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What are we supposed to do until IT 'happens'
banned_crab
Veteran
They say not to worry about Enlightenment because it will come when your time has come. This has made me feel like an outsider on this earth. I feel that I am only here to serve a sentence of perpetual humanity. I dont consider myself a very miserable person but I have recently been less desirreful and less attached. I dont really feel depressed or empty I just dont feel attatched because I have nothing to strive for, no purpose. Because I have read that you cannot step towards enlightenment and it just happens. So if its just supposed to happen, than what are we supposed to do until then? How does the world determine that you are ready?
Or am I just looking at things the wrong way?
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Looking at things the right way is what enlightenment is (the cessation of craving and suffering follow from insight/wisdom). You're putting too much expectation on it, as if it's something other than seeing reality as-it-is. Meditate, follow the Path, try to perform skillful karma and refrain from unskillful karma, and continue to live your life. Studying Buddhist texts or reading books about Buddhism can help, and thinking about the impermanent selfless causally-interconnected nature of all phenomena can help (especially if you contemplate and meditate)... but you're right, wisdom will arise in its own time when the conditions are right.
The best you can do is foster the right conditions with a steady practice, and carry on.
Notice. Everything that you said is thinking mind! Isn't it amazing how it sets up the entire outlook? Just let go of all that pressure. You cannot will a clarity to come. The mind focuses, but it also diffuses. If you cling to focus it makes you irritable. The mind must also diffuse or else there could never come a different way to view or you could say there would never be a breath of fresh air. The path is to just live very simply. So just say "oh I am thinking". And then let go.
this
But if there is no purpose than what do I do? Am I just living to die and dying to live again?
Yes living to die and dying to live again. That's exactly samsara. And it isn't satisfying. That's the whole point of the path. Let go of clinging to anything in particular. And then it's ok that there is living and dying. Because there is also feelings and satisfaction. The satisfaction comes from the place beyond birth and death (in your heart... the Kingdom is within so to speak)
@heyimacrab What's the purpose of an ocean wave? It sounds almost as if you simply haven't found anything to be passionate about in your life, and that's why you have this empty feeling. You could stumble across something that makes your life thoroughly enjoyable at any time, including realizing emptiness (glimpsing Nirvana, starting to see clearly).
Where does the need for meaning come from? Is it really the answers that are important, or is it answering the need? Samsara, this cycle of suffering, is the mind's doing. Meditating and watching these thoughts arise can help provide clarity. Remember that the 2nd Noble Truths states the cause of Suffering... is this very Craving (or Thirst) that is driving the questions.
Even if there is no assigned purpose, I've assigned one on my own. To learn to love others. To truly learn to love them and not hurt them. Every single one, including ourselves.
If you are dissatisfied with the idea of just waiting around to save yourself, you might look into Mahayana/Bodhisattva path instead. It'll keep you busy.
They say enlightenment just happens because it it not something you can achieve. It is not an A on an assignment. It is something you already are, you just have to realize it. That can happen at any point but it won't happen if you are expecting it because letting go of goals is part of it.
8 fold path ... TO THE MAX!
Since I cant achieve enlightenment ill just have to settle for becoming god
@heyimacrab Whatcha mean you can't? Saying you can't achieve enlightenment is like saying you can't achieve a tax refund. Sure you need to work, file taxes, and be eligible for a refund... but it's certainly possible if you foster those conditions. Besides, even "devas" (Buddhism's equivalent of gods) eventually die, if you believe such beings exist.
I know many people who collect tax refund. But i never met an enlightened person.
How do you know you never have?
you don't have to go out there to seek out enlightenment. It is already there. It's kind of like a treasure hunt. Gotta keep digging.
@heyimacrab I've never met one either, but if the Buddhist teachings weren't effective they wouldn't be passed down at all. It's not like a faith-based religion. Besides, all you need is that glimpse of emptiness to give you the confidence that the teachings actually do alleviate suffering. If studying Buddhist teachings and developing your own meditation practice isn't enough, you may need to seek out a teacher; that's what they are for, after all. If you're searching for a "fully enlightened" person, that may be difficult and it would be hard to tell, but there are plenty of people who are still considered enlightened (even if partially) in this world. That's of course subjective, but you need to research these teachers yourself.
I'd also recommend anything by Eckhart Tolle (maybe search YouTube for his talks, or check out "The Power of Now" or "A New Earth") -- he doesn't teach Buddhism per se, but his awakening and subsequent teachings correspond with Buddhism. Ajahn Brahm is another good one, of the Thai Forest Tradition. Another good book I've been reading is "The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness" by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (Tibetan lama). It covers theory and the different meditation practices.
Is it possible you are just going through a bit of a rut right now? I remember you mentioning very recently you were feeling a bit stressed (maybe that isn't the right word) about having turned 20 and the expectations that might be placed on you. Perhaps you are putting too many on yourself. How long have you been practicing? It is totally normal to have ups and downs, in practice and in life. It's a good time to remember lessons on impermanence. Just like nothing else has lasted forever, neither will this. I hope you are feeling better soon. Keep sitting if you can even just a little bit.
@karasti "This too will pass" is a good uhh what's the word. Whatever it is, it's good.
Applies to absolutely every conditioned phenomena; every thought, feeling, sensation, thing... it'll all pass. Keeping that in mind allows us to stay centered. If happy circumstances arise, "this too will pass" reminds us not to get attached, lest we suffer when circumstances change. If unhappy circumstances arise, "this too will pass" reminds us that they too are just temporary.
How do you know you haven't met an enlightened person?
(as for me, I've never met an enlightened being in the same way I've never met a serial killer... "as far as I know")
Build sandcastles.
live! enjoy life! smile a lot at the wonders all around us. the wonderful thing about realising there is no purpose is that we each have the opportunity to choose what purpose and meaning we give our lives - to me thats real freedom. discovering what you'd like to do with your time and what gives you joy sometimes takes a while to work out, but thats OK, it's all part of the journey along the path.
When I was 20 I learned that enlightenment might be possible. I figured that by the time I was 40 or so I should be enlightened. That was way in the future, right? Of course, 40 came and went. Then a couple more decades slipped by.
In the mean time there were parties, friends, girlfriends, babies, children, teenagers, then grown kids, cars, trucks, motorcycles and boats, real estate, dogs and cats, tools and work, hobbies, music, deaths and grief, excitement and fear and joy and worry, anger and contentment, lots and lots of fishing, traveling, and about a million and one other things.
Turns out enlightenment stayed pretty far down the list of things to do. Somewhere along the way I realized that I don't even know what it means.
My advice? Like @jayne, I say don't wait around, get living, but do it skilfully. Pick a good career, if you haven't already, while you are still young. Education is key. (I got lucky by getting into fishing. Being uneducated, things could have gone a lot worse for me. As it turned out, I was able to raise my family comfortably.)
Life isn't always fun, but it should be interesting. Whatever happens, don't let wrong views about Buddhism get you down. It's supposed to make things better.
I have met three, possibly four Stream Enterers (that first taste of enlightenment).
They all got there by meditating really a lot, working hard following the 8-fold path, and it took them decades of practise. Literally, decades.
Patience, young jedi.
That reminds me of the saying "God grant me patience - but fer chrissakes, hurry up!!"
Enlightenment is available to all of us, this instant, according to some.
You just need to 'drop everything'.
Ah such simple advice, so complex in its workings..........
You practice keeping the precepts, doing daily meditation, cultivating metta, etc. AKA you practice Buddhism.
Enlightenment does not "just happen". You have to practice to create the conditions so that it can happen. If you are practicing correctly, only then will it happen. If you just go through life living as an ordinary person, only doing things that ordinary people do, it will never happen.
The idea that it "just happens" and there is not much you can do about it is an idea that the Buddha firmly rejected.
But people say "not to worry about Enlightenment" in an effort to get people to stop looking to and longing for the future. To try to teach them to put their attention on what is right here and now because the practice happens right here and now. So in other words, they are really saying "don't worry about the future, focus on what is here and now".
In my understanding, enlightenment doesn't just happen. There may be a critical tipping point or something like that but its not like you're miserable and you practice hard and you're still miserable and you practice some more then, BAM you're enlightened and blissfully happy. The feel of practicing Buddhism is one of gradually peeling back the layers of an onion, all the while finding greater happiness and contentment along the way.
Crochet. Sweep the dirty floor. Fold the clean laundry. Watch the moon rise. Play with your iPhone in the waiting room. Fix the kids their favorite or most detested dinner. Wash your face and hair. Wonder what color to paint the dresser. Listen to the music CD your friend lent you. Decide between Coke and Pepsi. Loathe evil and then realize equanimity. Clip your long nasty toenails (for shame, says your mother lol). Think about, and forget to buy your parrot raw pecans for the forty ninth time. Wonder if that dump you took will actually flush in one or two? Think about Enlightenment and get it wrong every single time, which is kind of like being enlightened, sort of.
Don't just do something - sit there.
Well for me, I'm spending a few minutes reading posts on a Buddhist board.
I suppose I could wade into the "sudden enlightenment versus gradual enlightenment" debate, but I just don't have the energy tonight. From all the examples I've read about in the sutras and books about old Masters, "sudden enlightenment" is like "overnight success" that always ignores the years of struggle and work and even failure getting there.
@Cinorjer. I read a story about a nun who was digging and struck a rock. She was instantly enlightened. But in the story it was said that her years of meditation had built up to that experience.
Wouldn't all enlightenment, technically, be instant? As in, one minute you aren't, the next you are. Like job. You might start as a janitor and work up to the boss, but one minute you are the boss whereas the minute before, you were not. Still took work to get there, though.
I read a story yesterday about a boy who became enlightened when he was 7 years old, but he of course was extremely close in his last life.
@karasti Everything is instant, from that perspective ("technically"). Throwing a light switch makes the room go from dark to light in an instant, but not if you don't have a bulb installed and electricity running between it and the switch.
Buddhist practice (and enlightenment) has to be seen with a wider view... you build up a practice and walk the path to set up the conditions for enlightenment (this is intentionally disrupting the cycle of ignorance/suffering). It may be years later when you first glimpse Nirvana, but it's not at all likely to happen if you don't prepare for it!
There are rare cases where people don't first have a practice (like Eckhart Tolle), but to expect enlightenment without effort is like waiting for life to grant you riches instead of getting a job.
Of course not, I'd never suggest there should be no effort by any means. I was just commenting on what Jeffrey had said that the woman had obtained instant enlightenment...but she had prepared for it. So, really, it wasn't instant. Either that, or every case is instant.
@karasti My apologies, I hadn't read everything. Still that does shed some light on people disagreeing over whether enlightenment is gradual or sudden... it's both.
Though I didn't really think you thought it was really instant or without effort. Hopefully the distinction is helpful for others, like the original poster of the thread.
Or was raised submersed in Buddhism, and wasn't raised to be indulged in self-making activities or possessiveness. It's like how children are better at learning languages than adults; their minds aren't set yet, so if they're capable they may even see through delusion at young ages. Most of our time as Buddhists is spent unlearning, though we may not see it that way.
In the gradual path you hit road blocks that require sudden insight or in my sangha/beliefs it might require a pointing out instruction from a guru which is called upadesha. An example is on the gradual path when you realize that meditation is just an experience and an infinite amount of meditation on its own doesn't result in enlightnement. So there is a path but there are spaces where you need sudden realization.
What are we supposed to do until IT 'happens
walk the 8 fold path
/thread
The OP probably feels sorry that he even asked.....
Until then, just live. Smell the roses and hear the birds sings. You'll find the roses smell better and the birds sing better when the time comes.
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Actually, sadly you come off as having a lot of anxiety and unhappiness.... your threads speak of a longing, a desire, a struggle to achieve something and there is always the plaintive cry within them.
That's not miserable, exactly, but to me, you're not exactly the life and soul of the party, really....
I think, rather than striving for enlightenment, you need to start simple, and ask, 'how do I just let go, and let be?'
Seems like a plan.
I would expect no less. Can you dedicate your life to it? If so you might have a chance. Let us know how you are doing in twenty years or so . . .
Before enlightenment, drop enlightenment.
After enlightenment, drop enlightenment.
The only way to enlightenment is with vipassana, and by having moment by moment mindfulness in all 4 postures which allows you to see mind and matter (nama and rupa) as they arise and disappear.
The path has many avenues
I think the second you say "the only way" you are already likely to be wrong. There is rarely only one way to anything.
Oh by the way, whilst trying for godhood let me be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas . . . whilst we await further humbug from Mr Cushion. Pah!
Daiju visited the master Baso in China.
Baso asked: "What do you seek?"
"Enlightenment," replied Daiju.
"You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked.
Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?"
Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house."
Daiju was delighted! Ever after he urged his friends: "Open your own treasure house and use those
treasures."
Source: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
“Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.”
I dun wrong agin.
Been chopping water and carrying wood (mostly in my head)
What are you supposed to do until then? Help others. Practice compassion. This is the purpose of your human existence. Work towards the cessation of suffering for all sentient beings.
You're supposed to focus on your present moment and make the most of it, for yourself and for others until IT happens. IT is just a change of perception on the way you look at things. You could have many IT moments throughout the day if only you could tune into the beauty of this fleeting present.
Its true, I have many moment through out the day. It just sounds difficult for me to finally have that forever