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Enlightenment? Not likely.
    #8641701 -

It seems to me that we humans have created the idea of enlightenment out of a desire to be "saved" from ourselves.  Rather than dealing with the day-to-day, nitty-gritty details of our neurotic and irrational beliefs, we focus on the gleaming mirage of personal enlightenment.  Once we reach this oasis in the midst of the barren desert of mortal life, we dream, we will drink our fill of wisdom & rest in the shade of inner peace.

But what if the "desert" is the result of this sort of fantasy?  What if we make our lives barren by pouring the waters of our power into the dream of perfection?  How much enjoyment can we find in the here-and-now when we constantly compare it to the airbrushed images in our own minds?

IMO, the juice and spice of human life is not found in perfection.  Everything we desire, all that we long for, is available to us in each moment of our flawed lives.  If we could drop the fantasy, drop the unfair comparisons, drop the judgment of what IS, the treasures of experience would appear before us.

The silly idea that material pleasures, sensual enjoyments, are somehow "less than" the spiritual ideals we have manufactured, would be revealed for the self-loathing nonsense that it is.  Why believe that an unreachable nirvana holds more value than the fleshly joy of eating a ripe nectarine?  When we denigrate and ignore what is actually available to us, we waste our brief time on this earth.

So go ahead and meditate, practice yoga, sit at your guru's feet...but question any message that these experiences are worth more than the simple pleasure of sunshine on your face.  Doubt any teacher who denigrates your material existence in favor of the gleaming mirage of enlightenment.  Eat a nectarine after class, and let the juice run down your hand so that you can lick it off.

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641718 -

I agree. The only enlightenment is the "path with heart" AKA "what works".


--------------------
"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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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641767 -

but question any message that these experiences are worth more than the simple pleasure of sunshine on your face.

I think you would appreciate the most basic 'messages' coming from 'these experiences.'  You seem to have a somewhat 'psychedelic' frame of mind...  Why is it removed from anything spiritual...??  You think there is nothing spiritual that is not manufactured...??  This is what I hear too...  Its nothing, a hallucination, not happening, just drugs, a mental illness...  What makes you think that licking juice off of your hand compares to religious ecstatic states??  It might...??  Not really.


--------------------

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: backfromthedead]
    #8641814 -

I'll respond to your questions with a question:

Why is the "religious ecstatic" state something to strive for?  Because it feels good, or because it helps us transcend the supposedly lesser aspects of material reality?

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641816 -

Eat a nectarine after class, and let the juice run down your hand so that you can lick it off.

:naughty:


--------------------
"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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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: dblaney]
    #8641820 -

That's right...I'm a hot little hedonist.  :lol:

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641824 -

Veritas said:
I'll respond to your questions with a question:

Why is the "religious ecstatic" state something to strive for?  Because it feels good, or because it helps us transcend the supposedly lesser aspects of material reality?


Yes.  Because it feels good.  In a World where a lot of people feel BAD.

Its like you let go...  Then you are thrust into Reality with an inspired appreciation for its material expressions.


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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641829 -

We need to be more skeptical? Id say you might be right, depending on the situation.

There are many people out there telling you to just have faith, and I think we should always be skeptical of this blatant approach

But in the same light "just be skeptical" is in my opinion just as blatantly unskillful as a philosophy.

We are trying to figure out what is real and what is not, and these are always in balance. I would say you really can't "just be skeptical". For instance, recalling our debate yesterday, I think you are not skeptical enough of the material reality to think you know it is really there; while you probably think I am not skeptical enough of spiritual reality to think it possibly exists. (btw I think i finally expressed what I was trying to say clear enough in that thread, that is if your brave enough to look :wink:)

"Have faith", and "be skeptical" are both good and bad advice depending on the situation. But neither is good advice as absolute. Skepticism and Belief do not work as explicit philosophies in themselves, because despite whatever the reality or non-reality of existence, the way we function relies on taking things as real to an extent and some things as unreal. When you say x is not real, you become more dependent upon the reality of y.

This is my opinion.

