Enlightenment

[Chang]

A simple question but let us see how simple is the answer.

 

What is enlightenment?

[Rara]

"Knowing Thyself is Enlightenment"...

 

-Lao Tzu...

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Gnosis not to grasp to things, views, customs or views of self.

[C T]

the lotus flower is rooted in the mud

[Miffymog]

Beyond my simple comprehension.

[Chang]

My own view is that it is impossible for one who is unenlightened to understand enlightenment.

 

It follows that it is therefore impossible for an enlightened person to describe enlightenment to the unenlightened.

 

At best we may have a description of the attributes of enlightenment, not the thing itself but a finger pointing at the moon.

[Brian]

I think enlightenment is a process rather than a state.

[RigdzinTrinley]

but the finger pointing at the moon is already so beautiful, for silly sentient beings like me I can't help but be totally in love with that finger

 

seeing how beautiful the finger is, I can sense how beautiful the actual moon must be

 

I feel like sharing one example of that finger:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JNaBxyIbic

 

hmmmmm doesn't post the video (HELP?)

Edited November 9, 2015 by RigdzinTrinley

[Rara]

My own view is that it is impossible for one who is unenlightened to understand enlightenment.

 

It follows that it is therefore impossible for an enlightened person to describe enlightenment to the unenlightened.

 

At best we may have a description of the attributes of enlightenment, not the thing itself but a finger pointing at the moon.

"Understand", therefore, not being a relevant word. Experience is everything... Edited November 9, 2015 by Rara

[Chang]

"Understand", therefore, not being a relevant word. Experience is everything...

 

Yes. As regards enlightenment an intellectual understanding is meaningless.

 

Only enlightenment itself can provide understanding of that state of being. All else is conjecture.

 

Which means that all those seeking enlightenment are seeking that which they do not understand. They are truly travelling in hope.

[C T]

maybe helpful to bear in mind that there are different nuances to 'seeking'. 

 

thats why in certain Buddhist schools, seekers are encouraged and reminded always to check their motivation. 

 

some form of earnestness must follow one's spiritual development, otherwise it is possible for arrogance or slothfulness, or both,

to seep in. 

[Bearded Dragon]

A simple question but let us see how simple is the answer.

 

What is enlightenment?

 

It's an empty word used to set up the desire for more empty words.

[Kubba]

[3bob]

"neti, neti"

 

"fear not"

[LAOLONG]

enlightenment is illuminaty

[ilumairen]

It is just another word that we can stuck in. We think 'this'. We think 'that. We 'know this'. Sometimes we remember and sometimes we forget. I have yet to meet someone who doesn't forget, this someone I call me included. The word is nothing more than the wind shaking the fall leaves lose, and blowing them about - just as attachments are shaken lose and blown away. It is a word used to describe the very experience that attachment to the word and idea can steal away.

[3bob]

Chang, I'd say an intellectual description based on understanding that does not get in the way and which can act as part of a pointing finger is not to be written off... also I see nothing wrong with an intellectual approach that does not get in its own way and is smart enough to recognize its own limitations after struggling to and reaching a threshold from which things may go further or proceed.

Edited November 11, 2015 by 3bob

[sabretooth]

dearth vader was enlightened.

so was the head boy in my last school.

 

 

 

                                                        sabretooth.