enlightenment

[jlewis]

Re: enlightenment

Thank you Chris for taking the time to read my post and responding back to it.

You use of the word "awakened" I believe is a much better term for what the concept of enlightenment should stand for. I feel that there is too much attachment for what enlightenment "is" or trying to achieve it. I also feel that a lot of people have been harmed in many ways by trying to attain enlightenment - I am sure most everybody hear has heard of stories of people giving all they have (material, physical and emotional) trying to obtain enlightenment themselves or be promised it by individuals/organizations whose ulterior motives are less than honorable.

I would much prefer to be an awakened being - one who is totally present in the hear and now.

But I guess it doesn't matter if its called awakening or enlightenment so long as the journey towards that destination is the true meaning of our practice and or lives.

Thank you again Chris - Gassho.

Josh

[Jundo]

Re: enlightenment

This has been a very interesting topic to follow and it has me wondering if anybody has ever thought that the idea of becoming "enlightened" is more or less a motivational tool used for beginners to continue with their zazen and Buddhist practice; kind of like a carrot (or Twinkie) on a stick that is always just out of our grasp - "If I just sit zazen a little bit longer, if I chant a little more louder, etc... then I can become Enlightened!"

But I feel that it is only when we come to the absolute realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment - that we truly become enlightened beings .

Gassho,

Josh

Hmmm. Dogen expressed our way as "Practice-Enlightenment". We are all Buddha, all enlightened from the start. Not one thing to add or take away to make us more Buddha. Nonetheless, we have to make Buddha real in this life through our words, thoughts and acts.

A moment of Practice ... wise, compassionate, forgiving, allowing, free of greed, anger or ignorance, the fires and mind games of the little 'self' dropped away ... is Zazen, enlightenment, Buddha.

A moment of small life-self ... trapped by greed, anger, ignorance ... is delusion, division, Mara, is Buddha/enlightenment lost.

I feel that we can even swing back and forth on this moment by moment ... first an enlightened word/thought/deed ... then seconds later we can fall into greed/anger/ignorance! First Buddha found, then Buddha lost (all though Buddha all along!)

So long as we are alive in these human bodies, the Buddha is alive ... and life is alive, not a fixed and rigid state. Perhaps, beyond this world of flesh and blood, the Buddha is in a nirvana-state where greed-anger-ignorance never raise their ugly heads again! However, in this 'nirvana-is-samsara-is-nirvana' world we live in, it is how we live moment by moment that is "enlightened living". It is not a final bus station that one arrives at and one is done (not in this life anyway, not as the bus trip continues). Rather, it is realized in what we make of this trip ... which is us all along. (All those Koan stories tell about someone's moment of enlightenment ... but not what happened five minutes later when it was a moment of something else! 8) Heck, that's why some of those guys appear in the stories again and again ... get re-enlightened! )

I just read this in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch this morning ...

deluded, a buddha is a sentient being;
awakened, a sentient being is a buddha.
ignorant, a buddha is a sentient being;
with wisdom, a sentient being is a buddha.
if the mind is warped, a buddha is a sentient being
if the mind is impartial, a sentient being is a buddha.
when once a warped mind is produced, buddha is concealed within the sentient being.
if for one instant of thought we become impartial, then sentient beings are themselves buddha.

This Practice is something we "realize" (meaning both "realize" as to "grock" and pierce ... and "realize" as "making real in life").

When someone encounters and is encountered living as Buddha, then Buddhas know Buddhas.

Gassho, J

[jlewis]

Re: enlightenment

Thank you Jundo. It is lessons like this that make me really glad I was guided to Treeleaf .

And to quote the band Operation Ivy - "All I know is that I don't know nothing!"

Gassho,

Josh

[louis]

Re: enlightenment

You seek Yoda!
Take you to him I will, but first eat. -Yoda

Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity. - Shunryu Suzuki

To learn the Buddha Way is to learn one's self. To learn one's self is to forget one's self. To forget one's self is to be confirmed by all dharmas. To be confirmed by all dharmas is to cast off one's body and mind and the body and mind of all others. All trace of enlightenment disappears, and this traceless enlightenment continues on without end. - Shobogenzo, Waddell, Abe translation

Taigu's talk on the 8th of the 10 ox herding pictures.

_()_

[Dustin]

Re: enlightenment

Thank you Jundo. It is lessons like this that make me really glad I was guided to Treeleaf .

I second this Josh!


Dustin

[ChrisA]

Re: enlightenment

A great thread indeed. For Steve Hagen fans, you might find this audio dharma talk interesting, in which he addresses the question "Why Practice?" and, a few minutes in, takes on the use of the term "enlightenment." Click here for the mp3.

[Amelia]

Re: enlightenment

deluded, a buddha is a sentient being;
awakened, a sentient being is a buddha.
ignorant, a buddha is a sentient being;
with wisdom, a sentient being is a buddha.
if the mind is warped, a buddha is a sentient being
if the mind is impartial, a sentient being is a buddha.
when once a warped mind is produced, buddha is concealed within the sentient being.
if for one instant of thought we become impartial, then sentient beings are themselves buddha.

*Copy-Paste-Snatch*

Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity. - Shunryu Suzuki

Including Yoda, there's some good ones up today!

[disastermouse]

Re: enlightenment

This has been a very interesting topic to follow and it has me wondering if anybody has ever thought that the idea of becoming "enlightened" is more or less a motivational tool used for beginners to continue with their zazen and Buddhist practice; kind of like a carrot (or Twinkie) on a stick that is always just out of our grasp - "If I just sit zazen a little bit longer, if I chant a little more louder, etc... then I can become Enlightened!"

But I feel that it is only when we come to the absolute realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment - that we truly become enlightened beings .