Well Veritas, I won't have the pleasure of pestering much today, in a little bit I will be living up to my name. Good vibes.

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641837 -

I think you first need to establish a working definition of 'enlightenment' before you start critiquing it. Among more spiritually minded people, enlightenment can have various definitions, from union with a godhead, to realizing who you really are, to transcendence...

In my opinion, any enlightenment that seeks any sort of separation, whether in the form of separation from perceived negative qualities of yourself or separation from lesser states of mind, is not true enlightenment.


--------------------
"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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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: dblaney]
    #8641849 -

Yes, I was specifically critiquing the version of enlightenment which denigrates and avoids our experience as material beings, and which promotes the worship of an artificial "perfect" state somewhere off in the distance.

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: daytripper23]
    #8641865 -

More skeptical?  How did you derive THAT from my post?  :confused:  I did say that we would do well to be skeptical regarding specific messages included in some teachings, is that it?

What I am saying is that it is MORE valuable to live fully in each flawed, weird, absurd, difficult, fantastic moment of our humanity than to fantasize about & ardently pursue a spiritual state which will allow us to "rise above" this humanity.

Spirituality may be real, or it may not.  It may be an invention of our funny monkey minds.  So long as we do not use our spiritual ideals in self-flagellation, no harm done either way.  If rash, irritation or self-hatred occur, discontinue use.

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641905 -

Spirituality may be real, or it may not.

Spirituality in the context of substance use has always been real until someone thinks that its all BS and convinces everybody then they kill everybody else.


--------------------

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: backfromthedead]
    #8641915 -

What support can you provide for your confident assertion that spirituality has "always been real," or that questioning whether it is real or not "kills everybody else"?

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8641988 -

Quote:
More skeptical?  How did you derive THAT from my post?  :confused:  I did say that we would do well to be skeptical regarding specific messages included in some teachings, is that it?



Quote:
IMO, the juice and spice of human life is not found in perfection.  Everything we desire, all that we long for, is available to us in each moment of our flawed lives. 



This idea I agree with, but then you go onto possibly imply that mind/spirit is fantasy. (I think based upon our previous discussion that this is not unreasonable for me to think this is what you mean.) I agree, but also considering mind as well as matter are part of this present moment.

Quote:
If we could drop the fantasy, drop the unfair comparisons, drop the judgment of what IS, the treasures of experience would appear before us.


I agree that there is something called fantasy, and this can impede enlightenment. But while I again agree with what you explicitly express, based on our previous discussion, it really is not out of the question for me to assume that you are implying that mind/spirit is the fantasy.

Here I'll quote you from this last thread:

Quote:
Ideas exist only as thoughts, and thus are not material objects in and of themselves.  We could say that neurological activity is an objective fact, but not the ideas associated with said activity.


And one last quote from this thread:

Quote:
The silly idea that material pleasures, sensual enjoyments, are somehow "less than" the spiritual ideals we have manufactured, would be revealed for the self-loathing nonsense that it is.  Why believe that an unreachable nirvana holds more value than the fleshly joy of eating a ripe nectarine?  When we denigrate and ignore what is actually available to us, we waste our brief time on this earth.



SO yes, I really thought and still suspect that an absolute of skepticism to a world other than material is what you were implying.

Edited by daytripper23 (07/16/08 01:16 PM)

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: dblaney]
    #8642011 -

Quote:
or separation from lesser states of mind, is not true enlightenment.

Would you consider "cessation of lesser states of mind" the same as "separation from" them?  The reason I ask is that enlightenment is almost universally thought of as being without suffering.  In my experience, all 'lesser states of mind' (everyday consciousness) are marked by suffering in some way.  Do you disagree that these states necessarily contain suffering, or do you think enlightenment involves suffering?


--------------------
“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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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Lion]
    #8642111 -

Quote:
enlightenment is almost universally thought of as being without suffering


The first Noble Truth is that life is dukkha. From my understanding, enlightenment is not some blissfully complacent state where there are no problems or challenges/difficulties.

