manitou

Thanks - and I think a sanctuary it should remain. However, I do think the title of the thread should be renamed. Otherwise, it is one person's idea of the thought process that leads to enlightenment. And as such, isn't enlightenment at all.

My apologies to everyone to the part I played in upsetting your apple cart. I don't belong in the Buddhist section, thanks for your indulgence. Actually, this is the very reason I was opposed to the Bums splitting up into various sections originally. I think we all have much to learn from each other, and when we're stuck in our various grooves, we are dead wood. I think we all benefited more when all philosophies were bouncing off each other. Again, my sincere apologies.

When it happens to you, you can feel it. But this is entirely subjective, and it is impossible to explain this to another. It will happen when it happens, once self importance has been removed.

I happen to be reading The Self Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, Ph.D. at the present time. There is a paragraph that I just read, and it seems to be quite aligned with what we have been talking about. It speaks of the Absolute Awareness that permeates the Universe, the knowledge of the Mystics: As the Lankavatara Sutra reminds us; "These teachings are only a finger pointing to the Noble wisdom...They are intended for the consideration and guidance of the discriminating minds of all people, but they are not the Truth itself, which can only be self-realized within one's own deepest consciousness." My take on all this is that there are ways to get to the state of absolute awareness, and perhaps a combination of all of it is the key. One avenue is the avenue of meditation, wherein one becomes adept and is capable of reaching no-thought, where pure awareness is maintained. The quality of adeptness is determined by the continuation of this no-thought ability. The place where conclusion and judgment have been discarded. Or another avenue to absolute awareness is by cutting through the sense of separation that is imposed by our egos. This process can be started from any point, the point that one is at at any given moment. This involves really knowing ourselves, understanding our every motivation, seeing our selfishnesses, understanding that our anger stems from fear, understanding our fears and realizing that there really is nothing to fear at all if we are not clinging to attachments. Perhaps another avenue is within the collective consciousness that lies at the bottom of our dreams. Although our dreams are affected by karma that we have accumulated either by our own actions (or even by historical or ancestral action), our dreams have a way of coping and leveling out that karma. They can also induce karma of their own. But underlying the dreams are the consciousness that perhaps we all share. (I say we do, others on this thread would say we don't) The mystic consciousness comes to us via an incredible transformation of self, an inner transformation. It's as though there are two elements to enlightenment, if we want to call it that. Say we're standing at ground zero. Perhaps there are 50 steps above us, which would represent the teachings and discoveries of those outside of us; the words of others. The religious structures. And then there are another 50 steps below ground zero which represents our inner world, the world that must be addressed, and which is even more difficult than the structured one above ground zero. The reason this is the more difficult of the two is that it requires eroding of the ego, developing the beginner's mind, realizing that our conclusions may be wrong; these very same conclusions that we have our ego invested in. This is the truly transformative avenue, not the intellectual one. This is the one that real-izes the personal application of all the words and concepts that we have learned through structure. The combination of the two enables us to see the moon. This is where we learn to walk our talk. We put it into play. We love our brother as ourself. This is the 'one-ness' that I refer to. Edit: I just thought of something. Steve's signature line. That says it all. "When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that is love. And between these two, my life turns." We are Everything, and we are Nothing. Quantum physics.

