Enlightened! Really?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Kunyab
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Kunyab »

ardy wrote: Fairly simple to test at some level anyway. Get him to write a poem defining his enlightenment then post it here. Not sure there is anyone enlightened here either and if you don't get solid replies then send it to a major Buddhist monastery addressed to the Abbott and see what they have to say.

If he gets stuck give him this as one of many examples:

Without Name and Form

Well versed in the Buddha way,

I go the non-Way

Without abandoning my

Ordinary person's affairs.

The conditioned and

Name-and-form,

All are flowers in the sky.

Nameless and formless,

I leave birth-and-death.

P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)


OR maybe this one might be more appropriate:

Suchness

The wind traverses the vast sky,

clouds emerge from the mountains;

Feelings of enlightenment and things of the world

are of no concern at all.

Zen Master Keizan Jõkin (瑩山紹瑾 1268-1325)
I asked him, he says that he knows that he is enlightened and no one else can confirm it for him. All this confirming business is just delusional.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Kunga:

in·ef·fa·ble
inˈefəbəl/Submit
adjective
adjective: ineffable
1.
too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.
"the ineffable natural beauty of the Everglades"
synonyms: indescribable, inexpressible, beyond words, beyond description, begging description; indefinable, unutterable, untold, unimaginable; overwhelming, breathtaking, awesome, marvelous, wonderful, staggering, amazing
"the ineffable, surging joy of the Beatles"
unutterable, not to be uttered, not to be spoken, unmentionable, forbidden, taboo
"the ineffable name of God"
not to be uttered.
"the ineffable Hebrew name that gentiles write as Jehovah"
Those who know the nature of the silence to be made of causes and conditions are no longer afraid to utter its infinite names. As Jesus said, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Knock, and the door shall be opened, ask and ye shall receive. Or as Dennis often quotes David Quinn, trust in the infinite. Why should one, or more succinctly, how can one trust in something that refuses to be revealed? "The ineffable surging joy of the Beatles" is not ineffable because you have uttered it, you have named it, you have declared it to be "surging joy." Whether you realize it or not, you spoke "the word made flesh."

You speak of the Hebrews view of Jehovah, but the Hebrews do not recognize the New Testament and what did Jesus declare in the NT? I and the Father are One. It is true that Jesus was a Jew, but he was the first (that we know of ) to go beyond the limitations of his Jewish teachings, to break the covenant of silence between the Father and the Son.

At the tender age of 12, he questioned the rabbis in the temple "and they were amazed." When asked by his parents why he stayed back after Temple he told them he was "doing his Father's business." They had no idea what he was talking about. This is what made him so hated by the Jews, his audacity to claim Sonship (equality) with the Father. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." ~ Philippians 2:5-6

Think on this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." ~ John 1:1
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Cahoot wrote:The quality stream-of-consciousness writing by a Joyce or Kerouac could well be a product of mindfulness, whereas egoistic indulgence would be a different breed of writing.
That might be so but I was just talking about mistaking writing for conversational speech and things like excessive periods, "trailing off" and "how speech dissolves after it is spoken". Not sure why you are so distracted by Joyce, Psychyl and mindfulness all of a sudden. Wasn't the point of mindfulness paying closer attention and not to wobble? Did you actually read Psychyl or practiced actual mindfulness? Probably not if you think a drunk Kerouac has something to do with it!
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Cahoot
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Cahoot »

I see. The receiver of transmissions is set to frequencies that hear only attempts at negation or affirmation of you, rather than the frequencies that permit reception to begin expansion into depths beyond your own postings about a topic. Sort of like skittering on the surface of the water, rather than diving into depths, which would explain the current preferences for snorkeling rather than fathoming in this pond, and the projected inhibitions to static out serious inquiry, save for a few …

:)

Obviously you haven’t looked deep enough to realize that intoxicants are superfluous to mindfulness …
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ardy
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by ardy »

Kunyab wrote:
ardy wrote: Fairly simple to test at some level anyway. Get him to write a poem defining his enlightenment then post it here. Not sure there is anyone enlightened here either and if you don't get solid replies then send it to a major Buddhist monastery addressed to the Abbott and see what they have to say.

