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Why aren't you enlightened?

There you are loyally following the latest blinding teacher, year after decade and yet . . .
In my not very humble opinion the job of a teacher is to make themself redundant as soon as possible. It is the disempowering/empowering thing to do . . .

A while back a couple of people on this very forum were enlightened enough to admit they were enlightened. No big deal for them or anyone else . . .

What is holding some people back? Are they so advanced they have superseded minimal requirements? Will they ever start practicing? Are they so integrated and natural they appear as deluded as the next wannabe Buddha? What fun.

:crazy:
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Comments

  • ChazChaz The Remarkable Chaz Anywhere, Everywhere & Nowhere Veteran
    It's you, Lobster. YOU, sir, are single-highhandedly responsible for everyone else's lack of, or inability, to gain enlightenment. YOU are holding people back. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT. Maybe YOU should consider that, worry about your own practice, your own delusion, instead of asking your pointless, ridiculous questions.

    :eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:
    lobster
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    LOL I think it's too early.

    I personally enjoy @lobster 's posts.

    I'm enlightened, somewhere. My GPS just keeps recalculating and I haven't quite found it yet.
    MaryAnneVastmindmisterCopekarmablues
  • What makes you think we aren't?
    Vastmind
  • VastmindVastmind Memphis, TN Veteran
    Are you asking me questions I should ask myself ? ;)
  • MaryAnne said:

    Uh-oh...

    :::: melts the butter, fills the big pot with salted water... :::: ;)

    [Lobster climbs into pot, stirs for a while and then places the lid over his head . . .]

    . . . whilst I am cooking . . .
    The point of Buddhism is still enlightenment, Nirvana I take it? . . . just checking . . .
    So the question I would suggest is poignant. In fact I would go further. It is essential.

    More pointless questions and lobster sauce after cooking . . .
    VastmindMaryAnneChazmisterCope
  • ChazChaz The Remarkable Chaz Anywhere, Everywhere & Nowhere Veteran
    karasti said:

    I personally enjoy @lobster 's posts.

    Me too, but then again, I like dry heaves.
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    Well, now you're just being silly.
  • CittaCitta Veteran
    edited August 2013
    Deleted by poster.
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited August 2013


    WHY ARE YOU NOT ENLIGHTENED YET?

    If enlightenment is waking up

    &

    "you" are the dream,

    who cares?.




    Zenshin
  • misterCopemisterCope PA, USA Veteran
    I like dry leaves too! So crunchy!
  • Vastmind said:

    Are you asking me questions I should ask myself ? ;)

    Yes indeed . . .

    It came as quite a revelation to me that enlightenment needs certain conditions to be in place. I might not be able to fulfil those conditions. So maybe I could change some of my behaviour to at least help someone who had a chance or some potential. It was this change from 'what do I get out', to what needs to be removed, that was the whole basis of my culinary skills . . . wait a minute . . . how did I end up cooking . . . just a touch more metta . . . and I will be ready to serve . . .

    :wave:
    Vastmind
  • ChazChaz The Remarkable Chaz Anywhere, Everywhere & Nowhere Veteran
    edited August 2013
    karasti said:

    Well, now you're just being silly.

    So?

    And for all you truly know, I may just like dry heaves.

    We give Lobster a pass on his persistent, inane blather. Share the wealth.
  • Take a penny each day and stack it on another penny. When the stack falls over stack more pennies on top of that. When the stack reaches the ceiling you will be enlightened.
  • "Shaking the tree ,boss, shaking the tree"
    Victoriouslobster
  • misterCopemisterCope PA, USA Veteran
    Honestly, who doesn't like dry leaves? I mean, really?

    And what does Lobster perspiring to an insane lather have to do with anything?
    Vastmind
  • bookwormbookworm U.S.A. Veteran
    I'm not enlightened yet because i am still attached to cravings and desires
    Vastmindlobstercvalue
  • cptshrkcptshrk Explorer
    I'm scared, man.
  • Because for some reason samsara seems workable. Life feels like it works.
    And its utter horse shit I know.
    Yet I blame my age. 25, male and indestructible.
    This is my single flaw in why I am probably not as effort driven in my ending of kleshas through serious practice.
    Also I really enjoy girls, sex, pizza and beer. So lots of ego and materialism.
    So the three poisons have me in their throat.

    Ha slowly though. Things are losing interest. A subtle detachment arises from little practice. Hopefully I can cultivate more.

    Or maybe I should just get my shit together. =]
    lobstercptshrk
  • Enlightened: sees what is the delusion and how one has been deluding oneself up to the point that one sees what is the delusion

    Full Enlightenment: 100% mindfulness not to be deluded and therefore no craving (no more greed/hate/delusion)
    FullCircle
  • I_AM_THAT said:

    "Shaking the tree ,boss, shaking the tree"

    Made me laugh.
    Had to look that up :)



    Great film. Just reminds me of this:
    gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā

    Spoiler alert:
    You can run and you can certainly hide but prison is a state of mind. Same goes for the bush shakers . . .

    I_AM_THAT
  • Also I really enjoy girls, sex, pizza and beer. So lots of ego and materialism.
    So the three poisons have me in their throat.
    So you should, unless a monk . . .

    As you know girls have Buddha nature, some boys too . . .
    Do you feel the enlightened mind manifests in Dharma Pizza, its base or topping? Do we engage in mindless sex or intoxicated free beer drinking?
    In other words is there a higher tuning of the three poisons? Are we attached to being beyond our situation?
    Would you put pizza and beer on your shrine? I would. Tara, the well known Buddha babe loves that 'poison'.
    http://secretdrugs.net/dutsi/

    Time to party?

    cptshrk
  • ZaylZayl Veteran
    Maybe I am and all of my negative posts are simply a test of your own progress to enlightenment.
  • lobster said:

    Also I really enjoy girls, sex, pizza and beer. So lots of ego and materialism.
    So the three poisons have me in their throat.
    So you should, unless a monk . . .

    As you know girls have Buddha nature, some boys too . . .
    Do you feel the enlightened mind manifests in Dharma Pizza, its base or topping? Do we engage in mindless sex or intoxicated free beer drinking?
    In other words is there a higher tuning of the three poisons? Are we attached to being beyond our situation?
    Would you put pizza and beer on your shrine? I would. Tara, the well known Buddha babe loves that 'poison'.
    http://secretdrugs.net/dutsi/

    Time to party?



    Yes always!
    lobster
  • Why aren't you enlightened?

    What for? What's in it for me?
    howzenffFullCirclelobster
  • ChazChaz The Remarkable Chaz Anywhere, Everywhere & Nowhere Veteran
    lobster said:

    Do we engage in mindless sex ......?

    Damned straight!

    We should all have massive amounts of wild, unhibited, MINDLESS sex at every opportunity.

    Except you, Lobster. You don't get any sex. People would rather go on a date and eat lobster rather than have sex with one.

    My wife and I had totally mindless sex just the other night. We drove here:

    image
    It's a nice little B&B near Rocky Mountain National Park. We watched bull Elk sparring, had a couple whiskeys with the owner, smoked a bowl and proceeded hump like bunnies.

    Pot and bunny-like humping are both legal in Colorado. The Whiskey was made just a couple miles from my house (Stranahan's). The owner was a real curmudgeon.

    It was awesome!

    If you are feeling pangs of jealousy, and I suspect that you are, get over it. Some of us rule and some of us drool.
    Would you put pizza and beer on your shrine?
    Sure, why not?
    I would.
    Who cares?
    Tara, the well known Buddha babe loves that 'poison'.
    http://secretdrugs.net/dutsi/

    Gotta love Tsok practice!
    Time to party?
    Being shot from a cannon sounds like a lot more fun.

    Snuggling up to a 5-pound box of plutonium...........

    Jeffrey
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    I think all of you shared the same bowl. :p
    VastmindMaryAnne
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    "There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity." -Shunryu Suzuki

    No one here is enlightened! :lol:
    lobsterDavidzenff
  • jlljll Veteran
    the 1st stage to enlightenment is stream-entry.
    ie. you have no doubts about the path to enlightenment.

    lobster, i will make a baseless assumption
    that you still have many doubts.
  • I have no doubts about stream entry.
    I have no doubt about the jhana.
    http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=9_Jhanas
    What for? What's in it for me?
    :D

    Nothing. There never was anything in it for you as you know.

    . . . for the rest of us pleasure seekers there is the jhanas
    and then some . . . :)
    jll
  • jlljll Veteran
    wonderful !
  • CittaCitta Veteran
    edited August 2013
    jll said:

    the 1st stage to enlightenment is stream-entry.
    ie. you have no doubts about the path to enlightenment.

    lobster, i will make a baseless assumption
    that you still have many doubts.

    I cant speak for anyone else. And lord knows I wouldn't want to.
    But I have no doubt at all that 'stream entry ' and all the rest of the 'Arya ' status indicators are fictions that crept into the Buddha's Dharma 600 hundred years after his death.
    As has been pointed out before, stream winner , once returner, etc etc are like the Rosettes handed out at your local horse and dog show...........*
    how
  • CittaCitta Veteran
    edited August 2013
    seeker242 said:

    "There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity." -Shunryu Suzuki

    No one here is enlightened! :lol:

    * And this is why.....
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    This is why what?
  • CittaCitta Veteran
    This is why in my view the whole Arya schemata is a horse and dog show. See asterisks *
    I was agreeing with you seeker242.
    Or rather I was agreeing with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    I really prefer the term awake to enlightened. Enlightened seems to indicate some kind of windfall of knowledge which leads to an "AHA!" moment. That's fine but that state doesn't last.

    Every new answer brings at least one more question with it and so it is a journey with no real end.

    But I get what you're saying.
    lobster said:

    There you are loyally following the latest blinding teacher, year after decade and yet . . .
    In my not very humble opinion the job of a teacher is to make themself redundant as soon as possible. It is the disempowering/empowering thing to do . . .

