Zen & Enlightenment

[Scales]

On Zen & Enlightenment... Your thoughts? Or no thoughts?

***

The basis of my opinion is based on Naturalism, works of Eckhart Toll, Zen teachings/Koans, and some Osho, Deepak Chopra, and Sadhguru.

I would have to say that although I am an Atheist from the standpoint that I exist and there is no God-- I can also see at present the possibility that I do not exist and there is a "God," in the sense of God being an all-encompassing collective of everything.

I am not detouring from the more scientific idea that death is non-existence or unconsciousness: I don't know, nor do I think death bothering.

I believe value of wonderment and imagination in Science is a further indication that the mind can take on an inner level of consciousness to reform identity to an eternal and infinite state of enlightenment or non-comprehensive wholeness of oneself, one's identity, one's purpose.

I believe that egotism is linked with duality and time. Though time has its importance, its not the source of any lasting identity, neither forms which I believe are egotistically empowered. And I believe that non-egotistical or "no-mind" awareness of presence is the key to enlightenment; though this can be further defined as awareness of awareness, as in the universe becoming aware of itself.

I don't consider myself Buddhist, but I would call myself a practitioner of Zen, even if the statement is paradoxical. I would say I am enlightened in the sense that I understand I am not my thoughts, feelings, or the ego encompassing them-- even though I can still muse and enjoy form and identity. I would say from practicing Zen, though my meditation is unconventional to Buddhism, my world-view is more sublime and profound and my life is much more simple.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Scales

[Scary Guy]

Are you sure you're atheist or are you just agnostic?

The concept of God and the universe sound a lot like Gaia and the earth being one living organism with us as the cells. Although I kind of like what the movie "Virus" suggested we were, a virus fucking it up.

target="_blank is a very good thing to watch I think. I've posted it before, but it just that good it needs repeating.

Then again the nihilist in me speaks out and says maybe it's all for nothing. We're born, we mate, and then we die. Some might change the world for the better or the worse (and hopefully others learn from that and don't repeat the worse part) but it's just THE WORLD. When you compare this to THE UNIVERSE it's more like .=the world so .THE UNIVERSE (in an extremely large font size)^infinity. To better illustrate just how exactly insignificant we are I've got this for you.

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t140/lo...1125/spaceb.jpg WARNING, LARGE IMAGE

So there might be a superpowered being out there, lets just hope he's benevolent and if not that he doesn't notice our little shitstain fecal particle of a planet. Although with that many planets I think there just has to be intelligent life out there SOMEWHERE. They might know about us, which is why I also believe they'll never visit and go to war if we ever try to leave.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Scary Guy

[Homicidalheathen]

I yam what I yam and thats all that I yam.

[Oh_My_Goth]

I consider Meself to be enlightened & awake.. I have never subscribed to one region or 'way'..

I follow my own road..

The Universe presents many paths & I skip around picking up pebbles of knowledge along the way.

[Scales]

Are you sure you're atheist or are you just agnostic?

The concept of God and the universe sound a lot like Gaia and the earth being one living organism with us as the cells. Although I kind of like what the movie "Virus" suggested we were, a virus fucking it up.

target="_blank is a very good thing to watch I think. I've posted it before, but it just that good it needs repeating.

Then again the nihilist in me speaks out and says maybe it's all for nothing. We're born, we mate, and then we die. Some might change the world for the better or the worse (and hopefully others learn from that and don't repeat the worse part) but it's just THE WORLD. When you compare this to THE UNIVERSE it's more like .=the world so .THE UNIVERSE (in an extremely large font size)^infinity. To better illustrate just how exactly insignificant we are I've got this for you.

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t140/lo...1125/spaceb.jpg WARNING, LARGE IMAGE

So there might be a superpowered being out there, lets just hope he's benevolent and if not that he doesn't notice our little shitstain fecal particle of a planet. Although with that many planets I think there just has to be intelligent life out there SOMEWHERE. They might know about us, which is why I also believe they'll never visit and go to war if we ever try to leave.

I would say I still prescribe to Atheism, because I'm more inclined to interpret "God" as a collective of everything becoming conscious of itself or hanging between consciousness and unconsciousness, if that makes sense; even though God might not be the best word to use.

I think its much less likely that there is any super-being that cannot essentially be destroyed.. so I wouldn't consider that super-being a God, just more evolved than I am.