If he gets stuck give him this as one of many examples:

Without Name and Form

Well versed in the Buddha way,

I go the non-Way

Without abandoning my

Ordinary person's affairs.

The conditioned and

Name-and-form,

All are flowers in the sky.

Nameless and formless,

I leave birth-and-death.

P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)


OR maybe this one might be more appropriate:

Suchness

The wind traverses the vast sky,

clouds emerge from the mountains;

Feelings of enlightenment and things of the world

are of no concern at all.

Zen Master Keizan Jõkin (瑩山紹瑾 1268-1325)
I asked him, he says that he knows that he is enlightened and no one else can confirm it for him. All this confirming business is just delusional.
Kunyab - I suspect he is as far away from it as the rest of us and his ego has him by the gonads, same as the rest of us. How the hell can he know if there is no confirmation from someone who has been there? There are thousands of people who talk the talk, few have any real experience at all.

Has he discussed his breakthrough, what happened? I have spoken to several Americans who claimed to be enlightened but their idea of it was that they had some insight into the world, hardly enlightenment, as several here discuss it. The experience of enlightenment is very fundamental and life shattering but you can fall out of it again. The idea that you are enlightened can be a construct of the ego as part of the delusion. I'll have a look at his stuff.

NOTE: As a follow up I did read his blog and it seems he has read a lot of stuff but there was nothing in his writing that would point to any other experience than knowledge, and that is a dime a dozen.
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Cahoot
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Cahoot »

Kunyab, there is teaching, and there are enlightened teachers.

In the act of writing, your “husband” is teaching. Is he an enlightened teacher?

There are undoubtedly great teachers who write down their teachings. When you follow the hierarchy of teachers up to the Jesus level, they don’t write. There is teaching for sure, because in the heavyweight class the teachings take place as personal interactions. These interactions may be witnessed, or not. But they are powerful enough to inspire disciples who have realized the teachings. These disciples spread the teachings, face-to-face and in writing. The teachings carry the original power, through the disciples, and are received according to capacity of reception. Thus the truth in the teachings radiates out from the source, but originally are not written. The teachings of the heavyweights are like a thread connecting minds.

Jesus is big in the heavyweight class because he transcends the limitations of time and space. His world was more brutal than this one, in mind and body. His teaching was revolutionary to that brutal world. It awakened the truth of man’s intrinsic nature in those who heard and realized the teachings. Man’s intrinsic nature was not the brutal world that was known and accepted. So in that sense, Jesus was the division between animal and man. And he didn’t even write anything down. Because the teachings are so powerful and transformative of humanity, they are said to be divine.

Face-to-face. That’s how teachings transcend time and space. It used to be a basic rule of business, right ardy?

It’s likely that’s still the way things get done in the heavyweight class. The Jesus way, face-to-face.

But there are other teachers, besides Jesus.

There’s talk that the next Buddha may be a sangha, for those who hear and realize.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

To suggest to Kunyab that the source of her irritability, restlessness and discontent is the 'World External' (hubby) is to take her down a slippery slope.


To meditate on the source of please.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Cahoot wrote:Obviously you haven’t looked deep enough to realize that intoxicants are superfluous to mindfulness …
Mindfulness is just what's left when all intoxicants have ceased. We have a saying here: "having looked too deeply into the glass". One can guess what it means.
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ardy
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by ardy »

Dennis Mahar wrote:To suggest to Kunyab that the source of her irritability, restlessness and discontent is the 'World External' (hubby) is to take her down a slippery slope.


To meditate on the source of please.
Dennis - very true. We control our own happiness and the work of all of us, who are aware there is an issue, is to deal with our own issues and stop getting on our high horses about other peoples issues.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Numberless Inquiries conducted disclosed that the source of discontent is that the discontented 'holds' an ambition of the other and that ambition is appearing to be thwarted.
The discontented wants to be 'right' and makes the other 'wrong' in a self-protection racket.
A desire to harm.

A relationship is a possibility for generosity, for calm abiding, for a rational conversation, for the construction of a web of kindness.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Are you relating discontentment and the desire to harm with standing true to what one believes to be the truth of how consciousness works? If so, then the Buddha was the pinnacle of discontentment and is responsible for harming millions.

In Tibetan and Mahayana Buddhism mythology of compassion there are more wrathful than peaceful deities, for good reason.
Kunyab
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Kunyab »

Cahoot wrote:Kunyab, there is teaching, and there are enlightened teachers.

In the act of writing, your “husband” is teaching. Is he an enlightened teacher?
Cahoot, I asked him this question. His reply was that he reads to like spiritual literature and books. And so he put his insights into words so that he can read it later and derive happiness from his own words.
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Kunga
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Kunga »

Kunyab wrote: he put his insights into words so that he can read it later and derive happiness from his own words.
That sounds narcisstic/egotistical.
I don't think Enlightened Masters got off on reading their own shit.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

a little spiritual pride is fine.
you do the same.
celebrating.
astonishment.

lets round up a posse and kill the bastard.
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Kunga
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Kunga »

Dennis Mahar wrote:a little spiritual pride is fine.
you do the same.
celebrating.
astonishment.

lets round up a posse and kill the bastard.
If the Buddha had pride or was proud of himself & his accomplishments , it would only serve his ego.
But being that he had no ego, there couldn't be any spiritual pride.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

lets round up a posse and kill the bastard.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Buddha had no ego because buddha, even more so than ego, was a constructed fiction.
  • "Take possession of thy kingdom, cast the Pope into prison, and have Jesus, Buddha and Solway shot".
    -- free after Nietzsche's "insanity letter".
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Kunga
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Kunga »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Buddha had no ego because buddha, even more so than ego, was a constructed fiction.
  • "Take possession of thy kingdom, cast the Pope into prison, and have Jesus, Buddha and Solway shot".
    -- free after Nietzsche's "insanity letter".

Yes, a constructed fiction created by another constructed fiction !

My thinking/writing isn't so great, but I can follow/comprehend what others have written :

The Buddha teaches that what we call ego, self, soul, personality, etc. are merely conventional terms not referring to any real independent entity. And he teaches that there is only to be found this psycho-physical process of existence changing from moment to moment. Without understanding the selflessness of existence, it is not possible to gain a real understanding of the Buddha-word. And it is not possible without it to realize that goal of emancipation and deliverance of mind proclaimed by the Buddha. This doctrine of selflessness of existence forms the essence of the Buddha's doctrine of emancipation. Thus with this doctrine of selflessness, or anattaa, stands and falls the entire Buddhist structure. Indeed, for anyone who wishes to engage in the study of the Buddhist scriptures, the best thing would be, from the very start, to get himself acquainted with the two methods in which the Buddha taught the Dhamma to the world. The first method is the teaching in conventional language; the second method is the teaching in philosophically correct language. The first one relates to conventional truth, vohaara-sacca, the second, to truth in the ultimate sense, paramattha-sacca.

Thus, whenever the Buddha uses such terms as I, person, living being, etc., this is to be understood as conventional speech, and thus not correct in the highest sense (paramattha-vacana). It is similar to speaking of the rising and setting of the sun, though we know thoroughly well that this does not correspond to reality. Thus the Buddha teaches that, in the ultimate sense, amongst all these psychophysical phenomena of existence there cannot be found any eternal or even temporary ego-entity, and hence that all existence of whatever kind is something impersonal (or anattaa).

In this connection I would like to emphasize the fact that this fundamental doctrine of selflessness and emptiness is not ( as some misinformed Western Buddhists assert)only taught in the southern school of Buddhism, but that even in the so-called Mahayana schools it forms a most essential part. Without this teaching of anattaa (or egolessness), there is no Buddhism; and without having realized the truth of egolessnessno real progress is possible on the path to deliverance.

http://www.vipassanadhura.com/Selflessness.html
Pam Seeback
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Jesus, Gautama, Frederich, Ramana, etc., a constructed fiction yes, by all means, shoot the messenger, this is indeed what must be done. Just as we have to kill the idea of Dennis or Diebert or Pam or Kunga.