I think Krishnamurti is kind of wonderful. not a Buddhist, granted - but a Theosophist. My own personal experience (and I don't really care what camp it falls into) is that there is an intelligence that runs this business that is ingrained within it. It's like the Daoist principle of 'do nothing'. When we take our hands off a situation and don't stir the manure, things align as they should. Has anyone else noticed this? Like, 'let the chips fall where they may'. We stop trying to control. This is the oneness I speak of - this intelligence that aligns. It is within all of us, it is only an instant away at any given moment. We all possess it. When I say we are one, we 'are' all this intelligence - but we get in the way of its manifestation because of our own individual ego identities, which are as a result our conditioning. I am also in agreement with the nothingness that has been spoken of here, but in a more physical way. Yes, there is nothingness, as quantum physics seems to demonstrate. When matter is broken down, there seems to be nothing at all. Just thought. But I still think there is intelligence at play in the whole thing. So I don't think that's a problem - both nothingness and intelligence can coexist at the same time. How quantum a statement. Like a particle and a wave. I don't see any argument anywhere, only some egos being thicker than other egos. Once this callous is penetrated, the underlying intelligence is free to do its collective thing. Just my opinion, no structure contained within, no -ism involved - just my experience through my own recovery of myself, my reading and triangulation of every philosophical tradition I've come across, and most importantly, the time I've spent on the Dao Bums over the past years, being exposed to so many different points of view, but all containing the intelligence of which I speak. And I do think it's communal (perhaps my erroneous calling of it the One intelligence), but that's how I've experienced it. To get to this innate intelligence, IMO, is the byproduct of self realization, of cutting through our own baloney.

"for your convenience" the tiny particle said to the quantum wave

When we Know Ourself and get down to the basic, it is love. Does everyone have a different version of that, or is love love? and what is a connection to each other? Is there a seam between you and me? Is the connecting rod made out of something different but joined? Physically, are we all the same stardust? And when that is broken down, are we all the same nothingness? Or are we separate nothingnesses? Did Buddha stay within the constraints of Hindu thought which, before his breakthrough, was the box his mind was in? Are we entitled to do the same that he did? To break through, using the wisdom attained through our own knowledge of ourselves? Or must we remain in the rubbish heap of thought of those previous to us? After all, those minds kept growing after the statement was made. Or are these all the separate Buddha-lands as described in the Sutras? And do the Buddha-lands meet in one place? Are they part of the quantum entanglement as well, circling something mysterious and incapable of description? The great mystery.

I like the idea of organic. It is growing, unconfined. No truths have ever been taught by a buddha for anyone, anywhere. We must find it for ourselves in the end run. Otherwise we are looking at the finger.

Even later edit - yes, that is exactly what I am pointing to. I think the problem has been semantics. sorry.

I wasn't talking about a single substance - I was talking about a single state (of mind). The oneness of character, our Original Nature, that we are all capable of discovering. It is our basis, the oneness of thought. that one space in which we manifest ourselves through thought. When you refer to all people becoming enlightened when Buddha did, you are speaking as though time is really linear. It's all here now, at the present. In essence, Buddha is here now, becoming enlightened at this moment - not in dualistic history. It is a matrix of space and time, hereness and nowness. Separating Buddhist thought from all other thought is dualistic. Others are viable as well - they get us to the void of nothingness if pursued in deeply enough. Which is what I call the oneness, the sameness. We all possess it and it is that state that yearns for uncovering and expression. Even if one feels that 'Buddhism is the only viable way, the only way to Truth', this very thought is a negation of the truth as I see it - it is the product of a touch of exclusivity that has a whiff of religious arrogance. At the core of enlightenment (which is what I thought this thread was about, or at least the name would seem so, albeit in the Buddhist section) is self-discovery, self-revelation, self-realization. If a Buddhist doesn't recognize this, then perhaps it's time for a Buddhist to transcend their system, their belief structure. Because enlightenment is manifested freedom of thought, not structured thought. Perhaps we've outgrown the Buddhist section on this thread. Even the very last words of that which T.I. quoted in the Appendix of Reynolds is 'Self liberation'. That is liberation from structure. I apologize to anyone, including CT, for throwing this thread out of alignment, if that's what I've done. I don't want to stray from the correct structure, if indeed there is one.

It is a distinct, direct experience - and that's all I can speak to. It is the knowing (gnowing) of the one consciousness shared by all life. It's an experience that repeats itself when we are able to take ourselves out of the way. That's all I know about it. Maybe that's all we need to know about it. It is found through subtraction, not addition. It is where the intuitive answers abide.

