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What will it take?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
Would you like to be enlightened for Christmas? Just for fun? Accidentally or incidentally?
What will it take? 
That was the question I asked myself after years of being a seeker of sorts. I realised I had neither the qualities, capacity or means to even be a student.
So I went for the only open option. To support those who had a chance. Now is your chance. What will it be? What will it take to be enlightened?
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Discipline. Every day come to sit recite and understand more. Acceptance that it will take a while to become enlightned. Knowing that even on your days when you feel so happy and dont feel the need to meditate study still do it even on the days you feel like giving up still do it, & accepting you might not even reach enlightenment in this lifetime. So many aspects, but ill stop there
Or one could follow this simple advice.....
"Practice is not separate from Enlightenment-Enlightenment and Practice are one !"
~Dogen~
So don't practice to become enlightened-Let your practice be the natural expression of your enlightenment
I think I'd rather wait until spring, so if I decide to be a wanderer it's not -30F outside!
For me, life is like wandering around in a dark room looking for the light switch. Once in a while, the light switches on, just for a moment, without me really knowing what I did. Brief moments of complete clarity and light, gone as quickly as I noticed they were there. Then I'm in the dark looking for how to turn it on again, feeling all the walls, along the floor, etc. But I think I'm actually carrying the switch with me the whole time. I just haven't quite realized it. Kind of like when you spend half the day looking for the glasses on your head, or the keys in your pocket.
After all the jibber-jabber on other spiritual type forums about enlightenment, I realized I continued to feel like, "screw enlightenment." I looked for a picture that said that, but there weren't any...I found this, though and I like it but I don't relate to it - just sort of a clever saying:
Screw Enlightenment? [lobster faints] ... maybe iz plan?
Tee hee! Being clever, quoting pith sayings ain't going to cut it ... or iz plan ...
Enlightenment. Hmm, well I had a glimpse, and it was a grand feeling - more alive than being alive. Warm. And it seemed effortless.
But to hold onto that and live that way permanently, I don't know. It was very disinhibiting, I was and I did what came to me, very immediately. I was a bit embarrassing at times. I don't think it went perfectly, certainly there was no experience of cosmic knowledge.
It all seemed to seep away slowly over the course of a few days. I don't know if practice or right living or meditation can patch those leaks, I rather doubt it.
If it comes, it comes, and for the rest, enjoy the journey.
Couple of days kensho @Kerome, nice enough.
What about when you have a couple of years awake? [lobster raises guilty claw]
It passes ... impermanence! Ain't it though ... Tee hee!
I'm moved by your post. I also feel like a failed seeker. I don't even believe in enlightenment any more, so don't feel like there's anything to help people with there. Maybe it's possible to guide someone to the "glimpse", but these days I'm not sure if the ensuing rollercoaster is even worth it.
The ordinary human compassion/helping, count me in. Only thing there is to do really.
Stumbled upon this quote the other day, it's the contender for my favorite quote: "Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being " (Khalil Gibran).
@Lobster you ask such interesting questions on this board, I'm going to finally ask you one in return: "If you're wondering what it would be like to be enlightened, then why aren't you enlightened now?"
I mean deep down, gut level, how would you be different if you were this "enlightened" you speak of? And what's stopping you from being that now?
I don't know, but perhaps that is one of the keys - to accept that we don't know. Beginners mind, I suppose.
I have episodes of clarity, where the "I" disappears. Two days, a week, two weeks tops. Eventually, my reaction becomes to think about what I did to trigger the experience, and then to come up with some verbal formula to enable me to return to that place at will. After that, I remember only the words, and the place itself can no longer be found.
So I think part of the answer for me is to avoid verbalizing experience, and to rest in silence, until very, very certain that the way to that place in the mind is truly known.
It's all well and good lazying about in the enlightened blissful state every now and again...But there's work to be done in the real world ... Water won't fetch itself and nor will wood chop itself ...Just saying
fetching water and chopping wood before enlightenment and after enlightenment looks like same for the worldlings but there is a huge difference
please let us know in your own wording
On Christmas i'm going to sit and do my zazen and then i'm going to call my 2 and 4 year old nieces on the phone and tell them they are beautiful girls and that i love them very much.
if it is going to take more than that? Welp, i'm willing to wait and see
@upekka
In my own words (in a nutshell) I'm under the impression ...Enlightenment is Practice and Practice is Enlightenment When interacting with others...practice is 'not' separate from ones daily goings on ...
Thus have "I" heard "Practice makes perfect and perfect practice makes perfect practice!" ...
You need to know enlightenment is real. You assume I don't believe in enlightenment or that my story was complete ... From experience I know enlightenment is real. It is something and it is nothing. Paradoxical. Glimpses, kensho are one thing. Dancing on the far shore or swimming back to samsara are something only the hardened bodhisattvas do.
Indeed. Quite right too ...
Franz Kafka may have unwittingly expounded on that idea with his quote "The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon"
... meanwhile a mirror with not even a speck ... or?
http://dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/articledisplay.cgi?aid=16344
.
@lobster asked
To forget enlightenment and seek only to reflect the light by which you are illumined.
I guess when the conditions arise I would have to be open to it and stay with it.
The conditions are probably always right and sometimes I may be in tune but staying with it is tough with the world pulling.
There is balance that I have yet to achieve and am still stained by the world and as such, my petals are obscured by some stubborn mud and parts of them have not touched light.
I get impatient. I get angry. There is no hammer and chisel that I can muster enough force behind to get these petals clean.
Meditation is my water and if water can drill stone (thanks to @federica for reminding me of that analogy) it can surly wash away this clinging mud.
I can feel it loosening but it takes a while as it probably should for one such as myself that gets impatient and angry.
I can't come up with a sutta reference, but a suitable quote seems to be "It's the journey, not the destination." Becoming obsessed with seeking enlightenment is a hindrance, and you cannot appreciate the transformation that takes place within.
there is only hate, greed and delusion in this world
impatient is greed
angry is hate
why do we have it?
because we are delusional
yes
meditation is the remedy
tranqility (samatha) is not enough
insight (vipassana) too needed
inhale, exhale
inhale, exhale
inhale, exhale
brings the mind to tranqility
now investigate
what is inhale?
how do i know it is inhale?
when do i know inhale?
why it is called inhale?
There is a difference but ascribing words to that difference like 'huge' are not always helpful. Fundamental might be a slightly better description ...
What is the 'nature' of the 'same difference'? We might say it has familiar benefits that try to throw light on the situation:
In other words it takes all our efforts to become 'effortless' ...
And.....
"Paradoxically...It takes time to become what we already are!"
Tee Hee!
I am quite happy to know not only that I am enlightened but how to become 'unenlightened' or ordinary again.
In such an in-between state, where do we go? Far shore or near? Samsara or para-nirvana? Hell or heaven. Wood chopping or wood chopping?