The Path to HERE (Enlightenment/Meditation/Cutting the B.S.)

[Beelzebozo]

I wrote this as a fun exercise to see if I can frame enlightenment, whatever the hell that means, without implying a search of any kind. I don't care too much if anyone reads it, but I thought I'd tack it up here. If I'd known this a year ago, much suffering might have been averted. . . .

Meditation is not a project, it isn't a practice, in fact, it isn't really anything at all. You sit down, you relax, and you forget everything that has come before and everything that you think is coming after. You don't stop thinking, you stop "thinking about. . ." There is nothing to consider, nothing to figure out or understand, and absolutely nothing to remember. This scares people, they feel naked without a problem to solve. What they don't recognize is that they create the problem and go searching for the solution. Give it up. No solution, no problem.

There is nothing challenging about meditation. We are all one simple step away from being the beautiful little Buddhas that we are. But we insist that it has to be difficult. "I can't just sit and relax, there's got to be more to it than that!"

If you think you're going to add something to yourself through sitting still, some realization or special state, you're mistaken on a deep level. You are looking at life from the perspective that something is missing, and you've missed the fact that every sound, every sensation, every thought is complete, whole, perfect. Everything is the way it is. You want some beautiful, exotic jewel, but you won't admit that you're in the treasure house right now.

What you might not want to hear, even though this is the good news, is that you don't need any answers, you don't need to practice for years and years, you don't need to have it figured out. Whatever knowledge you think you have or need to have is the only stumbling block to relaxing into the immaculately wordless something that is existence. Have you ever realized how divine it is simply to be? You'll never find out if you believe that your life has to look a certain way, that you have to change your personality in any way before you can see it.

Whatever qualification you put on "enlightenment" is exactly what will prevent you from seeing that you already have it, already ARE it. If you think you're waiting until you're free of fear, or full of loving-kindness, or no longer wanting, or free of suffering, then you will wait FOREVER. Any path which is leading somewhere is not the true path, because the true path leads nowhere. You're already here.

But forget everything I've written. None of it is important. No understanding is important! Sit down and forget whatever you think meditation is about. Every time you catch yourself thinking about something, forget it. No matter how crucial a solution or resolution seems.

There is absolutely nothing to be said. :lol: I have just completely wasted your time with my words. They have gotten you nowhere, given you nothing. But I'm pointing this out to you, and that is worth writing. Watch out for words that promise anything more than simple entertainment.

 

[Beelzebozo]

I wanted to add that the word "enlightenment" is loaded and a bit of a set-up in and of itself. Substitute "enlightenment" for "existing/being."

Think about it, there's nothing else it could be, everything that can be described arises and passes, but _______ (this/simple presence) is required for everything else. It's SO easy and simple. The only trick is that it's so easy and simple that, in our eagerness for the big challenge, the great attainment, we miss it. We want to turn it into something.

Your being here is required for everything you think about/do/believe/observe.

God, it all looks absurd from here, everyone running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to transform or transcend what's already perfect. And when our projects fail, as they all inevitably will, we feel despair, as if we weren't already the miracle itself. :lol:

And I'm not saying stop "self-improvement," just, please, do yourself a favor and don't take it so seriously.

 

[embracethevoid]

You can say that but I would call what you're talking about simply 'realisation'. What I consider 'enlightenment' is the total cessation of all negativity within the psyche: to eliminate all parasites and parasitic thought forms, diseases where possible, all negative influences/people/interactions. In essence, to be as innocent in your behaviour and psyche as a newborn child even after having once lived a life accumulating evils and egotism, a totally absolute surrender to the God within and the God without that permeates every single atom composing you and all your works too from the very moment you attain such a state.

This is a very attainable goal but it requires a standard of relentless selflessness that remarkably few humans choose to exert. We all have the potential within us to achieve this state but our present burdens of negativity try to create a perception within us that this is something so distant that we could not attain it in all eternity. Yet many humans have successfully cultivated this state in history. They have one sole factor in common: a drive for selflessness like a fire raging through a dry windy forest.

Are you acquainted with 'nirvikalpa samadhi'? What you are describing herein is equivalent to one of the lower levels of the samadhi. But there are higher levels of realisation culminating in the realisation I have described above.

"If you think you're waiting until you're free of fear, or full of loving-kindness, or no longer wanting, or free of suffering, then you will wait FOREVER."

Meditate more and you may see within yourself that this is a delusion. Or you may not. While the rest of your post is certainly very centred in natural insight/truth judging through the lenses of my limited knowledge, perhaps try opening yourself to the thought that enlightenment could be a state of absolute hope and power. Conversely the quoted statement exhibits powerlessness and you might wish to look within to understand why you think this. I am only saying this because I once thought the same. Of course, the key point is not to wait but to act. Big difference!

