separate being into something else, so they still have a lot of conditioning and parts of consciousness to wake up within them even though the core of their sense of I has fallen away. Which is why awake people can still be idiots and cheat on their partners and stuff like that.

There is no requirement, but it's a matter of living in the truth or not. Ultimately it doesn't matter if you live in the truth because you can't stop being it, but subjectivity to the individual it makes a big difference to the level of peace or fear they live in. Say you have a winning lottery ticket in your wallet but never check it or cash it in, you are a millionaire but continue to live in struggle because you don't realise it. It's the same with realisation, you are it at all times but unless it is continually recognised then what is the use?, you go on believeing you are something else. Then there are different levels of realisation, where one can realise it just as an intellectual understanding but in their daily life they are continually triggered back into thinking they are something else So even though we are it at all times the recognition of that isn't always there and can be embodied to different degrees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle "After this period he began working as a counselor " I remember reading about it somewhere else as well though, must be in one of his books

I would say the majority of people who talk about awakening don't equate it with traditional definitions of enlightenment from ancient traditions. Yet they call it awakening because the experience of it is like waking up out of a dream. The dream is their life before awakening, which is seen as unreal or imaginary. Eckhart Tolle worked as a psychotherapist but after awakening he couldn't take it seriously because he saw all the complaints people had about their lives weren't real. So there was a definite shift of before and after for people like Tolle and many others who talk about similar experiences.

Well you are describing how the opening of chakras and chakra levels is related to awakening. This has nothing to do with how Buddhism decsribes awakening

This isn't how Buddhism or many other traditions would describe awakening either

Yeah but do you realise that not just as an intellectual understandiung but as a fully embodied felt experience at all times in all situations, and if not why not

I think the reason why people like Tolle sit on a bench for a few years, or Ramana Maharshi sit in a cave for a few years after awakening is that all their motivations before that point came from egoic drives, so after awakening all those fall away so what is there to do? after some time greater motivations come into play but it takes time to adjust, just like it takes time to learn how to talk or walk when we are babies.

In a sense every time an element of consciousness which perceives itself as separate returns to unity then that is an awakening, so really it is a continual process of awakening for all people no matter where they are at. So in that sense if Kundalini is moving into areas of separation within the body and liberating the separate identity contained within then that is facilitating awakening. But if there is significant resistance to the process the Kundalini could create a conflict or nightmare rather than awakening. The resistance is likely to come when we are deeply attached and trying to preserve and maintain our sense of separate self. When one has "awakened" it is usually when it is seen on a fundamental level that the sense of separate self doesn't really exist, then something else wakes up as a permanent shift in identity. But even if one has gone through that fundamental shift there is still the same process as those who are not awake to go through, which is to wake up and liberate all the areas of consciousness which still exist within a sense of separation. Many traditions give the impression that awakening or enlightenment is an all or nothing deal, where all of you wakes up all at once, but this doesn't seem to be the case in the experience of everyone I have ever seen or read about who speaks about their own experience, they talk about a continual process of continual awakening. For example the Zen Master Hakuin speaks about experiencing the "great death" not just once but seven times, after each one he thinks that's it, but then another one comes along going to a deeper level.

They sell a "positive news" only newspaper in certain places over here.. hardly anyone buys it.

As I understand it only one or two people in history have achieved rainbow body before death, everyone else it happens to during the death process.

Yeah being grounded, being here in the human realm is the difficult thing, being off dissociated in a high mystical realm is alluring but can be just another means of avoiding really being here. Which is probably one reason why the Tibetans do the type of chanting they do, if you sense where that type of deep gutteral chanting vibrates it is deep in the lower chakra areas, which helps to ground a persons energy down there. Even Tummo is primarily focused on the lower areas, it isn't like typical kundalini type practices which try to raise the energy up.

Some believe that if they get the kundalini to move through all the blockages in the body and out the top of the head then they will become enlightened. Although some people like Ramana Maharshi say that that belief is an error and that kundalni will rise naturally when the source of the 'I' is dissolved. The opening of energy channels does seem to be a part of the process from what I have witnessed and experienced myself, but I don't believe trying to force the channels open through exercises is a healthy way to go about it. As far as I know the majority of Buddhist lineages don't deal with it or discuss it much, for example in Zen if a student had too much energy or energetic issues from practice they would be sent to work in the garden and kitchen for a few years to ground it rather than try to stimulate it further or work with it. The focus is more on the mind and how the mind creates suffering in most Buddhist schools, kundalini work is not seen as a requirement.

My general understanding of what Gurdjieff was talking about is that people can use the energies of the body to produce bliss and heightened states, which can be used as a means of avoidance or indulgence to avoid reality which ultimately stunts balanced growth. In his system bliss of the body is considered like cocaine so is a hindrance. As I understand it Gurdjieff snuck into Tibet in the era before the Chinese invasion and was one of the few foreigners to have access, he managed to get a job as a tax collector for the 13th Dalai Lama through which he had access to many monasteries across the country. Yet as I understand it he considers Tibetan Buddhism as being different from regular Buddhism and actually calls it Lamaism which originated from 'St Lama' (Padmasambhava) rather than Buddha. He says through that time he didn't find anyone with complete balanced spiritual development throughout the entire of Tibet, so didn't pursue its teachings. As far as I know the Buddha wasn't particularly concerned with kundalini though, he was most preoccupied with how we create most of our own suffering. He tried all of the yogic techniques which were around at that time, some of which most probably included stimulation of body channels and energies and ultimately found them unsatisfactory in his quest to get to the root of suffering.

Gurdjieff spoke about a lot of things with the purpose of destroying the beliefs and concepts of the students who were walking the path of his own teachings, he may not have intended all the things he said to be taken completely literally by all, especially if they are not following his own teachings, so you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt.

Gurdjieff used to say that because of the way the ego distorts our perception of reality if the majority of people think of something as being the truth then the reality is that it is usually the precise opposite of that which is really true. Its a good perception experiment to try, even with the majority held views of spiritual websites such as this one.

The point of Koans is to bring you to the place beyond the mind, where there is an intelligence greater than the intellect. Buddhists call that intelligence Prajna.

The root of fear arises from feeling separate, so there is an isolated vulnerable me here and all that threatening non-me stuff out there. Which is in essence an illusion or a mistaken position to take because separation arises from mistakenly believing that you have a individual self. Which is why some say ignorance is the cause of both suffering and fear. (* Not an intellectual ignorance but rather ignorance in the sense of not seeing the core truth of something)

It depends on who you talk to, it means something different to a psychologist than to a Buddhist I don't understand what you mean by it sacrifices, what does ego have to do with sacrifice?

The Dalai Lama has shown some powers, there is a renowned atheist scientist who had a spiritual experience when meeting the Dalai Lama and it removed a lifetime of anger from his system. I wrote about it in the Buddhist section before