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Perfect things and what is real
Jeroen
Not all those who wander are lostNetherlands Veteran
in Mindfulness
It seems to me that humans can imagine that which is perfect, but it doesn’t exist in reality. For example you can teach a small child that two parallel lines will never meet, but even a gifted artist cannot draw two lines which are perfectly parallel. They are going to meet at some point. Or take Euclid’s description of a line, which is that which only has length. What line drawn on paper does not have thickness?
Similarly the human mind contains many concepts which are these ideal visions: God, justice, fairness and so on. These are things which either do not exist or exist imperfectly only. It seems to me once this is understood, ones whole relationship to the ideals changes.
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Comments
What you have perhaps stated @Jeroen in other words, is the First Nobel Truth?
Someone once said, "If you want perfection, become an engineer."
In life, we do not seek perfection, an impossible goal to achieve.
We may seek what we perceive to be more perfect, closer to perfection.
Yet what we are almost always seeking is balance.
A Buddha is an awakened (enlightened) one, not a perfect being.
After all, Buddha arises from within an ordinary person, never the other way around.
It can be said that when a person steps or emerges from the fog of fundamental darkness and into the bright day of full awakening, that is enlightenment or Buddha, if he or she turns around and reenters that fog, that Buddha does not leave the light, but carries it to lead others and show them, enable them to also walk the path that leads to their own emergence from the fog.
What them is a Bodhisattva? It has been said that one who displays all the actions characteristic of a Buddha. Such a person perhaps caught glimpses of the " Bright Daylight" but has not yet fully emerged and is still seeking.
Of course, that is merely my understanding. You may agree, disagree, have a completely different understanding. That is all right. I am not her to convince you one way or another. This is as I see it, no more - no less.
Peace to you
Well spotted, @lobster… it is indeed the dichotomy of perfect and real that brings us suffering.
And @lionduck, I did study engineering at university, but I can’t say it brought me closer to perfection.
Master the art of perfect imperfection
Tee hee!
Well said @Shoshin1 aka @Shoshin
Also as you are currently a tantrist. Remember you are a kindly wrathful Womble (at times)... oh wait that is just me. Again.
The bodhi brigades are not here for nonce-sense or imperfect solutions but directions... Which way are we already there again... 😺️
I gave up goals, and ended up being just as I am.
@Jeroen
Just so.
The metaphor I use in my mind is something like reality is like the smooth flowing river and our mental labels and frameworks we put on top of reality are like big chunks of ice.
So if we learn to live in comfort and happiness — to be joyful, full of dance and love for small pleasures — will there be such a thing as a search for enlightenment and the end of suffering?
It seems to me life is a mixture of moments, moments of pleasure and moments of discomfort, but once you start being in favour of life, relaxed, enjoying whatever there is to enjoy, and living in that joy, then the idea of the Buddhist enlightenment disappears.
The first Noble Truth relies upon a mind that is focussed on the things that are not right, the things that convince one that suffering exists. Yet I think man has the capacity to be happy in a wide range of circumstances, even the children playing in the ruins where Gaza used to stand.
There's the second noble truth too, that the cause of suffering is craving rooted in ignorance. So the last example of being happy in poor external circumstance fits with the Buddhist notion of liberation.
I'd also point out a potential trap of your first example of falling into a god realm where life is happy and easy right now so you forget about the impermanent nature of things. Or the trap of the arhat who's found their own personal peace and never turns back to the world to help others. Perhaps this only matters in the context of multiple lives though.