Lets Bat It Around Again-what Is Enlightenment

[Wayfarer64]

Addressing the absurdism of life may be the best reason for seeking and questing into spiritual realms of consciousness. If good humour is the back-ground hum of creations' manifestation, all the better!

 

Transcending the grip of physical needs and desires to become accepting of each moments' trial or treat - as if it were just a transitory and changable cercumstance, may bring one into the universal flow...

 

The many problems we face and over-come seem trivial after some time has passed, but they take extraordinary attention while they are with us, as the reality we face. Accepting these moments as if they had already passed is not the answer though... We are in the now and have responsibilities to make our choices moment by moment.

 

But what of the times when real wrongs are done to us? It is very hard to let them go un-avenged. In fact, evil needs to be faced and brought to task when it is known of. But that also adds to our kharma in a possibly negative way as in a burden of proof in the intent and out-come is needed to show no blaim attaches to facilitating kharmic retribution. We act or do not act, and then hopefully face our choices with courage.

 

The mathematician, John Nash's theory of the common good being a factor in making choices for the self, is also a sort of enlightened view point. So it seems to me accepting that we are part of a larger whole is key to enlightenment.

 

Morality and other such human constructs are very different from person to person and do not seem to hold much weight in the balance of a life's meaning. Compassion and honesty are more universal in nature and may have some weight to lend in evaluating intent and purpose in terms of judging one's inlightenment.

 

There may be degrees of enlightenment for us to work through as evolving beings. With back-sliding as part of the first levels and a sort of rebirth as a reformed consciousness in the last. It does seem to be a journey as well as a destination.

[fatherpaul]

the void is playful

 

 

this is so

[wenwu]

to talk about enlightenment gives some thing a tangable quality that makes people chase it and not reach it

 

there are only practices which might help you reach it, when you get there you will know it, or maybe there are may levels and you will never reach the final one

 

enlightenment= no more darkness

[goldisheavy]

To understand what is enlightenment one has to go back to square one. Square one is, why did you get interested in enlightenment in the first place? Something must have been not quite right or missing. When that is no longer the case, you are enlightened.

 

Of course this can happen many times a day.

 

But is there a final enlightenment? Of course not! Why not? Because if something could dawn on us, like enlightenment, it would need to have a beginning. If it has a beginning, it has a condition and cause for its manifestation. Having a condition and a cause, it would be impermanent.

 

But is everything conditional then? Of course not! If everything was conditional, then there would be a condition responsible for the fact that everything is conditional. And if there was, it would then be possible for that condition to change and suddenly "everything is conditional" would no longer be a fact. Also, how can conditions be recognized? If we've never had any knowledge and example of unconditional, then how would we know what conditional was? You know what light is because you know what dark is. If you recognize conditional situations, you can recognize something unconditional too.

 

That recognition can be said to be enlightenment.

 

How is knowing different from not knowing? If you see that there is no substantial difference between knowing and not knowing, how can we say you know? How can we say you don't know?

 

To understand this, no meditation or exercise can help. It's a waste of time, because all exercises are based on false premise. Aha... non-attainment is what real Taoists talk about. You can't reach that state if you don't already see yourself there. If you see it, you have nothing to do, nothing to attain, no exercise to perform, nothing to transform or channel. No orbits, no movements, no commitments. Of course you can exercise -- you just don't need it. It becomes pure leisure, pointless fun.

 

agreed

this is the dilema

to discuss something

that cannot be communicated

 

Look on the bright side -- it cannot be miscommunicated either. All words hit the bulls eye.

[hagar]

Enlightenment comes from studying logic:

 

An dead philosopher called Ludwig Wittgenstein, who rumour has it was the actual "Jew from Linz" mentioned as the source of Hitler's hate for jews (they went to the same grade school in Linz), wrote these lines in the trenches during the battles in WW1. During that time he had several experiences of being in the midts of death and carnage and still feeling completely safe, even if he was sure he was going to die. He was an engineer trained in logic and mathematics, but turned to philosphy and wrote these lines taken from his little book "Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus":

 

5.621 The world and life are one.

 

 

5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)

 

5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found? You will

say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field. But

really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field allows you

to infer that it is seen by an eye.

 

 

5.6331 For the form of the visual field is surely not like this

 

 

6.431 So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.

 

 

6.4311 Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but

timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no

limits.

 

 

6.4312 Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the

human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any

case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which

it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving for

ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present

life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside

space and time. (It is certainly not the solution of any problems of

natural science that is required.)

 

 

6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it

exists.

 

 

6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole--a

limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is

mystical.

 

 

6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the

problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long

period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been

unable to say what constituted that sense?)

 

 

6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make

themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

 

7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

[fatherpaul]

"Enlightenment comes from studying logic:"

 

logic has its place and is necessary, however, I can't agree with this statement.

 

peace

paul

[seadog]

"Enlightenment comes from studying logic:"

 

logic has its place and is necessary, however, I can't agree with this statement.

 

peace

paul

 

Friends.

So many words.

My love lies in wooden bark,my eyes are orions belt.

I'm the ravens call and the dogs pant.

I'm the hoofed the horned and the hairy one

I'm the single drop of dew on a plum blossom

I'm the slow pain of a slow death

The hope of something better.

I'm nothing and everything.

If you try to hold me I slip away

If you try to describe me

I'll make a foul of you.

This is what I heard after getting hit point blank between the eyes with hockey puck when I was thirteen.I still remember staring down at myself and wondering why that guy is lieing on the ice.And who the hell it is that was speaking to me.

[sean]

Friends.

So many words.

