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Questions (A few)
1: Does an enlightened being always stay enlightened? If so, is it because enlightenment is independant of conditions? Again if so, isnt that kinda against the idea of impermanence? Or is it just the concept that seems to go against impermanence?
2: Does the path towards the ending of suffering not require a desire for peace or an aversion to suffering to follow it?
(I'm gathering that, the answer initially is yes, but the answer down the road may be no.)
Go easy on me! :P
2: Does the path towards the ending of suffering not require a desire for peace or an aversion to suffering to follow it?
(I'm gathering that, the answer initially is yes, but the answer down the road may be no.)
Go easy on me! :P
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Comments
Anyone who suffers wants to end suffering. It's when you see that there's no one who suffers that both the suffering and the wish to end it ceases.
It is because a fully enlightened being has ended greed, hatred & delusion.
No. This is because the Buddha advised all conditioned things are impermanent but the one unconditioned thing, namely, Nirvana, is permanent.
Nirvana comes when the mind accepts all conditioned things, including one's life, is impermanent and reality cannot be any other way. Acceptance is something which can be permanent (whilst we are alive).
Absolutely. The path requires very strong desire. It requires such strong desire that one is willing to drop everything, including that strong desire.
Enlightenment is always there, like the blue sky, the night sky. It can be covered over in clouds, but the sky itself is untouched. Thus it can be independent of conditions, and also unobscured by conditions, it can co-exist with the clouds but also be free of them all together. This is the realm and transcendence of the true Dharma. However, it takes a bit of time, and a lot of practice to realise what is so easily said with words. More than words, however, we are interested in the genuine beneficence and knowing - genuinely and intimately - within each student of Dhamma. Patience, faith, and never ending perseverence. Even when you have given up. _/|\_
Best wishes.
That is correct. It also contradicts the doctrine of nonself. Practice brings an end to becoming, which means an end to being. Thus there is no being to be enlightened, and in fact never was. There is rest, and there is struggle. Practice can bring an end to the struggles of the moment. As its momentum builds, the practice can pervade more and more of life, and there can be more and more rest and less and less struggle. To reach for something beyond resting in and celebrating the experience of the moment is to step outside of and corrupt the practice,
Yes it does. I get the impression from your question that this may be confusing because you understand that desire and aversion are to be avoided. This is not the case, again because the practice leads to the end of suffering in the present moment. Practice transforms desire and aversion, and as a result of this, they do not lead to suffering. There is nothing wrong in principle with returning to practice out of a desire or an aversion. It's only a problem if the practice is corrupted into a grasping or escapist struggle as a result.
Perhaps a buddhist teacher. Even then, choose carefully. Probably, the only way to get an answer to this question is to experience the answer yourself.
Fivebells, this hit home. I've started to think/realise that its not the removal of craving/aversion that enables a lessening of percieved suffering but, more the understanding and awareness of the craving and aversion causes it to transformation our relationship to it.
This reminds me of something Alan Watts said about birth. It went something like "We say when we were born that we came into the world, when what we really should be saying is that we came out of this world, there isnt anywhere else to come from"
Much like enlightenment, its always there, we just have to see.
With this in mind I suppose my question was more, if enlightenment is something thats always there/here and all it takes is to realise that. Is there anyway to forget that? Though, that question seems kinda pointless now lol
But, what do i know?