enlightenment revisited

"Seriously though, I understand that it's not easy to discuss this issue. But my hope that with persistence and precision will be able to either understand the changes enlightenment introduces or, at least, we'll have a genuine understanding of why we can't understand it.

Is such a gaol too ambitious?

Amr
"

Hi Amr,

The understanding is not a "thinking" understanding so I suspect the only way we can to have a genuine understanding of why we were unable to understand it is to be enlightened. Not much choice really but to appreciate those that help us and work wisely with the motivation we have.

As others have commented, I've gotta comment too that Adam put it nicely
"And finally, I seek enlightenment because I have no choice. I have seen through. I can't go back - can't forget. I am the infinite - I am this. Enlightenment is my natural state; and ignorance of my true condition is like a splinter in my mind. I pick and pick and pick to get it out and utterly destroy the me in the process." -Adam West"

We really have "no choice" we do this thing moment to moment then add things like goals when we feel a little silly for having "wasted" our time when judged by conventional standards.

I really think I feel what you feel!

Regards
Gary

"The understanding is not a "thinking" understanding so I suspect the only way we can to have a genuine understanding of why we were unable to understand it is to be enlightened. Not much choice really but to appreciate those that help us and work wisely with the motivation we have."

That statement by Gary really encapsulates how I feel.

I'm not sure what level I am at, although I'm obviously not classically enlightened by a long shot.

I have sometimes seemed to have affinity for 2nd gear perspectives, and to slip into them naturally. On the other hand, with weak concentration and noting chops, it's easy to say that I'm at a low-level with first gear. Somewhere around the waterfall stage, I'd say. When I encounter 3rd gear stuff, there's usually a sense of, '˜right!', but there's also a kind of slippery vagueness, which indicates that I've a way to go with it. Basically, I have chosen to work at 1st gear because I like practicality and I trust concrete, incremental things. At the same time, if my mind and nature choose to go and do something on those other levels, I probably won't be able to stop them!

Maybe I haven't had enough dark night yet, but I don't feel that I'm practicing for enlightenment. Oh, I want it and get excited about it. But when I go deeper, I feel that I don't really know (experientially) what enlightenment is, so I can't be working for it.
I'm practicing because I'm alive. If I were dead, then there'd be no reason for it. But since I'm alive and all of this is here practicing really seems like the only way to go.

To me, enlightenment is not the point of practice anymore than graduation is the point of schooling. Graduation represents the point when you're supposed to be able to competently use some of what you've learned. It's not the reason you were learning. Similarly, enlightenment strikes me as the point when you can finally practice correctly.

Of course, everybody works hard to graduate and gets very excited about it. (Liberation from having to go to school!) But if, 30 years later, that seems like the point of your ever having learned anything, then you have a problem.

The context of practice, just like the context of learning, is life. It's being here.

It's not just a Buddhist text. We really are arriving here out of nowhere. Growing for a while, shrinking for a while, and then dissolving in death back into wherever the hell we came from. And at the same time, 10 billion things are going on around us, doing their versions of that same process.

In other words, rolling with this s**t is challenging, fascinating, and often difficult. That's been my experience anyway.

So, I want to increase clarity, increase presence, increase flexibility. Work on my steadiness. Learn how to stop freaking out when the mind senses change. Mostly though, it's because I'm here, life is the context and this practice seems to be our nature.

[edited to more clearly suggest expletive in fourth paragraph.]

Nigel, you write good stuff.

Actually there are lots of examples of teachers who have had problems with addictions. I think even Hakuin was said to be very addictive person - "he'd smell candies even from the other building and his eyes started to pop up, he begin to drool". He also smoked tobacco secretly so that when a student visited his room there were thick cloud of smoke, and he also had periods where he drank too much. Of course one can doubt if those teachers were really enlightened - as it's something that usually is seen pretty idealistically.

I personally think that enlightenment is a productized concept that has had very good marketing strategies for centuries. It's something that is basically wanted by everyone who has suffered. People are willing to pay big price for enlightenment - not just by money but effort and time too. Just like heaven in christian setting, but better as you can have it now.

But what if there isn't really such thing as enlightenment? Think of how obvious everything related to this field becomes then? It's not hard anymore to understand f.ex. why zen masters can be alcoholics. Actually then all these institutions can be seen in the same light as an atheist sees christian churches - institutions with a good story to sell, some idealistic believers that genuinely want to do good, but also lots of politics and abuse by people that just want to have money and power.

