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You're enlightened – now what?

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Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#191

Post by pacija »

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.

I guess this is a variation of "Before enlightenment - chop wood, draw water. After enlightenment - chop wood, draw water."

Comparing acid trip on Burning Man to enlightenment is like comparing candle to the sun. Both emit light, that much is true.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#192

Post by vfinn »

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!

One question alone may lead to a meaningful conversation. Search for enlightenment goes hand in hand with the search for the truth, at least to me. But yes, the article isn't that well-thought out, but if it triggers interesting conversation, it's all good for me.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#193

Post by mbrock »

waterhouse wrote: post #156
Liquix wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A hobby of mine is taking sayings like that and saying, "Well, if it weren't mumbo-jumbo, then what might it mean?" In this case, it would seem to be: At the start, you have a bunch of knowledge, concepts built on other concepts; studying Zen involves breaking all of that down and reforming it from scratch; at the end of the process, you have a new bunch of knowledge and concepts built on concepts, and you have simil…

How about this?

At first, I saw things in the normal everyday way, with conceptual thought labels attached strongly to everything. Then, through Zen practice, I came to see things in a more direct way, without the constant presence of words and thoughts, and this was kind of amazing. Now, having thoroughly internalized this wordless perspective, I again use words with no problem, seemingly the same as anyone else, but with the freedom and playfulness that comes from the wordless perspective.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#194

Post by mbrock »

coldtea wrote: post #141
dr_dshiv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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." Do you find it easy to confine yourself to a monastery with a bunch of dudes and no responsibilities but to "chop wood, carry water"? If so, why don't you take this "easy" path?

Maybe not exactly EASY, but definitely EASIER. That's what they're meant for. They're supposed to make enlightenment easier.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#195

Post by alexmingoia »

theonemind wrote: post #177
alexmingoia wrote: post #161

The idea of enlightenment as a vague loosely-defined “I know it when I see it” phenomena is mostly a western “new age” cultural misappropriation of Buddhist teaching. Enlightenment is well-defined and described in detail by the Buddhist cannon. You can call “enlightenment” whatever you want, but Buddha taught a specific conception of enlightenment and a specific path to achieving it. The Tripitaka describes enlighten…

The Zen sudden-enlightenment doctrine seem a newer teaching/dharma/interpretation than enlightenment by stages, distinct from it, and no less valid by any objective measure I can think of. I think Jainism and Hinduism also have some notions of enlightenment or concepts close or related to it, like moksha. The sudden enlightenment view seems closer to the root of western "new age" conception, so it seems rather unchar…

I don’t know what the author means, that’s kind of my point. I wanted to state that the Buddhists do have a well-defined rather specific concept of enlightenment, because many people don’t know that. Many people in the West think it’s some mysterious vague state of spiritual awareness, as does the author of this blog post. I don’t think it’s uncharitable to point out that the word largely entered popular culture through people importing Buddhist, Hindu, and Vedic ideas, such as Alan Watts, Robert Thurman, Chogyam Trungpa, Richard Alpert, hippies returning from India and East Asia, and Tibetan refugees. Ideas from these people all got loosely meshed together to form what many call “new age” spirituality. I do think there was a lot of misappropriation in the sense that these ideas were taken out of context. A perfect example of that being Timothy Leary reinterpreting the Tibetan Book of the Dead to describe an acid trip.

And here we are, a Rabbi talking about enlightenment as something that can be born into, which contradicts the Buddhist and Hindu concept. I’m sure he means well, but it seems to me he’s talking about this “new age” notion of enlightenment, which is arguably a misappropriation of Buddhist and Hindu ideas.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#196

Post by CRUDite »

Some of you may be interested in the book 'path notes of an american ninja master' by Glenn morris. It describes his path to enlightenment in a what you could describe as a modern and colourful way (and has a great bibliography). If you or dont believe in it as a physical process its still an entertaining read

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#197

Post by earthboundkid »

bodhiwatva wrote: post #170
earthboundkid wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism is politically quietist traditionally, but Abrahamic religions are politically activist, so Western reception of Buddhism requires transforming it into “engaged” Buddhism. It’s hard for someone raised in the West to look at Nazis and just shrug and say that they can only kill the body but not the soul, but that is more or less what Buddhists before 1800 would say.

Are you aware that a sect of Theravada Buddhism has been perpetuating genocide against the Rohingya population of Myanmar for almost 5 years now? How about the dozens of self-immolations performed by Tibetan Buddhists to protest China's annexation of their homeland? Honestly, it's hard not to think of Buddhism as a religion which is traditionally politically activist. Wasn't Siddhartha himself a wealthy prince who on…

There was also the terrible Sri Lankan civil war. But these are post-1800, so don’t challenge my claim.

Also for FWIW, I think “Buddhism” in these cases is just a stand in for ethnicity.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#198

Post by darkerside »

tinco wrote: post #179
darkerside wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That father's life of suffering is also a life with a sizable family that he had the privilege of supporting. That is enlightenment.

What is enlightenment?

My opinion is, it's realizing that your ego is an incredible temporary coincidence and that this doesn't make life meaningless but allows you to choose what meaning you want to give it. Your ego is no more special than the billions of other souls who have rejoined the collective unconsciousness of the universe, which makes us all one in the end.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#199

Post by clomond »

waterhouse wrote: post #156
Liquix wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A hobby of mine is taking sayings like that and saying, "Well, if it weren't mumbo-jumbo, then what might it mean?" In this case, it would seem to be: At the start, you have a bunch of knowledge, concepts built on other concepts; studying Zen involves breaking all of that down and reforming it from scratch; at the end of the process, you have a new bunch of knowledge and concepts built on concepts, and you have simil…

I love how “technical & analytical” your interpretation is.

My view: In the same vein but a different lens - enlightenment has a component where it is a “state of mind”/feeling(a kind of ah-ha)/a new perspective where ‘mountains are no longer mountains’.

But it’s also a cycle, one of living->death->rebirth->living where it’s through that process of “enlightenment“, the core and primary concepts and perspectives may have changed, but mountains are again mountains once everything known about mountains from before has been “re-integrated”.

Re: You're enlightened – now what?

#200

Post by gala8y »

I treat 'enlightment' as a technical term reserved only to be used by zen masters to confirm that your state of mind is identical with their state of mind, in a tradition of confirming it one person to another. They just agreed to do it so and been doing it for circa 2500 years. If a zen master says you're enlighted, you are enlighted (in this narrow, technical sense). If you are not confirmed by a zen master, save yourself a hassle of talking about 'enlightment'.

All other uses of the term are mambo-jumbo, wanna-be, i-feel-blessed, i-think-i-know, world-is-a-whole utterances with myriads of ways of understanding it. One upside is that it makes us think about being... nicer?

That's my view.

Nice article, nice list of pretty difficult problems to solve, swooshing around my brain since childhood, but being enlighted just goes orthogonal to every single issue mentioned. BUT, oops!, here I come... talking about enlightment. I will stop here if it is not too late.

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