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What is enlightenment and nirvana?
After my previous questions regarding karma and rebirth, I began to wonder what enlightenment and nirvana would be (or mean) in a buddhism stripped of the more mystical (or spiritual?) interpretations of karma and rebirth.
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Nirvana (noun) is the state of peace that is the result of 'enlightenment' (verb). It is something more than this, but can not be expressed adequately in words. The mind can see, can know, reality in the same way as what light looks like, what lime tastes like, what incense smells like.
Those are just one way of putting it. Many will have different views on how to describe them both.
Namaste
This may be a bit of nonsense, but in one of the ways I like to look at it, the conventional viewpoint explains things through subject, verb and object whereas the ultimate viewpoint explains things through verb alone. In essence, things are being viewed from the perspective of activities and processes. This, I think, is incredibly difficult to see, but perhaps what happens here is that once self-identity view (sakkaya-ditthi) is removed, the duality of subject and object is also removed, thereby revealing the level of mere conditional phenomena, i.e., dependent co-arising in action. This mental process is "seen," ignorance [of the four noble truths] is replaced by knowledge and vision of things as they are (yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana), and nibbana, then, would be the "letting go" of what isn't self through the dispassion (viraga) invoked in seeing the inconstant (anicca) and stressful (dukkha) nature of clinging to false refuges that are neither fixed nor stable (anatta). Nibbana isn't the unconditioned as much as it's the unconditioned.
In a sense, yes. While I think Buddhism has always been what you'd call psychology, it's only been relatively recently (at least in the West) that its more technical terms have been understood and translated in ways that make this clear. I think this shift is due in no small part to the decades of excellent scholarship that has been brought to bear on the texts and the religious-historical context in which they took shape.
Everything that has happened in your life is represented by your current frame of mind (in the subconscious). The subconscious processes all information from your senses as well as thought (including memory and beliefs) from moment-to-moment. If we understand reality in a different way at this 'machine level' of the mind, what we perceive both in thought and from our senses will change to reflect our new-found wisdom.
All of our conscious thoughts and actions begin in the subconscious. If someone throws a ball at you, the information goes to the subconscious where it is processed faster than lightning and you act. Because we don't have direct control over the subconscious, we must go about awakening to reality through study and practice (insight meditation is very important); these things are done actively and the subconscious slowly adjusts until it 'clicks' in a moment of pure selfless insight.
This is my perspective, so take it with a grain of salt or more.
Namaste
Why are you concered about the "mystical" or "spiritual"? Elswhere someone was posting about seeing Buddhism in a "scientific" light instead of a "spiritual" one. That is not a choice between two views, it is a choice within one. How about niether?
I used to think it was somewhat different from what I now think. NOW I think:
enlightenment = waking up to the true nature of self and existence
nirvana = freedom from being pushed around by attachment and aversion
BUT ... ask me in another 10 years, and I'm sure I'll understand it differently!
No matter what you set in your mind as your understanding, as you learn and progress, those understandings will change.
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In simple terms enlightenment means awakening, seeing things as they really are, cutting through delusion. Liberation from suffering is a useful bonus.;)
P
(Sorry, that last part was more in response to Richard H than you. I'm not sure why I used/abused your otherwise helpful post to make a platform for my response to him.)
Again, the same problem occurs when discussing delusions. They are only delusions if you have rejected them, otherwise they are your perceived reality. Criticism of delusions can only occur outside of the perspective that holds them, which again raises the question of why one would abandon the perceived truth of these beliefs for another set of beliefs. The only reason I an think of is perceived internal consistency of ones beliefs, unless it makes claims about physical systems, in which case I can see it falling afoul of predictive failure.
Only meditation can tell anyone that.
It's not a dichotomy. They are not mutually exclusive. They can coexist quite peacefully.
Edit: Sorry, that came across as a little hostile. But I really don't think trying to claim the ability to achieve some type of objective knowledge is a viable option. The question even arises how we would know we had hit upon objectivity, since it would be objectivity as known by us. That would make it no different than any other subjective perspective available out there.
On a practical level, I think it's different than most contemporary psychological approaches, which seem to mostly expect transformation to arise from merely understanding the mechanisms of the pathology. For instance, in CBT, you basically try to "talk yourself out of" a destructive story. For a lot of people, this doesn't work and I think the reason is that it's working on an intellectual level, when the foundation of the story is actually emotional. In Buddhist practice, the theory describing samsara is relatively simple and transparent, and it is the practice of meditation which builds capacity to step out of samsaric mental phenomena, through a non-intellectual process.
So you are saying that the Buddha was simply wrong? You think you are smarter than the Buddha?
Exactly!
Actually, that is precisely what it does.
To put it into natural rather than metaphysical terms:
Something outside your body occurs. You see, hear, taste, feel something.
You/we don't experience the sight, sound, taste directly. It enters us via our physical sense (ears, mouth, skin, eyes) and then it gets processed via our filters. It gets labeled, categorized, colored by biases, our current emotional state etc.
After the thing occurs and is processed by those filters then it enters our awareness. The untrained mind believes it is seeing reality as it is, but this is not the case, clearly.
Meditation on a single object leads to concentration and mindfulness. It also leads to experiencing 'things' in a way that they enter our awareness before they are filtered. That labeling, filtering part of our mental faculties still does what it does, but the 'thing' makes it through to our awareness *before* the labeling, filtering does. So, when the labels and biases enter our awareness the meditative mind sees those labels, feelings etc. arise apart from the 'thing' itself.
In other words the biases and filters are seen for what they are, biases and filters. The thing itself is seen for what it is, 'the thing'.
As for the Buddha, who knows if he is wrong. I can't even get agreement on exactly what he meant, so I'm not at that stage in the investigation to make those sorts of judgments. Besides, I wouldn't want to be too agressive in applying labels like right or wrong, when things like this don't usually make themselves that cut and dried. You end up getting all self righteous in your application of anochronistic measures and miss the value of the message.
LOL, I remember those days well. They weren't all that long ago. I am not sure what, exactly, got me to looking at Buddhism, but I think it was just boredom and intellectual curiosity. I recall going from one website after another just getting more and more frustrated because it seemed every website was saying something different.
I think that is just the difficulty that arises when trying to convey experiences to others with words.
Hang in there, it clears up in time and in particular I would say much clears up with meditation and just a slight effort at putting the 8 fold path into action. It's not necessary to know 'the most correct' way of meditating and it's not necessary to have a 'perfect' understanding of the 8 fold path.
We all start from where we are.
Also, at this point, I am, as you were, simply satisfying some intellectual curiosity. I am certainly not at a point where I feel Buddhism sufficiently compelling to motivate me to invest time and energy in things like meditation and understanding the 8 fold path.
I don't understand the question.
That's fine, but speaking from my own experience it wasn't until I sat in mediation a few times that I started to understand things from an experiential point of reference. An intellectual understanding of 'the basics' helps, but ultimately the truth of the teaching is determined on the basis of whether or not it does what it says it does. The teaching says there is suffering, it has a cause, it has a cure and the cure is the 8 fold path. The 8 fold path isn't a set of propositions to be decided on intellectually, but experientially.
I understand you are on an intellectual quest and wish you well with it, but you can never know whether a cause-effect claim is true unless you make an effort to bring about the cause to see what the effect is. It is fine if bringing about the cause doesn't interest you; I am pointing out the limits of conceptual thoughts and logic in testing a cause-effect claim.
Thank you for that clarification.
I think what confused me was I didn't understand the words in relation to the question.
sad said: Originally Posted by the sad clown
Or only nothing will tell you that, since meditation isn't going to take you out of your eyeballs and all of the cognitive dispositions we bring to every observation made.
Rightly or wrongly I thought Sad was suggesting that one can't use meditation to be aware of what the senses are perceiving without being tinted by our filters. I explained that it could be used for that purpose.
In response I was asked how I could know the experience was outside my body. I get it now, but still don't understand how the question relates to what was being discussed
Actually, it is more like "My daddy has great wisdom that you and I can not even fathom. Therefore, we would all be well advised to listen to what he has to say and take his words very seriously." Something more like that.
He has already answered, for himself, ALL the questions that you and I have and he has told us how to get these answers for ourselves. You're never going to get agreement on exactly what he meant because to understand what he meant requires something other than simply thinking about it.
You said "since meditation isn't going to take you out of your eyeballs and all of the cognitive dispositions we bring to every observation made....but I am fairly clear it isn't going to get you out of your own head"
All I was trying to say really is that The Buddha said that this IS PRECISELY what it does. He said the exact opposite of what you said above. However, I'm curious as to how you can say "meditation isn't going to take you out of...cognitive dispositions" and how you can be "fairly clear it isn't going to get you out of your own head" if you have never experienced it before? Of course, you don't have to believe it if you don't like. However, I do believe it would be very unwise to dismiss it without even trying it.
Respectfully,
but we can do a little experiment
close the eyes for a while
see (not think) what is in the mind
can you see the difference between 'seeing' the things in the mind and 'thinking' of the things in the mind?
do this experiment until you grasp the difference of 'seeing' and 'thinking'
then you can decide whether you like to spend the time to learn meditation or not
Now, it is true that I have other objections, but the discussion never even got that far, since there seemed to be a persistence on seekers part that objective reality was somehow at hand for one who meditates. So yes, I do have a problem with filterless observations as well, but could never got that far other than to initially mention it. Seeker simply switched tactics and tried to shut down the discussion by asking if I was smarter than the Buddha, but even username_5's response quoted me saying meditation wasn't going to take you out of yourself and responded that in fact it would, thus perpetuating, rightly or wrongly, my impression that they were somehow arguing for objective knowledge of reality.