I don't know. For me this was kind of a big revelation when I suddenly took a look at of all this with this kind of doubt in mind. I mean, I have had experiences myself, so I don't doubt those exist. But The Great Goal (TM) certainly has more to do with religious architype kind of cravings than with reality. Like John Lennon put it: "God is a concept". Well, I'd say "Enlightenment is a concept" as well. No doubt about it.

Still it doesn't mean meditation is useless.

"I agree with this, Nigel. As I look around, I see that some individuals are becoming "emotional grownups" (Jed McKenna's term) over time. This, however, seems to be only loosely correlated with enlightenment. It seems to be more a function of socialization. Certain scenes contribute mightily to emotional maturity. 12-Steps programs, spiritual communities like Insight Meditation Society, and social work programs at universities all come to mind as places that produce crop after crop of emotionally enlightened (but not necessarily spiritually enlightened) folks. This observation speaks to the conscious "engagement" part of your thesis.
"

That is very interesting point Kenneth, as this is somthing I haven't been able to kind of "verbalize" or "conceptualize" - until now. I know for sure that I have grown very much in the 12 step fellowship, and I know many other people that have also, BUT it wasn't quite what people would usually call awakening or enlightenment. Lots of insights has happened for sure, but still something is missing in regards to spiritual maturity. I think that concept of "emotional (or perhaps social) enlightenment" describes that very well.

I think you make some good points, Kundun. It is clear that the enlightenment traditions are as much a socio-cultural artefact as any other institution; and where communities form there will always be politics and abuses of power and so on - these are the result of normal human drives and frailties - as with any community.

Personally, I wouldn't go so far as to deny enlightenment itself as not being a real phenomenon in and of itself, reducing it to a concept or psychological or archetypal processes; which undoubtedly it is in part. But, I would suggest it is indeed a genuine realization, with a real phenomenological and ontological presentation and existence. What is unclear, depending on who is telling the story, is its precise nature, presentation, processes, causes, affects and fruits.

[cont.] edited for typo

Ultimately, I would argue, it matters not what one thinks about enlightenment, if we do the practices with commitment, we can test them for ourselves and see what, if anything, presents. In the end, we will have to put aside conceptualization and actually get it done, if that is what we want, that is.

It may be that we, like any community of 'religious' folk see what we want to see, according to institutional authority and set scripts, and it is all a bunch of socially validated group hysteria, and nothing but human need gratification, wish-fulfilment and group dynamics producing self-fulfilling prophecy entirely explainable by known psycho-social processes; and we who believem, are nothing but the 'dreaded' religious fundamentalists, that sophisticated folk so often look down their noses at.

At this point, however, I'm inclined to find enough justification in personal experience to support an ongoing belief that there is more to it than that. But time will tell. Which, truthfully, does not mean much, since millions live their lives in committed religious dogma and ritual on nothing but faith and a vague sense / hope that there is more to it all than a physical / psychological reductionist secular view of human society and existence.

And yet, in the end, despite our rationalizations, we all do what we must, don't we? ;-P

In kind regards,

Adam.

Adam: that was the most eloquent and beautiful expose regarding the reason to meditate for the NOW that i have ever read....WOW!

tim

"Adam: that was the most eloquent and beautiful expose regarding the reason to meditate for the NOW that i have ever read....WOW!

tim"

Hey Tim!

Well, that is a very kind and generous thing to say! Glad you enjoyed. I write only as inspired, and couldn't do it in isolation. Personally, I find the people and writing on this forum fun and rather rousing! Thank you all for sharing, and contributing to the collective symphony we all seem to enjoy so much!!

In kind regards,

Adam.

"It may be that we, like any community of 'religious' folk see what we want to see, according to institutional authority and set scripts, and it is all a bunch of socially validated group hysteria, and nothing but human need gratification, wish-fulfilment and group dynamics producing self-fulfilling prophecy entirely explainable by known psycho-social processes; and we who believem, are nothing but the 'dreaded' religious fundamentalists, that sophisticated folk so often look down their noses at.

At this point, however, I'm inclined to find enough justification in personal experience to support an ongoing belief that there is more to it than that. But time will tell. Which, truthfully, does not mean much, since millions live their lives in committed religious dogma and ritual on nothing but faith and a vague sense / hope that there is more to it all than a physical / psychological reductionist secular view of human society and existence."

Thank's Adam for your open minded entries.

