Defining Enlightenment

[Otis]

Hello Steve,

 

I loved your original post too. I think what I've come to understand is that there really is no such thing as enlightenment. When you look at the experience of enlightenment, it's intricately linked to no-enlightenment, all you are doing is moving from one end of that experience to the other. The perception of enlightenment doesn't change the experience, it just changes what we believe it is. Ignorance and knowledge are the same thing. It is better in my opinion to not worry about such things as enlightenment (I know this may sound hypocritical, but it's a recent insight, after examining it more closely).

 

I am beginning to understand more each day that the true trick to actually living life, is to give up our preconceptions about life, these things we've been told are true and lies, and just realize that there is no truth or lie, that everything that exists simply exists and as deci belle says, changes and transforms. We are not the same person we were ten years ago, but we are as well. The trick to understanding who we are is to see the entirety of the experience of being I as it really is. When we can see that, then we can see that all these experiences are really just one experience, the state of being.

 

Aaron

Excellent, Aaron!

[Bluefront]

What is enlightenment?

 

It's a nice idea, concept or thought.

 

Ultimately none of this can be spoken about or defined. Language is all about breaking down reality into bits and pieces. Therefor, language is by nature dualistic and speaking about non-dualism is essentially not possible. That's when paradoxes start to come up. Language can give some pretty good pointers to the truth, but only pointers.

Edited June 10, 2011 by Bluefront

[ChiDragon]

What is enlightenment?

 

It's a nice idea, concept or thought.

 

Ultimately none of this can be spoken about or defined. Language is all about breaking down reality into bits and pieces. Therefor, language is by nature dualistic and speaking about non-dualism is essentially not possible. That's when paradoxes start to come up. Language can give some pretty good pointers to the truth, but only pointers.

 

BTW Enlightenment is only by intuition with the wisdom of the enlightened one.

 

Is it fair to say that one can be enlightened without spoken or defined but by grokking...???

Edited June 10, 2011 by ChiDragon

[zerostao]

perhaps trying to express an experience of enlightenment would be hard to put into words. maybe one could try a metaphor but it probably will not come close to describing the experience. i tend to think these are tranistory by nature.

[manitou]

perhaps trying to express an experience of enlightenment would be hard to put into words. maybe one could try a metaphor but it probably will not come close to describing the experience. i tend to think these are tranistory by nature.

 

Metaphors, I think, are usually the triangulation necessary to make the unsayable visible.

[Otis]

perhaps trying to express an experience of enlightenment would be hard to put into words. maybe one could try a metaphor but it probably will not come close to describing the experience. i tend to think these are tranistory by nature.

Very true. I think a great deal of religious superstition occurs, because the worshipers take the metaphors too literally, and forget their "transitory" nature.

[Otis]

Metaphors, I think, are usually the triangulation necessary to make the unsayable visible.

Definitely. Metaphors are the pointing fingers.

[steve]

Metaphors, I think, are usually the triangulation necessary to make the unsayable visible.

Yes, and poetry...

 

 

Very true. I think a great deal of religious superstition occurs, because the worshipers take the metaphors too literally, and forget their "transitory" nature.

Exactly right! Nice insight. And they tend to see through the metaphors of the other tribe, but not their own.

Fascinating to observe - an example of thought not seeing itself, like the knife can't cut itself?

[Aaron]

Yes, and poetry...

 

 

 

Exactly right! Nice insight. And they tend to see through the metaphors of the other tribe, but not their own.

Fascinating to observe - an example of thought not seeing itself, like the knife can't cut itself?

 

The most ironic part is that for Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Taoism (yes Taoism), if you examine the actual morality advocated, there is very little difference between them. I think it's laughable (imo) that what causes such strife is the fact that they don't believe one should follow this moral behavior for the same reasons. And hence the reason I don't practice religion.

 

 

Aaron

[Mark Foote]

Checking the quote CowTao posted I find the following:

 

The word Prajnaparamita comes through in its Sanskrit form. This means "Perfection of insight", the highest, clearest, most straightforward or most important insight. This word insight does not just refer to an intellectual insight like the solving of a mathematical equation. It is not to do with words. This is explicit in Roshi Kennets version which says "Deepest wisdom of the heart which is beyond discriminative thought". In other contexts the word Prajna means no thought, something which is insight.

 

I'd like to put forward a slightly different way of seeing this. I think what I have to say has to do with enlightenment, but so do all the things people have mentioned on this thread.

 

I wrote a description of zazen, and I'm going to quote it here because I can't think of a way to say it any better, and this is my starting point:

 

"Simply by being where we are, we can come to forget the self. The sense of place engenders an ability to feel, and each thing we feel enters into the sense of place- even before we know it."

 

Two things I'd like to point out about that description; the first is that the sense of place is associated with the occurrence of consciousness, and the second is that the sense of place engenders an ability to feel because our sense of location in space (our sense of place) is intimately connected with our sense of balance, and our sense of balance creates activity and alignment that generates an ability to feel.

 

Which came first, Gautama the Buddha's experience of being with each thing, even before he knew it, or what he taught as the four truths about suffering? Like all of you, I'm sure, I would say neither; somehow they are part and parcel of the same experience and for me, descriptions like "beyond discriminative thought" and "no thought" go too far.

 

We are talking about an absorption. Consciousness takes place with contact between a sense organ and a sense object, the impact of the place of consciousness on fascial stretch produces activity that generates an ability to feel, and the spontaneous ability to feel allows the free occurrence of consciousness. This is an everyday occurrence for everyone. The enlightenment part is the witness of how aversion, attraction, or ignorance of what is felt conditions the occurrence of consciousness; this witness is spontaneous, and frees the occurrence of consciousness. This is also an everyday occurrence for everyone.

 

The practice as I understand it consists of relaxation and calm in the experience of a sense of place, and in the experience of the impact and feeling associated with that sense of place. A witness of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and a way leading to the cessation of suffering becomes part of the practice, which is of course just ordinary life, as each thing we feel enters into the sense of place.

 

Maybe my favorite quote from Yuanwu (12th century China) is:

 

"When you arrive at last at towering up like a wall miles high, you will finally know that there aren't so many things."

 

(Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu; trans. by Cleary & Cleary, page 83, copyright 1994 by J. C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary)

Edited June 13, 2011 by Mark Foote

[Adishakti]

I've experienced something which felt like what this word 'enlightenment' could mean to me. They come as few, rare, unexpected, moments. Those moments gave me a glimpse of what full-time awareness could mean, or what I should aspire towards. I don't know if I'll be able to put in words but I'll try. What I felt was this: I knew exactly why I did - what I did, and what it could mean on a bigger canvas. My action was like a single calligraphy stroke but I could envision the whole picture in the larger scheme of things. And at that moment I felt no one or no thing was right or wrong, it all felt perfect.

 

That freaking moment just felt so terribly perfect that it wanted to make me cry for all those times in future when I'm going to live in unawareness, judgment and smallness. It's so unfair that these moments last only a few minutes. Sometimes seconds. And they are so few and far between.

 

[stan herman]

[forestofemptiness]

Often in the West, enlightenment is described as a state. It is somewhere we go to, from here, which is considered ignorance. I think a lot of us think of enlightenment as a state of enduring bliss.

 

But how did the ancient ones describe it? In Sanskrit, atma jnana, self knowing. In Zen and Chan, seeing one's original face.