Recently I got to speak with an enlightened master and ask what enlightenment is.

[Thunder_Gooch]

[Thunder_Gooch]

Why Not

Spiritual enlightenment sits next to an empty milk carton on an orange lunch tray in a grade-school cafeteria.

It's lying in the grass in a ditch beside a rusting hubcap.

It's on the button holding closed the left cuff of a somewhat important man's shirt.

Enlightenment can be found next to the elevator on the fourth level of the airport parking garage.

You can ask your dog for it, but he may not give it to you.

Look for it next to the pen in the pocket of the checkout girl's red vest. But only on Wednesdays.

Enlightenment is in the trunk, behind the jack.

You can hear it in the squeak of a hinge on the door at the local library.

It's in the breeze blowing unheard through an unseen tree.

It's in the space after the exhale and before the inhale.
You can find enlightenment in church, in that scratch on the back of the pew in front of you.
You can find it in the desert, just before the wind picks it up again.

Enlightenment is nothing.
Delusion is the greatest wonder.

Enlightenment was in your coffee cup before you poured in the coffee.
Now it's in your coffee cup.
Two point two billion years before your coffee cup was created, Enlightenment was in your coffee cup.
An hour and fifteen minutes after time swallows the universe, Enlightenment will be in your coffee cup.

You've always known where it is because it's exactly where you left it.

How can you not return to a place you never left?
You are dreaming that you are unenlightened.
You are dreaming that you are awake.

The question is: Why?
The answer is: Why not?

-Jed McKenna

[Thunder_Gooch]

"Truly speaking, nothingness is what we want to talk about when we talk about the spiritual only it’s all been ignored, it’s been put down, saying oh, bleah! nothingness! Heaven preserve us from that! But… that’s where the secret lies! And obviously the secret always lies in the place you never think of looking for it!” -Alan Watts

 

 

The essence of your mind is intrinsically pure. Pure means clear, void.

 

See? If you think of this idea of nothingness as mere blankness, and you hold onto this idea of blankness then kind of grizzly about it, you haven't understood it. Nothingness is really like the nothingness of space, which contains the whole universe. All the sun and the stars and the mountains, and rivers, and the good men and bad men, and the animals, and insects, and the whole bit. All are contained in void. So out of this void comes everything and you are it. What else could you be?"

 

-Alan Watts

 

 

 

You will find that when Buddhists use the word 'mind' they mean space. See, space is your mind. It's very difficult for us to see that because we think we're IN space, and look out at it." -Alan Watts

Edited May 16, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[flowing hands]

Enlightenment has substance and form, it is this that separates it from emptiness and nothingness!

[Thunder_Gooch]

Nothingness

 

by Alan Watts

 

 

 

When I consider the weirdest of all things I can think of, do you know what it is? Nothing. The whole idea of nothing is something that has bugged people for centuries, especially in the Western world. We have a saying in Latin, Ex nihilo nihil fit, which means, "Out of nothing comes nothing." In other words, you can't get something out of nothing. It's occurred to me that this is a fallacy of tremendous proportions. It lies at the root of all our common sense, not only in the West, but in many parts of the East as well. It manifests as a kind of terror of nothing, a putdown on nothing, a putdown on everything associated with nothing such as sleep, passivity, rest, and even the feminine principle which is often equated with the negative principle (although women's lib people don't like that kind of thing, when they understand what I'm saying I don't think they'll object). To me, nothing—the negative, the empty—is exceedingly powerful. I would say, not Ex nihilo nihil fit, but, "You can't have something without nothing."

How do we basically begin to think about the difference between something and nothing? When I say there is a cigar in my right hand and there is no cigar in my left hand, we get the idea of is, something, and isn't, nothing. At the basis of this reasoning lies the far more obvious contrast of solid and space. We tend to think of space as nothing; when we talk about the conquest of space there's a little element of hostility. But actually, we're talking about the conquest of distance. Space or whatever it is that lies between the earth and the moon, and the earth and the sun, is considered to be just nothing at all.

