Giving up on enlightenment

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Enlightenment is about realizing deeply and consistently the nature of past, present and future, ignorance and truth, their differences and non-difference. So by clearing away delusion, "right" view arises as the only option of any evolving, moving consciousness.

There you go.

What is your objection to "products of imagination"? And how would you describe the nature of that objection?

I wouldn't call it an objection, just said that imagining something must be, such as a 'basckstory', doesn't make it so.

Experience itself cannot describe anything. The moment one would start a description, even within ones own mind, it's a form of "writing".

Clearly, experience doesn't require a description to be experience, it is what it is.

Are you saying that there's some "true-imaginings" reality?

Whatever that might be, it still appears to be, just like with any "false-imaginings".[/quote]

An appearance is not different from reality. "False-imaginings" or delusional ideas (such as the examples given) are of course, also of reality. In this way any appearance can be considered an opportunity for 'seeing' truth.

Being attached to concepts which do not in any way represent reality is delusional. These distort awareness of what is. To the point that someone can hear thunder and immediately link that to the anger of Thor, aka, "false-imagining".

If an imagination arises but you do not consider it to be anything more than it is, that is not delusional. Otherwise we would all be delusional simply for experiencing thought.

Are you saying that there's some "true-imaginings" reality?

You could say I didn't answer that directly, so no, I didn't say that.


I should note that there's nothing wrong with being delusional, to believe that distinction "delusional" is an inherent quality would be a false-imagining, and again, there's nothing wrong with that as the same goes, round and round.

A roundabout of imputed meaning, questions, searching for the answers. You already know this, reality didn't come from anyone or anywhere, it is what it is, what is there to get.

[Cahoot]

Thinking is perfect when it brings with it the flash of understanding.

That brings to mind another quote:

"The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

In light of the first quote, when we define “problem solved” to mean “understanding,” we are saying that a mind of understanding is another mind than the mind of problems. Then understanding is a flash to the problem mind, and problem is a flash to the understanding mind. Flash lightening, on the horizon.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Clearly, experience doesn't require a description to be experience, it is what it is.

But if there's no description functioning somewhere than it ain't anything at all. You simply wouldn't know since knowing is all about descriptions with the exception of knowing that something remains fundamentally indescribable, empty and non-existing. To talk about some "experience" is a clever trick here since all experience is a form of being informed to some degree using perhaps "lower level" languages but it really doesn't matter. Nothing is ever what it is, it's what something is 'telling' you what it looks or feels like at that moment, a fragment of time which does not really exist even. A rather fine grained self-observation needs to be in place to capture some of that process.

An appearance is not different from reality.

You appear to change the definition of reality to include any "non-reality" or false reality. But at that moment we stop having any reality at all!

Being attached to concepts which do not in any way represent reality is delusional. These distort awareness of what is. To the point that someone can hear thunder and immediately link that to the anger of Thor, aka, "false-imagining".

Aha, so "true" concepts represent some reality and "false" ones don't? But appearances were not different from reality before. Doesn't an appearance represent reality as well in some way? Like the sound of thunder representing some discharge? Which relates to a process only a few experts would really know enough about. Perhaps your imagining involves clouds coliding? Air drums being played? Or lightning bolts "striking" objects? Or you just don't link it to anything negative? The idea of some "angry Thor" clearly seems connected with the sense of awe, for nature and its power being experienced. That sense itself, would you call it true or false? At what point does the angry god image interfer with the sense?

If an imagination arises but you do not consider it to be anything more than it is, that is not delusional. Otherwise we would all be delusional simply for experiencing thought.

The problem is that by the time you are at the imagination "being" what it is, you have been constructing the image and loaded it with meaning or some responses to it. There does not exist some detached movie screen where your imagination displays its content for you. And if it did, the false position would be the observer itself. The source of the imagery, the layers, their meanings, their power, it's just you. It's supposed to look like what it's trying to represent and in that sense always more "than it is".

A roundabout of imputed meaning, questions, searching for the answers. You already know this, reality didn't come from anyone or anywhere, it is what it is, what is there to get.

