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Who or what is it that becomes enlightened ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Kia Ora,
Who or what is it that becomes enlightened ?
When it comes to enlightenment I find the above question intriguing...
Thus I have heard Zen Master Linji once used this koan "If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him !"
Are thoughts of becoming enlightened just another illusion ?
Metta Shoshin 
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Before enlightenment, there is a person that thinks they will become enlightened. After enlightenment, there is awareness and wisdom of reality as-it-is (coupled with detachment from craving and clinging), and knowledge of the conceptual nature of personhood and indeed all conditioned things. If anything, it's "the mind" that becomes enlightened, but it's not a thing nor does it belong to anyone; mind is activity, conditioned processes that are no longer bound to the world by delusion and craving. They are still conditioned and supported by the body in which they arose, so it will appear as if it's still a regular human being on the surface... but it's a complete mental paradigm shift.
The person, the individual, is largely a delusion created by mind. No one actually bleeps out of existence or anything of the sort, they just "wake up" to the way things really are and stop thinking of themselves as truly separate from their conditions and the world around them.
It's not such a simple thing to describe in words. Everything I've just said could be contested.
Kia Ora,
That's what's so intriguing about the whole enlightenment thing...
As Alan Watts might say: we try to 'eff the ineffable' by attempting to put it into words which will always end up contradicting themselves...Well something like that...
Metta Shoshin
Enlightenment is a change of perception about the world, or as @AldrisTorvalds so nicely put it, through "a complete mental paradigm shift."
Something within your present set of skandhas (you name it) perceives the world otherwise.
Sorry if I seem to quote David Brazier a lot these days, but I happen to be re-reading his book "The Feeling Buddha." He has what I find to be a simple, nondescript quote about Enlightenment:
"The salvation of humankind will be found in the practice of a noble response to existential reality. That is Enlightenment."
Enlightenment is an illusion if you make a big fuss out of it. But you can see that Brazier, for one, describes Enlightenment in very simple words: Enlightenment comes about through habitually responding nobly or skillfully to your daily reality.
No big plan, no brainstormer, easy-peasy pocket Enlightenment.
Well it certainly is not me.
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/day/2013/02/28
If one commits to one spiritual path, then the possibility of union/integration/awakening becomes possible. Enlightenment is not a guaranteed outcome. Enlightenment is a possibility.
How not to sit?
(It may be a an idea worth considering that you open a separate thread for the 'you won't believe this one' cushions... I never cease to be amazed at the seemingly-endless variety of cushions you manage to find, but constant use may be an irritation and distraction to some. Keep it pertinent/on-topic. But let's not lose the cushions altogether....)
The Dzogchen answer is that being unenlightened is the illusion.
However it gets trickier.
Chogyam Trungpa says
" We see ourselves on a brightly lit stage..enlightened. Surrounded by adoring acolytes.
There is just one problem with this little scenario.
When enlightenment happens we won't be there. "
From a zen perspective, yes. Because even enlightenment is still a dualistic concept and Linji, and those before and after him, taught non-duality.
That is why he also said things like: "Those who have fulfilled the ten stages of bodhisattva practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the fifty-first and fifty-second stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and pratyekabuddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys!"
And then he would hit you with a stick, LOL
.
That's fine...its only a problem when someone suggests ..and it happens, that no one else should be concerned about it either.
Agreed. I have amended my response because of its possible insinuation.
Indeed.
Very enlightening.
As we suspect and some have intimated, enlightenment is profoundly simple and paradoxically elusive even to the seasoned practitioner. Fortunately preparing the infrastructure, the resonance and surrounding qualities that may enable our movement from irritant to non distraction is possible . . . [amazing cushion image removed]
I'll vote with Dzogchen ... which is not at all to say I know what "Dzogchen" is.
I am not sure that I do either..
An atheist thinks he is not separate from the world and the self is an illusion created by the mind. What is the difference?
Which atheist is that then ?
The one that is an atheist. He does not believe he has a soul.
Ah yes. I think I know the chap.
>
Never met an atheist who has this opinion.
Most atheists don't think in those terms at all.
Most atheists don't give a damn.
**
Who or what is it that becomes enlightened?**
@Shoshin
IMO
To look at Enlightenment as something that can be acquired by anything reflects the ego's limited view of a self verses other.
Enlightenment is simply the transcendence of ignorance.
Philosophical and intellectual atheists... the kind I spend my time with, which is why I see most atheists this way. I would argue that it is more likely that an agnostic wouldn't care. Atheists can be found arguing against religion and faith but an agnostic is more likely to let things lay where they sit.
The atheists I know are not concerned with self, soul, illusions.
They are quite pragmatic and down-to-earth. Mostly concerned with politics.
Mostly socialists...
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.
It is a good thing that I am not talking about your athiests or my question would have no grounds to stand on...
The question I really want to ask is what is the difference between someone who believes they have no soul and a Buddhist that believes there is no self?
