Moments of awareness or even enlightenment?

Dairwolf

I am living in Japan as an exchange student right now. Sometimes when I walk along the street my attention is drawn to a building, plant or anything else, and I have this weird, hard to define (but awesome) feeling. It feels like the world is standing still for the brink of a moment, my eyes seem to have a different focus and I feel as if my whole body is kinda breathing, like my chest is opening up and some weird kind of air or energy is flowing through it. Last time it actually felt like an electric shock in my brain, but it didn´t hurt at all.

My explanation for this would be this: As long as we live somewhere where we know everything and there are no new impressions, our mind labels those things without us even noticing it. But as soon as there are things we´ve never seen in our live (like in my case the Japanese architecture) our mind does not know what to do in the first moment, and the identification with our mind is interrupted. Then, after this very short moment of "incapability" of the mind it pops in again and says "this looks beautiful!".

I should mention that these moments are incredibly short and that I am new to Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness and stuff like that. Does anyone have any explanation for that which I described above? Of course, if it does not have anything to do with mindfulness, please feel free to tell me.

ravkes

It seems to me like there was some happiness and breathing, lol. Enlightenment is just seeing things clearly, it's not moments of no thoughts or happy feelings. It's also there when the body is being burned alive. Everybody is already the Buddha or whatever the case may be, we're just constantly blinding ourselves to avoid the reality of the situation. Because simply put reality is whatever is happening right now. Things happen, the happy feelings happen, the mind thinks, the mind can think itself into an individual existence, the body craps and eats.

However does any of this pertain to a self?
Really investigate this and let me know what you find out.

DhammaDhatu

...as long as we live somewhere where we know everything and there are no new impressions, our mind labels those things without us even noticing it. But as soon as there are things we´ve never seen in our life, our mind does not know what to do in the first moment, and the identification with our mind is interrupted...

hi

it is important to understand the mind

the mind is comprised of four faculties, namely, feeling, perception (labelling), fabricating and consciousness

consciousness is pure awareness, that is, just seeing, just hearing, just smelling, just knowing, etc. pure consciousness is not labelling or identifying

most human beings exist in the sphere of fabricating mind. fabricating mind fabricates 'identification'. the buddha taught alot about the unreality, suffering, illusoriness & non-substantiality of mental fabrications & identification

when meditation is cultivated via samma samadhi (right concentration), what is being cultivated is pure awareness, pure consciousness

in pure consciousess, there are no labels and no identification

this state of mind is the path to enlightenment

this state of mind leads to the nervous system being purified (thus the side effects of electricity, breathing, etc)

for an inexperienced person, the experience of pure consciousness may shock them, because it is a kind of 'death'. 'self' or 'identity' dies but emotions also dissolve, therefore the bliss

but for experienced practitioners, pure consciousness is ordinary & normal

for experienced practitioners, abiding free from labelling & identification is ordinary & normal

in brief, most human beings do have not intimacy with their most basic mental function, namely, consciousness

all the best

dd

Roger

Epiphanies. They just happen. :thumbsup: You can psychologize about them, measure them with an MRI scan, make art or poetry from them, or just consume them with enthusiasm. I'm glad to read what you wrote. Sounds good to me. YAY! :clap: