You dudes never ever ever going to find it. When we devolp ourselfes as human beings, we often must "accomplish" something. Getting better at playing ball by doing excersices, maybe learn on how to dance by learning new moves and practice them. And finally, after our work, we achieve the wanted results. Most of us wants more than that, but still.. You get my point hopefully. We are already enlightened. Every single being on the planet. Every animal, every building, every weed plant and every pill. A homeless cat might be more enlightened than me, lol Every spiritual searches dillemma is finding what he is searching for. On a mind basis, skills can be found. They can be trained, upgraded, lvl up'ed, or even breaken down. But hear me dear tokers: Enlightenment ain't a state of mind. It is rising above the thoughts. Basicly time is our emeny. Im not saying you have to wait in the alley and wait for a rich guy to come down, steal his motherfucking watch and smash it to pieces with a lasersword. Live in the moment. What many of you calls enlightenment, is pretty much refering to a pure sane. The now is the only port to enlightenment. It aint some stuff of our manifested world, and thereby cant be understood. Thinking about it, talking about it sucks bigtime. It's only rising above the thoughts. Simply nothing more. Our ego works in time. Past and future. And if it does live in the present, it only uses it as a ride to get to the future. To get enligtened you must first attach away from your self created ego. The term "ego" is simply refering to the little vioce in your head. To your image, personlaity, the things you do, your thoughts, your job, your accomplishments and even the people around you and your relations with them. All that aint you. It's ego. Enlightenment can only be achieved now. Everything that happens is now. All things that happened were in the now, and everything about to happen is going to be in the now. You cant get enlightened in the future. Not by understanding it, not by talking about it. "The tao that can be talked about, isn't tao" - Tao Te Ching My friends, hear me well; Life is just one big moment. Don't let the calendar and watch tell you otherwise. Live in the moment. Stalk your thoughts like you stalk your friends on facebook. Get consius. Wake up and live. In a chaotic world like this, the very single thing that you can control is your own mind. Focus on that, and everything will be allright. Thats the very point of enlightenment. Peace
I agree, you can't become enlightened if you see it as some sort of goal to be attained. When seen as such your ego latches onto "enlightenment" as another identity to create for itself. I think, as you said, living completely in the moment is the best first step to take. I don't think it is helpful to meditate, live in the moment, or do anything else for the purpose of attaining enlightenment. It is best to, as the zen monks say, "sit just to sit". Meditate for the sake of meditating. Live in the moment for the sake of that moment. Everything is infinitely meaningful in and of itself. Enlightenment is subjective anyways, everyone has a different idea and interpretation of what it is. I think the term "enlightenment" can be very harmful for some, because it creates this idea of what "should" be instead of what "is". That alone takes away from the most important thing in our existence, which is "now", the only moment that has ever been, and the only moment which will ever be.
Enlightenment doesn't have any paradoxes. You want to have a reality? Like children have? There is no reality - only perciption. A dog isn't your version of enlightened. It sees black/white and therefore have a false sense of the true colors. Kids sees the world as a fuckload of molecules. A big playground. Equator is just a waterslide. Only thing that matters for them, is to be happy mentally, and keep their bodies up. As I said earlier, enlightenment isn't a state of mind. You cant define it, since its unmanifested. Emptiness. Its nothing. No-thing. I can tell you what honey is based on my perciption. I can tell you the ingedients, the flavor, how its made, the consistence. But you would know how honey tasted. Whatever enlightenment is, i dont need to understand it. Understanding is on mind level. When you have a good understanding on your mind level its called knowledge. When you have understanding on how to live and see the world, its called wisdom. Enlightenment is beyond thoughts. Every single time you or anybody else is thinking, there is something - a listener - that is aware of these thoughts. That i understand. In reality, reality is an illusion. It's tempomary. Emptiness, nothingness, being, the soul, tao, the unmanifested, call it what you want... That isn't tempomary. That is in fact, the very canvas for the material world. So i can't tell you what enlightenment is, like i can't fully tell you what honey is. I can help you achieve it though. Im your honeydealer man!
Question: How can you reply to something if you didnt get the point? What this room feels the same, a paradox can it be? What im trying to say is your perception on what reality is very different to the next. If you say that this is not true then you say that you are creator of this reality you see and therefore i dont exist, but even in that sense we walk into another paradox, then you are in theory my god. if you are god then my question to you would be why so much hate and strife whats the point?
Part of enlightenment is understanding that you have always, and will always be, enlightened. However, I do think it's sweeter if you understand that you're enlightened and then live your life rather than simply live your life. It takes some searching to find enlightenment and what it means.
We are already enlightened,we all have the nature of buddhahood as well. But you must understand there must be a wanting to become enlightened, if not how would anyone ever be enlightened if not for wanting to attain such?
The desire for enlightenment may or may not be necessary, but the desire to be buddha stops you from being buddha. Buddha is no buddha if he aspires to be buddha.
Talking about it helps to open other up peoples mines to the ideas and thoughts of it - claiming you're enlightened doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter to your or to anyone else really...
To be honest, if your are a pothead, then enlightenment is very far out of your reach. Enlightenment takes a ridiculous amount of focus and determination, 2 traits neither of which potheads have ever been associated with.
Enlightenment doesn't take long at all if it's something you have been planning since before you incarnated on this Earth. Since before the Earth was even made. You know, back when you were an infinite being of light, free to create anything. The predetermined nature of life must always be considered. If you feel you are on a path to enlightenment, don't fool yourself with doubt because you smoke weed. I'm sure the tokers are the same as the 99.99% of other people on this planet, that being slaves to their body in one form or another.
I don't think enlightenment can be defined as any one thing, a state (emptiness, energized, etc), or accurately conversed about. Ask a zen master "what's enlightenment?" and he'll slap you with a board. That's about as close as language is going to get me. BONG HITTTTTZZZZ!!!! (sorry, this is grasscity...) (though there are lots of cool things that people way wiser than me have invested in the topic. The 'in the moment' that you are talking about reminds me of the concept of Mindfulness. Ever read into it?)
Nice thread, I like this subject. Alan Watts talks about this a lot in his talks which have been given a new lease of life on YouTube. Think I will have to go and listen now.