However, the insights born of the purity of their longing to understand live on as the breadcrumbs of light for picking up when our own time of longing arrives. It is the thought that transforms that spiritual thinkers bring forth, their name but the label on the can so we can differentiate between carrots and peas. :-)
Pam Seeback
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Kunga: ...that all existence of whatever kind is something impersonal (or anattaa).
'Enlightenment' in a nutshell.
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ardy
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by ardy »

Kunyab wrote:
Cahoot wrote:Kunyab, there is teaching, and there are enlightened teachers.

In the act of writing, your “husband” is teaching. Is he an enlightened teacher?
Cahoot, I asked him this question. His reply was that he reads to like spiritual literature and books. And so he put his insights into words so that he can read it later and derive happiness from his own words.
We all like spiritual books and our own writing, our first call on logging in is to see what others have written about our silly little posts. Are we enlightened? I doubt it!
I don't think there is one enlightened person here. There are however people who know a lot about spiritual matters . I also suspect there are some here who would recognise an enlightened master if they heard he/she. I also suspect your husband is in a similar boat to the rest of us, but is not as analytical as some here.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

movingalways wrote:Jesus, Gautama, Frederich, Ramana, etc., a constructed fiction yes, by all means, shoot the messenger, this is indeed what must be done. Just as we have to kill the idea of Dennis or Diebert or Pam or Kunga.
But Dennis, Diebert, Pam or Kunga cannot be killed by themselves. Because we can examine our selves and our causes first hand and are as such a form of "experience" with a past, a present ongoing reflection and a view on what's coming, some expectation, some view. If we happen to have a conversation, in every sense of the word -- this is how reality is being created. But conversing with a "Jesus" or "Gautama" means knowing them only through abstract reflections on past writings with little context, little known history. To make it "real" we draw them into the present ("he lives"!) and form a relationship. This way the fiction rises and lives again. In the same way we're trying to make our own fiction real with our modern, even online, versions of temple, ritual and worship.

"Take possession of thy kingdom" or like the prayer "thy kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven so upon the earth": everything is affirmed and still differentiated between brilliantly.
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Cahoot
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Cahoot »

Kunyab wrote:
Cahoot wrote:Kunyab, there is teaching, and there are enlightened teachers.

In the act of writing, your “husband” is teaching. Is he an enlightened teacher?
Cahoot, I asked him this question. His reply was that he reads to like spiritual literature and books. And so he put his insights into words so that he can read it later and derive happiness from his own words.
Kunyab, your concern is that your “husband” may leave. Because your husband has awakened, he has realized that there is no place to go. Because he is free, he is like an untethered balloon that is only set into motion by the winds of karma. He is living out all that was set into motion. Family was set into motion. We have always known those we meet, and always will. You have always known each other, and always will. Since he realizes this truly now, leaving is not a possibility. He could probably explain this better to you.
Kunyab
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by Kunyab »

I am slowly getting around to what he is saying. His worldview is making sense to me as an alternative way of seeing things, which at first appears quite strange but slowly grows on you.

He says that my thinking in terms of enlightenment as a "grand" achievement is false, he says it is more like clarity. To project achievement onto it is due to our habitual nature of thinking in these terms.
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ardy
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Re: Enlightened! Really?

Post by ardy »

Cahoot wrote: Kunyab, your concern is that your “husband” may leave. Because your husband has awakened, he has realized that there is no place to go. Because he is free, he is like an untethered balloon that is only set into motion by the winds of karma. He is living out all that was set into motion. Family was set into motion. We have always known those we meet, and always will. You have always known each other, and always will. Since he realizes this truly now, leaving is not a possibility. He could probably explain this better to you.
Cahoot - you normally write sensible grounded stuff with excellent insights but this one is not one of them. " Family was set into motion. We have always known those we meet, and always will. You have always known each other, and always will. Since he realizes this truly now, leaving is not a possibility." This may give her some comfort but there is no basis in truth in any of this. Life plays out beyond our understanding and always will, regardless of whether we are ignorant or enlightened. Kunyab is in charge of her own life, her husband is in charge of his.
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