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Enlightenment in THIS lifetime.
Earthninja
WandererWest Australia Veteran
Hey guys!
I was wondering how many of you are directly working towards enlightenment? As in this is your purpose of practice.
I say this in the understanding that enlightenment is not something to be achieved. But a realisation. Call it nibanna, awakening, satori. Same pointing.
I heard Eckhardt Tolle say that to "realise" enlightenment you need to want it as badly as a drowning man needs air.
AND also let go the idea that it is something that the person can acquire.
For me this IS my ultimate purpose for practice. I can't ever leave this path because I know something is wrong with the way I look at the world.
If I am just quiet for a second I can then start to observe the delusion I know to be true. I'm then pushed back onto the path.
I'm thankful for the universe for putting me onto it.
So what I would like to know is how many/if any are seeking enlightenment in this lifetime?
I was wondering how many of you are directly working towards enlightenment? As in this is your purpose of practice.
I say this in the understanding that enlightenment is not something to be achieved. But a realisation. Call it nibanna, awakening, satori. Same pointing.
I heard Eckhardt Tolle say that to "realise" enlightenment you need to want it as badly as a drowning man needs air.
AND also let go the idea that it is something that the person can acquire.
For me this IS my ultimate purpose for practice. I can't ever leave this path because I know something is wrong with the way I look at the world.
If I am just quiet for a second I can then start to observe the delusion I know to be true. I'm then pushed back onto the path.
I'm thankful for the universe for putting me onto it.
So what I would like to know is how many/if any are seeking enlightenment in this lifetime?
3
Comments
Isn't everyone looking for freedom from fear and security? Who wants aging, sickness, death, separation from loved ones etc?
The question is, "Are we looking for it in the right places?"
Many see no way out and place their hopes in the afterlife esp. theistic religions while others think scientific knowledge is the key. Even Buddhists place their hopes of realising nibbana in future lives.
But
The Dhamma is well expounded by the Blessed One.
**Apparent here and now **
Timeless
Encouraging investigation
Leading onwards, to be experienced individually by the wise
True enough. The Buddha mentions in one of the suttras how he practiced extreme breath control. He got headaches. His need for enlightenment was let us say, intense.
I am directly working away from enlightenment. My days of intensity left after the official t-shirt ceremony ...
I heard Eckhardt Tolle say that to "realise" enlightenment you need to want it as badly as a drowning man needs air.
AND also let go the idea that it is something that the person can acquire
If wanting can achieve enlightenment, then it is a "force" that leads into it. I came across a teaching of Ajahn Chac who said - the mind should be neither moving forward or backwards, but no stoping as well. Is this the same as letting go of the idea of achieving?
Also there are some traditions who teach not to use or apply "will power, desire or "control" - it is more of "letting go" of everything. I got this a lot from Theravada teachings.
Letting go is a powerful technique, but it's easier said than done.
I gave up on trying to be enlightened. Now I'm just living.
Enlightenment isn't something to achieve in that way, it's not a place to destine for and set sail. It's available to us in every single moment of our lives. We experience moments of it, we just get sucked back into samsara. Enlightenment is already hear, you just have to grab it and let go of it simultaneously.
You are right @ourself too much baggage and grabbing.
Rather than trying to gain, intensely strive etc. I made a commitment to aid the enlightened. It came as quite a shock that I was not prepared or capable of being enlightened. So I tried to change my criteria from how can I gain from, to how can I at least serve those with a chance ...
Strangely enough this was the very change that was required. Only when you turn around this 'my enlightenment' to 'the enlightenment' are you developing genuine aspiration independent of the 'me baggage' ... Most people are not aspirational, they are greedy. There is a need for the service only the enlightened can offer. The enlightened do not offer or support greed.
Yepp.
A couple of questions:
As a point of interest, has anyone ever met someone who whole-heartedly longs for "enlightenment" two or more lifetimes in the future?
Can anyone say precisely what it is they are seeking when they seek "enlightenment" or is it kind of like smelling warm apple pie from another room and being convinced that because it smells so wonderful -- because I love it -- it must therefore exist?
I am in no hurry for enlightenment. I am fine living another several lifetimes or more. I don't practice Buddhism in quest of enlightenment but rather for relief of suffering for myself and others. The ultimate release from suffering may be enlightenment,but I am not at this point seeking release. Just relief.
Enlightnment are within us, not outside in a space ship, they say.
We are humans, so anger, hatred, delusion are part of our way.
and our job is to observe, until we see this "self" dosent belong to us, (not only intellcutally but from within).
When I listen to dhamma talk they always speak about practice meditation, practice meditation, practice meditation.....
Do we practice enough? Or do we only speak and discuss it?
If we are enlightened we would be 'just living'. If we have given up but still practice, in a sense we have given up in the right way.
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/sudgrad2.html
I can observe the mind and my body, I can see they both act independently. The person I think I am can't be found and when I look for him it's just thoughts. These thoughts are causing myself and all other beings suffering.
I want understand who I am, this is what I mean by enlightenment. Realising what you are not.
@Earthninja "I want understand who I am"
There is nothing there? Or is it?
The 'am not' experience is a common first gate. These guys will help if not there yet ...
http://liberationunleashed.com
Those requiring insight
http://www.vipassana.com/course/
For those wishing to dress up . . .
http://aromeditation.org
One life time? Or a wasted life?
"if any are seeking enlightenment in this lifetime?"
No... I'm just going with the flow, enjoying the journey and not seeking anything in particular nothing special ....