But to suggest how very powerful and important this nothing at all is, let me point out that if you didn't have space, you couldn't have anything solid. Without space outside the solid you wouldn't know where the solid's edges were. For example, you can see me in a photograph because you see a background and that background shows up my outline. But if it weren't there, then I and everything around me would merge into a single, rather peculiar mass. You always have to have a background of space to see a figure. The figure and the background, the solid and the space, are inseparable and go together.

We find this very commonly in the phenomenon of magnetism. A magnet has a north pole and a south pole— there is no such thing as a magnet with one pole only. Supposing we equate north with is and south with isn't. You can chop the magnet into two pieces, if it's a bar magnet, and just get another north pole and south pole, another is and isn't, on the end of each piece.

What I am trying to get into basic logic is that there isn't a sort of fight between something and nothing. Everyone is familiar with the famous words of Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question." It isn't; to be or not to be is not the question. Because you can't have a solid without space. You can't have an is without an isn't, a something without a nothing, a figure without a background. And we can turn that round, and say, "You can't have space without solid."

Imagine nothing but space, space, space, space with nothing in it, forever. But there you are imagining it and you're something in it. The whole idea of there being only space, and nothing else at all, is not only inconceivable but perfectly meaningless, because we always know what we mean by contrast.

We know what we mean by white in comparison with black. We know life in comparison with death. We know pleasure in comparison with pain, up in comparison with down. But all these things must come into being together. You don't have first something and then nothing or first nothing and then something. Something and nothing are two sides of the same coin. If you file away the tails side of a coin completely, the heads side of it will disappear as well. So in this sense, the positive and negative, the something and the nothing, are inseparable—they go together. The nothing is the force whereby the something can be manifested.

We think that matter is basic to the physical world. And matter has various shapes. We think of tables as made of wood as we think of pots as made of clay. But is a tree made of wood in the same way a table is? No, a tree is wood; it isn't made of wood. Wood and tree are two different names for the same thing.

But there is in the back of our mind, the notion, as a root of common sense, that everything in the world is made of some kind of basic stuff. Physicists, through centuries, have wanted to know what that was. Indeed, physics began as a quest to discover the basic stuff out of which the world is made. And with all our advances in physics we've never found it. What we have found is not stuff but form. We have found shapes. We have found structures. When you turn up the microscope and look at things expecting to see some sort of stuff, you find instead form, pattern, structure. You find the shape of crystals, beyond the shapes of crystals you find molecules, beyond molecules you find atoms, beyond atoms you find electrons and positrons between which there are vast spaces. We can't decide whether these electrons are waves or particles and so we call them wavicles.

What we will come up with will never be stuff, it will always be a pattern. This pattern can be described, measured, but we never get to any stuff for the simple reason there isn't any. Actually, stuff is when you see something unclearly or out of focus, fuzzy. When we look at it with the naked eye it looks just like goo. We can't make out any significant shape to it. But when you put it under the microscope, you suddenly see shapes. It comes into clear focus as shape.

And you can go on and on, looking into the nature of the world and you will never find anything except form. Think of stuff; basic substance. You wouldn't know how to talk '' about it; even if you found it, how would you describe what it was like? You couldn't say anything about a structure in it, you couldn't say anything about a pattern or a process in it, because it would be absolute, primordial goo.

What else is there besides form in the world? Obviously, between the significant shapes of any form there is space. And space and form go together as the fundamental things we're dealing with in this universe. The whole of Buddhism is based on a saying, "That which is void is precisely form, and that which is form is precisely void." Let me illustrate this to you in an extremely simple way. When you use the word clarity, what do you mean? It might mean a perfectly polished lens, or mirror, or a clear day when there's no smog and the air is perfectly transparent like space.

What's the next thing clarity makes you think of? You think of form in clear focus, all the details articulate and perfect. So the one word clarity suggests to you these two apparently completely different things: the clarity of the lens or the mirror, and the clarity of articulate form. In this sense, we can take the saying "Form is void, void is form" and instead of saying is, say implies, or the word that I invented goeswith. Form always goeswith void. And there really isn't,, in this whole universe, any substance.

