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If you became enlightened today...
mindatrisk
Veteran
Would you...
Live out this life and then remain in the unconditioned bliss for eternity
Continue to incarnate into as many lives as is required to liberate all sentient beings
... ?
Try to be honest. I honestly think I'd keep returning, just because I know that in this lifetime the only thing that brings me happiness is to be of service, to be helpful, to do good and be good. But I think if I had suffered more in my life then my inclination would be more 'fuck that, I'm kicking back in the pure lands', which would be very understandable given the extent of suffering some experience in this realm.
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Honestly ....
I'd still have to go to work.
No idea! Do you think Buddha Shakyamuni followed the second one? If so, where is he / she now?
Voltron 10, I hear, in Andromeda.
I'd see the right course of action for me one I'd become enlightened.
I cannot say what I would do as an enlightened being because through my own fetters and attachments, I'm still not there.
I'll answer once I get there.
Until then, I can only wishfully surmise.
When I'm there, it won't matter.
Link? reference? From whom?
Could be hiding within any one of us just waiting for the proper conditions to manifest.
I would do number 2 no doubt. Plus eat and sleep.
But no, I'd have to follow the path of the bodhisattva. Although it may not matter at all.
If separation is an illusion then for a true and complete awakening, we would all have to have awakened. If any one of us is lost, then enlightenment would be incomplete.
Now, if the Buddha can transcend time (if there is no true separation there is no actual distance hence no actual time) he may have already seen a full awakening so he could pull off the path of the Bodhisattva and call it quits all at once.
Or would you rather be a fish?
I believe I might ask, "What made you assume you weren't enlightened in the first place?"
OMG, the secret is out. I am exposed.
Yup. You're a fish. Join @lobster, he's got a cool marine community going, I believe.
I think maybe I have a poor sense of humour.
My striving to be enlightened.
I wouldn't know. When you incarnate, it's because you still have karma to work out while being a service to others. Once you have full understanding of The Dharma, no more rebirth. We die. Helping others helps towards no rebirth. I don't lean towards Pure Land Buddhism.
I'd think its very exhausting going through rebirth and trying to deal with my own karma at the same time be at service to others. I'd live out this life as best I can with accordance with The Dharma and in service to others and hope one day I won't be reborn and die in peace. I wouldn't say death is eternal bliss, though. How do you experience eternal bliss when you no longer go through Samsara?
Let's just say it's a little...'misplaced'....
If you're going to start a 'serious' thread, keep it 'serious'. If you want to inject humour, a
emoticon would help.
The reason I asked, is because of course, we cannot with any definitive exactitude, declare without any fear of contradiction, that other 'worlds' do not exist...
And sometimes people are known to make out-of-the-ordinary claims.
Thanks.
I'd be grateful and eat turkey, I guess, since today is Thanksgiving :lol
"I" would choose to come back, but that's not to say "I" get a choice in what my karmic stream ends up doing.
Well if you're Enlightened, you can make that decision, can't you.....?
Heck if I know! If that is the case then why is it really only discussed as a potential option within Tibetan Buddhism? That I've seen, anyways. I don't see many Theravadan monks talking about making the choice to come back, as it seems once you are enlightened, that is the end of the line for human rebirth. I've never quite understood how it supposedly works. I just think that no matter what it is that happens when we die, it happens the same to all of us whether we are Catholic, Tibetan Buddhist, or Atheist but each of those has very different ideas of what that might be, of course. The Bodhisattva ideal is taught in a manner that suggests you have to put that intention into practice right away, that is why people take Bodhisattva vows, in part, to help cement the plan to take rebirth and work towards it now. Even though the idea serves as inspiration to be of full service to others, it really has a sense of working actively towards that rebirth. If it is simply a matter of choice, as it would seem to be, then one wouldn't have to be enlightened to make that choice, otherwise all those who have taken the vows have wasted their time, since few are enlightened I'm guessing.
I'm just rambling. I need my second cup of coffee
(I'm on my third and still not 'with it'...!)
Heck, I'm not enlightened or awakened or whatever the cool kids call it but I still might aim just for kicks.
Yeah, I think like all of us unenlightened doofii, I'm grappling in the dark.
But I confess, it's enjoyable grapple....
Tee Hee.
Enlightenment?
What's that then?
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-enlightenment-449966
That sounds like the right answer for me... it’s one reason why I think the bodhisattva ideal is a little difficult, despite my Tibetan monk acquaintance explaining it is all about generating the motivation for the enlightenment of all beings. You just can’t know how you’ll feel once you are enlightened and have achieved cosmic knowledge.
It’s one of the reasons I feel I connect better with Theravada than Mahayana schools.
You might feel a lot more compassion? I don't know. I'd question the worth of an enlightenment that first and foremost isn't characterised by immense love and compassion for all. I hope that enlightenment isn't the cosmic reward for selfishness.
I reject the premise of the question.