Quote:
all 'lesser states of mind' (everyday consciousness) are marked by suffering in some way


I'm not sure if all experience is suffering. What about pleasure? I don't think suffering is a good translation for dukkha.

Quote:
Do you disagree that these states necessarily contain suffering, or do you think enlightenment involves suffering?


Life is dukkha. A teacher once told me that in the mind of enlightenment, it's not that there is no dukkha, but rather no one who experiences dukkha.


--------------------
"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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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: daytripper23]
    #8642181 -

If you'll look at this post again, I think that you may realize your interpretation of what I am "implying" is incorrect.

I am talking about the fantasy of perfection, the illusion of reaching a point of enlightenment in which we no longer have to deal with our "ordinary" lives.  IMO, this fantasy both detracts from our enjoyment AND distracts us from dealing with the true obstructions within our own minds.  When we denigrate and ignore the treasures of everyday living, sensual experience & being human, in favor of what may be an illusory concept of spiritual transcendence, we perpetuate our own suffering.

BTW, the post you quoted from the other thread was in reference to the objective (material) existence of philosophical ideas.  I was stating that ideas do not have material substance, which does not necessarily mean that these ideas are wrong.

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: dblaney]
    #8642223 -

Quote:
The first Noble Truth is that life is dukkha. From my understanding, enlightenment is not some blissfully complacent state where there are no problems or challenges/difficulties.

Do not the noble truths also teach that the cessation of suffering is attainable?
Quote:
I'm not sure if all experience is suffering. What about pleasure?

Even pleasurable experiences contain suffering because an experience requires a mind which thinks it is experiencing the pleasure...and thus which knows it will not be experiencing it after a while.  Even if the experience is so pleasurable that there is no conscious suffering, it contains the seed of suffering, because it is marked by impermanence. 
Quote:
I don't think suffering is a good translation for dukkha.

Maybe not...I didn't say it was.  What do you think is a good translation, or how would you describe it if it's possible to do so?
Quote:
Life is dukkha. A teacher once told me that in the mind of enlightenment, it's not that there is no dukkha, but rather no one who experiences dukkha.

I like that.  A visiting Lama at the center I go to said that our greatest error is thinking that "because I suffer, I exist".  I'm not sure what she meant exactly, but it resonated with me at the time.


--------------------
“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.”

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Veritas]
    #8642264 -

Quote:
When we denigrate and ignore the treasures of everyday living, sensual experience & being human, in favor of what may be an illusory concept of spiritual transcendence, we perpetuate our own suffering.



Notice how you grouped "everyday living, sensual experience"  with being human (these things concern materiality), and opposed it with "an illusory concept of spiritual transcendence." (spiritual concerning mind)

So you can assure me that you are really not juxtaposing mind and matter in this way? It seems like you are implying mind and spirit as seperate from human existence? I hope you can at least understand why I think this. Maybe you are and you don't know it yourself.

Quote:
BTW, the post you quoted from the other thread was in reference to the objective (material) existence of philosophical ideas.  I was stating that ideas do not have material substance, which does not necessarily mean that these ideas are wrong.


I did not think we were speaking of the validity of experience, but the reality of experience, particularly concerning mind and matter.

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Re: Enlightenment? Not likely. [Re: Lion]
    #8642282 -

Quote:
"because I suffer, I exist".  I'm not sure what she meant exactly, but it resonated with me at the time.


This reminds me of the scene in The Matrix when Mr. Smith explains why the program was "updated" from the paradise they originally created for their human crops.  He stated that (I'm paraphrasing) no one could believe that it was real, because they were set on the idea that reality must include pain and suffering.  Entire "crops" failed because they could not suspend their disbelief.

I think that we are taught to identify ourselves with suffering, and to believe that it is an unavoidable part of being human.  While it is true that pain is inevitable, it seems clear to me that the creation of internal suffering is optional.  To me, this is the core idea of Buddhist teachings, that we accept our own mortality, with the inevitable sickness, pain and death, and cease grasping at the illusion of permanence.

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