My love lies in wooden bark,my eyes are orions belt.

I'm the ravens call and the dogs pant.

I'm the hoofed the horned and the hairy one

I'm the single drop of dew on a plum blossom

I'm the slow pain of a slow death

The hope of something better.

I'm nothing and everything.

If you try to hold me I slip away

If you try to describe me

I'll make a foul of you.

This is what I heard after getting hit point blank between the eyes with hockey puck when I was thirteen.I still remember staring down at myself and wondering why that guy is lieing on the ice.And who the hell it is that was speaking to me.

Wow.

[林愛偉]

Enlightenment is something a god can attain, but hasn't. That is why they are a god. Enlightenment, complete pure enlightenment, is past the realm of a god and immortals.

 

 

Peace,

 

Aiwei

[fatherpaul]

no enlightenment

no god

no paul kren

 

vast emptiness

nothing to be called this or that

 

respectfully,

fatherpaul

[freeform]

and enlightenment

and god

and paul kren

 

vast fullness

everything to be called this or that

 

[fatherpaul]

it is so

 

: )

[fatherpaul]

freeform asserts all that is

i assert all that is not

 

there is the path of the great way

[lino]

my answer is:

 

1. not having to worry about death and taxes

2. not needing money

[Pero]

What was/is the question to this answer?

[fatherpaul]

What was/is the question to this answer?

 

 

the question was " what is enlightenment and what is its connection to god"

[Pero]

the question was " what is enlightenment and what is its connection to god"

 

LMAO, how stupid of me... Question in plain sight, and I couldn`t find it.

And interesting answer then.

[rex]

Nice quick definition from Dzigar Kontrul:

 

Enlightenment is the complete and irreversible awakening to one's true nature, in which the wisdom of both seeing the true nature of phenomena and knowing phenomena in all their variety is revealed.

[mwight]

Enlightenment isn't something you gain, its something you lose. Enlightenment is a state in which all that is false has been removed from the mind.

 

Since birth we are conditioned and taught how to should feel and act in response to situations, how we should behave, what things are good or bad, who we are, what all this is, why we are here... All of it is bullshit.

 

Were taught to mentally break apart patterns, arrangements of matter and energy, and call them objects.

 

Our minds are cluttered with words, concepts, ideas, hopes, dreams, aspirations, none of which have any reality external to our own minds.

 

 

Enlightenment is about stripping away the layers of bullshit. It's about unconditioning yourself. It's about examining every single thought, notion, and belief in your head, holding it to to the light and seeing if it has any truth or existence outside your own mind.

 

Layer after layer after layer after layer. Until there is nothing left. Nothing at all.

 

There is no you, there are no concepts, there are no filters, there are no beliefs, there is nothing which is false. Only a mesh of interacting wave forms which give rise to your direct perception of what is.

 

Enlightenment isn't something you want or even could possibly want. Because it results in the complete obliteration of all of ones emotional connections, life, and self in general.

 

Imagine one day if you woke up, only to find that you had been living inside a persistent dreamstate in a coma for 30 years. Everyone you ever loved, perhaps even your own children were just fictional characters your subconscious dreamed up, and were now gone that you awakened. All your favorite things; new products, new music, new books, all just creations of your own mind. The whole world you once believed so certainly was real now collapses. Would you choose to wake up if it meant that level of sacrifice, no one I know would.

 

 

If given the choice between a million dollars or achieving enlightenment; take a million dollars, because you will be there to enjoy it. If you achieve enlightenment there will be no one there to enjoy it.

Edited April 4, 2008 by mwight

[rex]

Enlightenment isn't something you want or even could possibly want.

Perhaps this is refering to a particular view of enlightenment? Does the warning come from direct knowledge?

 

Because it results in the complete obliteration of all of ones emotional connections, life, and self in general.

How do we know this? Are there any testimonies to this effect?

[mwight]

Edited April 4, 2008 by mwight

[Xienkula1]

:k

Edited April 24, 2008 by Xienkula1

[Mantra68]

I like this one:

 

Enlightenment is a way of saying that all things are seen in their intrinsic empty nature, their Suchness, their ungraspable wonder. Names or words are merely incidental, but that state which sees no division, no duality, is enlightenment.

 

-Prajnaparamita

[rex]

[mwight]

Nice quotes! So do these really justify the view that enlightenment is not something that we would want or even could possibly want? The source of these quotes would certainly have argued to the contrary. Ego, the clever lawyer, will raise many objections to enlightenment. Still I wouldn't say no to a cool million while I'm blundering around.

 

Rex,

 

When Buddha said this world is a dream, that wasn't meant metaphorically. We conduct our lives as though everything we do has purpose and meaning, and were marching forward towards some great end. What meaning does a dream have? What meaning does instrumental song or an abstract painting have?

 

 

I think you might be missing what I'm getting at. You don't want enlightenment, because it isn't something which will better your life. As a matter of fact it will destroy it. It is a complete and total annihilation of self, identity, ego, life and attachments to loved ones/things.. Awakening is death. A hollowing out of being.

 

 

This world my friend is a big sand box, and we are just toddlers playing make believe with our sand creations.

Hey look my sand car is bigger than yours! Look at my sand house! And my sand money! And my sand computer. Look at my sand man, and all his little sand friends! Somehow over the course of our game of make believe we forgot we are not the sand people in the sand world, but rather the makers of it.

 

Enlightenment is reaching adult hood, and realizing playing make believe is a game children play. Walking out of the sandbox and trying to figure out just what the hell is really going on.

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z1RQmnSJoRg

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AXmzcroUmdU