And to think introduces time. Observation alone is timeless. This morning I stepped out into the sunroom and gazed out the window at a series of Colorado blue pines that are standing very close together in one clump. For a moment I noticed in amazement that there was a sugar maple superimposed within the image of the pines. For that moment, I was amazed; breath stopped, thought stopped. And then the mind started. First, it explained to me that it was a reflection of the view out of the windows behind me, giving an image of superimposition. And then the mind went metaphysical and equated it to the dual existence we are in. The one of observation with no thought, the one of Time which involves thought. By the mere fact that we are on these threads, we still seek. Better, apparently, we should observe.

Perhaps there is Oneness in enlightenment.

All I can speak to is where I am this morning, in this mind I cannot escape from. I do not speak for the Ultimate in Truth or the one-upmanship that we can sometimes get into, even on this beautiful thread. And it is a beautiful thread. I speak to those who happen to be in the same place, relatively, as I am on my path. To people with the same general degree of awareness - not as much as I am capable of, but more than the illusion of Yesterday. All I can see, is that we are capable of being Buddhas or Fools at any given moment. To the degree that we cling to this illusion of separation, the illusion that we are anything other than various aspects of the One Mind - we are a Fool. To those of us who perhaps had similar conditionings and have meditated thusly, there will be a click of recognition when we speak to each other. We are the One Mind speaking to itself through a million mouths. There is no before or after on this path, no upward or downwards. It is only clinging to ego that separates us. Each of us here is worthy of Love, the same Love that we are capable of giving ourselves. And there's the rub.

sorry, TI - didn't realize that the path to enlightenment was merely Buddhist. If you consider Krishnamurti a broken clock, he is right twice a day. It seems to me that the most important thing that has come out of all this is the last sentence of what the Dalai Lama had to say: "Now it is time to leave self-cherishing behind and take up cherishing others, to leave ignorance behind and take up the wisdom that realizes selflessness." We must discover our uselessness to find our usefulness. Maybe that's the end result of all this.

From Bulletin 32, 1977 KRISHNAMURTI: So what are you asking now? Are you asking how to break through the dull grey monotony of life to some quite different dimension? Questioner: Yes. Real beauty must be something other than the beauty of the poet, the artist, the young, alert mind, though I am not in any way belittling that beauty. KRISHNAMURTI: "Is this really what you are seeking? Is it really what you want? If you do, there must be the total revolution of your being. Is this what you want? Do you want a revolution that shatters all your concepts, your values, your morality, your respectability, your knowledge -- shatters you so that you are reduced to absolute nothingness, so that you no longer have any character, so that you no longer are the seeker, the man who judges, who is aggressive or perhaps non-aggressive, so that you are completely empty of everything that is you? This emptiness is beauty with its extreme austerity in which there is not a spark of harshness or aggressive assertion. This is what breaking through means, and is this what you are after? There must be an astonishing intelligence, not information or learning. This intelligence operates all the time, whether you are asleep or awake. That is why we said there must be the observation of the outer and the inner which sharpens the brain. And this very sharpness of the brain makes it quiet. And it is this sensitivity and intelligence that make thought operate only when it has to; the rest of the time the brain is not dormant but watchfully quiet. And so the brain with its reactions doesn't bring about conflict. It functions without struggle and therefore without distortion. Then the doing and the acting are immediate, as when you see danger. Therefore there is always a freedom from conceptual accumulations. It is this conceptual accumulation which is the observer, the ego, the 'me' which divides, resists and builds barriers. When the 'me' is not, the break-through is not, then there is no breakthrough; then the whole of life is in the beauty of living, the beauty of relationship, without substituting one image for another. Then only the infinitely greater is possible."

