The Enlightened Sage

[Birch]

Thanks 3Bob and starjumper.

Yeah, it really was terrible for a long time!

And it's so widespread too. I have heard stories about mothers that would make anyone weep.

 

Anyway, what's good IMO is that practices do work, but not IMO because they "magically" make any of what occurred disappear or allow numb detachment, but rather because they help you get a foundation from where you can finally look at this stuff for what it is without getting overwhelmed.

[3bob]

Thanks 3Bob and starjumper.

Yeah, it really was terrible for a long time!

And it's so widespread too. I have heard stories about mothers that would make anyone weep.

 

Anyway, what's good IMO is that practices do work, but not IMO because they "magically" make any of what occurred disappear or allow numb detachment, but rather because they help you get a foundation from where you can finally look at this stuff for what it is without getting overwhelmed.

 

Very true and insightful. (and one the ways a true teacher helps us)

[bodyoflight]

Personally I'm at the point where most dicussion on this forum is meaningless; most of it is just blah blah blah except for a few things every now and then.

 

The buddha equals trash to me. I take a crap on all the religous icons and figures of the world whether it be jesus, buddha, gandhi etc.

 

It does not MATTER what Buddha said or what they did. Almost all argument here on this forum is irrelevant. It is masturbation.

 

I respect jesus, buddha etc only as so much as launching points for a way to true self discovery. After that they really are like my urinal, my toilet. Couldn't care less.

 

Why would I care what the Buddha said? Why would I care what anyone said?

 

When you are a true bird when you are kicked out of your nest you will certainly fly. A true bird does not need flight school.

 

When we make somtething sacred; we cling to it. We create our own pain and suffering. Most of us are not strong enough to be true eagles. We refuse to burn our own bridges. we refuse to burn our books. we refuse and cling to that which we think is true. we're so afraid of discovering more, we cling to that which we really shouldn't.

 

 

 

 

YOU ARE NOT A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE!

 

 

YOU ARE NOT your "lineage"!

 

 

YOU ARE NOT the words you speak!

 

 

 

 

A beginner or a person who has not explored the depthness and intricacies of the mystical path will always adhere to a certain dogma and argue for one thing over the other incessantly. Vajrayana, no! Taoist! no! Jesus! Any true master will at some point upheave and turn and walk his own path and disgrace and forsake everything up to that point. Beginners are stuck on dogma and what is and what isn't.

 

You have to take a look at the people whose paths you are following. Christianity. Jesus would piss on everything and get crucified all over again if he only saw what we did with his supposed "teachings". He was against all the stuff we continue. It is so ironic that we are following those who were the rebels; but we ourselves are not strong enough to do what they did.

 

ALL true masters were nonconformists. They all broke all the rules and they didn't give a damn. The Buddha mastered several different traditions and felt in his gut it all wasn't enough. You see, to him it wasn't about what one master said over another. It was that which was within himself which told him that there was something more. Did he listen to his previous paths, masters and lineages babble on about what they thought? No. He cut ties and did his own thing.

 

I have to laugh at people who espouse certain teaching over other teachings; they miss the point entirely. All true masters make their own paths; and those who are not strong or resilient enough, end up repeating everything that they say like sheep. Its funny when you see this from a certain perspective, because mostly everyone starts to look like little children arguing about whose toy is better.

 

A true master will throw out the book and just wing it upon reaching a certain point. Hell, the buddha did it, why don't you? I have to laugh at people saying it's this or it's that.

 

It's only the noobs that are the bookies; the beginners are the ones who are always stuck on that which can be summed up in words. You have your cultists, your priests, anyone who labels himself anything, or attaches himself to a dogma or creed. Only sheep follow masters.

 

To be a true surfer of the realms of the formless, YOU HAVE TO LET GO OF WORDS. You burn your books and burn and piss on every single thing you know. You have to let it all slide away. You naturally stop caring who is right; you stop arguing one point over another. You simply don't care anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

Your truth becomes that which is unspoken, because to the one who truly sees, that which is spoken is worthless compared to that which is not.

 

books are just maps.. some maps are better than others.. but in the end, the best map is within yourself..

 

EDIT: the best map is the map within yourself compiled of data from other people's maps...

 

you have to analyse which parts of other maps suit you and use these separate bits and pieces to compile the best map for yourself..