Just because there is no clear point of arrival or origin, one cannot just stop growing up. A man is always left with the next challenge: overturning his self, his last "truth".

[SeekerOfWisdom]

with the exception of knowing that something remains fundamentally indescribable

There you go.

An appearance is not different from reality.

You appear to change the definition of reality to include any "non-reality" or false reality. But at that moment we stop having any reality at all!

An appearance is not different from reality. The same goes for any thought, prayer to Thor, or delusion. Shouldn't that be obvious?

Aha, so "true" concepts represent some reality and "false" ones don't?

"Truth" is not a concept, reality cannot be summed up in a momentary concept, it does not need to be.

All concepts, delusional or not, are no different from reality, and represent reality in that sense. A concept is reality, the same with an appearance, an imagination, a delusion, lightning, etc.

Like the sound of thunder representing some discharge? Which relates to a process only a few experts would really know enough about.

Definitely not.

Perhaps your imagining involves clouds coliding? Air drums being played?

And if it did, that's fine, but if I believed such an imagination represents reality, then I'd be delusional.

The problem is that by the time you are at the imagination "being" what it is, you have been constructing the image and loaded it with meaning or some responses to it.

Exactly, so you're writing the same thing then. "Loading it with meaning" when it's meaningless.

A man is always left with the next challenge: overturning his self, his last "truth".

Where is the challenge? Where is the man? Where is the self to overturn?

Someone who is delusional, such as one attached to ideas of selfhood, may be better off without that delusion. Never the less, there's nothing wrong, and "delusional" still holds no inherent meaning.

You'd be fine if you were praying to Thor and fine if you were Buddha Gautama. Anyone who implies that something must change, or that something is wrong, is yet to let go.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

An appearance is not different from reality. The same goes for any thought, prayer to Thor, or delusion. Shouldn't that be obvious?

If real and unreal are all the same category, there's no "reality" to it in any meaningful sense. Like with any "totality", it cannot and does not exist unless it's the only thing which exists. Which is really the same, logically.

All concepts, delusional or not, are no different from reality, and represent reality in that sense. A concept is reality, the same with an appearance, an imagination, a delusion, lightning, etc.

We could also call all these things "quark cheese". A better name is totality and it cannot exist as anything or be sensed -- as totality -- through anything. It' possible to know that. At least we've that.

And if it did, that's fine, but if I believed such an imagination represents reality, then I'd be delusional.

Reality includes everything according to your earlier statement, being "no different from reality". And then everything would at least represent to some degree reality, no matter what! That's what "representation" means anyway. It's impossible to make the case that something then does not represent reality , like you appear to be trying. But it's clear why you're trying because your logic does not hold together. You appear to oppose specific realities as they're created in a context, true or false. But by using the philosophy you are using, you will find yourself forced to accept those because there's nothing left to build such resistance on anymore.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

That's incorrect, I just wrote that all similarly represents reality as they clearly are "part" of it.

But believing the idea "when I pray I'll be heard " would make one delusional, that idea doesn't represent what is true, but is still clearly reality.

You seem to be playing needless word games to no apparent end. I didn't say anything that isn't abundantly obvious, you've only mistaken it to imply more than it does.

Anyway, there's nothing to get. Any beliefs/ideas we hold change nothing, they have no meaning ultimately, it is what it is.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But believing the idea "when I pray I'll be heard " would make one delusional, that idea doesn't represent what is true, but is still clearly reality.

But that idea is, like so much faith, more a question of how likely one regards something to have effect or not. For example, someone might prove that praying causes the mind to increase concentration and determination if the belief in a receiving end is present. Like placebo. To call this kind of thing "delusional" is to not understand the problem of delusion, which is not one of hope or trust but of fact and certainty where it's not appropriate.

You seem to be playing needless word games to no apparent end. I didn't say anything that isn't abundantly obvious, you've only mistaken it to imply more than it does.

Anyway, you appear to have a collection of notions which are very weak and hardly useful. No wonder there's nothing left to get! You didn't have much to start with. But there's always (delusional) hope you'd push further.

Anyway, there's nothing to get. Any beliefs/ideas we hold change nothing, they have no meaning ultimately, it is what it is.