So, if this isn't what you are arguing for, that is fine, we can then discuss filterless experiences. Perhaps here too is simply a misunderstanding. My understanding is that without concepts we have only an undifferentiated continuum of sensation. It is only our concepts that allow us to organize and atomize this torrent into thought. This criticism goes back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Now, I suppose one could try, and perhaps even succeed in experiencing sensations without concepts, or at least differentiating between the experience and the concepts we apply to it, but then my question would be why would you want to do that? It doesn't seem to me that it would give you any insight, in fact, all I can tell that it would do is completely shut down any understanding.
You sound like a devoted follower. You helped me realize again that Buddhism is a religion, and not simply a philosophy.
Spoken like a true religionist. Christians and Muslims tell me the same thing, but my question is still, why would I want to try it if you haven't convinced me that it is worth trying. I don't just go randomly trying things. I have to have one of two things going on, either a) I have a perceived need that xyz (insert the name of your favorite religious/metaphysical solution) claims to resolve, or b) I have been convinced by argumentation that there is at least a good probability of achieving a desirable outcome from xyz's prescribed behavior.
I don't have any suffering that I'm not willing to put up with, and you haven't done a very good job of making an argument that changes my mind.
Yup.
Yup.
To see reality as it is
The untrained mind only sees filtered reality, not the reality itself without the filters. The untrained mind believes the filtered reality is reality. Being able to differentiate the reality from the filters allows us to learn about how our mind works. How it causes us to suffer. How it reacts with clinging to that which our filters say is likable and how it reacts with aversion to that which our filters say is not liked. Even how it reacts with indifference to that which our filters haven't put into a like|dislike box.
We can also learn how our beliefs and actions have been conditioned over time by not being able to differentiate between filtered perception and reality.
That is because you haven't experienced it. You are trying to imagine something outside your experience. If you don't believe such a thing is possible or you believe it is possible, but a waste of time then that is your thinking and Buddhism isn't for you.
I do understand what "intellectual version" means yes. I also understand that the real answers about Buddhism can not be found in it.
I am a devoted follower, yes.
It's not up to me to "convince you" of anything. I was pointing out that you are jumping to conclusions about something that you have never experienced. Whether you believe that or not is up to you.
Whenever a person left a meditation retreat early and gives an obviously false excuse, The Zen Master always used to say "Ahh, more suffering is necessary! Then he will be back!"
It's not his or anyone's job to make an argument that changes your mind.
You are on a Buddhist forum asking questions. Several people are doing the best they can to answer your questions. If you don't like the answers or don't believe the answers, that is your preference and your belief. Nobody is going to begrudge you that, but neither is anyone going to get down on their knees and beg you to see things the way they do.
I would recommend a well reviewed intro book instead of a forum if you want to pursue answers in much more detail. There is a recommended reading thread around here somewhere if you want recommendations.
ROFL.
Yes.
And here is my problem with claiming to see reality itself. There is no such thing as reality itself, there are only perceptions of reality. What makes your unfiltered reality more real than my filtered reality? I can see how recognizing how our concepts shape that reality can help us understand at least some of our cognitive limits and how our minds work. I can even understand how we can be unaware of how our beliefs can unwittingly lead to negative consequences and the like. But none of this disqualifies the perspective for being any more real than any other perspective.
In fact, it could even be true that there need be no connection between what might be thought of as a more real perspective and happiness/peace/non-suffering. For instance, I could take comfort in belief that benign fairies were actively controlling everything around me.
But I get the feeling that we are still not talking about the same thing, at least not precisely the same thing. When I talk about concepts, I am not only talking about certain beliefs about the world and my place in it, but even fundamental concepts like space/time and causation. Perhaps you do mean these as well, but without these I don't see you really having much of a reality, because without these structures to our experience, there are no "things" or "connections" between these things. It's more like the world just puking into your brain everything at once. I still don't understand the value of wanting to swim around in that, let alone calling it more real than me sitting here being able to tell that the lamp next to me is red and that the computer in front of me has a pleasant spring to its keys when I press them.
Again, I see no reason to differentiate between "real" and having concepts help me organize my sensations. These concepts are no less real than the sensations they organize. We might find them less useful to us if measured by whether they cause us suffering or not, but if you are going to apply the rule of "reality" then I can see no way of saying one is more and the other is less.