Form, indeed, is inseparable from the idea of energy, and form, especially when it's moving in a very circumscribed area, appears to us as solid. For example, when you spin an electric fan the empty spaces between the blades sort of disappear into a blur, and you can't push a pencil, much less your finger, through the fan. So in the same way, you can't push your finger through the floor because the floor's going too fast. Basically, what you have down there is nothing and form in motion.

I knew of a physicist at the University of Chicago who was rather crazy like some scientists, and the idea of the insolidity, the instability of the physcial world, impressed him so much that he used to go around in enormous padded slippers for fear he should fall through the floor. So this commonsense notion that the world is made of some kind of substance is a nonsense idea—it isn't there at all but is, instead, form and emptiness.

Most forms of energy are vibration, pulsation. The energy of light or the energy of sound are always on and off. In the case of very fast light, very strong light, even with alternating current you don't notice the discontinuity because your retina retains the impression of the on pulse and you can't notice the off pulse except in very slow light like an arc lamp. It's exactly the same thing with sound. A high note seems more continuous because the vibrations are faster than a low note. In the low note you hear a kind of graininess because of the slower alternations of on and off.

All wave motion is this process, and when we think of waves, we think about crests. The crests stand out from the underlying, uniform bed of water. These crests are perceived as the things, the forms, the waves. But you cannot have the emphasis called a crest, the concave, without the de-emphasis, or convex, called the trough. So to have anything standing out, there must be something standing down or standing back. We must realize that if you had this part alone, the up part, that would not excite your senses because there would be no contrast.

The same thing is true of all life together. We shouldn't really contrast existence with nonexistence, because actually, existence is the alternation of now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't. It is that contrast that presents the sensation of there being anything at all.

Now, in light and sound the waves are extraordinarily rapid so that we don't hear or see the interval between them. But there are other circumstances in which the waves are extraordinarily slow, as in the alternation of day and night, light and darkness, and the much vaster alternations of life and death. But these alternations are just as necessary to the being of the universe as in the very fast motions of light and sound, and in the sense of solid contact when it's going so rapidly that we notice only continuity or the is side. We ignore the intervention of the isn't side, but it's there just the same, just as there are vast spaces within the very heart of the atom.

Another thing that goes along with all this is that it's perfectly obvious that the universe is a system which is aware of itself. In other words, we, as living organisms, are forms of the energy of the universe just as much as the stars and the galaxies, and, through our sense organs, this system of energy becomes aware of itself.

But to understand this we must again relate back to our basic contrast between on and off, something and nothing, which is that the aspect of the universe which is aware of itself, which does the awaring, does not see itself. In other words, you can't look at your eyes with your eyes. You can't observe yourself in the act of observing. You can't touch the tip of a finger with the tip of the same finger no matter how hard you try. Therefore, there is on the reverse side of all observation a blank spot; for example, behind your eyes from the point of view of your eyes. However you look around there is blankness behind them. That's unknown. That's the part of the universe which does not see itself because it is seeing.

We always get this division of experience into one-half known, one-half unknown. We would like to know, if we could, this always unknown. If we examine the brain and the structure of the nerves behind the eyes, we're always looking at somebody else's brain. We're never able to look at our own brain at the same time we're investigating somebody else's brain.

So there is always this blank side of experience. What I'm suggesting is that the blank side of experience has the same relationship to the conscious side as the off principle of vibration has to the on principle. There's a fundamental division. The Chinese call them the yang, the positive side, and the yin, the negative side. This corresponds to the idea of one and zero. All numbers can be made of one and zero as in the binary system of numbers which is used for computers.

And so it's all made up of off and on, and conscious and unconscious. But the unconscious is the part of experience which is doing consciousness, just as the trough manifests the wave, the space manifests the solid, the background manifests the figure. And so all that side of life which you call unconscious, unknown, impenetrable, is unconscious, unknown, impenetrable because it's really you. In other words, the deepest you is the nothing side, is the side which you don't know.

