Enlightenment Finally

[maestro]

I would also like to point that the method I described here resembles the method of enquiry and observation (jnana yoga, vipassana). This method was proposed in antiquity when the workings of the mind were not very clear, and paradoxes such as (who is the observer, the soul, the universal soul?) have always plauged it. I am actually providing a coherent picture of how it works (using neuroscience) and solves the problem of suffering. I can also attest that it works very well indeed.

[Dan Rowden]

Sure, but if the method is happening at all then perturbations of mind are still arising. Therefore, suffering and delusion exists. Enlightenment isn't the supersonic ability to cut off bad mind states at the pass - it is the absence of their arising.

How about swimming is not the ability to avoid drowning at supersonic speed, but to not drown at all

Hmm, that might get my nod if it were the nature of the person to float rather than him employing floating as a method of not drowning.

[Dan Rowden]

Dan,

And yet Sam said nothing - at least this time - that really should have annoyed you.

Amazing. I guess you've established that Sam's posts are not annoying. No biggie, I'm using the ignore function now. You won't have to read any more posts of mine aimed at Sam, ever.

Sam's posts are often a source of many things, annoyance included, but on this occasion he was addressing the point in the context it was offered. I fail to see your problem other than in the sense that you're maybe mixing contexts.

[maestro]

Really Dan, when your skill is developed enough you are not paranoid about failure.
For example if I am cycling I am not concerned whether I am so perfect as I will never fall at all, enough adversity may make me fall, same is the case here, with enough skill you do not care whether anything arises or does not arise, you are relaxed with whatever is coming your way.

I do not get the obsession with the fear or anger not arising at all. Let it arise it does not matter. Even if once in a blue moon it causes you to fall and thus cause suffering, why make such a big deal out of it.

[Shahrazad]

Maestro: How about swimming is not the ability to avoid drowning at supersonic speed, but to not drown at all

Dan: Hmm, that might get my nod if it were the nature of the person to float rather than him employing floating as a method of not drowning.

When a person learns how to float well, it becomes his nature to float. He doesn't have to do anything to keep floating.

There was a time when I didn't know how to float. Now I don't know how to sink. Maestro's example is sound.

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[Shahrazad]

Dan,

Sam's posts are often a source of many things, annoyance included, but on this occasion he was addressing the point in the context it was offered.

How does the following statement address the point in the context Maestro offered it:

You think you are the first person to attempt to cope with suffering on a mental level? Puhleeze.

I fail to see your problem other than in the sense that you're maybe mixing contexts.

Which contexts do you think I am mixing?

You can answer my questions if you want, but like I said before, my "problem" has been solved. I'm ok with Sam making any posts that he fancies.

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[Sapius]

This process eventually became so fast as to see clearly in real time, that there was no feeler of feelings but various chains of cause and effects and no thinker of thoughts but chains of cause and effect this eventually invalidated the self (which was discovered to be an implicit assumption generated in the thinking mind and associated with lots of associated emotional charges).

Well, good for You... I say

We can discuss whether enlightenment is:

1)The end of suffering
2)The end of identification
3)Becoming one with the universal soul.
4)Realizing that both personal and universal soul is an illusion.
5)100% masculinity
6)100% femininity
7)51% masculinity and 49% femininity (from Huzeng).
8)Ineffable

How about, number 9) none of the above.

Shahrazad: Do you agree with Sam then that enlightenment is beyond the mind, and any method involving the mind is useless?

Dan: I don't agree that Sam states things exactly like this. I do agree that Sam seriously underestimates the importance of thought and mental awareness with respect to the path. I think what you're talking about has significant utility there. I'm simply agreeing with Sam that it isn't enlightenment.

No, I don’t think Sam underestimates the importance of mental thought, just thoughtfully acknowledges its limitations, and thereby, thoughtfully, letting go of attachments to thoughts itself. It’s a step “beyond” the thought processes so to speak, where the “I” still simply remains.

In my opinion, what Sam really underestimates is, that his mere thoughtful expressive explanations of the above should be more than enough for another mind to realize and accept, without that particular mind actually delving into the depths on its own. All minds don’t work in the same fashion, and all minds DO NOT become one and the same thing even if one totally believes that there isn’t an individually disassociated or disconnected “I” at all, and that ALL is ONE, where the latter part remains but a poetic emotional expression.

Suffering is any perturbation of mind arising from ego-based thinking.

May be, but there isn’t any other-based thinking, so I take it you mean from the false-ego, that is, any and all reactions and thoughts that arise from forgetting the non-inherent-ness of the “I” in any given moment that a particular Self faces, which is however dealt by an individual Self – I – Ego in any which case.

Realizing the non-inherency of the I is essential, but an I is necessary to even contemplate that, and one must not forget that either, ever.

Dan: What I'm saying there is that where implementation is occurring, suffering necessarily exists. One would have to have gone beyond the method itself to have gone beyond suffering.

Exactly; and I think Sam or Robert are saying the same thing, just that I see false-ego clashing temporarily.

[divine focus]

Really Dan, when your skill is developed enough you are not paranoid about failure.
For example if I am cycling I am not concerned whether I am so perfect as I will never fall at all, enough adversity may make me fall, same is the case here, with enough skill you do not care whether anything arises or does not arise, you are relaxed with whatever is coming your way.

I do not get the obsession with the fear or anger not arising at all. Let it arise it does not matter. Even if once in a blue moon it causes you to fall and thus cause suffering, why make such a big deal out of it.

Yes! All is fine. Ego wants to get better, but there is no better. Suffering is a call to notice.

[sorbus]

I am pleased you have found an end to suffering. Now you have the way, you are going to have a lot of free time. What are you going to do now?

[Dan Rowden]

Hopefully, kill everyone with that question.

[Shahrazad]

Dan, don't forget to answer my question about which contexts I am mixing.

[Dan Rowden]

You are mixing your attachment to the concept of cognitive control and suffering alleviation that maestro was talking about (to which you are very attached - or your interpretation thereof) and its relationship to enlightenment (to which you are blissfully ignorant).

[Shahrazad]

Dan,

By not caring whether maestro's technique can be called enlightenment, I am mixing contexts? Now you'll have to explain why, because I fail to see the connection.

One more question, in case you're up to it: Why is my "attachment to the concept of cognitive control and suffering" any worse than your attachment to enlightenment?

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[maestro]

Sorbus
I am pleased you have found an end to suffering. Now you have the way, you are going to have a lot of free time. What are you going to do now?


My exposition clearly shows that enlightenment is not a superhuman achievement and the enlightened is not a super being.

The enlightenment has given me a clearer picture of my mental processes and a healthy immunity to suffering. What I do next is respond to how circumstances arise, nothing special, same as I did before but with greater clarity and focus.

Essentially enlightenment is to stop hurting yourself.

[brokenhead]

Essentially enlightenment is to stop hurting yourself.

I think that's just a start. But you have to stop hurting other people as well. I mean the generic use of the word "you" of course.

[maestro]

It will come to the same when you are not hurt you are not going to hurt others.

[samadhi]

I look forward to your contributions from your newly enlightened perspective!

[Jason]

Maestro, that's an intriguing technique. It sounds kinda like cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm also reminded of this :).

Are you claiming that you are completely free of mental suffering?

I define enlightenment as the end of mental suffering

Would that make a lifetime supply of heroin enlightenment too?

It will come to the same when you are not hurt you are not going to hurt others.

Empathy is often a large factor in avoiding harming others, and in such cases empathy involves imagining and feeling others apparent pain. So if you remove all mental pain wouldn't that remove this type of empathy too?

[maestro]

Jason, you have to check out the definition of suffering I have given in the sister thread.

Am I free of this I cannot guarantee 100% as in the cycling analogy I posted while replying to Dan, but I am confident enough that it will not arise, and even if it does no big deal.

Empathy is often a large factor in avoiding harming others, and in such cases empathy involves imagining and feeling others apparent pain. So if you remove all mental pain wouldn't that remove this type of empathy too?

I do not think you have to suffer to not harm others, when you are in a cheerful mood do you not feel extra generous towards all and sundry. In any case not to harm others is a very logical proposition. Empathy is the capacity to know other minds, which a mind which knows its own workings is much better at.

Essentially it knows only too well what pain and suffering is, it does not allow the suffering to occur since it is a total waste of time and energy.

[maestro]

Note that the feedback loop may not be as dramatic as to lead to an emotional outburst it could also be very unobtrusive and barely detectable but causes leakage of energy nonetheless. For example on some days you feel depressed and frustrated for no reason, oftentimes it is the weather and other conditions which induce the feelings of depression which then activate thoughts and so on, this one is harder to detect.

Also the loop may not begin from the feeling but start from the thought process.

[Dan Rowden]

Dan,

By not caring whether maestro's technique can be called enlightenment, I am mixing contexts? Now you'll have to explain why, because I fail to see the connection.

You got upset at what Sam was saying because you value what maestro said for your own reasons, yet Sam's criticisms had nothing to do with the reasons you value maestro's notion.

One more question, in case you're up to it: Why is my "attachment to the concept of cognitive control and suffering" any worse than your attachment to enlightenment?-

I don't have any such attachment. Yours is plain because you get upset when you perceive it [the idea behind maestro's post] being attacked. There's nothing wrong with you valuing the sort of method maestro was talking about as it is obviously very useful, but your reaction to Sam suggests that something else is going on.

[maestro]

Dan since you regard Sam's criciticisms as valid. I reproduce his quotes below

You think you are the first person to attempt to cope with suffering on a mental level?
Enlightenment is about the end of identification. As long as you still identify with your thoughts and feelings, body and mind as who you are, you cannot speak of enlightenment.

It seems that Samadhi is talking about something (self?) beyond the body mind, which when stops identifying with the body mind ushers in enlightenment.
Do you agree with this stance that there is an entity beyond the body mind which when stops being identified with the body/mind ushers in enlightenment.

[Dan Rowden]

My understanding is that when Sam speaks of identification he's talking about the ego. Identification all comes down to that - it's relating everything back to the idea of an inherently existing self (which is false construct). When that completely stops you have enlightenment.

[maestro]

If you read my original post I told how this observational process revealed to me that there was no central being. If this process can reveal that the ego is a false notion then why can this observational process not bring enlightenment.

[Dan Rowden]

I'm not saying it can't. That part of what Sam is arguing I don't agree with. I'm am simply saying it isn't enlightenment. What you're talking about is an important part of developing the awareness that is necessary for enlightenment, but it still falls within the realm of psycho-cognitive therapy however practiced one becomes at it. It would be spiritually abortive to think of it as an end rather than a means.