I see Nihilism as paradoxical, stating that if values are falsely invented, than Nihilism is in itself a false value-- not that I'm against the supposedly paradoxical either, but that's how I see it.

Interesting media.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Scales

[Restless Oblivion]

Scales - have you looked into Taoism at all? I think you might find it very interesting - I can highly recommend the Tao of Pooh, and the Te of Piglet books!

[Scales]

Scales - have you looked into Taoism at all? I think you might find it very interesting - I can highly recommend the Tao of Pooh, and the Te of Piglet books!

A little bit. Thanks, I will look into those books.

[Class-Punk]

Well, its been over a year since I started this thread. Here is something I've wrote tonight on mystic experience, reposted from my blog.

Principle Reality

Principle reality is inescapable, non-dualistic, and non-conceptual, but open to concepts and thus open to dualism. To senses separate from thoughts, thoughts appear to come from both nowhere and everywhere, rather than the brain. Concepts or thoughts only "come from the brain" when the concept has been issued that "thoughts come from the brain." This is not a challenge of Science, just a pointing towards this ever-present principle reality.

Concepts are symbols, and people "drown" in symbols, confusing awareness with overlaying concepts and thereby creating illusory dualities in what is a non-dual, principle reality. Concepts allow substance through dismemberment of principle reality. Concepts come from everywhere and nowhere in a fundamentally non-dual, interdependent reality. In principle reality, all that you sense, you are-- this is non-dual. Total identification with concepts or thoughts is an attachment to emotional suffering, it is an unconscious willingness to hurt oneself by using oneself.

Because the most underlying identity of life is principle reality, non-dual, timeless, and all-constituting, this ultimate identity cannot do more than sense itself, and no experience of it can be grasped or worked towards conventionally. To work towards experience is to identify with thought, to conventionally grasp or work towards something is to invoke thought. In momentarily stopping conceptual identification, allowing all thought and no thought, inherently non-dual experience presents itself more noticeably.

---

Footnote: I recently read the 20th Anniversary Edition of Ken Wilbur's Spectrum of Consciousness; I found the book helpful and it inspired me to write some "signposts" towards mystic experience for anyone interested.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Coffeenated

[Rev.Reverence]

Buddha, RAWKS!~

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Richard Dawkins (one of my favorite guys on the planet), probably the worlds most known (and hated because of it) Atheist often describes himself as "spiritual in the sense that I have awe and wonder about the universe." But, me personally I think it just makes it confusing to define god as "the universe" because it just causes too much confusion. Stephen Hawking (and Einstein) used to define god this way (both atheists) that is "the universe is god" and it causes still to this day TONS of confusion. Although in his most recent book, Hawking fesses up and makes it CRYSTAL clear he isnt talking about a supernatural entity when he occasionally uses the word god. Often called the "Einsteinian God"... that is, not a "personal god" but just a term that describes the awe and wonder of reality.

From a very, VERY technical standpoint I think most people that believe in the fact of Quantum Mechanics realize that you cant "know" anything with 100.0000000% certianity, but you can get close. So there is always room for doubt one way or another, but to have a useful set of conversations, when there is no real evidence for something (important) I'd say its just smart, to live your life as if it does not exist unless there is very strong evidential reasons to say that something so important actually does exist.

"Feelings" aren't evidence. Everything isn't "just opinion" either. There are actual facts to be considered. Either the universe is less than 10,000 years old or it isn't , it doesnt matter what my "opinion" is , either it is, or it isnt. Not that i KNOW what the right answer is with 100% certifiably, but I'd rather go with what is well backed up and verified over and over again, rather than just what I emotionally "feel" might is right.

Give me the best explanation of reality that we have, and lets go from there. Not, give me the best explination that I'd "LIKE" reality to be.

Random Aside... I do like religion from a study-standpoint I've been reading (and searching) for a long time. Of then half a dozen Buddhism books I've read I'd suggest:

The Miracle Of Mindfulness

Not strictly a "zen" book but its pretty much the gold-standard introduction to the subject, despite its mildly "breezy" style.

[Class-Punk]

Buddha, RAWKS!~

He's a pretty cool guy.