But nobody would claim that meanings are "ultimate", although like with religion some "source" of meaning can be maintained. So congratulations, you've dismantled something that wasn't a problem in the first place. Makes you feel very clever and liberated, I'm sure! To give you a tip: the challenge in life is to distinguish one meaning, one idea from another, not to conclude they're all the same and therefore have no basis. The point is to understand their differences and qualities. And abandon the nonsense including the idea of some essential meaninglessness.

[Dennis Mahar]

You just said the meaning category is set up.
that's the meaning.
duh.

send in the clowns

[Pam Seeback]

Seeker: Anyway, there's nothing to get. Any beliefs/ideas we hold change nothing, they have no meaning ultimately, it is what it is.

Ask a holocaust survivor if Hitler's beliefs changed nothing.

[Dennis Mahar]

You've got that victim persecutor rescuer rubbish goin' on..

nothin to get.
nothin to fix.

[Pam Seeback]

Dennis, let's get real, every time a condition presents itself there's something to fix and something to get. How often do conditions present themselves on a daily basis? Let me count the ways...

The something to fix: you can't find your keys. The something to get when the fixing is done: your keys.

The something to fix: your friend tells you you have bad breath. The something to get when the fixing is done: fresh breath and a relieved friend.

The something to fix: you haven't pooped in week and your bowels are screaming atchya. The something to get when the fixing is done: ahhhhhh........

You make me smile. All the while you're insisting there's nothing to fix and nothing to get you're busy as a beaver trying to fix us asking us if we "geddit."

[Dennis Mahar]

You hate the perps
perpin the perps
cycle of suffering

Get Shorty!
Nothin to get
geddit?

[Dennis Mahar]

Got it?

because you believe in inherent existence.
because you believe the perp exists inherently.
because you believe your self exists inherently.

you blame the perp.
wrong target!

Your complaint is actually against causality.

good luck with that.

nothin' to get
nothin' to fix.

form is empty
empty is empty.

Get real huh?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

But nobody would claim that meanings are "ultimate",

Why do you imply it so often?

"And abandon the nonsense including the idea of some essential meaninglessness."

Abandoning the idea of essential meaning leaves meaninglessness.

Complaining implies that there is something inherently wrong or bad about a situation that needs to change for some end goal. The fault lies in one's attachments and emotions, the experience itself has no self quality.

A self induced dream of the high ground of philosophy, meaningless questions/ meaningless answers, meaningless goals.

"Giving up on enlightenment"
Giving up on what?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Your complaint is actually against causality.

That's true, the great rebellion of humans against reality, like the rebellion of Lucifer against God?

The solution is not to destroy reality by denying existence, the "getting" or dealing with it. To make it all "unreal" is to "kill God". This is the modern dilemma, the current nihilism. Although the crime is done by replacing the real with the virtual. To "get" what is not to get: a virtual understanding, a non-understanding.

Are you a murderer Dennis or a savior? Or just a victim or circumstance.

[Dennis Mahar]

The complaint is against causality, that's all.
couldn't be otherwise.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But nobody would claim that meanings are "ultimate",

Why do you imply it so often?

Meanings are relative and we ultimately have to deal with relativity all the time, which is truth.

Abandoning the idea of essential meaning leaves meaninglessness.

It means understanding the nature of meaning (what meaning means) is that it never can be be in itself any form of the "essential". So it's never about removing meaning unless one would demand to have only essentials. This demand for the essential is something to look into but not by discarding meanings and taking any left-overs. Which will still be shadows of meaning, like some reversal, a "lack of".

Complaining implies that there is something inherently wrong or bad about a situation that needs to change for some end goal. The fault lies in one's attachments and emotions, the experience itself has no self quality.

Pointing to some "fault" sounds like complaining, asserting something wrong or bad. And so is the way of nature. Are you arguing against nature and its cruel games? Understanding does not mean abandoning nature.

A self induced dream of the high ground of philosophy, meaningless questions/ meaningless answers, meaningless goals.

You need to understand that "illusion" here does not mean "mistake" or deception, something you can correct, remove or undo by replacing it with something else or a void.