    As we are interdependent, you are all my teachers and I enjoy the learning.

    "We don't practice to become enlightened... we practice because we are enlightened"
    --Bernie Glassman






    JeffreyVastmind
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    seeker242 said:

    "There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity." -Shunryu Suzuki

    No one here is enlightened! :lol:

    I agree with that. We are a verb, not a bunch of little nouns.

    Duality should be our tool, not the other way around, hehe.

    CittaVastmind
  • JasonJason God Emperor Arrakis Moderator
    lobster said:

    There you are loyally following the latest blinding teacher, year after decade and yet . . .
    In my not very humble opinion the job of a teacher is to make themself redundant as soon as possible. It is the disempowering/empowering thing to do . . .

    A while back a couple of people on this very forum were enlightened enough to admit they were enlightened. No big deal for them or anyone else . . .

    What is holding some people back? Are they so advanced they have superseded minimal requirements? Will they ever start practicing? Are they so integrated and natural they appear as deluded as the next wannabe Buddha? What fun.

    :crazy:

    I'm too busy lurking around internet forums, I guess. :p
    lobster
  • Awareness unfolds according to the season of VAM (insight/samadji) and e (diffusing outwards and letting go). Eventually we get to the surprise inside us. And it's not a tootsie pop ;)
  • Hmm...

    "Self, are you enlightened yet?"
    "How should I know?"
    Vastmind
  • Look at my avatar.... don't I LOOK enlightened?? Sheeesh.
    JeffreyVastmindpoptart
  • Ah you were finally rewarded with an avatar. Glad Lincoln fixed it. :thumbup:
  • VastmindVastmind Memphis, TN Veteran
    Whoa ! @Chaz....you party too hard for me.. lolololol....
  • zenffzenff Veteran
    I like the shape of the Bodhisattva vows (in Zen): it’s impossible but I’ll do it anyway.
    Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them all.
    Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to end them all.
    The Dharma Gates are infinite; I vow to enter them all.
    The Buddha Way is unexcelled; I vow to attain it completely.
    http://theendlessfurther.com/the-four-great-bodhisattva-vows/
    I can’t see the point where all my delusions will be dissolved; I just keep trying to see through them some more. This (attempted) alertness is not enlightenment.
    Enlightenment will always be unfinished business.
    seeker242
  • Awake? Fantasy arisings? Difficult to formulate and categorise?
    Action based? Maybe 'non existent' . . . and even a little unbecoming . . .


    What are we to think, if anything . . . :coffee:
  • Just by being awake in the present moment, we can be enlightened now and not worry about becoming enlightened. In the words of Ajahn Sumedho: "It is not about doing something now to become enlightened in the future. This is totally wrong. This kind of thinking is bound up with self and time. Be awake now; be enlightened to the present moment."
    zenffCitta
  • Enlightenment is like history - man may make history but he can only make it in concert with circumstances. You can make the effort toward enlivhtenment but circumstanceS must be right for you go become enlightened.
    lobster
  • People don't really want to be enlightened. Being a "somebody", they always want "something" even if that "thing" is enlightenment. Are you ready to give up all your desires, opinions and beliefs?
    The attainment of Enlightenment simply means realizing that this world is made up entirely of an endless process of arising and ceasing phenomena that is entirely unsatisfying, and thereby not falling into suffering when the beloved disappears or the unbeloved appears. This realization also leads to final freedom from the process of arising and ceasing phenomena, as no more craving means no new fuel to create new seeking out and new phenomena. Or, in the case of a mind that merely craves less, less fuel, less phenomena and a simple life, free from gross forms of suffering.
    http://yuttadhammo.sirimangalo.org/2007/11/unreincarnationism.html
    Sabbe Sankhara Anicca!
    All conditions are impermanent!
    Sabbe Sankhara Dukkha!
    All conditions are suffering!
    Sabbe Dhamma Anatta!
    All phenomena are not self!

    lobsterDandelion
  • People don't really want to be enlightened.
    LOL
    Perhaps the role of seeker is just too . . . seductive. What on earth would we do with our precious time?
    Being a "somebody", they always want "something" even if that "thing" is enlightenment. Are you ready to give up all your desires, opinions and beliefs?
    Without desires, opinions and beliefs, I would be . . .

    Nothing.

    It is just too obvious. :o

    Maybe I should be asking why I am unenlightened and what the difference is? Sounds like a plan . . . might have to drop it . . . :wave:
    pegembara
  • CittaCitta Veteran

    Just by being awake in the present moment, we can be enlightened now and not worry about becoming enlightened. In the words of Ajahn Sumedho: "It is not about doing something now to become enlightened in the future. This is totally wrong. This kind of thinking is bound up with self and time. Be awake now; be enlightened to the present moment."

    Which of course Ajahn Amaro ( Abbott of Amaravati ) has taken to its logical conclusion and become a Dzogchen practitioner.
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