Richard Dawkins (one of my favorite guys on the planet), probably the worlds most known (and hated because of it) Atheist often describes himself as "spiritual in the sense that I have awe and wonder about the universe." But, me personally I think it just makes it confusing to define god as "the universe" because it just causes too much confusion. Stephen Hawking (and Einstein) used to define god this way (both atheists) that is "the universe is god" and it causes still to this day TONS of confusion. Although in his most recent book, Hawking fesses up and makes it CRYSTAL clear he isnt talking about a supernatural entity when he occasionally uses the word god. Often called the "Einsteinian God"... that is, not a "personal god" but just a term that describes the awe and wonder of reality.

From a very, VERY technical standpoint I think most people that believe in the fact of Quantum Mechanics realize that you cant "know" anything with 100.0000000% certianity, but you can get close. So there is always room for doubt one way or another, but to have a useful set of conversations, when there is no real evidence for something (important) I'd say its just smart, to live your life as if it does not exist unless there is very strong evidential reasons to say that something so important actually does exist.

"Feelings" aren't evidence. Everything isn't "just opinion" either. There are actual facts to be considered. Either the universe is less than 10,000 years old or it isn't , it doesnt matter what my "opinion" is , either it is, or it isnt. Not that i KNOW what the right answer is with 100% certifiably, but I'd rather go with what is well backed up and verified over and over again, rather than just what I emotionally "feel" might is right.

Give me the best explanation of reality that we have, and lets go from there. Not, give me the best explination that I'd "LIKE" reality to be.

Random Aside... I do like religion from a study-standpoint I've been reading (and searching) for a long time. Of then half a dozen Buddhism books I've read I'd suggest:

The Miracle Of Mindfulness

Not strictly a "zen" book but its pretty much the gold-standard introduction to the subject, despite its mildly "breezy" style.

I know mysticism is likely to get Atheist flak, but I find it hard to debate about since it traditionally consists of “non-conceptual” or “non-linguistic” states. I agree that feelings are not evidence of conceptual truth which is of course, why society has evolved.

I remember Richard Dawkins in The Four Horsemen documentary, said something like he leaned towards the universe being infinite.

I don’t consider myself to be challenging science, since I think any smart “mystic” would still see these experiences within the realm of scientific truth. In the West some might also see mysticism in the realm of “neurosis,” which I think the difference being that neurosis is thought and linguistic based, where mysticism uses thought to point at non-linguistic experience.

Edited February 18, 2011 by Coffeenated

[Class-Punk]

This will be the last thing I write on meditation and I think it covers bases the best which I could; including in essence going beyond neurosis, which I've read traditional Buddhism and Yoga struggle with, and is the primary reason this thread exists.

Connection Without Definition

If any of this sounds irrational, its a matter of the experience its pointing to, what the best semantics might be to point, along the requirement of varying quietness from the mind, and relaxed non-defined alertness; the one-step process being simpler than words might make it out to be.

---

The difference between someone experiencing non-dual reality or Samadhi, and someone who wishes to, is the person who isn't attempts to think about what is thoughtless. Though in reality, they always have the capability within themselves, right now, to experience that which is fundamentally thoughtless.

The thinking mind cannot experience what is beyond it, and then anticipates experience of non-dual reality. So anticipatory thought about experiencing, is confused with the actual, underlying, unified reality. It is "Knowing" with the entire body, on a thoughtless level, and "Not Knowing" with the entire body on a level of thought.

The mind also uses thoughts about the future to continue negative or uneasy emotion in the body, otherwise the present moment would win out and change all of it to something beyond positive and concepts. The idea of a scale of negative to positive emotion is a lie the thinking mind believes in, using bodily sensation rather than taking into account the true nature of that sensation (Knowing non-conceptually, and Not Knowing conceptually).

The imagination's part in non-dual consciousness can be seen as unified with the non-dualistic self; this is in order to operate within physical reality without returning to the inevitable suffering of dualistic experience-- so visual thought is treated the same as negative emotion, as a repressed aspect of oneself to be reclaimed through the insight of this repression.

The person aware of non-dual reality is also no longer just a person, since that is a thought; nor is the universe separate, that is just a thought-- there is undefined emptiness. Non-dual reality also is not hostile in any way towards life and the thinking mind, as the thinking mind confuses it to be when believing its not integrated.

To summarize: in this present moment, underneath "I" and "my body, my mind" there is absolute connection to space from which content arises, connection without definition.