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 dblaney
Human Being
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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 Re: Revisiting Enlightenment.  [Re: Icelander]
#6656048 - 03/10/07 03:31 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Enlightenment is a living breathing reality. It does not suddenly make one perfect.
There are living examples, but it's unlikely that awakened people are going to advertise their awakened status. They're around though.
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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"
"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer
Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: dblaney]
#6656081 - 03/10/07 03:41 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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They're around though. And you know this because?
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 34,260
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656088 - 03/10/07 03:42 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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c'mon ice
we already know you got it.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Sinbad]
#6656091 - 03/10/07 03:44 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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As you know, the Buddha was not fond of anyone taking anything that he said on blind faith.
And I don't as I have said. I am just not sure as I don't consider myself enlightened in this sense and have never met anyone who seems to be. The times I did think that I felt over time that I was mistaken.
As leary said, enlighten does not make one perfect. That makes sense to me.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 34,260
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656103 - 03/10/07 03:47 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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who said you were perfect,
that is sinbad's struggle,
you got the light, man.
and the mouse. (er, rat)
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 backfromthedead
Activated
Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 3,592
Last seen: 14 years, 7 months
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Could enlightenment be the end product of a personal spiritual apocalypse that renders your ego and previous reality myth dead??
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Sinbad
Living TheMoment
Registered: 12/23/04
Posts: 2,571
Loc: Under The Bodhi Tree
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656110 - 03/10/07 03:49 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
As you know, the Buddha was not fond of anyone taking anything that he said on blind faith.
And I don't as I have said. I am just not sure as I don't consider myself enlightened in this sense and have never met anyone who seems to be. The times I did think that I felt over time that I was mistaken.
As leary said, enlighten does not make one perfect. That makes sense to me.
Enlightenment doesn't make one perfect in a relative sense, but it does make one perfectly enlightened. 
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Sinbad]
#6656115 - 03/10/07 03:51 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Whatever that means? 
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Quote:
redgreenvines said:
c'mon ice
we already know you got it.
Are you flirting? 
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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justamonkey
Stranger
Registered: 10/26/05
Posts: 292
Loc: Upstairs
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656176 - 03/10/07 04:11 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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To describe ideas to one another we use words, which are simple agreements. Even if each of those words' definitions only vary a microscopic amount to each person, when the sentence is through, we have spoken volumes who's content is entirely different than we first meant it to be.
Therefore, I stick with my original view. Enlightenment is a constant path of impeccability indescribable because it has no description, and because it has all description and no arrangement.
Don't try to understand or relate, relating nothing to nothing will only prove nothing.
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[quote]We don't need anyone to teach us sorcery, because there is really nothing to learn. What we need is a teacher to convince us that there is incalculable power at our fingertips. What a strange paradox! Every warrior on the path of knowledge thinks, at one time or another, that he's learning sorcery, but all he's doing is allowing himself to be convinced of the power hidden in his being, and that he can reach it. [/quote]-Carlos Casteneda
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: justamonkey]
#6656237 - 03/10/07 04:30 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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I'm discussing this for entertainment purposes only.;)
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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dblaney
Human Being
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656252 - 03/10/07 04:34 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
They're around though. And you know this because?
I guess there are some elements of faith and some elements of personal experience involved in my reasoning.
I might have scrolled past it, but did you mention at all your own interpretation and view of enlightenment?
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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"
"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer
Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: dblaney]
#6656331 - 03/10/07 05:02 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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I have no longer any solid view on enlightenment, I'm waiting for some personal experience that I might want to call enlightenment. I suspect that I will have to do with something else. Who knows.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (03/10/07 05:02 PM)
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psyka
Praetorian
Registered: 06/09/03
Posts: 1,652
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656419 - 03/10/07 05:43 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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To try to live life without creating regrets.
Staying simple, yet retaining elegance.
Some say balance is the most important aspect in life, yet the most difficult to maintain.
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As the life of a candle,
my wick will burn out.
But, the fire of my mind
shall beam into infinite.
 
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Icelander]
#6656765 - 03/10/07 07:51 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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The gist of my comments to Ice last night concerning enlightenment was based on my recent experience working with the ideas presented by Castaneda, Eckhart Tolle, and Chögyam Trungpa. I have been actively applying much discipline to the techniques these individuals have put into writing, and I have found many intersections in these bases of knowledge. For some time now I have put serious work into maintaining awareness of the present without allowing the mind to wander both in every day life and in meditation and yoga. After much effort I have come into understanding of what I feel constitutes enlightenment.
In the act of meditation one observes the thoughts and when they start to wander one brings the mind back into focus and back to center. Carlos Castaneda, Eckhart Tolle, and Chögyam Trungpa, in their individual works, encourages one to put this into practice as a 24 hour a day practice...to maintain a state of bringing the mind back to center whenever it wanders. Castaneda called this internal silence...or as justamonkey noted "stopping the world". The discipline that this teaches one rapidly starts to snowball. One sees changes in every area of ones life. One finds ones self bringing not just the mind, but the body as well back to center ever more frequently. This produces a state where one gains tight control of ones attention. I have come to see that what is referred to as the state of "enlightenment" is not a static egoless state, for the ego...though it can be temporarily transcended...cannot be removed permanently. The state of enlightenment...like any mental or physical state...is dynamic and it does not describe perfection. Many people confuse the ego less experience of satori or the ego death of psychedelic drugs with enlightenment...but satori and ego death are just tools of transcendence that help us to realize the goal. Enlightenment is the process of always bringing ones self back to center...applying that discpline every waking moment. Buddhists call it enlightenment, Castaneda called it impeccability, and Eckhart Tolle called it honoring the present moment, but in the end they are the same animal. It is not a mythological unrealizable state of perfection but a living growing discipline and way of life.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Grok
Has Been a Bad Boy
Registered: 12/03/03
Posts: 1,262
Loc: Greener Pastures
Last seen: 8 years, 6 months
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#6656854 - 03/10/07 08:25 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Enlightenment is unique to individuals. I believe that we are all on the path to our own enlightenment.
'en' light 'en'= the light within.
To be full realzied and to Know and practice your true potential would constiutute enlightenment to me.
Then again, I also see open mindedness, kindness, and being laid back as a state of enlightenment.
Enlightenment doesn't make anyone or anything perfect. Everyone and everytrhing already is perfect.
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Entropy is increasing.
To send me a PM, go to my journal
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Grok]
#6656896 - 03/10/07 08:40 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Quote:
To be full realzied and to Know and practice your true potential would constiutute enlightenment to me.
This is the goal. Every discipline is but the tool leading to this end.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate
Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 8,741
Last seen: 6 days, 23 hours
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Grok]
#6656905 - 03/10/07 08:44 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Quote:
cilosyb said:
Enlightenment is unique to individuals. I believe that we are all on the path to our own enlightenment.
'en' light 'en'= the light within.
To be full realzied and to Know and practice your true potential would constiutute enlightenment to me.
Then again, I also see open mindedness, kindness, and being laid back as a state of enlightenment.
Enlightenment doesn't make anyone or anything perfect. Everyone and everytrhing already is perfect.
I don't understand what "true potential" means exactly; that is one of the toughest things for me in talking about enlightenment.
I have the potential to have a vast wealth of intellectual understanding of the world I live in, to have a wide array of satisfying relationships with family, friends, partners, to travel the world, to dance more freely with the Joyous Here & Now. This is potential I would like to actualize to the highest degree possible, for the simple fact that it feels good.
Enlightenment comes in degrees, I guess, as a function of the relationship between the loosening of attachment to outcomes and the striving to self-actualize on as many planes as possible in the present moment.
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“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate
Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 8,741
Last seen: 6 days, 23 hours
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Lion]
#6656912 - 03/10/07 08:47 PM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Maybe something like fully and continuously knowing and feeling that
"the world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey – don't worry, don't be afraid ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because – it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one."
-Bill Hicks
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“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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Epigallo
Stranger
Registered: 09/17/06
Posts: 8,155
Last seen: 6 years, 25 days
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Re: Revisiting Enlightenment. [Re: Lion]
#6657422 - 03/11/07 01:15 AM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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To me there seem to be at least two uses for "enlightenment":
1. A point at which you divide the story of a person's life between the ordinary state and the enlightened state.
2. A certain quality that runs through the episodes of a defined set of experience. The common quality of experience is "enlightenment" in this usage.
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