 

[jamie]

I like what christian ratsch says about it..

"That’s such a bad lie, and an exploitation of needs,"

" The spiritual path "starts with the enlightenment, and then you can try to get this integrated into your life. It's not the other way around."

"Enlightenment "has nothing to do with all these spiritual teachings." It merely requires "the right molecule to hit your brain." Enlightenment is an intrinsically transient state, like an orgasm; in fact, some Amazonian societies use their term for orgasm to describe mystical states. "You are not in a permanent state of orgasm," Ratsch said. "It's one peak, and then you have to recharge your batteries." "

http://www.johnhorgan.org/the_psychedelic_sorcerer_15289.htm

This sums up how I have always felt. I think the "traditional" approach is is a newer appropriation of the true ancient practices..spending years sitting cross legged hoping for enlightenment does not appeal to me. I know I have been enlightened already just by eating some mushrooms or DMT..then I come back and integrate it..why people assume it is permanent is something I dont understand, it's not natural..show me any other part of life that is not in flux..

I especially connect with his statement that it is an "exploitation of needs"..you can get there right now, today if you want to..you dont need to sit for 10 years or follow some guru..I think enlightenment really does come first, then you live your life, integrate..then do it again. You dont become enlightened..you experience it over and over and over again and that is what the peak experience is about..you experience peaks and valleys throughout your life and this is what life is about..

 

[Jin]

You can say that but I would call what you're talking about simply 'realisation'. What I consider 'enlightenment' is the total cessation of all negativity within the psyche: to eliminate all parasites and parasitic thought forms, diseases where possible, all negative influences/people/interactions.

the need to have total cessation of all negativity within the psyche is still so human

 

[Saidin]

Take it one step further. It is not only the cessation of all negativity in the psyche, but all positivity as well. Everything just is. It is our judgements that have been imprinted upon us by physical experience that create the dichotomy of good/bad, right/wrong, positivity/negativity. Our discernment and way we tend to focus in physicality creates the impression of this OR that. When in fact it is this AND that. Then this IS that. And finally I am that, or simply I am.

My impression of Enlightenment is the seeing beyond dualistic concepts to the realization that all is perfect exactly as it is. For we are pure awareness, consciousness, existence without the need for anything beyond the statement...

I am.

 

[hixidom]

to eliminate all parasites and parasitic thought forms, diseases where possible, all negative influences/people/interactions. In essence, to be as innocent in your behaviour and psyche as a newborn child even after having once lived a life accumulating evils and egotism

How is that any different from Beelzebozo's original suggestion:
"you forget everything that has come before and everything that you think is coming after"?

Beelzebozo's suggestion is actually even more general, and includes:
"It is not only the cessation of all negativity in the psyche, but all positivity as well. Everything just is."

I really liked your description Beelzebozo. It's right on. If there were a wiki on "enlightenment", your essay should be the preface.

EDIT: The type of enlightenment you've described is the reason I love LSD. There's just something about certain chemicals that, when added to the brain, cause a complete breakdown of inductive logic. Suddenly, there is a sense that anything could happen, and that nothing necessarily leads to anything else in particular, and this sensation allows us to step outside of the continuity of reality as we know it. What we step into cannot be described without grand hand-wavy words like "god" and "eternity". I miss having time to do drugs.

 

[embracethevoid]

Yes I agree it would inherently end in the cessation of positivity too in such and such a sense. Yet from this logic-limited perspective an enlightened beings actions can only be inherently positive. There is positivity in the dual-sense of +/- but there is also a 'positivity' in a singular/absolute sense which we would call 'nirvana' or just being. Essentially, God does not make mistakes so what is inherently real, which is God, could never be a mistake. But within what is inherently real there is certainly negativity that should be eradicated if a being wishes to clear their mirror of the Clear Light.


There are plenty of psychedelically realised masters but very few do you see demonstrating it in their actions. And whether you like it or not, choose to accept it or not, an enlightened being walks the earth totally differently to one who does not know the Way. It is a lit path with barriers that one treads with care yet in total safety as it is an irreversible process. Their very footsteps are physically confined to specific regions of the set of possibilities of what may become real. Any realisation that can be lost or changed is not enlightenment, how do you lose that which you truly are?

Plenty may quack but few choose to be ducks. It is an absolute affront to the efforts of those few to hold the air of pretence that those who simply know how to quack are even remotely comparable in purity of soul. Everyone knows their true identity whether they are able to put it into words or not. Even the most ignorant of people know that they are the Clear Light. How could the Clear Light ever not know it is the Clear Light when it sees all things? We are all a faceless being wearing many masks, many faces. Yet not all faces acknowledge this. Plenty of persons deny the existence of the faceless one citing the fact that they cannot see its face. Ironic, isn't it?