Here's a slant, coming in from a slightly different direction. Questioner: I mean there is no answer in the catalogue. KRISHNAMURTI: That is all. Your catalogue has no answer, and therefore you want to find another catalogue that has an answer. Questioner: You keep on trying to find a way. KRISHNAMURTI: Then you are back in the trap. Sirs, we have said: 'I do not know'. Our minds are confused, and out of that confusion we seek the priests, the psychologists, the politicians. The confusion creates more confusion. Why don't I say: 'All right, I am confused. I will not act.' Of course I will go to the office, continue with everyday activities, but over my psychological confusion I will not do anything, because I see that if I do anything it will create more confusion. Therefore, psychologically, I will not move at all. Any movement leads to the trap. So can you psychologically do nothing about the trap? Please listen carefully. If you do nothing about the trap you are free of it. It is only the incessant activity of doing something about the trap that keeps you in the trap. When you see that is so, you will stop, won't you? You will cease all activity. And what does that mean? It means that you are willing psychologically to die. So when you do not know, and you really mean it, you are out of the trap, because the past has come to an end. It is when you continually say 'I am looking, I am asking, I must know,' that the past keeps on repeating itself. Questioner: But when you know nothing at all... KRISHNAMURTI: Then you have yourself. Questioner: But that is so little. KRISHNAMURTI: That is not so little. It is what has been for two million years. It is the most tremendously complex thing, and you have to learn about it. Either you can learn about it instantly, or it can carry on for another two million years. But let us take only fifty years. In that we have accumulated an immense amount: there have been two dreadful wars - the butchery, the brutality, the quarrels, the separations, the insults. It is all there. That is the trap. We are the trap, and so, is it possible to be out of it immediately? Questioner: In a moment? KRISHNAMURTI: Of course it must be in a moment. And if you say you cannot, then it is finished. You have no problem. If you say, 'It is possible,' that has no meaning either. But if you say, 'I really don't know what to do,' without despair, without bitterness, without anger, then in that state there is no movement at all -- then the door opens. (From Bulletin 18, 1973)

Is it this? The other night when I was climbing into bed I turned off the lights and at that moment a car went by slowly on the highway. Reflected on my venetian blinds was the shadow of the tree out front, but moving slowly and changing shape mysteriously, almost dancing and expanding. I was mesmerized to mental and verbal silence. I had no thoughts, merely an astounding moment of awe as I watched the play. Not even 'how beautiful' went through my mind. As I look back, it was sheer joy to watch it.

Interesting point, Jeff. I'm currently reading a Krishnamurti book which talks about this exactly - observations and dissertations on trying to maintained an enlightened mindset given the stresses of life within society and all the daily activities. It's an eye opening experience to periodically stop and check what one has been thinking about. Sometimes I'll catch myself having indulged in judgmental thought, or thought of my being superior or inferior to another - basically buying into 'the story', the links from one memory to the other. And how un-conducive that is to maintaining an enlightened state of mind, free of baggage, fear, judgment, opinion, comparisons. It reinforces just how much of a choice we have as to what we create for ourselves. How our thought produces the events and coincidences of our lives, our karma, what goes around comes around. Perhaps the best reason for looking back from an event is to trace our mindset backwards - to see how we initially generated the process by mental means.

I think this is one of the most succinct and spectacular things I've ever read -

How strange that you would say this today. Just today in a meeting someone told me that he wished I would write a book. I've written two, but they were police novels, unpublished. Maybe I will consider just expanding on my journey.

My mind's maze of thoughts a bunch of freakin' fractals all a house of mirrors

what remains is space after much laughing out loud; what a strange haiku....

forgetting itself the little bird snagged the worm all one quick motion

In Tenzin Rinpoche's article, I thought it was interesting that he equated the sense of joy to a sense of warmth, and to engage creativity from that state of being. A sense of warmth seems to be much more tangible and attainable than a sense of joy. This can be attained by just a little reflection, stopping and dwelling in the openness for a moment. My own recent habit of telling myself that 'this is all just a story' is good for releasing tension or anxiety; and just the releasing tension and anxiety can produce the warmth. He makes the statement "every moment you spend in a state of openness is cumulative and supports your ability to be in the flow." The fact that it's cumulative is a source of comfort to me. I may not be able to sustain the feeling of warmth for long periods of time, but on the other hand it's nice to know that those intermittent periods of warmth are not lost once experienced. They are stored, if the Rinpoche is correct, within our bodies, and this infers that the store of warmth is more readily available 'in the future'. As all future is actually Now, this makes sense to me. It's not really linear at all, our brains are just set up to think it is. Joy is here now, and it's our choice to uncover it or not. It's all just a story we tell ourselves.