A MAN NEVER ARGUES WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN - OH BUT I INSIST

[spiritual_emergency]

...

[David Quinn]

frank,

DQ: one attempts to conquer ignorance in order to become enlightened.

F: ignorance=repulsion

In order to

enlightenment=attraction

Activity...chasing a payoff.

Actions originate from self-clinging. That clinging which produces actions also originates from imagination.

So how do you think ignorance can be conquered then?

Or do you propose that people should accept being ignorant and not do anything about it?

-

[David Quinn]

spiritual_emergency wrote:

DQ: Do you imagine that when a person becomes fully enlightened he suddenly disappears into thin air?

SE: Since I do not believe it's possible for an individual in a body to become fully enlightened, how could I believe that body would disappear into "thin air" if/when they did?

I can only go on what you write. You did write, "complete enlightenment (according to my own terms) cannot be achieved as long as you have a body", and "There's little point in arguing about who is or isn't enlightened. If you're here, you're not -- it levels the playing field."

That said, I have heard of some individuals who can disappear into thin air (a report of Peruvian shamans, if I recall correctly) but I've also heard of and met many individuals who believed they were enlightened who were merely on an ego trip. History is littered with the corpses of "enlightened" individuals who all too often, proved out their humanity, some of them, more compassionately than others.

The fact that many deluded people foolishly claim to be enlightened doesn't have any bearing on the issue of whether an individual in a body can indeed be fully enlightened. There is no connection there. It would be like saying that because incompetent musicians often claim to be geniuses, Mozart and Bach cannot possibly exist.

DQ: The fully-enlightened person can swim around in Buddha-nature no matter where he is. He doesn't have to disappear off the face of the planet in order to maintain his enlightenment, because it is the same wherever he goes. It is all Buddha-nature.

SE: There is no need for me to swim around in Buddha's nature. My task -- if there is one -- is not to be Buddha, or Christ, or Mohammed, or Kali, or Shiva, etc. It is simply to be exactly who I am, not who someone else was.

You are already who you are and not someone else. So that has already been accomplished. The next, and far more important, task is to realize your true nature, which is the same everywhere.

That's if you don't want to remain deluded, of course.

DQ: The fully-enlightened person is like the rest of us - he lives his life on this earth and then he dies, never to be seen again.

SE: I would phrase that statement differently. I would say that the individual dies and then becomes fully enlightened. They may be aware that will happen but they cannot be aware when it does because it requires a degree of separation to be aware of that. In full-enlightenment, there is no degree of separation, which is why it cannot occur for any duration while "you" are still contained within a physical body. In other words, you may visit, but you cannot live there.

If I understand you aright, you're saying that full enlightenment will automatically happen to all of us when we die, and yet when this happens none of us will be conscious of it in any way. Is that right?

This doesn't make any sense to me. All you seem to be saying is that we will become unconscious when we die, which I agree with.

Therefore, any discussion of "enlightenment" is ultimately redundant although not without benefit -- many people may need to explore the concept for themselves.

Especially if they have a deluded conception of enlightenment to begin with.

I'm not aware of any individual who would actually want to carry the label for any length of time unless they are doing so as a result of having personally invested themselves in the "specialness" of it.

He might have other reasons for doing it. For example, he might want to go against the current trend of people pretending to be humble and making great shows of how "unenlightened" they are, all the while secretly believing themselves to be enlightened. He might wish to challenge that form of hypocrisy.

Or he might see that the label of "enlightenment" is confronting to people and deliberately wears it to provoke them into thinking more deeply about things.

Or he might not care about the label at all, but gets burdened with it whether he likes it or not, because of the authority of his speech and the wisdom of his words.

There could be any number of non-egotistical reasons for his wearing it.

Me, I think it's limiting. I wouldn't want to be "enlightened". I wouldn't want to go around believing I was somehow more "special" than others. In the end, we all return to that which we came from. In the end, we are all one. In the end, there is only the silence of nothingness... from which everything sprang.

Well, you can't have it both ways. You're either enlightened and therefore qualified to speak with expertise and authority about the nature of enlightenment, or else you have to accept that your views of enlightenment are speculative and little more than guesses in the dark. Are you prepared to accept this latter possibility?

All too often these days people want to pontificate about the nature of enlightenment and yet they don't want to assume responsibility for this behaviour and acknowledge that they believe themselves to be enlightened. It is a particularly insidious form of hypocrisy which permeates this world of ours.

-

[spiritual_emergency]

...

[Kevin Solway]

I've got to get back to fixing a kitchen sink.

Perhaps you should change your user name to "plumbing_emergency". :-)

[Wild Fox Zen]

enlightenment does not equal oceanic consciousness.

[David Quinn]

spiritual_emergency wrote:

DQ: The fact that many deluded people foolishly claim to be enlightened doesn't have any bearing on the issue of whether an individual in a body can indeed be fully enlightened.

SE: Why do you find it neccessary to convince me of the rightness of your belief structure?

Challenging people's views and forcing them to deal with whatever irrationalities exist in their thinking is what I do.

I do not believe an individual can become enlightened while possessing a material body. That's it. That's my belief.

I'm still trying to understand this belief of yours. How did you arrive at it?

DQ: There is no connection there. It would be like saying that because incompetent musicians often claim to be geniuses, Mozart and Bach cannot possibly exist.

SE: I see. So are you saying that Mozart and Bach present the ultimate that a musician could possibly achieve and therefore represent an end point of musical achievement?

Many people think so. In terms of what their music tries to achieve as art, it is flawlessly constructed and executed.

DQ: The next, and far more important, task is to realize your true nature, which is the same everywhere.

SE: Then there's no need to realize it, is there?

If people are unawake to it, and nearly all people are, then there is indeed a need.

DQ: This doesn't make any sense to me. All you seem to be saying is that we will become unconscious when we die, which I agree with.

SE: If it doesn't make sense to you, why do you agree with it?

I agree that we become unconscious at death, but I don't understand the enlightenment bit that you tack onto this. Your idea that we become both enlightened and unconscious at the same time doesn't make any sense. Can you expand on what you mean by this?

DQ: You're either enlightened and therefore qualified to speak with expertise and authority about the nature of enlightenment, or else you have to accept that your views of enlightenment are speculative and little more than guesses in the dark. Are you prepared to accept this latter possibility?

SE: According to my own self-definition I couldn't possibly be enlightened as I'm still alive. Therefore, there is no need for me to speak with expertise and authority or even for you to argue the matter with me. It's already been established that I don't believe that I am.

So let's sum up then:

By your own admission, you have no real idea what enlightenment is. Yet somehow you have attached yourself to the belief that enlightenment can only occur at death, and that until then there is no real point in thinking or talking about it. There is really nothing to do except wait until we die, and even then we won't be able to experience it because we will be unconscious. Is that a fair summary?

Aside from any other consideration, I can't see how your belief inspires you to seek enlightenment with any urgency. Where does the "emergency" bit of your moniker come into play, exactly?

DQ: He might have other reasons for doing it. For example, he might want to go against the current trend of people pretending to be humble and making great shows of how "unenlightened" they are, all the while secretly believing themselves to be enlightened. He might wish to challenge that form of hypocrisy.

SE: And what would be the purpose of his challenge?

To overturn people's comfortable habits and thought-processes and conventional ways of thinking. To stimulate serious thought. To promote wisdom in the world.

Hypocrisy seems to be something that bothers you. Me, I have had some intense spiritual experiences that might correlate with awakenings and various realizations but that's something for me to work on in my own way and my own time. Doing so doesn't require followers, approval, acceptance, or agreement.

That is fair enough. But keep in mind that you've chosen to participate in a spiritual discussion forum and you began by attacking the behaviours and beliefs of others here. So don't be so precious when the same thing is directed back your way.

-

[frank]

frank,

Quote:
DQ: one attempts to conquer ignorance in order to become enlightened.

F: ignorance=repulsion

In order to

enlightenment=attraction

Activity...chasing a payoff.

Actions originate from self-clinging. That clinging which produces actions also originates from imagination.

david:

So how do you think ignorance can be conquered then?

Or do you propose that people should accept being ignorant and not do anything about it?

Who makes repulsive repulsive?

Who makes attractive attractive?

Here's a Clue:

Take a peek in the mirror.

It's Hilarious!

frank

[Jason]

Perhaps what Jason is thinking of is that a particular phenomenon could be constructed in such a manner that it will necessarily trigger in people's brains the idea that it possesses meaning.

The truth is I hadn't really fleshed out the idea myself, I was merely presenting it in devil's advocate fashion, but Dave Hodges reference to essentialism seems pretty close to what I was imagining. I was also playing off an idea that has interested me for a while - where is the mind located? Who is to say it is not actually in the thing we perceive. So my mind could reside within the sunset, rather than outside of it receiving the sunset perceptually. Imagine if when we perceive our environment we are actually looking at a mirror - so when I see a tree I am actually a tree looking at itself, a tree looking in a mirror. Kinda crazy, kinda interesting.

It doesn't really matter anyway, I was actually trying to confront you on another issue in a round-a-bout way, but I should do it directly, maybe I'll start a thread about it.

[David Quinn]

frank wrote:

Who makes repulsive repulsive?

Who makes attractive attractive?

Here's a Clue:

Take a peek in the mirror.

It's Hilarious!

Oh, frank, you're such a bore. Anyone can play these games.

For example:

You want me to look into the mirror "in order to .....?

You got married and had children "in order to ....?

You speak against the path to enlightenment "in order to ....?

You avoid dealing with your own hypocrisy "in order to ....?

Marriage = attraction
Solitude = repulsion
Family life = attraction
Lofty misogyny = repulsion

And so on and so forth, forever and ever, amen.

All you ever give us is meaningless pap. When are you going to give us something substantial to sink our teeth into? I know you have the intellect for it, but do you have the balls?

-

[spiritual_emergency]

...

[spiritual_emergency]

Perhaps you should change your user name to "plumbing_emergency". :-)

Several skewers, two ancient straws and a couple of greasy hairballs later, the sink is as good as new. If only all emergencies could be dealt with so speedily. :-)

[Wild Fox Zen]

spiritual_emergency: you seem to define "enlightenment" as basically oceanic consciousness. I don't think that's a very useful or sophisticated definition.

You might find this interview to be of some worth:

http://www.aroter.org/eng/teachings/bloodlust.htm

[frank]

I'll walk you thru' it again.

david:
I'm saying that meaning is the attachment between a mental state and a perceived phenonemon.

Correct.

Buddha Nature is not a Mental State.

Buddha Nature creates Mental States....Mental States create Meaning...

In the Cyclone, there is a centre or Eye.
The centre or Eye is 'still,tranquil,calm'...what surrounds the centre or Eye is Activity...

You 'know' this experientially David...not as just another item to know that you read from a book.

Buddha Nature is the Eye, the perfection...there is no perfection apart from imperfection...
the perfection within the imperfection...the Void within the Drama...the imperfection is the mental state attaching to perceived phenomena...attaching Meaning...

Mental States routinely 'picture' the World as dangerous as in a core meaning of Genius Forum is that 'Woman is Dangerous and Keep Away...'
How Hilarious can you get? It's a Scream ain't it?



All sentient Beings have Buddha Nature.

Realise that Nature.

In the Realising...all Meaning disappears...emptiness is realised..

It's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless...

When you get that you run off happily and Make up some Meaning...

WE are Meaning Making Machines.

In order to= Activity.

frank

[Pye]

.


The synonymous association of "unconsciousness" with "femininity" makes for some rhetorical slop apparently useful to many who think here. On the one hand, it means to equate one human quality (unconsciousness) with a[n assumed] set of qualities (femininity); and on the other hand, it equates a human quality (unconsciousness) with a gender itself (females). The slop from A-is-included-in-B to A-actually-means-C depends upon the rhetorical intent of the speaker. This gives the terms in general and the genius forum in particular a safehouse for dressing-up misogyny, as well as a rhetorical devise for backing out of it. It serves another logistical, and actually more serious hiccup in thinking I'll get to in a second.

Here are some further absurdities from this rhetorical devise: it assumes that there are complementaries in place [masculine/feminine] and that these have been definitively fixed by some trick of metaphysical authority, rather than being a device of our own [social] construction (so in this, it is an invitation in itself to a lack of consciousness).

Further, it seeks to destroy one half of that complementary, on the assumption that the other half will remain intact (if this doesn't offend the laws of logic, it at least offends the laws of physics).

It is the western dualistic thinking in its blindest form: of all complementaries, one is always "better" than the other categorically, as opposed to situationally, thus trouncing any fluid wisdom one gets from the knowing when of the Tao.

Additionally, the supreme status accorded consciousness is much like Nietzsche's complaint about Socrates: Since Socrates, everything in the world must be intelligible to be of any worth. And all of this is deeply embedded in the deep mists of man's psychic association between women/nature: both are chaotic, destructive forces in need of intelligibility and control. It keeps one's head back in these mists and fears.

There's more (I'm pressed for time). Let me get right to the most glaring pathology of bad faith in all of this: it imputes a quality to the thing that actually belongs to the person addressing it.
For example, the statement that "females are unconscious" is more accurately rendered "I get unconscious around females."
The statement that "females are incapable of enlightenment" actually means "I am incapable of enlightened thought and behavior around females."
The statement that "women are flesh," is really "when I'm around women, I can only think of them as flesh."
It says that "Your use of pink and blue font indicates an unserious, unconcentrated mind," instead of saying "My mind can't concentrate or be serious around pink or blue font."

The list of these items of bad faith goes on endlessly. In the words of the admirably hard-assed Simone de Beauvoir, the problem with women has always been a problem with the man. It is not that "intellectual admiration for a woman is impossible (firstly) without her thinking of Love" (secondly) -- it is "I am incapable of feeling intellectual admiration for a woman without falling in love with her." I think one of these guys has already slipped seamlessly into a demonstration of this here.

etc.
etc.
etc.

This excellently divisive bit of rhetoric (femininity=unconsciousness) that survives so persistently here serves many conscious and unconscious purposes on the part of its users. Chief among these is an intellectual justification of sorts for misogyny. And misogyny thus dressed can escape the glaring examination of itself as incommensurate with enlightenment - an incommensurability that cannot position itself within reason in any way whatsoever. Here's my little equation: misogyny = self-loathing. Properly stated, it is not "I hate women," but rather, "I hate what I become around them." Focus upon the first part of this corollary serves the convenient purpose of avoiding confrontation with the second, passes the blame in a blazing act of bad faith onto the thing itself in some misguided and unconscious deference to Cause and Effect.

In other words, the possibility of enlightenment or non-enlightenment for women as women . . . is really asking after the possibility of enlightenment for men as "men." If one wishes to hold exclusively onto all of the category known as "masculine," one has already shot oneself in the foot.


.

[David Quinn]

spiritual_emergency wrote:

DQ: Challenging people's views and forcing them to deal with whatever irrationalities exist in their thinking is what I do.

SE: Oh, a savior. How very fortunate for those you save then.

Like Socrates, I'd rather think of myself as a midwife.

DQ: Your idea that we become both enlightened and unconscious at the same time doesn't make any sense.

SE: Did I say that we become unconscious and enlightened at the same time? No, I didn't. Once again, you are confusing your beliefs with mine.

Your words were: "I would say that the individual dies and then becomes fully enlightened. They may be aware that will happen but they cannot be aware when it does because it requires a degree of separation to be aware of that."

If a dead person is still conscious, yet unaware of his enlightenment, then what do you think is he actually aware of?

Your perception that death is a state of unconsciousness does not jive with mine that death is a state of enlightenment, hence, your confusion belongs to you.

So when Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Hakuin, and the other wise great wise men of history urged us to make every effort to abandon our attachments and seek heaven/enlightenment with all of our heart, strength and mind, they were, according to you, kidding themselves and everyone who listened to them?

I suppose what they should have said is: "Sit back everyone, take it easy, enjoy yourselves, for as sure as night follows day you will enter into full enlightenment the moment you die." I'm surprised they didn't.

DQ: By your own admission, you have no real idea what enlightenment is.

SE: Again, I don't recall that being anything I've said. What I have said is that I was not enlightened. Clearly, I'd have to have some idea of what enlightened was to arrive at the conclusion that I wasn't.

Well, sure, you would have "some" idea of what enlightenment is. But if you're not actually enlightened, then what does it really mean? Not much at all. It can be little more than speculation. In the end, only enlightened people genuinely know what enlightenment is. Unenlightened people, by contrast, have little or no idea, regardless of what they might like to believe.

Moreoever, to make a blind guess that enlightenment is something that will invariably happen to us when we die strikes me as incredibly foolish. It is like a lazy man saying, for no good reason at all, that all of us will surely receive a million dollars from somewhere or other when we turn 65, and that therefore we don't have to bother saving for our retirement. Most people would think this man is living in a dreamworld.

DQ: Where does the "emergency" bit of your moniker come into play, exactly?

SE: It comes from the experience of ego collapse/ego death.

But you've already loudly boasted that you're unenlightened. How can you possibly know what ego collapse/ego death is like if you're still unenlightened?

-

[sky]

For example, the statement that "females are unconscious" is more accurately rendered "I get unconscious around females."
The statement that "females are incapable of enlightenment" actually means "I am incapable of enlightened thought and behavior around females."
The statement that "women are flesh," is really "when I'm around women, I can only think of them as flesh."
It says that "Your use of pink and blue font indicates an unserious, unconcentrated mind," instead of saying "My mind can't concentrate or be serious around pink or blue font."

exactly

i remember well my experience of puberty before puberty i was a slender boyish creature - once one of my father's friends asked him 'oh is this your boy' he knew my father had a son and a daughter

when i hit puberty and developed curves seemingly overnight people especially men people started acting strangely and it was just plain weird to the 'me' living inside my body because that 'me' had not changed

my freedom to wander about was suddenly impeded i could not longer stay home and read or go to the ocean no i had to walk around the golf course behind my parents or be on their loud smelly yacht and i hated it

i was under 'house arrest' for this crime of having the capacity to attract the attention that could lead to reproducuction

now my brother was still allowed his freedom and i saw injustice in that

most men acted like idiots and remember this is the perception of a 'child' even though biologically a 'woman'

[sky]

dq

Like Socrates, I'd rather think of myself as a midwife.

but unlike socrates you would never give credit to a woman as being one of your teachers as socrates did to the beautiful and brilliant aspasia

[sky]

dg

Marriage = attraction
Solitude = repulsion
Family life = attraction
Lofty misogyny = repulsion

for someone supposedly wise and a genius you are missing the glaringly obvious flaw in your whole agument

that attraction and aversion are both attachment

[sky]

dg

The fact that many deluded people foolishly claim to be enlightened doesn't have any bearing on the issue of whether an individual in a body can indeed be fully enlightened. There is no connection there. It would be like saying that because incompetent musicians often claim to be geniuses, Mozart and Bach cannot possibly exist.

dg from another forum

Although I like Mozart's music and can appreciate the skill of his compositions, he wasn't really a genius to my mind, even though he was clearly one of the best composers who ever lived. At root, he was merely a person with a gift for manipulating sounds for emotional pleasure. He never made the attempt to open his mind up to the Infinite, never encouraged people to abandon their delusions, never challenged them to strive for ultimate knowledge. Because of this, he wasn't a true genius.

am i the only one here who sees any contradition in these two statements

one of the proofs of ultimate reality or one in touch with ultimate reality would be lack of contradiction

no one told me i figured it out myself

but is it not perfectly logical

[sky]

dg

Challenging people's views and forcing them to deal with whatever irrationalities exist in their thinking is what I do.

forcing

how 'masculine'

do you really think you can force people to enlightenment

that is probably the most oxymornonic thing i have ever heard anyone propose

[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

Let me get right to the most glaring pathology of bad faith in all of this: it imputes a quality to the thing that actually belongs to the person addressing it.
For example, the statement that "females are unconscious" is more accurately rendered "I get unconscious around females."
The statement that "females are incapable of enlightenment" actually means "I am incapable of enlightened thought and behavior around females."

Actually, the opposite happens with me. Whenever I am with a female I tend to become more enlightened in my thinking and more conscious of Truth. It's as though something in me is instantly repulsed by the rampant chaos, incoherency and unconsciousness which is visibly pouring from her mind.

But again, as I articulated in the "Masculine and Feminine Psychology" thread, the primary woman that all of us have to worry about is the woman inside our own minds - that is, the chaos, incoherency, emotionalism, passivity, and craving to merge into the crowd and disappear altogether, which exists within us and constantly undermines our spiritual progress as a matter of course.

-

[David Quinn]

sky wrote:

DQ: Marriage = attraction
Solitude = repulsion
Family life = attraction
Lofty misogyny = repulsion

for someone supposedly wise and a genius you are missing the glaringly obvious flaw in your whole agument

that attraction and aversion are both attachment

There is nothing wrong with having attachments, so long as they are intelligent attachments that will help propel one towards Truth. Attachments such as Truth, enlightenment, understanding, reason, independence of thought, the need to conquer all delusion, etc, are all good attachments.

The path to enlightenment is essentially one of becoming strongly attached to things like enlightnment, reason, understanding, etc, and then watching these attachments fall away as one becomes conscious of Truth.

DQ: The fact that many deluded people foolishly claim to be enlightened doesn't have any bearing on the issue of whether an individual in a body can indeed be fully enlightened. There is no connection there. It would be like saying that because incompetent musicians often claim to be geniuses, Mozart and Bach cannot possibly exist.

dg from another forum

DQ: Although I like Mozart's music and can appreciate the skill of his compositions, he wasn't really a genius to my mind, even though he was clearly one of the best composers who ever lived. At root, he was merely a person with a gift for manipulating sounds for emotional pleasure. He never made the attempt to open his mind up to the Infinite, never encouraged people to abandon their delusions, never challenged them to strive for ultimate knowledge. Because of this, he wasn't a true genius.

am i the only one here who sees any contradition in these two statements

As I mentioned on that forum, it's all relative. Mozart and Bach are geniuses when compared to Britney Spears or Robbie Williams, while, at the same time, they are little more than chirping gnats when compared to the likes of Lao Tzu, Kierkegaard, and Buddha.

DQ: Challenging people's views and forcing them to deal with whatever irrationalities exist in their thinking is what I do.

forcing

how 'masculine'

do you really think you can force people to enlightenment

No, but I can force them to become aware of whatever irrationalities exist in their thinking, to some extent at least. It is then up to them as to whether they want to resolve these irrationalities properly and become more advanced in their thinking, or whether they want to continue blocking them out. That is something they have to decide alone.

You can take a horse to water, and all that.

-

[David Quinn]

sky wrote:

DQ: Like Socrates, I'd rather think of myself as a midwife.

but unlike socrates you would never give credit to a woman as being one of your teachers as socrates did to the beautiful and brilliant aspasia

As it happens, I've learnt quite a bit from Sue Hindmarsh, and also from Celia Green, Valerie Solanas, and Esther Vilar.

If a woman says something worthwhile, I'll always listen.

-

[frank]

David:

It's as though something in me is instantly repulsed by the rampant chaos, incoherency and unconsciousness which is visibly pouring from her mind.

Do you agree repulsion signifies attachment?

frank