I have been part of that kind of group you described. And I know people who continue to be part of it this very day. I have always considered myself to be quite clever guy who can't be easily deluded. And as I had some sort of opening experience while being part of that group it felt like I had awakened from the matrix.. I immediately understood intuitively things that previously wouldn't have been so clear to me. I had personal experience that somehow changed my way of thinking and viewing the world.

Still I accepted quite quickly that it was the group and the working on the program that caused that opening to happen. I also accepted many other dogmas without hesitation as those seemed to support what I had experienced and how I saw the world. It took me years to actually understand that the "religious setting" had very little if nothing to do with my experiences.

Actually I just used that setting to support this experience I had had and to make sure that I could keep it. The dogma's I accepted served the same purpose. I had something very valuable, "my precious", and I was prepared to change my belief systems if that just made it more real and stabile. I could delude myself to fall in a sleep where I had something that other people didn't have - something that made me very special...

I know I had real expereiences, but in the end it was just "bunch of socially validated group hysteria producing self-fulfilling prophecy". And becouse it was such a nice dream it was very hard to wake up from it.

So as I have understood more clearly that those "enlightened beings" aren't behaving any differently that the rest of us, and by reading literacy I've understood better the tools and dynamics used in the enlightenment traditions to support the institutions and authority, I have no choice but to take a very clear and critical look at it all. Questioning all the dogmas and beliefs - which of the enlightenment itself is clearly the most fundamental.

I really enjoy these discussions here because usually people will try to attack this kind of critique to defend their own beliefs. Here it seems that people are actually capable of open minded discussions about these things! Great!

"
Chris: Nigel, you write good stuff.

"

Thanks, man. And you DO good stuff.

(edited to add Chris' name.)

Last night I was reading some material whic seems relevant to this thread from "Sit Down and Shut Up" by Brad Warner (former bass player of 0DFTS and artist of Dimentia 13 who is now a Zen priest in the Soto sect who has received the Dharma transmission- great book by the way).

Warner is often fond of saying that he has never been, and never will be, enlightened (note how the present is significantly not mentioned). In the book mentioned above, which serves as an excellent introduction to Dogen's "Shobogenzo," Warner points out that in some of the earliest texts, Buddha not only has to deal with the demon Mara at the point before he completely awakens, but that Mara visits him at points throughout his life. Warner takes that to mean that "even Buddha was not free from the normal human temptations and folly even after his awakening, that he had to constantly guard and keep the state he achieved."

He gives one illustration of how a (partly or otherwise) awakened human might fall into moral error: "... you can begin to believe that since all is one, and I am the same as everyone else, then I am the same as my best friend, and it is therefore perfectly all right for me to schtup his wife because, she's, like, *my* wife too, right? And besides that even, she is ultimately the same as me 'cuz, like, everything is the same as me. Therefore on the basis of Ultimate Reality - which, of course, I am privy to, having been enlightened and all - I'm not really doing any harm to anyone but myself. And, hey, I can handle it, so everything is cool."

Dogen identified actual enlightenment with it's practice - and this on many levels: Zazen, and the actual experience of the present moment among other things. Warner goes on to say, "Real enlightenment is the ongoing work you do to keep from getting caught up in your experiences."
David

I actually met Brad last summer while he was on a book tour here in Europe. He seemed to be really down-to-earth guy. Actually there wasn't really anything that would have separated him from the rest of the crowd.

I asked him what he thought about teachers role in zen and found especially one part of the answer very helpful. He said that teacher is supposed to keep the students feet on the ground so that s/he won't become too crazy when all kinds of experiences and ideas will come out of the meditation practice.

I think that's very good answer which doesn't need to be supported by any stuff about "enlightened states", "dharma transmissions" etc.

Here is a question that might be a good starting point:

Do existential worries e.g. angst, purpose, meaning, guilt, ...etc. continue more or less after enlightenment?

Amr

"
Here is a question that might be a good starting point:

Do existential worries e.g. angst, purpose, meaning, guilt, ...etc. continue more or less after enlightenment?

Amr

"

That's a great question, AMR. I think it would be best answered by those who have been enlightened for a long time -- Kenneth and Gozen come to mind. Things like purpose, meaning, and guilt show up at many stages of human life, so I imagine it would be difficult for the "young enlightened" to have a definitive answer for you.