[Pam Seeback]

Got it?

because you believe in inherent existence.
because you believe the perp exists inherently.
because you believe your self exists inherently.

you blame the perp.
wrong target!

Your complaint is actually against causality.

good luck with that.

nothin' to get
nothin' to fix.

form is empty
empty is empty.

Get real huh?

I have no complaint against causality, I do not believe in inherent existence, I am not blaming the perp. I honestly cannot fathom how you have concluded these things from my current writings. The only thing that makes logical sense is that you are still stuck in your "Pam and uncle" projection of "Pam's wound."

Form is empty. Yeah, I geddit. No self lives there. Causality is what causality does. Yeah, I geddit. No blaming, no praising, it loves, it hates, no self lives here, I geddit. The bullet: acknowledging the ongoing transcendence of conditions as the reality of consciousness is not belief in inherent existence, it is the way it works, it is its very nature. Being caught in or by a condition until the logical pattern of its transcendence is revealed = suffering. From where I sit, this is what you don't get 'cause you're still caught in the wonder (pleasure) condition of bliss.

Had my intuitive logic had been developed when I first 'met' you on this forum, I would never have told you about my uncle. But causality being what it is, it wasn't and I did, and causality being what it is, I am pulling a Cher from Moonstruck: slap! "get over it!"

[Dennis Mahar]

The past is a story about what happened that never happened in the way the story tells it.
self-cherishing.
the perils of pauline.
poor me.
whaddya reckon?

[Pam Seeback]

I reckon that when the story dies, causality's logic appears. Whaddya reckon?

[Dennis Mahar]

well, you know,
the story is always told in this way.
perp, rescuer, victim.

I reckon that when the story dies, causality's logic appears. Whaddya reckon?

of that order lotus girl.

[ardy]

To come back to the OP giving up on enlightenment, there are several points raised by some of you that are weights to be carried by the seeker and very difficult to resolve.
DVR mentioned logical planning v prajna and the difficulties that this clash raises. This is very difficult, the seeker gains prajna as they get into 'it' but find the natural wisdom of prajna hard to bring into planning a house construction, for instance. Whilst hoping to live in the moment, they find themselves hoping the moment remains the moment, and does not change into more chatter from the mind. So it all becomes a balancing act that can change the world of the seeker in ways they often do not want.

Looking at literature there are many enlightened monks who built fantastic monasteries and statues.

There are many difficulties and in some ways you are taken into a parallel world where what was successful for you in the past is not so useful any more. This of course just builds up pressure which is then released as some form of a breakthrough or you pack it in and step back into the red dust.

[Dennis Mahar]

The OP is a concern about victimhood.
so what?

[Pam Seeback]

well, you know,
the story is always told in this way.
perp, rescuer, victim.

I reckon that when the story dies, causality's logic appears. Whaddya reckon?

of that order lotus girl.

You fall on the ground, break your leg, an ambulance comes, you go to the hospital.

1. The ground is the perp?
2. The ambulance is the rescuer?
3. You're the victim?

[Pam Seeback]

To come back to the OP giving up on enlightenment, there are several points raised by some of you that are weights to be carried by the seeker and very difficult to resolve.
DVR mentioned logical planning v prajna and the difficulties that this clash raises. This is very difficult, the seeker gains prajna as they get into 'it' but find the natural wisdom of prajna hard to bring into planning a house construction, for instance. Whilst hoping to live in the moment, they find themselves hoping the moment remains the moment, and does not change into more chatter from the mind. So it all becomes a balancing act that can change the world of the seeker in ways they often do not want.

Looking at literature there are many enlightened monks who built fantastic monasteries and statues.

There are many difficulties and in some ways you are taken into a parallel world where what was successful for you in the past is not so useful any more. This of course just builds up pressure which is then released as some form of a breakthrough or you pack it in and step back into the red dust.

Along the way to see the truth of things, it is true that 'it' (the questioning) changes the world of the seeker in ways they often don't want, but isn't that the point?

Do you really believe it is possible to pack 'it' in once you've had even one breakthrough? How do you forget such a thing?