Edited April 2, 2011 by bodyoflight

[aridus]

"In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guild drew a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, coinciding point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography saw the vast Map to be Useless and permitted it to decay and fray under the Sun and winters.

 

In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; and in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."

 

On Exactitude in Science - Jorge Luis Borges

[rain]

In this issue of EnlighteNext Magazine, there is a dialogue between Wilber and Cohen having to do with Was the Buddha Only Half Enlightened? For those not familiar with these two men, Andrew Cohen is the publisher of EnlighteNext, and the article refers to him as a GURU, then defines guru as (n. Sanskrit): one who teaches spiritual liberation from his or her own direct experience or realization. The other man, Ken Wilbur, is described as the PANDIT within the context of the magazine, or (n. Sanskrit): a scholar, one who is deeply proficient and immersed in spiritual wisdom. He describes himself as an intellectual samurai.

 

Before I post part of the article, I just wanted to mention the above because it infers a big different in perspective of the two gentlemen. One is self-realized, one is learned by outer means.

 

 

WAS THE BUDDHA ONLY HALF ENLIGHTENED?

 

Question: Ken, I've heard you say that the Buddha wasn't as enlightened as an enlightened person today. In thinking about that, I've encountered a lot of different definitions of what enlightenment even is. Can you please explain what you mean?

 

 

KEN WILBER: Well, this is a controversial point, but there's a good reason why I continue to make it. What I've actually said is that Gautama Buddha was only half as enlightened as a modern sage has the potential to be. And to understand why that is, we have to look at a couple facts.

 

First, we have to understand that reality consists of two fundamental dimensions: the realm of emptiness and the realm of form. Emptiness is the timeless, unmanifest ground of being, and realizing that primordial emptiness has traditionally been what spiritual enlightenment is all about. That's what the Buddha called nirvana. It means nothing is arising. It's a state of consciousness essentially similar to deep dreamless sleep, in that there's no pain, no self, no suffering, no desire - none of that. It's a place of peace, stillness, and freedom beyond the turmoil of manifest existence. And discovering that unmanifest emptiness has always been seen as the one way to find liberation from samsara - the wheel of pain and suffering, birth and death.

 

Now, Gautama Buddha realized emptiness perfectly, so from the point of view of that traditional understanding, he was enlightened. He experienced a perfect oneness in consciousness that transcended the multiplicity of manifestation, time, and form. But about eight hundred years after the time of Gautama, an extraordinary gentleman by the name of Nagarjuna came along and pointed out that if you're serious about finding ultimate oneness, then you can't just be looking for nirvana divorced from samsara, because that's still dualistic. You have to be looking, instead, for the union of nirvana and samsara, the union of emptiness and form, the union of the unmanifest and the manifest, which Nagarjuna called Nonduality.

 

This realization ushered in the whole Buddhist Mahayana revolution, summed up in the famous declaration of the Heart Sutra: "That which is form is not other than emptiness; that which is emptiness is not other than form." And this dramatically changed the way liberation was thought of. No longer was it thought of as escaping half of reality and hiding in the other half, but uniting both halves, finding an enlightenment that included both the freedom of emptiness and the fullness of form. All of a sudden, you're no longer just enlightened to the nature of your own consciousness inside here, looking at a separate world outside there. You're no longer looking at a mountain, you are the mountain. You're no longer looking at the sun, you are the sun. You're no longer touching the earth, you are the earth. Galaxies circulate through your blood and stars light up the neurons of your night, and you are one with all of this.

 

So that's the first point - the Buddha realized emptiness, but as far as we can tell, he didn't realize the fullness of non-duality, or becoming one with all of form......."

 

 

Surely this can provide us with some cerebral jerky?

 

I find this presentation hard to believe, that is, is it self experienced or merely mentally constructed?

But,

I love the "galaxy" metafor. Remember the feeling you get in movies like "Contact" when you move through galaxy?

 

It is correct that the experience transcends duality through introducing continuum...through speedtravelling never before witnessed.

 

Core is silence. In such beauty og endless light silence. moving to ond fro..like a fluttering butterfly wing.

You loose everything glued to selfawareness

but

never loose your Sense of awareness

 

ask and you shall be given

 

what?

 

whatever asked when given

 

not?

 

Every one meditating can trandscend duality

Edited April 2, 2011 by rain