Actually, the no self idea taken so literally seems to be an idea contained within this forum. Most websitss point to a self but a temporary self that is part of a stream of conciousness.
This contradiction has been at my mind preventing me from accepting anyones argument around this topic.
I am of the opinion that most agnostics live in a state of uncertainty and fear. They WANT to believe, cannot bring themselves to do so wholeheartedly, and as a consequence, spend most of their time in a "What if I'm wrong" frame of Mind....
That is a believer not an agnostic. An agnostic, by definition, is someone who believes they cannot know. A person who spends all thier life in stress seeking an answer does not believe they cannot know.
Most fallen christians have hard time because deep down they still believe or feel obligated to believe in the existence of God but cannot trust him. They fear damnation because they have not yet accepted that God and hell is unlikely to exist. In christianity, belief is not just accepting the existence of God but of also trusting him.
@Grayman, there are different subtleties on views of emptiness. There is: shravaka, cittamatra, sautantrika, prasangika, and shentong.
One difference to an atheist is that they don't believe in rebirth. Does an atheist believe in karma? Does an atheist believe you can train the mind to the point that there is no suffering?
Definition of 'Agnostic' (Not a Believer)...
agˈnɒstɪk/ noun
1.
a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.
synonyms: sceptic, doubter, questioner, doubting Thomas, challenger, scoffer, cynic;
>
Yes. So why would they worry about something they cannot know?
They worry that it might be true, and they'll get caught out....As an ex RC, I've met a few... Including a Curate, who left the Ministry....
You cannot doubt your own belief unless you have a belief in some form or another concerning the religion. I am agnostic but my skeptism is of others beliefs not my own. I have no fear because I have no internal conflict concerning religion. Peace for me comes in accepting I cannot know but as long as I make efforts to uncover the truth I can be satisfied I did not choose ignorance.
Well from my viewpoint being agnostic is the only sensible option. The concept of God can't be proven -or disproven. Sometimes I think I lean closer to atheism since I really think all those "good books" are just stories written by man but ultimately the question of a supreme being is unanswerable . Anyhow It's not what I think it's how I act that's important. Bob.
Thoughts are just thoughts. "What is it that becomes enlightened?" is an important question. You just as well might ask youself, "What is asking this question?" I spent many hours asking myself that question. "What am I?"
I don't know.
Do you?
One from my Mentor... JK-Z
"The idea of transcendence can be a great escape, a high-octane fuel for delusion. This is why the Buddhist tradition, especially Zen, emphasizes coming full circle, back to the ordinary and the everyday, what they call "being free and easy in the marketplace." This means being grounded anywhere, in any circumstances, neither above nor below, simply present, but fully present. And Zen practitioners have the wholly irreverent and wonderfully provocative saying, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him," which means that any conceptual attachments to Buddha or enlightenment are far from the mark."
There is the notion of an intellectual idea of something and a lived realization down in your core. Like knowing an optical illusion is an illusion but you still perceive the illusion and can't see through it.
So the difference is knowing that everyone will die someday and holding the hand of someone close to you as they pass away.
I consider myself agnostic, and out the other side of the state of fear and uncertainty is an unexpected peace. Most of my adult life I've been comfortable relating with 'mystery'. Also, I do not want to believe -- but in all honesty there have been episodes where I envied other people's 'ability' to be true believers while finding what they believe unbelievable. It's purely pragmatic. It appears to save a lot of time and energy to just believe something and leave it at that. I've never been able to do that, with anything.
It's wonderful and interesting, the variety of perceptions of the same 'thing'.
I don't have a 'what if I'm wrong' fear (religiously speaking) but when I was much younger, I did. Since I've been practicing seriously, I'm more comfortable with mystery than ever, including death. I don't have a 'different view' of death, or a new way of looking at it, at least I don't think I do. It's more how I relate to it, as opposed to what I think about it.
I love the paradigm of the agnostic, simply not knowing. Where a person takes their 'not knowing' from there is qualifying their agnosticism, creating add-ons.
Yes. I went through the same exact thing.
For me it was a matter of finally and fully detaching from Christianity. Once all my beliefs had been removed and I had accepted it, I had no internal conflict. It was much more peaceful than while in belief because you have no religious doubt to fight with anymore. What is to doubt if you accept that you cannot know?
Yep. "Agnosis" is not necessarily a quandary or a situation to fix. It seems completely rational to know that I am not capable of knowing. "Agnosis" is not a conclusion, either. It is an admission and it can change. I move the marker from "I know" to "I don't know" and I actually relax.
Whateveritis is there and has been doing it's big beautiful Thing for about 15 billion years (give or take
).
One thing I don't feel agnostic about is that the universe is utterly random. I like the 'biocentrism' theory of Robert Lanza, probably because it fits in with what I already think I know, but maybe it doesn't get any more truer than that.
@Grayman, a Buddhist interbees with the world rather than a separation.
Who or what becomes enlightened is a proliferation.