After a certain point you realize that the there is only rest and happiness in one place.
How you get to that point is difficult to explain.
But after that it is more of a sliding downhill toward the goal and it is pretty clear what it is. That is because the desire to do so becomes ingrained and bigger that any other desire.
In fact I am afraid I might pass the (alleged) point where I am useless as a father and a family provider before my kids grow up. And am trying to ground myself in the world and sensual desire to halt the downslide. Neither am I sure that is true since I have not gotten there.
But at length it is useless because the Desire for unbinding is far greater than any other desire in life no matter how much I try to delude myself otherwise.
I simply cannot find any greater comfort or pleasure than in the pursuit of Unbinding or true equanimity.
Even if it seems clear to me where i am heading it is not possible to really know the implications of unbinding before you get there.
So I guess you are right. I long for it because it smells good. But it is not a place I am heading to. It is a thing I make (or rather unmake) and I know the direction if not always the path.
/Victor
@earthninja
The particular moment in which you are reading this, is the only moment of practice existing and the only one to concern yourself about.
Thinking of suffering's cessation, enlightenment, nirvana, selflessness, the unconditioned or deathlessness as a past or future event, as being somewhere other than right here, is just our identities snooze button trying to give us some respite from the alarm clock of sincere practice.
Each nano second offers a new practitioner awakening to a new existence
or
our old conditioned impulses to remain within identities dream world.
The choice is made and your advice is to late. I think it would be easier for me to stop having sex than stop wanting unbinding.
But thank you all the same.
/Victor
I don't care for enlightenment.
Cessation of dukkha is good enough for me.
Enlightenment is a poor choice of words. Unlightenment is closer to the meaning of Nirvana. Which is similar to putting out a light/flame rather than lighting up a room.
Enlightenment is actually the direct opposite of what is meant.
But I guess that it could refer to the brightening of the mind that also occurs on the path.
Unmaking, unbinding or cessation of. Is all better.
Awakening or enlightenment. Waking up to what is.
It's good enough for me too and probably the rest of the human race as well!
They're the same thing.
To me it makes more sense to say a person is enlightening rather than saying they are enlightened.
Enlightenment means being enlightened to something, to understand.
I don't like to even use the term. It's so over-used and misunderstood because it's used in so many new-age concepts. Awakening/awakened seems a better term to me. Too many people think that when they feel good, they are enlightened, when really it's just a hormone rush, lol. I, like most people here I imagine, experience glimpses of it here and there, and it's much more a feeling of now-ness and awakenedness than it is a sense of "enlightenment."
When used in the context of the 4 noble truths in their 3 phases and 12 aspects then I think enlightenment is a perfect word.
@karasti
I too avoid that term, like many other terms of attainment that conditioned reflexes like to hang their hat on.
Indeed.
Opening or unfolding is another way to describe. It is perhaps like a sigh of relief. The terminology is important and I feel should equate with experience.
The word enlightenment makes more sense as a lifting of the weight of Dukkha. Becoming lighter.
There is also a difference between moksha a brief insight and a permenant understanding. It is also important to realise that those 'reputed' are no help unless the reputation is deserved. Most have the sense not to expose their status. @how is right to warn of the conditioned responses that can be entrenched, or exposed by what is surprisingly very little and yet everything ...
Yes and no.
"Enlightenment" sounds like too big a word, metaphysical, mystic, sometimes downright new agey, spooky.
"Cessation of suffering" sounds more plausible and easier to attain.
In my humble opinion, few people want to come out and say they are buddhist. In another thread where someone asked if Buddhism is a religion some even went so far as to say that it is sometimes perceived as a cult. I hate to say this but even in India where Buddhism was born, it has a new age perception about it. I am sure many here will own up to it as their religion without having to think twice and some will also say they are seeking enlightenment without pussy footing around it. But there are several boards on Buddhism for several closet Buddhists so to speak. Infact I have heard few American scholars and Buddhists also do this weird thing ie first preaching tenets of Buddhism and then quickly undermining / retracting claims by affecting skepticism under the garb of investigation/exploration. No one stops anyone from following any religion in this day and age. And people follow a few in a lifetime. We should just own up to whatever it is we currently ascribe to and move on. Its no big deal. Infact if we are not wholly committed to a religion we dont belong together anyway - that religion and I - because at the very basic it needs honesty and trust wont you say ?
Cessation of suffering is more than perfect, it is the summum bonum of existence.
Our minds need a concept when the reality is it's beyond a mere concept. Concepts are perceived in it.
It's better to not give it a name because the mind will cling to names. But at the same time, then we couldn't even talk about this stuff without names.
Alan Watts said the a perfect way to describe it is "The smell of burnt Almonds"
From a ex fumigator's point of view "methyl bromide" has a 'smell of burnt Almonds'...I guess it could mean the same, as it does kill off all the nasties leaving the fumigated item free of defilements...
Nibbana is not a concept or beyond comprehension. Till one does not acknowledge it, it will not arrive, and if one is not prepared to recognize it , it will not be experienced. It will remain a mere mental formation or concept or whatever one may wish to speculate it is about.
Glad so many know where we are headed and what it is like. Should be easy rafting from now on ...
So they 'sound different.
But they're actually both the same.
It's like saying something like 'water' is 'fluid ice'.
Those ropes are hard to tie down!
For me it's the other way round.
...You're using 'ropes...?
Why didn't I think of that - !?
Ropes?! You were lucky!
Well, I figures, with no ropes.... I could do this instead.....
You guys should read the "Reef Knot Sutta"