Gassho,

Josh

Actually, no....mostly because the very idea of enlightenment really gets in the way of practicing enlightenment. Then again, ignorance of enlightenment also gets in the way.

Base ignorance of enlightenment is the fundamental place from which we all start, but seeking enlightenment is still just an expression of ignorance. What are you seeking that is not literally here right at this moment? That's not a dissuasion, that's a question that, asked innocently and sincerely, can resolve all doubt.

If you try to put a cap on it, you are taken. If you insist you already have it, you are technically correct but your understanding is insufficient to fully embody it.

The simplest questions ('What is this?'. 'Who am I?') are powerful, but in zazen, they are also dropped. Even the subtlest distinctions of any orienting principle, if grasped, prevent passage through the gateless gate. Still, it is here the whole while.

IMHO.

Chet

[Graceleejenkins]

Re: enlightenment

During a Treeleaf Tea Party once, I asked a question about whether you could lose enlightenment if you once had experienced it. Okay, not such a great question, but the answer I got was great!

Dosho answered me, as his teacher once answered him: “Get enlightened and see!”

I think this answer may stay with me for years.

Gassho, Grace.

[Hoyu]

Re: enlightenment

During a Treeleaf Tea Party once, I asked a question about whether you could lose enlightenment if you once had experienced it. Okay, not such a great question, but the answer I got was great!

Dosho answered me, as his teacher once answered him: “Get enlightened and see!”

I think this answer may stay with me for years.

Gassho, Grace.

I love this answer! However, the teachings tell us that everything is subject to impermanence!

Gassho,
John

[Seiryu]

Re: enlightenment

During a Treeleaf Tea Party once, I asked a question about whether you could lose enlightenment if you once had experienced it. Okay, not such a great question, but the answer I got was great!

Dosho answered me, as his teacher once answered him: “Get enlightened and see!”

I think this answer may stay with me for years.

Gassho, Grace.

I love this answer! However, the teachings tell us that everything is subject to impermanence!

Gassho,
John

Enlightenment, being that it is not a thing wouldn't be something that one can lose. How can you lose it, how can you find it, you are it. The only difference between a deluded being and a Buddha, is that the Buddha already knows it, the rest of us our still looking.

some ideas...

[Hoyu]

Re: enlightenment

During a Treeleaf Tea Party once, I asked a question about whether you could lose enlightenment if you once had experienced it. Okay, not such a great question, but the answer I got was great!

Dosho answered me, as his teacher once answered him: “Get enlightened and see!”

I think this answer may stay with me for years.

Gassho, Grace.

I love this answer! However, the teachings tell us that everything is subject to impermanence!

Gassho,
John

Enlightenment, being that it is not a thing wouldn't be something that one can lose. How can you lose it, how can you find it, you are it. The only difference between a deluded being and a Buddha, is that the Buddha already knows it, the rest of us our still looking.

some ideas...

Yes you are it, but someday you, it, it, you will die. Impermanence!

[Seiryu]

Re: enlightenment

Yes you are it, but someday you, it, it, you will die. Impermanence!

You never die. You just continue as something else. Your actions ripple in the ocean of this universe till the end of endless time. The proof that you existed, the fact that you exist is not something that can die. Because for you to die is the same as the universe dying.

[Jundo]

Re: enlightenment

.... the teachings tell us that everything is subject to impermanence!

Enlightenment, being that it is not a thing wouldn't be something that one can lose. How can you lose it, how can you find it, you are it. The only difference between a deluded being and a Buddha, is that the Buddha already knows it, the rest of us our still looking.

Yes, I would not engage in philosophical debate on whether enlightenment is "permanent or impermanent". Just live this life now and bring a bit of Buddha into each timeless moment. The Buddha said that "all composite things are impermanent" as his final words before death.

Yet, in our way, there is that which transcends all small human judgments of "birth and death, starts and finishes" and all the separate names and categories of "composite things" when those judgments, names and categories are dropped from mind. (Sometimes folks use the image of waves rising and falling on the sea and vanishing ... yet the sea remains, and the waves were just the sea all along. The sea moving and alive as the waves, the waves always the sea. Thus, "no coming and going" even as the waves come and go). But is that sea "permanent" "impermanent" or (more likely) something else beyond small human categories of our tiny composite brains barely wiser than ants? Is the sea something we should call "God" "Buddha" "Nature" "Sea" or something else all together?

The Buddha usually side-stepped such questions, or would answer with silence. (You might read a bit more on the Buddha's "14 Unanswered Questions" here, although I am not sure the author of this essay: http://www.vipassanaforum.net/forum/index.php?page=9 ) Perhaps by answering we create the very categories and judgments we are to avoid. In any event, answering is not conducive to the answer of enlightenment ... like (in a famous story found at that link) asking the physician to describe the materials, color, manufacture and shooter of a poison arrow before he pulls it out of your chest to save your life!

In any event, so long as we are alive in this world ... we live among things that come and go (including you and me). Bring enlightenment into each moment, right in the heart of that.

Many Buddhist argue and debate such questions. The Zen corner of of Mahayana Buddhist practice does not argue about the permanence or impermanence of the sea, where it comes from where it goes, its depth or height, who made it, what it is called. That is not really conducive to truly experiencing the sea (fish don't bother, they just swim and get on with it! 8) ). Rather, we just jump in and swim ... the sea and us 'not two' all along. Start thinking too much about such questions ... dividing yourself from the water ... and one might even start to sink or drown.

Something like that. Have a good swim.

Gassho, J

[Hoyu]

Re: enlightenment

Jundo wrote:
Start thinking too much about such questions ... dividing yourself from the water ... and one might even start to sink or drown.

_/_