So, don't be afraid of nothing. I could say, "There's nothing in nothing to be afraid of." But people in our culture are terrified of nothing. They're terrified of death; they are uneasy about sleep, because they think it's a waste of time. They have a lurking fear in the back of their minds that the universe is eventually going to run down and end in nothing, and it will all be forgotten, buried and dead. But this is a completely unreasonable fear, because it is just precisely this nothing which is always the source of something.

Think once again of the image of clarity, crystal clear. Nothing is what brings something into focus. This nothing, symbolized by the crystal, is your own eyeball, your own consciousness.

Edited May 16, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

"Your body is empty; emptiness is your body. Emptiness

is nothing but your body, and your body is nothing but emptiness."

 

"Every existing thing is emptiness."

 

 

"There are no eyes; no ears; no nose; no tongue; no body; no mind; nothing to see; nothing to hear; nothing to smell; nothing to taste; nothing to touch; and nothing to think of."

 

 

"There is no part of you that sees. There is no part of you that is aware of what you see; and this is true all the way up to the part of you that thinks, and the part of you that is aware that you are thinking."

-Buddha (quoted from The Heart Sutra)

[Mokona]

Does anyone consider enlightenment to be a biological phenomina?

[Randy M.]

Does anyone consider enlightenment to be a biological phenomina?

 

The path to enlightenment, or the practice of meditation, has biological consequences to the practitioner, as measured by brain and body chemistry. .....and brain electrical output. Lots of research has established that phenomenon and I won't rehash all of that.

 

Also, I believe that there are inductive changes in the energy fields of people surrounding realized beings, leading to unconscious learning and biological changes as well. This is where the teacher teaches without teaching. This phenomenon is also called transmission. Regarding remote influencing of people's biology by masters, Lynne McTaggert has written a book documenting much of that research called The Field.

[Wayfarer]

Hi Guys,

 

Just some points:

 

1) I have heard a lot of people who say that if a person says they are enlightened then that means they are not - well Buddha said he was Awakened (as you know same thing) hence the name Buddha. So the person at the core of this religion thinks it's okay to admit to being enlightened.

 

2) When you experience enlightenment it is not something you work out intellectually but something you notice about the world you have always overlooked. If you are not Awake the world is different than how it appears to you - this is the ignorance and delusion Buddha spoke of and is why he explained the 4 Noble Truths as his first teaching because central to that teaching and all of his teachings (as they are in fact a single teaching) is RIGHT VIEW. You either have it or you don't. How did Buddha Awaken? He noticed something different about the planet Venus in the morning sky and then saw that 'presence' alight in all things because all things are a single thing.

 

3) There is no Karma, no cause and effect, nothing changes. Nothing is impermanent. Only our deluded mind thinks the world changes. This is how a Buddha steps off the wheel of Cause and Effect and ends Karma because such a person notices there is only ONE. There can't be both Oneness and Cause and Effect.

 

4) The word Emptiness is used because an Awakened person is 'empty' of distinctions. There is not a Void and a You, or a Universe you are part of. What you ARE is Buddha-Nature. Jesus saw Buddha-Nature in the sky while being baptised and called it God, Lao Tsu noticed it in trees and named it Tao, Moses saw it alight in a bush and called it Yahweh (or something like that), Mary Magdelene noticed Christ in the cave after the death of Jesus, Boddhidharma saw Christ in a cave after 9-years of practice and called it Zen and is why Soto Zen practitioners sit facing a wall - not to have their eyes closed in meditation but to notice something about the wall they are currently overlooking.

 

5) When you are enlightened you know neither enlightenment or you exist. For you to exist is to see you as other when this cannot be. There is only One, so what calls it the One? When there is only One there is in fact nothing. Empty of distinctions as to make something distinct more than one thing is required. When enlightened you know no enlightenment exists because this is also a distinction. All that happens is you notice the presence of True-Essence, God, Buddha-Nature, True-Self, Tao whatever name you give it, only one thing is being referred to. Whether enlightened or not, you are no different. What is sought after is everywhere you look.

 

The person who thinks of himself as Enlightened sounds to me like they are. I have experienced the same state of Oneness. This Truth is not true at all. What makes it True is the fact mankind is blind to what is within and without him and therefore is left making distinctions. It is found in silence and stillness (as what is holy colours everything with the same hue - that of being settled) - this is why we meditate and have silent contemplation. To Notice.

 

Hope this helps

 

Heath

Edited May 22, 2012 by Wayfarer

[Informer]

[Wayfarer]

Hi Informer,

 

Yep agreed. Awakening is the start of practice really as what has been noticed needs to be made part of the everyday which takes time to nurture and develop. I don't particularly agree with the Dhammakaya points as what we call pure mind and mind are not different - there is nothing to purify as such - so hence the dust and the mirror are not distinct from one another. And Krishnamurti, I've come across a little of this man's teachings and whatever he says seems to be the truth. How wonderful!

 

Thanks for the quotes.

 

Heath

 

It is semantics, but you might find something of interest.

 

 

 

Buddha only said "I AM AWAKE." and very humbly to the onslaught of wayfarers. (He was not claiming a label for himself to wear like a gold chain.)

 

There is not knowing if someone is enlightened, you can only believe. If they offer belief over truth, then you should decide which is more important to your path. Awakening has various meaning to various traditions, I consider one to be awaken once realization of third eye for instance. Some consider Nirvana awakening, which is also achieved from the same relative point of activation as third eye. This also coincides with the same point that is used in self inquiry and to realize true-self.

 

 

 

That was all in regards to awakening, so lets see what they say about Enlightenment.

 

 

 

There is a lot more after awakening . . . an infinite amount more.

[Informer]

I think this is what your guy was referring to, yet does not understand it really:

 

 

The little guy viewing the screen inside your head, that you "think" you are, is not what you are. You are the awareness that the little guy arises in. The little guy is a construct built by you. It doesn't mean You don't exist, it means that idea of you isn't you. Emptiness does not equate to non-existence.

 

So can you see how "you" doesn't exist but you do exist?

 

(P.S. realizing you are not the image that guy has in his head is not enlightenment, but it is a step in the right direction.)

Edited May 24, 2012 by Informer

[Informer]

If it is who I think it is, then he will probably present a fallacious argument which is known as an argument from ignorance:

 

Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance" (where "ignorance" stands for: "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false, it is "generally accepted" (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four, (1) true, (2) false, (3) unknown between true or false, and (4) being unknowable (among the first three).[1] In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

 

There is no evidence for p.

Therefore, not-p.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html

 

For instance, he will say that since you can't find a self that is evidence that you do not exist. (False Dichotomy)

 

You would have to draw really long lines of fallacious logic to say self not existing equivocates to you not existing.

 

"Cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore exist (my version to eliminate the circular element of I)) by Descartes, shows that by pondering existence we are affirming existence, for that ponderance must arise from or in something. It doesn't say to me that you exist, or to me how I exist, or even what I am, only that there is something in existence to precede the thought of such.

 

Anatta in a nutshell:

 

In Buddhism, the term anattā (Pāli) or anātman (Sanskrit: अनात्मन्) refers to the notion of "not-self" or the illusion of "self". In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses (including the mental sense) are not really "I" or "mine", and for this reason one should not cling to them.

 

In the same vein, the Pali suttas (and parallel āgamas, both referred to collectively below as the nikāyas), categorize the phenomena experienced by a being into five groups ("khandhas") that serve as the objects of clinging and as the basis for a sense of self. In the Nikāyas, the Buddha repeatedly emphasizes not only that the five khandhas of living beings are "not-self", i.e. not "I" or "mine", but also that clinging to them as if they were "I" or "mine" gives rise to unhappiness.

 

I is generally pointing to the "self", or the little image in the picture. If these things are seemingly contradictory, look again before you rebuttal.

 

This is what I think your "enlightened" acquaintance is saying in conclusion:

 

 

"Since I can't see anything, nothing exists!"

Edited May 24, 2012 by Informer

[Thunder_Gooch]

If I understood the person I spoke with correctly. There is the experience of you, but there is no being experiencing the experience, just the experience itself exists. There is no one thinking the thoughts, just the thoughts themselves. There is no one making a choice, just the experience of a choice being made. Etc.

 

All that we perceive is an experience and with no being experiencing it.

 

I think Buddha made what he was saying pretty clear:

 

 

 

 

"Your body is empty; emptiness is your body. Emptiness

is nothing but your body, and your body is nothing but emptiness."

 

"Every existing thing is emptiness."

 

 

"There are no eyes; no ears; no nose; no tongue; no body; no mind; nothing to see; nothing to hear; nothing to smell; nothing to taste; nothing to touch; and nothing to think of."

 

 

"There is no part of you that sees. There is no part of you that is aware of what you see; and this is true all the way up to the part of you that thinks, and the part of you that is aware that you are thinking."

 

-Buddha (quoted from The Heart Sutra)

 

"All existing things are such that no living being exists, and nothing that lives exists, and no person exists."

 

 

"A mind which is past is non-existent. And a mind in the future is non-existent. And a mind that is going on at the present is non-existent as well."

 

 

"At that moment there came into my mind no conception of a self, nor of a sentient being, nor of a living being, nor of a person —I had no conception at all. But neither did I have no conception."

 

 

"Bodhisattvas give all that they have, for the sake of every

living being. And this same conception of anyone as a living

being is a conception that does not exist; when the Buddha(One Gone)

Thus speaks of "every living being," they too are living beings

that do not even exist."

-Buddha quoted from the diamond sutra

 

Suffering alone exists, none who suffer;

The deed there is, but no doer thereof;

Nirvana is, but no one seeking it;

The Path there is, but none who travel it."

 

-Buddha quoted from the (Visuddhimagga) The Path of Purification sutra

 

 

 

"When this man I talked to, Hui-Neng, said that you shouldn't just try to cultivate a

blank mind, what he said was this: the void, sunyata, is like space.

 

 

Now, space contains everything--the mountains, the oceans, the stars,

the good people and the bad people, the plants, the animals, everything.

The mind in us--the true mind--is like that.

 

You will find that when Buddhists use the word 'mind'--they've several words for 'mind,' but I'm not going into the technicality at the moment-- they mean space. See, space is your mind. It's very difficult for us to see that because we think we're IN space, and look out at it."

 

-Alan Watts

Edited May 24, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Informer]

Exactly, so realize those are 2 separate points. Self not existing, does not equivocate to nothing existing, as I think your friend would have you believe. You do exist, behind the self, behind the illusion, behind the curtains, as the awareness of it all.

[Thunder_Gooch]

What is something that exists as anything other awareness of an experience?

 

 

Exactly, so realize those are 2 separate points. Self not existing, does not equivocate to nothing existing, as I think your friend would have you believe. You do exist, behind the self, behind the illusion, behind the curtains, as the awareness of it all.

[Informer]

Ask the man who supposedly plays neigong

 

It's all awareness, as awareness is like water, the formless form, no form so all forms. Emptiness is formless, certain energy points are molds for it to form too.

 

(The fact that you are questioning it makes me think that you are inherently that as well, underneath all the constructs, we all are, only that.)

Edited May 24, 2012 by Informer

[Wayfarer]

Hello again folks.

 

Just some thoughts regarding the last few posts - these are based on my experiences and I'm not saying you should accept them as right, I am offering them in the spirit of sharing rather than "I'm telling you how it is"...

 

We, Descartes etc our thinking is way too complicated. Whether the self is evident or not is a simple thing and involves no logical or intellectual thought, hence it cannot be worked out in that sense, it has to be experienced (nothing you didn't already know). I have to 'think' to respond to you here but this does not mean that "pondering affairs is evidence of self" thinking occurs without self. How so?

 

Perhaps think of it as not a loss of self but more a gaining of Whole. Every object in our world and beyond shares a common trait; the wholeness of IT. This quality is overlooked by all those who are unenlightened, it is the ignorance and delusion that is the source of our suffering (in an all pervasive sense). What goes unnoticed is present everywhere, it doesn't appear different than anything you already see but the experience of noticing it is a little like staring at those funny pictures people went mad about in the 80's and 90's where if you stare at them long enough a different image suddenly appears from the jumbled mess and we have our 'aha' moment. People who can't see it swear you are making it up until they hear of other people who have experienced the same image then they start to believe.

 

The ancients (including Buddha) used to 'teach' it in a very simple manner by pointing at certain objects above and beyond others in the hope we might notice the common trait. They would discuss it in clear easy language but soon realised that such a simple practice was difficult to comprehend by our mind and hardly anyone could 'get it' therefore teachings became more and more complicated in a bid to occupy the conscious mind or to exasperate it (Koans). See Buddha's early teachings then compare to the Diamond Sutra for example.

 

The problem I have with it all is people who think they know want to sound like an ancient master and talk in riddles so they sound like the teacher in David Carradine's Kung Fu "Grasshopper..." Even if they are awakened this is not helpful. The Truth is so simple that when you notice it you can't help laughing at yourself or the world for being so ridiculous for making things way, way more complicated than they need to be. So, which do you prefer the complicated or the easy? If an enlightened person talks simply but you can't get it well that is to be expected but if someone talks in riddles just to sound great which is less helpful?

 

I won't dwell on this because I've mentioned it elsewhere but call it what you will Tao, Buddha-Nature or God it is the same thing, it is the ONLY thing that exists - we are not a part of it WE ARE IT, God/Tao is not something other than us. IT's expression is the same everywhere because everywhere is IT. Does it make sense then that it has a particular quality that can be noticed anywhere? Well that quality is one of being settled and is why the ancients directed us towards Stillness.

 

So finally, let's look at this back to front for a moment. You are Awakened. By some stroke of luck you have noticed this quality and see it everywhere you look. Consequently you know that IT is you, IT is all things that are not you - do you see how you might begin to view the world with effortless equanimity? When you notice IT everywhere are you then likely to be attracted to somethings over others, no. If the world no longer distracts you as it did can you see how your state of peace remains undisturbed? So what of experience? If I cut your hand off you would feel pain for sure but you are still IT and your severed hand is still IT - you feel the pain as your body is injured but your ITness has not altered. The 'you' you once believed existed is IT. Once this is known there are no distinctions; what was once viewed as large is IT, or small is IT, past is IT, future is IT, good is IT, bad is IT, peace is IT, non-peace is IT. IT, IT, IT. We do not have peace because we don't notice IT. Simple.

 

Look to the clouds on a blue sky day - notice IT. Look to pine trees on a calm day - notice IT. To me these are the clearest expression of God, of Buddha-Nature. Look to how you 'feel' around your stomach/solar plexus area when very still - notice IT (this feeling also occurs when you notice the Presence outside of you). Noticing is not in the head but in the heart, the torso - your body cannot ignore IT, it is what your heart cries out for - we've just got to get your head and heart together lol! Also when silent notice the wisdom of IT. This is the word of God or innate-nature. It is our sacred wisdom, what we were born with but has been present throughout time. This is our Knowing, our enlightened mind and once Awake our practice is for all our ways of doing to be actioned through this holy filter (our way of Being). Be still, be silent and observe - this is the heart of practice for all religions simply because they are trying to describe how to notice the same thing. The real beauty is that you don't need to Awaken to nourish and nurture your holy 'self' being tranquil makes it blossom and the more often you are serene the greater its presence becomes and the more likely you are to notice - but you still get the benefits of practice, nice huh?

 

Sorry to have gone on! Hope this helps.

 

Heath

Edited May 25, 2012 by Wayfarer

[Everything]

So I asked him what is enlightenment. I am paraphrasing.

 

What is enlightenment?

 

"It's what you were before you were born, and will be after you die."

 

So if I didn't exist then, how could I be enlightened?

 

"You can't be enlightened, it isn't possible to exist and be enlightened."

 

So if enlightenment is truth, and I can't exist and be enlightened, then...

 

"You exist because you are delusional and think you exist when in fact you don't exist."

 

So what exists then?

 

"Nothing exists."

 

What am I seeing right now?

 

"Delusion."

 

So how do I find any truth if everything I can see is delusion?

 

"Your teacup is full, pour it out. You can see empty space can't you?"

 

Yes but what does that have to do with enlightenment?

 

 

"You are empty space, enlightenment is emptiness, I am empty, you are empty, everyone is empty. We are all one thing and it is the emptiness"

 

So what am I seeing in the mirror if I am empty?

 

"There is no one there to look at a mirror, just emptiness."

 

Is this really the truth?

 

"Yes it is really the truth"

Wow, you spoke trough dream? That sounds so crystal clear. Its kind true, since all we see here is 0,0001% or something. Empty space / vacuum has all the mass in the universe. We just float in this empty space, never touching anything not even ourselves. We are pretty much empty space itself. This manifestation is but a tiny tiny part of us. Like an illusion. Just enough for "make believe"

The artist doesn't create superman, he is the creator of his drawing. He himself is superman and superman is made in his image. That is why when you're done reading the book, you become superman again.

[manitou]

Someone on a recent thread said a really interesting thing: once enlightenment is reached, there is a path after enlightenment that must be walked. This resonates with me.

 

I don't know what enlightenment is; I tend to agree with those that know it's there underlying all along, and it's there for us to find within. But what I do know, after walking my own metaphysical path for 40 years, is that we reach a place inside our psyche (or heart?) where we hover. It's a spaciousness, a hovering detatched feeling, nearly identical to meditation that remains with us during the day. It's easy enough to slip out of the awareness; perhaps being cut off in traffic, standing in a long line - an argument with a spouse - these things can bounce us out of awareness in an instant, and keep us furled up all day. But we always have the choice to transcend the situation with Love and see all others as merely an extension of ourselves. I AM You.

 

We can keep the mindset of the Sage. Never be the first. Never too much. Love. (the 3 treasures) These three little concepts are ones I use daily to stay in the place of overview, the hovering state. When all persons are recognized as another phase of Me, it's easier to chuckle and buy out of the entangling circumstance. Or to see us all as the humorous talking monkeys that we are, each of us thinking we have the Answers.

Edited June 1, 2012 by manitou

[gatito]

Aren't we always Awareness/Consciousness?

[Thunder_Gooch]

Aren't we always Awareness/Consciousness?

 

I think so yes... but that's all we are nothing more.

[Brian]

Someone on a recent thread said a really interesting thing: once enlightenment is reached, there is a path after enlightenment that must be walked. This resonates with me.

 

I don't know what enlightenment is; I tend to agree with those that know it's there underlying all along, and it's there for us to find within. But what I do know, after walking my own metaphysical path for 40 years, is that we reach a place inside our psyche (or heart?) where we hover. It's a spaciousness, a hovering detatched feeling, nearly identical to meditation that remains with us during the day. It's easy enough to slip out of the awareness; perhaps being cut off in traffic, standing in a long line - an argument with a spouse - these things can bounce us out of awareness in an instant, and keep us furled up all day. But we always have the choice to transcend the situation with Love and see all others as merely an extension of ourselves. I AM You.

 

We can keep the mindset of the Sage. Never be the first. Never too much. Love. (the 3 treasures) These three little concepts are ones I use daily to stay in the place of overview, the hovering state. When all persons are recognized as another phase of Me, it's easier to chuckle and buy out of the entangling circumstance. Or to see us all as the humorous talking monkeys that we are, each of us thinking we have the Answers.

 

I really like this. Thank you, manitou.

[gatito]

I think so yes... but that's all we are nothing more.

 

Isn't that enough/everything?

[Wells]

What is enlightenment?

 

"It's what you were before you were born, and will be after you die."

 

So don't worry, when you die you will go to heaven..excuse me, you'll become enlightened (again)!

 

Excuse me, but that sounds to me like BS from a guy who knows not what he's talking about!