Comments | primalfire: Enlightenment Is & Is Not

primalfire

Enlightenment Is & Is Not

Oct 26, 2007 09:52

I've been considering the meaning of enlightenment, and have a couple of personal observations.

Enlightenment is often:

Pursued like a goal.

Perceived as a thing achieved in the future after X hours of spiritual practice.

Assumed to be complete liberation, no rebirths and a way to escape this 'horrible world'.

Reserved for spiritual elists such as ( Read more... )

Comments 10

Thinking.... chron_job October 26 2007, 15:42:44 UTC

How does someone discern between mental practices that enable enlightenment, and mental practices that cultivate apathy?

Re: Thinking.... primalfire October 27 2007, 13:59:29 UTC

Apathy is usually the result of avoiding pain and way to numb the impact of life. Awareness resides outside the personality which hides from the pain and is able to move with the 'energetics' of the moment, and allows pain & discomfort to be what it is without withdrawing. Does this make sense to you?

divineaspect October 26 2007, 16:47:48 UTC

When you experience an enlightenment, does it hurt?

primalfire October 27 2007, 14:00:03 UTC

Oh, I don't know. Maybe if you are running into a brick wall or something similar.

bodhimian October 26 2007, 19:45:52 UTC

Enlightenment is to stop giving rise to the causes of being down/anxiety/stress/suffering/heaviness. We give rise to negative results through our actions and thoughts.
A being who has ended his own sufferings(subtle and gross) is said to be "Awakened," yet that Being will still be in remorse because he/she hasn't ended the cause for remorse; the suffering of other beings.

primalfire November 1 2007, 15:44:31 UTC

negative is an identification of the mind. one who chooses for positive over negative is still caught by the likes and dislikes of the mind, and would struggle to have only the positive in life arise, and would resist the negative.

bodhimian November 5 2007, 01:34:43 UTC

negative results are those that tend toward fogginess, positive results are those that tend toward clarity and support awareness...
Discernment between right and wrong is essential towards awakening right view. In insight meditation however, such relative terms are a trap of the mind and distract the meditator from the direct experience of big mind. Both the relative truth and the absolute truth must be respected and acknowledged.

It is true that negative and positive are relative only to desires...but without seeing self-deception for what it is, we will never be free. Both absolute and relative aspects are helpful.....

All beings are constantly struggling to have only positive in life arise.... it is not this urge that we should eliminate, because it is our basic nature to be happy. The only thing that should be eliminated is those conceptions and actions that do not lead to liberation...happiness. So these conditions may not ultimately be positive or negative, but if they are helpful, they should ultimately be pursued. :) <3

bedlaminzenity October 27 2007, 15:25:08 UTC

this is one succinctly awesome post!

Thank you for crystalizing some poignant thoughts here!

Would you be ok with me copying ( and posting linkback) to my own journal?

as an aside- i really do think you should pursue collecting these quality journal entries and self-publishing through lulu.com !

yogioflight October 31 2007, 00:07:58 UTC

:) I have finally got around to reading this post, I have been meaning to because I just knew it would be good... and it was

yogioflight October 31 2007, 10:30:46 UTC

*disturbed*
correction to my previous comment - and it IS good... IS is better than was. It suddenly accurred to me that what had I written didn't match how I thought, ahrrr... *now I feel better*