Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Anyone here recommend Andrw Cohen?
Has anyoneread on Andrew Cohen?
COHEN: You know, ever since I started teaching almost twenty years ago, I have been consumed by this question: What does an uncompromised and uninhibited expression of enlightened consciousness look like in a postmodern twenty-first-century context? Or to use the terms of our discussion today, what would a second or even third tier perspective really mean—in real life, for you and for me? Not just in terms of some idealized state, but in terms of our actual level of development as fully human beings. Usually, when people experience higher states of consciousness, they effortlessly and ecstatically relate to a higher, or what I would call enlightened, perspective. But unfortunately, it rarely informs the way they relate to their experience, or the experience of others, the rest of the time. What I'm interested in, of course, is the rest of the time. Because what happens when people are just experiencing higher states doesn't necessarily mean that much, or it is significant only to the degree that one is able to sustain the enlightened perspective throughout all changing states.
That perspective, of course, reveals to us a completely different way of seeing and understanding and, ultimately, even feeling. When an individual actually does evolve, miraculously they begin to feel from a higher or more impersonal dimension of themselves. They find it more and more difficult to relate emotionally from a merely personal place. But that's a big leap for most of us.
Any thoughts?
COHEN: You know, ever since I started teaching almost twenty years ago, I have been consumed by this question: What does an uncompromised and uninhibited expression of enlightened consciousness look like in a postmodern twenty-first-century context? Or to use the terms of our discussion today, what would a second or even third tier perspective really mean—in real life, for you and for me? Not just in terms of some idealized state, but in terms of our actual level of development as fully human beings. Usually, when people experience higher states of consciousness, they effortlessly and ecstatically relate to a higher, or what I would call enlightened, perspective. But unfortunately, it rarely informs the way they relate to their experience, or the experience of others, the rest of the time. What I'm interested in, of course, is the rest of the time. Because what happens when people are just experiencing higher states doesn't necessarily mean that much, or it is significant only to the degree that one is able to sustain the enlightened perspective throughout all changing states.
That perspective, of course, reveals to us a completely different way of seeing and understanding and, ultimately, even feeling. When an individual actually does evolve, miraculously they begin to feel from a higher or more impersonal dimension of themselves. They find it more and more difficult to relate emotionally from a merely personal place. But that's a big leap for most of us.
Any thoughts?
0
Comments
I don't think I would know enlightenment if it bit me in the ass.
-bf
"When buddhas are truly buddhas they do not necessarily notice that they are buddhas. However, they are actualized buddhas, who go on actualizing buddhas..."
- Ehei Dogen Zenji - Genjokoan - The Koan of Everyday Life
When a teacher has levels, circles around him of 'stuff' it makes it harder to have a connection. I decided that whatever 'realization' he might have had was unimportant to my path.
When I sat and read his material I couldn't shake the feeling that the speaker spent more time conceptualizing, and labeling than actually pursuing practice himself.