But we as individuated humans are here to pilot these bodies and some just fly a little faster and a little higher than the rest. Some souls create more suffering than others and conversely other souls create more cessation. Looking at it from a single omnisoul perspective then yes, the creation and cessation of suffering cancels out because nobody is doing it to nobody.


Yet we still sleep in comfy beds, drink water when we are thirsty and eat food when we are hungry, we bleed when we are cut and we urinate and defecate when we need to expel waste. What is the point of denying your individuated self when it is a clear expression of the perfect wisdom of God? Why deny yourself the fruits of self-improvement by attempting to hold fast to a state of what you percieve to be as perfection which may itself well be a delusion of your mind? I hope you understand what I am saying; all these realisations and nirvanas can themselves too be an appearance.

Let's not defile the vicious efforts that such persons have exerted. Life is a proving ground above all. If you're going to claim you are realised, I will damn well hold you to it and hope that it interpenetrates every single aspect of your life. And here is what I mean:

Tetsugen, a devotee of Zen in Japan, decided to publish the sutras, which at that time were available only in Chinese. The books were to be printed with wood blocks in an edition of seven thousand copies, a tremendous undertaking.

Tetsugen began by traveling and collecting donations for this purpose. A few sympathizers would give him a hundred pieces of gold, but most of the time he received only small coins. He thanked each donor with equal gratitude. After ten years Tetsugen had enough money to begin his task.

It happened that at that time the Uji River overflowed. Famine followed. Tetsugen took the funds he had collected for the books and spent them to save others from starvation. Then he began again his work of collecting.

Several years afterwards an epidemic spread over the country. Tetsugen again gave away what he had collected, to help his people. For a third time he started his work, and after twenty years his wish was fulfilled. The printing blocks which produced the first edition of sutras can be seen today in the Obaku monastery in Kyoto.

The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugen made three sets of sutras, and that the first two invisible sets surpass even the last.

 

[hixidom]

I disagree, and would argue that there is no physical aspect to enlightenment. The attitude that one needs to prove their enlightened to others is part of what makes the modern idea of enlightenment so slimy and inadequate. "I must be enlightened if I act a certain way": Does that not sound shallow and pedantic? I can hardly nail down my own subjective conception of enlightenment, so why would I strive to meet your standards for it. There are no enlightenment police, and it is nobody's place to decided who is and is not enlightened.

 

[Beelzebozo]

I'm not talking about any realization, I'm saying there's literally nothing to understand.

I am not realized, I made no claim to being anything of the sort. Anyone who wants to claim this state or that state, this realization or that one, can do so. In fact, I have done just that in the past, I freely admit. But I would never say any such thing now. I know nothing about myself, but relatively, I have the same capacity for annoyance and guilt and pride and fear that I see in everyone else.

I write things like the original post not to prove that I have anything, but out of the simple fact that as a talking monkey (an oversimplification, I know. . . I'm being funny), I like to blabber, and as it also feels good to share a sense of awe with others, I like to blabber about things that are awesome to me. Realizations are a dime a dozen. If only I had a dollar for every time I thought I'd "seen all to be seen. . . ."

Embracethevoid, I am very wary of what you suggest. I don't have the time right now to really respond to your posts, but I just want to say that compassion to myself must be included in any course I take. Hixidom basically responded with what I would have said in any case. . . .

Also, Hixidom, thanks for the compliment!

 

[hixidom]

I should add that I have major philosophical issues with the idea of complete neutrality as a path to HERE. Of course, I could find philosophical fault with all such paths, so that's not to say that there is something wrong with this one in particular.

My main (and perhaps only) problem is that there is no reason to strive for HERE. There is something paradoxical about advocating neutrality in that you are claiming that neutrality is "good". If neutrality is the ultimate way, then why should I choose peaceful neutrality over striving and reaching for something? We are claiming that "emptiness will make us full"; That neutrality IS positive; That 0=1, essentially. If we attain a state of forgetting all conceptions of past and future, then we lose all reason to attain such a state in the first place.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that HERE might as well be anywhere. It can be in an office cubicle typing up reports, or it can be at dinner enjoying food, or it can be on a bike ride through town. If what I said in my previous post is true (that enlightenment does not necessitate particular physical actions) then there is no reason that it can not be attained while such physical actions are being carried out. Carrying out such actions requires remembering how to do certain things like operating a computer, fork, or bicycle, and so the implication is that if you do so much as sit up straight while meditating, then you are not HERE, as you describe it.

An alternative is that you can, in some way, simultaneously forget everything while remembering how to do certain things, which I acknowledge as a real possibility. I distinguish between the mind and certain parts of the brain, and so I would say that it is indeed possible for one to forget while the other remembers. The fact of the matter is that the mind is, in some inexplicable way, connected to the brain, and so changes in the state of the mind affect the brain and thus affect our actions, and so my intuition is that "enlightenment" should affect a person's actions, as contrary to my conception of "enlightenment" as that conclusion is.

