The Term Enlightenment

[minusmode]

Thank you Lin for making the light above the long road brighter so we can walk safer.

 

Thank you SFjane for telling about your personal experiences regarding enlightenment, very enlightning and spot on, i think alot of people can recognize themselves in what you posted.

 

I noticed 1 thing personally and that is that talking and reading to much about enlightenment gets a person further away of it lol :/ it gets confusing while enlightenment isnt confusing at all. The story of pointing with the finger at the moon while most people only look at the finger.

 

On a sidenote i think some people on this forum are allready closer to enlightenment then they realise themselves, who knows what they all did this or previous lifetimes hehe.

 

Kind regards

PS: If you can describe enlightenment in 1 word (maybe 2) what would it be ?

 

Um..."indescribable?" lol

 

Glad you enjoyed it. Daniel Ingram has a really wonderful and completely free ebook called Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha that I just finished reading, highly recommended.

 

Sean

 

I'll definitely give that a read. I so prefer stuff I can read online...not only is it free, but I can make it large print if I want and save myself my usual reading headache!

[Mantra68]

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

[beancurdturtle]

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

So he said.

 

Using words.

 

Bit of an oxymoron isn't it?

 

Yet Zhuāng Zǐ(庄子) wouldn't be nearly as fun without this dichotomy.

道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。

　　无名天地之始﹔有名万物之母。

　　故常无，欲以观其妙﹔常有，欲以观其徼。

　　此两者，同出而异名，同谓之玄。

玄之又玄，众妙之门。

 

The Way that can be experienced is not true;

The world that can be constructed is not real.

The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;

The world represents all that exists and may exist.

 

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;

To experience with abstraction is to know the world.

These two experiences are indistinguishable;

Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

 

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,

Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

Peace,

 

http://beancurdturtle.spaces.live.com/blog...!2031.entry

[minkus]

I was talking to someone, a total stranger who was sitting on a bench on a big square in Antwerp .. he had a plate next to him saying: talk to me about the art of living .. so i did lol.

 

We had a very nice talk about the current dimension of human existance, he mainly refered to the work of Jean Gebser, he had the ever present origin in he's hands. (not that i know alot about the book, i was mainly listening what the man had to say wich was very intresting)

 

Suddenly a lady comes up with a cute dog, she happens to know the man im talking to. A girl is sitting a few meters further with an icecream in her hands. The dog rushes towards the icecream.

 

The older lady commented: Look at the dog, running straight towards the essence of its existance !

 

She put it so nice

 

Im glad i stopped to talk to the strange guy with he's plate hehe.

Edited December 29, 2007 by minkus

[doc benway]

 

PS: If you can describe enlightenment in 1 word (maybe 2) what would it be ?

To be...

[minkus]

To be...

 

Hey i had the same in mind as an answer

 

To be in its purest, most essential and original form hehe.