Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You're enlightened – now what?

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 239 posts

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#91

Post by dr_dshiv »

Liquix wrote: post #11

Zen saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water" . Some more from Ram Dass: “Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.” "If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, "Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!" it catches you back int…

It seems to easy to reach enlightenment when you are living in a monastery with a bunch of dudes and no responsibilities but to "chop wood, carry water."

But an enlightenment philosophy that can help a father of 3 with a hard marriage and a fulltime job or two...?

Hmm, maybe the enlightment philosophy project will take a few thousand more years...

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#92

Post by seisvelas »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #91
Liquix wrote: post #11

Zen saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water" . Some more from Ram Dass: “Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.” "If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, "Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!" it catches you back int…

It seems to easy to reach enlightenment when you are living in a monastery with a bunch of dudes and no responsibilities but to "chop wood, carry water." But an enlightenment philosophy that can help a father of 3 with a hard marriage and a fulltime job or two...? Hmm, maybe the enlightment philosophy project will take a few thousand more years...

The Vimalakirti Sutra is about exactly this. Vimalakirti is a laymen householder who achieves enlightnment. Upon his passing, Buddha sends a bunch of spiritual masters and bodhisattva's to Vimalakirti's deathbed.

Vimalakirti proceeds to chastise them for how useless their 'enlightenment' is when it doesn't help anyone in the real world, and is only a self centered quest to save one's ego from suffering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimalakirti_Sutra

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#93

Post by dang »

adenozine wrote: post #27

This article is what yall want on the front page? The author submitted and probably vote-manipulated to get it there. It's a content-less article, it has nothing to do with hacker values or software or entrepreneurship. Please vote responsibly, everyone!

Regardless of how one feels about the article, the thread is surprisingly not bad, and it's an intellectually interesting topic that doesn't get discussed here much. That makes for a great submission! Your notion of what belongs here is narrower than what the site guidelines call for: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The best submissions are the ones that can't be predicted from any sequence (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). This one doesn't hit that standard because it falls into one highly predictable sequence (promoting a blog) but it's unexpected enough along other axes to be a fine one-off.

Interestingness declines exponentially, though, so I wouldn't say we want follow-up posts of this nature for a while (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Much better to find something else that's equally unexpected and completely unrelated.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#94

Post by crazygringo »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #82
crazygringo wrote: post #48

This article appears to be deeply confusing two drastically different meanings of "enlightened". There's the spiritual sense, which might be described as fully understanding and accepting the impermanence of the world and the "artificiality" of meaning. Separately, there's "getting" something in a knowledge area. E.g. you finally understood how pointers work in C. The author seems to start with the first... but then…

>if you're enlightened then you want to spread it -- but this is the exact opposite of enlightenment, so the author has it 100% backwards. I have to disagree there. Many people who achieve benefits through enlightenment want to spread it to as many people as possible, so that others can receive help in achieving their own enlightenement.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing, because according to what is classically meant by spiritual enlightenment, you don't "achieve benefits through enlightenment". You certainly don't "achieve" anything, and there are no "benefits" to spread.

Perhaps that may sound somewhat paradoxical, but that kind of paradoxical understanding is somewhat representative of enlightenment as a whole.

Can you really think of anyone you believe to be truly enlightened spiritually, who is busy trying to "spread it to as many people as possible"? I think the answer is no. The enlightened may help you out if you seek their assistance, but they are almost the exact opposite of "evangelicals" who seek to spread a message.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#95

Post by cvaidya1986 »

dwaltrip wrote: post #85
cvaidya1986 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure?

No I’m not absolutely sure. I’d love to learn how I might be wrong. But I feel pretty good about the idea. Do you have any concrete theories of how a human can _fully_ understand the entire universe?

Sure, reduce it to an abstraction where the part and the whole converge

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#96

Post by Liquix »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #86
Liquix wrote: post #11

Zen saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water" . Some more from Ram Dass: “Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.” "If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, "Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!" it catches you back int…

Your first quote reminded me of this from Bruce Lee: > Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.

Thanks for the quote, Bruce is a really admirable guy. May have been paying homage to another old Zen saying:

“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

― Dōgen

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#98

Post by kordlessagain »

Liquix wrote: post #11

Zen saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water" . Some more from Ram Dass: “Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.” "If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, "Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!" it catches you back int…

Krishnamurti was thrust into it and still managed to escape!

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#100

Post by mrwnmonm »

cvaidya1986 wrote: post #69
dwaltrip wrote: post #56

Enlightenment is an aspirational goal that can never be achieved. No human can fully understand any given situation. To do so, you must first fully understand the entire universe, as everything is connected. And that is of course utterly impossible. I say this as someone who has found great value in Buddhist philosophy and a personal meditation practice.

Are you sure?

Are you sure that he/she is wrong?
Post reply on HN