Also, I disagree with your denial of your own "realization", Beelzebozo. "there's literally nothing to understand": That is a realization, in my opinion. Then again, I realize that all words (even ones as innocent as "realization" ) accumulate semantic baggage over time, and I understand why you would want to avoid that.

By the way, I really do like your description, Beelzebozo, and I would say that I completely agree with it when I choose to ignore the philosophical issues stated above (and I usually do).

 

[Beelzebozo]

I should add that I have major philosophical issues with the idea of complete neutrality as a path to HERE. Of course, I could find philosophical fault with all such paths, so that's not to say that there is something wrong with this one in particular.

My main (and perhaps only) problem is that there is no reason to strive for HERE. There is something paradoxical about advocating neutrality in that you are claiming that neutrality is "good". If neutrality is the ultimate way, then why should I choose peaceful neutrality over striving and reaching for something? We are claiming that "emptiness will make us full"; That neutrality IS positive; That 0=1, essentially. If we attain a state of forgetting all conceptions of past and future, then we lose all reason to attain such a state in the first place.

Certainly, I agree with you. Unfortunately, and maybe this says more about me as a writer and thinker, language tends to lend itself more to making hard, inflexible points. I have to pick a side, to an extent.

Obviously though, in terms of consciousness, there are differences. If I could choose between my here-now experience three months ago and my here-now experience now, I would choose now, because I am, to an extent, in a "different state" now than then.

BUT, as you picked up on, I try to be very, very careful about how I frame these things. I am *intimately* familiar with the confusion and frustration of the seeker (am I still a seeker? hahaha I'm not even going to enter into the seeker/not-a-seeker word game, no way), and after months of slogging through it, my initial post here explains how I learned to relax it away.

It seems to be a dance, between becoming and already-am. And of course, in my experience, part of what it means to be human is to continue learning and changing my mind. Trying to "stop the wanter" or what have you is one of the greatest sources of confusion I've come up against in my short life, and I would never spread that idea intentionally. Compassion for the conditioning is essential. And I will go on record as saying I don't believe anyone has ever "dropped the story"/"transcended their conditioning" completely.

To quote Jung, "If I wish to effect a cure for my patients, I am forced to acknowledge the deep significance of their egoism. I should be blind indeed if I did not recognize it as a true will of God." This is the basis of my whole approach to life. Even the most petty egoistic thoughts are just as much a part of the miracle of existence as the most "selfless" states that can be had. Rejection only leads to deeper suffering and confusion while mindless indulgence leads to the same. You can't get rid of this thing because the very thing that's trying to get it gone is one and the same (mind/thought). The middle road is a gentle compassion for oneself combined with an encouragement in the direction of openness and love. Relaxation into being while, at the same time, moving always towards greater integration.

I hope I expressed myself clearly. Thank everyone who has posted to this thread. It's been very illuminating. 8)

 

[Beelzebozo]

I like what christian ratsch says about it..

"That’s such a bad lie, and an exploitation of needs,"

" The spiritual path "starts with the enlightenment, and then you can try to get this integrated into your life. It's not the other way around."

"Enlightenment "has nothing to do with all these spiritual teachings." It merely requires "the right molecule to hit your brain." Enlightenment is an intrinsically transient state, like an orgasm; in fact, some Amazonian societies use their term for orgasm to describe mystical states. "You are not in a permanent state of orgasm," Ratsch said. "It's one peak, and then you have to recharge your batteries." "

http://www.johnhorgan.org/the_psychedelic_sorcerer_15289.htm

This sums up how I have always felt. I think the "traditional" approach is is a newer appropriation of the true ancient practices..spending years sitting cross legged hoping for enlightenment does not appeal to me. I know I have been enlightened already just by eating some mushrooms or DMT..then I come back and integrate it..why people assume it is permanent is something I dont understand, it's not natural..show me any other part of life that is not in flux..

I especially connect with his statement that it is an "exploitation of needs"..you can get there right now, today if you want to..you dont need to sit for 10 years or follow some guru..I think enlightenment really does come first, then you live your life, integrate..then do it again. You dont become enlightened..you experience it over and over and over again and that is what the peak experience is about..you experience peaks and valleys throughout your life and this is what life is about..

This is a refreshing perspective Jamie, and not too much different from my own. As human beings we forget that we call the shots, to an extent, we have the power to re-frame things in radically different ways. The only thing that stops us is deference to conformity over and above straight up exploration.

Somewhat off-topic, but that article by Christian Ratsch was actually one of the inspirations for me to take the LSD trip that changed my life (I thought I was done tripping forever, but life had other plans for me!). I experienced his concept of existence as an orgasm firsthand. WOW! :shock: