^lol.....I think I've lead you far astray to what I'm really about. I respect your practice, and your agreement with the form of "enlightenment" were discussing. It's simply your choice to align your idea of enlightenment with others. Thats all I'm trying to get across. You ask what is the truth then!?!? LOL! I would assume you would know this kind of understanding and truth CANNOT be transmitted through words. I can give you a combination of symbols that might give you some feeling or understanding of your interpretation of what im TRYING to interpret for you...but it would be pointless, and would serve no higher purpose but to add a log to the dispute. So I'll just leave it at that...mby we will meet one day and see whats what ehh? Till then... Love-
I respect your respect However the truth can, and is, and has been, transmitted for thousands of years. You're confusing the event with the knowledge that can be gained. As I say, we can't describe feelings or the full sense of what we become during enlightenment, but we can certainly describe the core truth we discover. If that weren't so, Buddha would never have taught, Hinduism and a host of other ism's would never exist. There would be no enlightenment, because there was no transmissable truth to share. All you need to do to prove that all of this is true is read the tens of texts and sutras that describe the nature of reality extremely well. The thing is that anyone could get a good understanding of what that truth is in a few hours on google. At least one other person who posts here is at least partially enlightened, and they've managed to convey the core understanding of realisation incredibly well at least twice here over the last few months. I'm really hoping that this person will eventually become so exasperated that they'll post here too. It can be summed up in a variety of ways, no need for metaphor at all. I could encompass it in two words. MelT
"Do you think he was wrong?" i think i dont know what he said. "Do you think that someone who's realised would always speak in that daft, cryptic, quasi-religious way all the time and never say boo to anyone? If so you couldn't be further from the mark." going by the story of the farmer who tended the soil and his plants who after becoming enlightened tended the soil and his plants.... i think anyone "who's realised" would probably do as they did before... probably. tho some folks do some stupid things with idle thumbs. who was it who said "you can never ask a question you do not already know the answer to"? someone savvy in the 6th dimension i'll bet. "Also, the old 'those who claim enlightenment probably aren't' doesn't hold water and never has." yeah but its fun to say to folks. i mean, if they're enlightened, its not a big prioroty to proclaim it. thats not the point. if they are enlightened, it's not a point of contention to look within, to take another perspective on one's self. if they arent, they could use their foundations given a wobble. though i have to wonder... what makes you so sure it doesnt hold water?... " I know that you have some good realisation, do you want to give the questions a shot? " as the wheel rolls, i dont seem to have many these days. it comes around again. doesnt it? could i just do that thing to fein wisdom by making every statement a question? anyways, when people are ready, they give their answers. is there a need for being impatient n prying? what is pertinent... does it not come when needed anyway? be it the urge to question, or an answer imparted without a question asked... ever seen "spiritual reality"? excellent tips on meditation, and it really puts perspective on the nature of meditator and interaction. ps, there shouldnt be a strict definition of what a car or sneeze is. such limitations... tsk tsk. not useful. no sir. not useful at all. what happens when someone needs to use car as a metaphor? or when someone needs to use the word sneeze to depict an entirely new phenonema as the nearest fit? what if the definer was lacking in vision, scope and imagination?
having speedread my way through the rest of the thread: i thought the taoist quote was, "those who predict do not know. those who know, do not predict."... or is that the lao tsu specific version, and we supplant speak with predict for taoist. it does hint at a great truth very well does it not though? speaking synonymous with predicting????! as the lyrics to a song i wrote go: "is this prediction or projection?" ps, oh, n MelT... wasnt it you who pointed out a while ago the distinction between the schooled and the experienced? i mean, we can grasp something intelectually, but that's a couple levels removed from "practice". surely you gotta throw the definitions away also as we all play this game of monkeys throwing each other up to higher branches. climbing and being thrown, climbing and being thrown, thrown inacurately n fall back down a few branches, know where the branches are above n throw a few more monkeys up, climbing and throwing and being thrown.... what a lovely depiction even if i do say so myself.