-Jackson

Hi Amr,

I'd certainly defer to Gozen or Kenneth, but assuming I'm right, then I've been living in this condition for about 15 years, all without knowing it. For myself, I can say that the problem of meaning has been definitively solved. It's difficult to describe how it's been solved - all I can really say is that it wasn't a problem to begin with, and I know that now on a very deep level, such that it's difficult to even linguistically frame the insight. Existential angst is definitely gone for good too - so much of that kind of thing is dependent on the idea of there being something called "I" which is unchanging and isolated from the universe - and will be destroyed completely, leaving nothing. Once that illusion is penetrated, and the actual reality of the matter intuited in the depths of one's being, the existential scorpion loses it's sting, as it were. You know there's really nothing to fear. Shinzen Young talks a bit about "the need to get past the need for meaning," and I think there's something to that. The meaning is the suchness as it presents right this moment.

The sensations of guilt and anxiety have come up for me, but I tend not to dwell on them - they are toothless, if you will. Purpose is something that I think is still kind of an issue, but not nearly the way it was before - it is our nature as humans to need to have something to do, and to contribute to something bigger than ourselves as individuals. However, gone is the compulsive shopping around for the "right" purpose, or feeling like you have to "find your purpose" - purpose is chosen, and is contextual in a sense - again, this is experienced rather the way a musician experiences improvising - you get into the groove of what's happening.

One can still become confused, and human relationships are still challenging - some features of life do not change.

My thinking is that questions of purpose and meaning, are seen through as a non-issue - as it is the dualistic mind that grasps at such questions and feels the need, in part due to a socially constructed dichotomy, to answer them or find meaning and purpose - other than the obvious meaning and purpose of 'existence for its own sake, 'just here, just now'. As a side note, the need for meaning is profound in the conventional sense, in terms of mental health and daily and social functioning, so I am not denying that. But in terms of the existential question of life and existence, they would seem to be seen through, in a non-discursive, non-conceptual manner following awakening.

As to guilt and the like, I think that since conditioning is ongoing and persistent through socially learned conventional morality, and there is an innate sense of wisdom-mind driven compassion, that as one encounters challenges in life - which can never, by definition, be removed, the enlightened individual will experience psych-social and emotional reactions - mechanical responses to stimuli - but, the difference being, that they, for the most part, are not vigorously grasped, or avoided by an unstable, distorted and traumatized ego, and thus, come and go like clouds in the sky. This, I would suggest will vary according to integration of the realization with daily functioning and Being

[cont.] edited for typo

I think our mental life is seen for what it is, merely phenomena, stimuli, cause and effect like anything else, and it does its thing, as such. Suffering arises when we as ego try to interfere, judge, manipulate and resist our experience. Much of this is loosened with awakening and their is a gentle ease of resting in something more universal, present and fresh despite what presents. That which is not dependent upon '˜me' and environment, as before. From this basis, whatever presents is inherently impermanent, and if naturally left to itself, runs its course and self-liberates. Since it is seen as '˜is', with nothing added by '˜me', it is perfect in and of itself, and does not require me to judge it or change it '“ we can exist in the natural ease of leaving it alone, allowing to be. Given its impermanence, it cannot last, must change, and as such, self-liberates of its own accord. This would appear to be the nature of the mind-stream and the universe in general. The sun rises and sets despite the ego's protests. The enlightened view knows it for what it is - its basic nature does its thing and there is no I that was ever involved and needed to 'do', control or fix. Freedom from the 'need' to do is the freedom from suffering. There just is, and it is perfect as is.

[cont.] edited because internet connection failed - incomplete post.

"For myself, I can say that the problem of meaning has been definitively solved."-Haquan

I think Haquan nailed it with his entire post.

A couple of years ago I learned a new word: FOMO. It's an acronym for "fear of missing out." FOMO goes away with enlightenment, along with the need to find a purpose other than whatever happens to be going on at the time. Existential angst is gone; you remember that you once had it, but you can't remember why or just exactly what it felt like. Guilt may arise from time to time, but it feels transparent; it's a mere shadow of its former greatness.

Compound emotions don't come around anymore. Simple emotions like fear and lust come, but compound emotions like fear of fear, guilt for fearing lustful, or self-loathing for feeling fearful, are no longer an issue.

Notice that I'm speaking in broad generalities, which is probably folly. We all like to extrapolate our own experience to the entire human race, as I have done here. I'm really just talking about my own experience, and I don't know what happens to other people.

Kenneth

Thus, I think guilt and other mechanical artefacts will quickly pass through the mind-stream and resolve themselves. They remain by definition, when '˜I' take hold of them, and keep them around, attempting to manipulate them in some way; thus, I cause myself to suffer, not what presents in my field of experience. This is intuitively and non-verbally known in awakening, and as long as we remain in the natural state, there will be the ease of this direct, non-conceptual '˜knowing' and Being. Problem can be, since it is non-conceptual, and many beliefs remain, we can continue to create problems for ourselves due to previously existing, limiting and maladaptive beliefs and behaviours. We will be distracted by these and other stimuli in our field of experience, and fall into suffering on and off, as I see it. However, it seems that we, slip back into the natural state and notice what-is rather quickly, and as such, the grasping and self-inflicted suffering is again liberated of its own accord to a greater or lessor extent relative to ongoing successful integration and practice. So it seems to me at this time.

In kind regards,

Adam. edited for complete post.

""For myself, I can say that the problem of meaning has been definitively solved."-Haquan

I think Haquan nailed it with his entire post.

A couple of years ago I learned a new word: FOMO. It's an acronym for "fear of missing out." FOMO goes away with enlightenment, along with the need to find a purpose other than whatever happens to be going on at the time. Existential angst is gone; you remember that you once had it, but you can't remember why or just exactly what it felt like. Guilt may arise from time to time, but it feels transparent; it's a mere shadow of its former greatness.

Compound emotions don't come around anymore. Simple emotions like fear and lust come, but compound emotions like fear of fear, guilt for fearing lustful, or self-loathing for feeling fearful, are no longer an issue.

Notice that I'm speaking in broad generalities, which is probably folly. We all like to extrapolate our own experience to the entire human race, as I have done here. I'm really just talking about my own experience, and I don't know what happens to other people.

Kenneth"

Kenneth and Haquan have said it well.

While I have tons of plans and responsibilities, my purpose is always to deal with what is happening in the moment. I know many of my grandest plans are bound to fail. I'll probably drop the ball on some of my responsibilities, too (as when I forgot I had scheduled a Skype call to Brazil yesterday). But the guilt for my screw-ups, and the disappointment over failed plans, lasts about as long as a song on the radio, leaving as little trace when it's done.

"
Here is a question that might be a good starting point:

Do existential worries e.g. angst, purpose, meaning, guilt, ...etc. continue more or less after enlightenment?

Amr

"

When I was in jr. high I started really having a longing to just return to God. Sometimes I would look out at the ocean and envision myself walking in slowly and never returning, being engulfed by the waves and returning home. Sometimes I would lay on my back on some grass or a sidewalk and look up at the sky. I would pray that God would just take me up to him now, rather than having to wait for my death or his triumphant return. I was never worried about missing out on life. I just wanted to go home.

I can say with the utmost conviction that through my practice, the barrier between me and "home" has been removed. I no longer feel the need to go home. It's like all my life I was having a terrible nightmare that I was lost and couldn't find my way back, only to wake up and realize that I've been home, snug in my bed, the whole time. What a relief!

That's kind of a long, roundabout way of saying that the existential stuff isn't really a problem anymore.

The answer to the question of "Is this all there is?" is a resounding "Yes!!"

One thing that happens in Western Culture is that there is a kind of barrier that is built up between one's "subjective impressions" of experience and material reality- which according to the Western view, is dead. The "subjective impressions" are seen in terms of projections and defense mechanisms - not real. Sometimes they can be too in neurotic people. One of the things that happens is that it is demonstrated, without a shadow of a doubt, that these so-called "subjective impressions" have a kind of independent reality, and are reliable - subject/object differentiation dissolves quite a bit anyway. Projection and the like can occur, but it's much easier to see it for what it is. This is some of what Chris is going through right now. So in a way, the "this" of the question above is much bigger and brighter than originally thought - the universe and everything in it is living, sentient, and luminous - and you are intimately connected to everything in it, always touching it all with your mind. Loneliness is no longer.

Otherwise, social reality remains undisturbed, and everyone pretty much sees you and the universe as before. The lower level ego functions seem to sort of go on in the background, including social identity functions. I had a sort of midlife crisis after the birth of my first child, which was seen to be ridiculous on one hand, but still something I was going through. I think it was vastly helped by my condition though, and I was able to see what was really important before I really messed up. I also went through a period where I was drinking too much - creeped up on me. I went to counseling for it - quit for over a year, and after much consideration decided no label could define me, and now have about 2 glasses of wine a week for years now.