Determination

zenff

@lobster mentioned an offer of awakening in a short time, on internet and for free. It made me think

You take the challenge.
You want one thing, one thing only. You want it really bad; to the point of despair.
Everything else becomes meaningless.
- Then the one thing drops away.

I think that’s the pattern. You will find it in many enlightenment stories. There is no shortcut – not that I know of anyways.
We need to go through the moves; we need to bring ruthless determination; the willingness to fight to the death; we need to experience the despair.

At least, now that I think about it, that’s my theory and my question at the same time.
Can we attain enlightenment without that drive? Without a deep pain pushing us out of our comfort zone? Without at some point going through this feeling that we lost everything?

Nirvana

Not being a self-enlightenment geek myself, it does seem to me that there are different strokes for different folks. For some, a ruthless determination would prevent its realization; I think that's well proved and propounded by sages such as Astavakra. Of course, we all need to leave our comfort zones behind in order to get anything done in this world.

For myself, I'd rather have a hundred other people be enlightened than I myself. To me, such a quest seems selfish, pure and simple. I just wanna be a decent human being and live a calm and quiet life in charity with my neighbors and in communion with all my fellow human beings who are people of good will.

lobster

I think that’s the pattern

That's a pattern.
We have many.
Expose them. Examine them. Discard them.

This is not a battle. It is the cessation of battling.
[big sigh of relief . . .]

how

@zenff
All schools have their advantages and disadvantages. One of Zens more common difficulties comes from the normal polarized experience of the perceived ego, verses the transcending of self.
In a tradition filled with spiritual warriors, it's a hurdle to practise full surrender to all such investments so that only the meditation remains.

Fully embraced, Zen meditation need be nothing more than a full bow in life.

lobster

how said:

Fully embraced, Zen meditation need be nothing more than a full bow in life.

. . . like a bow on the present . . .
. . . or maybe we can go by ship . . .

Such a pretty bow, such an empty box
Such a big ship, no engine, nothing astern, no bow . . .
Just a wave :wave:

how

bow wow

Dakini

"Ruthless determination" sounds too much like "grasping".

Jeffrey

I think adyashanti meditated with huge determination, meditating long hours every day. I saw it in an interview. Eventually his heart started beating very fast and he kept to the breath and eventually he had some kind of mystical experience where he heard a bird but it was like coming in through his torso instead of him thinking 'oh a bird..who pretty'. Rather, it was a direct communication to his body (as I understood).

So I was really inspired by adyashanti last year and I did a ton of sitting for maybe two weeks until my voices (I am mentally disabled) convinced me to stop.

But yeah I think large determination is a good thing.

Mahuidou

Coming off from a Catholic education and spirituality, the quest becomes one of unceasing and constant devotion. Siddhartha tried a similar approach in his approach of enlightenment, and it seems that only brought himself agony. While I find that I personally must have a drive or goal towards meditation and practice, the uncompromising devotion often leaves myself failing to realize the broader picture of life.

FoibleFull

It is difficult to speak of enlightenment when I am distinctly UNenlightened, but I suspect that the "path" is not really a path at all.
I remember reading Krishnamurti (not Buddhist) when I was young .. he had written about spiritual truth "As long as you are a seeker, that is what you are".

And The Heart Sutra (Tibetan version) reads ("all-caps" are mine):
likewise there is no Suffering, Origin, Cessation or Path, no wisdom-knowledge, NO ATTAINMENT AND NON-ATTAINMENT.
Therefore Sariputra, BECAUSE THERE IS NO ATTAINMENT, Bodhisattvas abide relying on the Perfection of Wisdom, without obscurations of thought, and so are unafraid."

I suspect that Buddhism is not way of travelling, but a way of being, a state of awareness. That one should pay attention to the process of being a Buddhist, rather than to the goal of being a Buddhist (the goal of enlightenment).

However, seeing as I am not enlightened, I could be way off in left field.

Theswingisyellow

It is our "drive" I think, literally our realization of our suffering that compels us. There is nothing wrong per se with this drive, it's our expectations that we have to drop.

how

Few forces aid the Ego like determination. Many Buddhist confuse "right effort" with "right determination". Right effort matches to the needs of the moment where as determination is an inertial force which resists changing direction regardless of the consequences.
Is determination about hanging on or letting go? Have not mankind's darkest actions been the product of determination?

I think I've seen too many Buddhists with the best of intentions, become ego slaves to a determination they initially considered to be "good".

There are safer ways to practise.

Invincible_summer

zenff said:

@lobster mentioned an offer of awakening in a short time, on internet and for free. It made me think

You take the challenge.
You want one thing, one thing only. You want it really bad; to the point of despair.
Everything else becomes meaningless.
- Then the one thing drops away.

I think that’s the pattern. You will find it in many enlightenment stories. There is no shortcut – not that I know of anyways.
We need to go through the moves; we need to bring ruthless determination; the willingness to fight to the death; we need to experience the despair.

At least, now that I think about it, that’s my theory and my question at the same time.
Can we attain enlightenment without that drive? Without a deep pain pushing us out of our comfort zone? Without at some point going through this feeling that we lost everything?

The Ten Oxherding Pictures (http://www.buddhanet.net/oxherd1.htm) touch on this.

After the ox has been found and tamed, life goes on. We simply use what we've learned from searching for and taming the ox in our daily lives and be of benefit to others.


As for the drive... I think it really depends on each individual. One practitioner may not be actively seeking enlightenment, while another drastically changes his/her life in order to try and obtain it.

Nirvana

@how, Your post, two above this, is pure dynamite.
Thanks for weighing in!

pegembara

"Though only my skin, sinews and bones remain, and my blood and flesh dry up and wither away, yet never will I give up my quest and swerve from the path of rectitude and enlightenment."

Further says the Buddha, "Just as, monks, in a peaked house all rafters whatsoever go together to the peak, slope to the peak, join in the peak, and of them all the peak is reckoned chief: even so, monks, the monk who cultivates and makes much of the seven factors of wisdom, slopes to Nibbana, inclines to Nibbana, tends to Nibbana."[2]

The seven factors are:

Mindfulness (sati)
Keen investigation of the dhamma (dhammavicaya)[3]
Energy (viriya)
Rapture or happiness (piti)
Calm (passaddhi)
Concentration (samadhi)
Equanimity (upekkha)

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel001.html

Nirvana

Aye, but you simply cannot adequately interpret what people say, if it's deep, even in your own language —let alone in a translation. By rectitude is meant "rightness, straight to the point," not rigidity —anyway that's what I'd argue. @how's post, I think addressed the aspect of rigidness as not quite getting it right. I agreed strongly. The Tao finds a lot wrong with rigidness, too, always commending the more flexible as the more viable.

In other words, my reading would be, "[through all adversity], yet never will I lose sight of my quest nor give up my goal, nor swerve from the path INTENT on integrity and enlightenment."

Integrity serves the sense of rectitude quite well, I think. In historic usage, an upright person is a just person. Furthermore, the determination can only be the Intent; perhaps one renewed constantly, minute-by-minute, but it is composed of intentions only. It is not and cannot be a process or a set of bulwarks we can actually build within ourselves to prod us ever onwards. Intent is all we CAN have. We think we have free will, but that is an illusion. Determination, in effect, is what is imposed on us from forces outside us; we cannot hope realistically to impose this force on ourselves. We renew our intentions day by day and we need a lot of help to do that.

zenff

Thank you all for you input. I have mixed feelings about this; even more now.

On the one hand I think there’s a valid point in a milder way of looking at it. There appears to be a harmful energy in rigid determination. “Fighting to the death” doesn’t sound Buddhist. There appears to be a lack of “compassion for oneself” in it.

At the other hand I feel we need to take things to another level. A German writer said (and I forgot his name but the quote stuck): “Mensch werde wesentlich!”
Get real! Become genuine!
How will “body and mind drop off” when all we do is living our lives in our business-as-usual-mode?
It takes some force – maybe – to break the force of our conditioned thoughts and emotions.

The result for me is that I have my periods. At times I feel the urgency and a drive to get somewhere (but where?) while most of the time I’m pretty relaxed about it.

"Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life."
Dogen Zenji (1200 - 1253)
http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/dogen-zenji

Nirvana

For myself, @zenff, I think Vivekanandaji's "Arise, wake, and stop not until the goal is reached" seems to convey the sense of a nonrigid determination.

As for the free will Versus determinism issue I brought up last night, it's veering off topic and I apologize. The main current in my mind at the time, though, was that being willfully determined has so much ego-play involved in it. If I am determined to do something willy nilly, come hell or high water, it is no longer something in me but something that possesses me. In short, I feel the grit it takes to surmount the obstacles is really the daily and hourly renewal of the intent to stay focussed.

BTW, I do think that there's a lot of confusion everywhere over the EGO. Oftentimes I think people are just referring to the core being, a sort of "hereness" that we feel. In a way, if it didn't sound so derned affected, we could say, "the feeling here is..." Or something along those lines, rather than saying "I."
I believe that the core (or sense of individuality or separateness) is different from the Ego, which is a construct. And that Ego-construct, I'd argue, is built on a sort of willfulness having little or nothing to do with just seeing and perceiving and our ordinary doing. Anywho, I'm just opining that I think we use the Ego word really too much. After all, ya gotta love yourself and therefore some time will be spent thinking on self. That's not Ego time; it's Me time.

Jeffrey

When I for the most part gave up drinking there were moments of clarity where I had 100% determination. But these were impermanent and I had to sit through the cravings with patience and compassion for those moments when my determination had disappeared. I always wanted to feel better but I only had that shining resolve in rare moments and many moments were more cloudy.