These posts amuse me. By the way, I'd like to point out that I haven't noticed a lot of these subtle Enlighteneds on this forum shouting out rude things and declaring that they are the only people who know what something is. It's nice to have a bit of sanctuary here for us Delusionals.
If anyone was really enlightened here they wouldn't be having meaningless conversations on the internet , isn't the idea of buddhist " enlightenment" to not be sucked into all of the pointless thoughts and emotions ....like this , the idea is that none of this matters , nor even exist except in our own minds .
^Your confining your idea of what can and can't be. It just is... Everyone has different paths, that can lead to the same place. People look at being "enlightened" as some far off unattainable thing. I just see their being levels of understanding. Although their is no "final level". It's just an ever expanding experience of infinite, which I understand to be at the heart of the objective "truth" thats out there. Infact, I would go so far as to say infinite is the defining trait to all that is and isn't. Thats just part of my "enlightenment". Ya dig? Diggidy poopy poop... ^wait I'm not allowed to say that right? bahahahaha...
Kind of, but not really. Being enlightened doesn't mean that once you reach it that you're no longer involved in life and can remain aloof from it and emotions. You still have to live life, earn a living, interact with people who DO have emotions and ideas that you have to become involved in. It might seem that as soon as someone does reach realistiona that they then can go off and stay in a monastery somewhere, or become a hermit, but that would be pointless waste of life, and very few enlightened people have actually done that. Most do come back into the world to talk - and argue - and survive, 'pointless' as it all is. MelT
Ting! There y'go. So what does this tell you about this debate? On the basis of 5,000 years of definition by those who invented the term, and me researching the state for 30 years in most religions and traditions, and a Buddhist for 15 years, I explain what enlightenment is. You don't even know what Buddha said on the subject and yet....I/we (eastern tradition and therefore Buddha too) are wrong in our definitions? LOL! Oohhh come on mate At least find out both sides before deciding to disagree. A different issue altogether. We live by definitions, and they are universally understood. We can't avoid them because we don't like them or feel that they're not accurate in a metaphysical sense. I don't think you'd get very far arguing for people to stop using strict definitions to define the world MelT
The above quote may well be Lao Tsu, I don't know, but the original was regarding the way itself, not prediction. Someone understanding intellectually is obviously far less experienced than someone who's had a direct encounter. But that certainly doesn't mean that definitions are thrown away the higher you go, or that they have no place. I'm a bit reticent to repeat the same thing cross-threads, but you're getting confused between the idea of someone trying to fully describe the experience of enlightenment, and someone describing the knowledge that enlightenment brings. Nobody is asking anyone to define thatness - though there are a few things you can accurately say about it - but what they've learned in the event. Without realisation (realisation meaning understanding or the gaining of specific knowledge) then it would not be called realisation. If it weren't defined it wouldn't be knowledge. If it werent defined it would be impossible to pass that knowldge on. Almost all higher traditions (Mahamudra up) use an understanding of the nature of reality to progress from glimpses to full enlightenment. If we didn't have definitions to do this then we couldn't practise. I'm still a bit bemused that this thread should be here at all, when anyone could find out for themselves exactly what enlightenment is and isn't. I wonder why nobody bothers? MelT
Hopefully we don't come across as arguing... You wouldn't say Socrates argued, would you? I think he just always wanted to know more, and asked questions to help others want to know more as well.
Morning BK, you either never sleep or you're over here in the UK somewhere too? I wasn't talking just about what happens here on GC, but life in general, in reponse to the poster's point that enlightened people would not debate it, or would never become involved in every day strife. What I'm saying is that life is not left behind just because you're enlightened, arguments and all the rest of normal interaction will still happen. There are accounts of Buddha getting angry with students, and even shouting at some. Enlightenment isn't about morality or goodness and never arguing, but about understanding. MelT
lol Actually, the physical shell that represents to you "I" am in California now. An important aspect of Enlightenment is helping others achieve it as well, provided they ask questions that lead them down mind-opening paths. So that's why I think a true Enlightened wouldn't strive to be a recluse of any sort. What does that person really understand if he reaches something great like that and doesn't try to communicate it to others? And of course it's not about morality. It's about knowing who/what/why you really are.