On the other hand, that too might be a limited perspective. I remember seeing an ayahuasca ceremony documentary in which one participant said “I realised that everything I knew was quite possibly bullshit”, and another said “I was shown that good and evil were perfect complements, that what was taken away with one hand was added back in by another in exact balance”.
We can get tiny glimpses, but I think it’s impossible to know...
I reject the rejection in your rejection, and I too stick my tongue out, only I don't know how to create that emoji. My apologies, maybe Federica can teach me so my humour is not lost in translation. Federica? How do I make my humour more apparent through the use of the emoji? Thank you.
I like this thought.
And if I knew the appropriate emoji to express my appreciation then I'd assign one. Truly I would. Federica is going to teach me how to better communicate my words through the use of the emoji (I hope!) so that I, my words, and my true character are better understood in these forums.
It's just like getting to Carnegie Hall....
If I became enlightened today...I would travel to another dimension and search for new challenges to overcome.
can you have both?home and work.not that im enlightened.
I feel that is a good option before and after the search for truth/honesty.
So if we found ourself unenlightened today what could we honestly do?
I highly doubt that the equanimity and serenity characteristic of buddha-ness can be attained by striving.
Besides...
That is kind of strict!
(I'd use a funny emoticon but I have to be honest... I just don't like the ones we have and there's so few)
Im reading ans listening to In the Buddha's Words and Im at "investigate the teacher." I wonder what The Buddha does when he isnt attached to anything. Does an elightened one onl help sentient beings and share the Dharma or does he also have interests etc just he isnt attached to it?
If you became enlightened today...
@mindatrisk: Heart Sutra says: All dharmas are marked with emptiness, so the above if clause of the statement itself do not exist, so why worry about the then part of the above statement? So relax.
He does what the situation calls for. But he neither clings to the process, nor the outcome.
What I read/heard in some dharma talk as said by a teacher was: The only activity of enlightened beings is to teach others - whether others follow the teachings or not is up to others. Moreover as Heart Sutra teaches - there is no sentient being, no enlightened being, no ignorance, no wisdom, no samsara, no nirvana - so my thinking says this would be the experience of an enlightened being.
For one who is enlightened, the four sufferings are themselves each the source of enlightenment. Breaking the cycle of the four sufferings is creating the condition where they are not in fact sufferings. That condition is, of course, enlightenment.
From that perspective, option one is delusion while option 2 is the reality.
Peace to all
I know! Which is how I know I'm not enlightened!
What is the 'I' in your above sentence, which you are referring to?
The illusion of myself, of course! Who else?
Self/Not-Self. It's all the same thing. Don't sweat it....
So your 'I' is your 'illusion of myself' - in other words, your 'you' is 'illusion of yourself' - the question is who is knowing this thing that your 'you' is 'illusion of yourself'? The teachers have already taught in their teachings that thinking will not be able to figure it out. Practice may help - be it sitting meditation, chanting, bowing etc - doing any activity, just do that activity. Dogen taught in Genjokoan that practicing one dharma is practicing completely.
Though the question was adressed to @mindatrisk, I would like to put in a humble input here.
@mindatrisk can offer his own personal insight duly.
I used to define our conventional "me" as a loosely-bound bundle of aggregates in perpetual flux.
Lately, I am very much into the Yogacara consciousness-only philosophy, so I have come up with a more satisfying, comprehensive and all-encompassing definition for our conventional self:
We are ever-changing transformation of conciousness, flowing occurrence, and this transformation includes ripening of karma (store-consciousness/alaya-vijnana/past conditioning), consciousness of self (manas/observer) and the imagery of sense objects (the "reality" that we perceive through the aggregates).
These two definitions, Abhidharma and Mahayana, remind me of Freud's different descriptions of the Unconscious.
The latter seems to better represent the dynamic process of moments of consciousness.
Both!
To be honest, I'm not so fussed on thinking about these things. I think engaging in these kinds of thoughts adds to the problem. I'm into the Zen notion of 'just sitting' and allowing what will be to be.
Phew! For a thread dedicated to an "enlightenment" many claim not to possess or know, there surely is a lot of willingness to implicitly declare direction, intent and understanding. Kind of a "I know where I'm going but I don't know where it is?."
Let me get this straight: I don't know what it is, but I long for it ... is that the gist? Am I the only one who finds this a peculiar exercise? This is just a question, not a critique.
I dont understand the question. Our intention is to be enlightened. Our goal is to be without attachment. Our direction is our Practice. Our destination, nibbanna.
I suppose we have a teacher (the Buddha) who taught of a highly desirable state that we can live in, and, for whatever personal reasons we each have, we are pursuing the path he prescribed to reach that state. I don't think we need to know anything about what enlightenment is in totality, but we can all relate to the idea of less suffering and understand it is as desirable. I think for everyone here just the chance to suffer less is more than enough motivation to check this enlightenment thing out.
That would be difficult nowadays unless one is a monk, nun, or posibably have education centers that focus on teaching as the end goal for this life time of teaching the Dharma. I mean formally. Unless one evangelizes.