Barriers to Enlightenment

Very much can be learned if we comprehend that words represent experiential conjugations, they are symbols for conditions. Their common definitions then can tell us much without the need for a lot of experimentation. Stash napt's statement above delineates the challenge succinctly enough to see that the remedy occurs at the level of thought. Our creations proceed in the order of thought, word, and deed, always action sponsored by some thought.

We can see that conceptions are articulated to the point of physical manifestation. In our own terms, everything is an idea.

 

At the very least, rehashing old complaints would be a waste of our time.

So ... where do I want to go with this thing? First of all, I'd like to see if we can build up a cooperative effort where none of the most active participants are trying to fix or out-shine the others.

Second, I'd like people to temporarily put aside the explanations they've been taught or read about. I'm not saying those explanations are wrong. The problem is that those explanations did not come from us. As such, the assumptions and implications of the explanations are not entirely accessible to this discussion.

Third, I'd like people to consider the possibility that everybody is wrong to some extent. I'm wrong; you're wrong; the Buddha's wrong; Jesus is wrong. Not utterly off-base, perhaps, but wrong in the same way that Isaac Newton was wrong about the laws of physics even though his formulas were wonderfully accurate. Einstein made some significant corrections, and then it turned out that he was wrong about some important stuff, too. There's no shame in getting half the answer if that's still an improvement on what came before.

It is my assertion that neither the Buddha, nor Jesus, nor me, nor you, can have enough knowledge to know the complete answer. However, we might move things forward provided we do not insist that no more needs be done because the experts have spoken.

So how do we start? Well, TheDope, here's an idea. I'd like you to tell us about one of your breakthrough moments vis-a-vis enlightenment — and do so in plain English, relating what you recall of the actual event rather than an interpretation of the event in Buddhist terminology. Then let's have a look at that.

 

Based on my personal experiences, I'd like to respond with an analogy...

I already have decent hearing. Yet if I am standing in a room full of chattering people it is hard to hear the birds chirping outside. I think the barriers to the enlightenment we already have is like that.

The barriers to enlightenment might arise from illusion, delusion, confusion or whatever. But the problems they create aren't mirages. For example, if I get bent out of shape with anger, it's likely that the anger arose from a delusion or illusion or belief — whatever. Whatever the source of the anger, the end result is that I cannot perceive the way things truly are (including the way I truly am).

Here's another analogy. Imagine a computer is infected with a virus and is thus programmed to display, over and over, I BELIEVE I AM A TOASTER. While it's all tied up with that task it cannot detect that it is not, in fact, a toaster. The program itself is a barrier that keeps the computer from noticing that it is serving a virus and uttering falsehoods.

 

I'm not trying to fix you, you're full in everything you do, you're just giving attention to the wrong part. My help here is to get you to pay attention to the other part.

You can believe you're enlightenment, you really are, but if you're a rose and you think you're a tulip, you'll never smell you.

Enlightenment is not a process of learn, it's a process of unlearn, that's why I'm always saying to you to leave the search. The only thing you do is just to observe your mind, but first you need to calm her down.

The intelect is a part of the mind, enlightenment is a no-mind state, it can be translated but it will never be the same. You experience it with brain, but there's no thoughts.

The place "I am" I was talking about, is place where you feel your body "living" but you don't use your mind. When you get deep into this state you get another perception of "reality", that's what I think is enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not a goal, it is already there, the only process is to understand what you're not.

It seems like you're in your path, just take care with your intelect, there's no need to judge anything, if it's real or not, experience it and get your own conclusions.

When I say "understand" I mean "experience it", and when I say "mind" I mean "thoughts".

Use "maybe" always, don't have a right answer to every question. Day by day "cut" your questions. Questions don't let you live, it only makes you dream. There's no way to give you the truth, you already have it, if I or another person give it to you it'll become a lie, it'll just be on your head and not in your bones.

Your search to me is like what "scientists" are doing, they are trying to understand life instead of living it every momment.

I'll tell you on exercise. When you're full of thoughts read a text of your choice, get your own conclusions. Later, empty your mind, read the same text but this time realize you're totally into reading each word, at the end feel the conclusion.

Words are the food to mind, experiences are the food to heart.

PS- Empty your mind a little bit, and see this image. You'll understand it soon or later.



Peace and Love.

 

I agree. So I will assume then that your complaint that no one has enough knowledge to know the complete answer is a new complaint. We can know answers in a complete sense provided the answer meets all the criteria demanded of the question. Beyond that, knowledge is, being shared. Being, is emergent. We are in a constant state of becoming,
so on that basis alone, we can rightly suggest that knowledge is somehow incomplete, as much is yet to be seen.

However, There is no reason I can see that we cannot be equal to any virtue of the moment. There is no reason for anyone to be wrong. Certainly people can perceive incorrectly but to say people are inherently fallible, as in "nobody is perfect", does not take into account the purpose of human being.
Human perfection then can be measured in relation to human function. But there is no metric to weigh being itself.

The purpose of the higher human mind appears to be to manipulate abstraction in order to create things, that of yet have not appeared.
So if we are to measure human rightness or wrongness it seems it should be to the extent that a person can create temporary conditions for themselves and those they identify with. The human being creates, that is what it is for.
Right activity then is when what you say and do become one in the same. When you are able to consistently create your own good.

I just laid out three paragraphs of relatively novel perspective that is specific to no tradition and whose content came from novel states of consciousness.
Specifically I have experienced a handful of what could be described as ecstatic mystical states in the waking hours as well as several dreams of highly unusual quality, beyond what is normally describe as lucid dreaming, These dreams were seemingly ultra real, possessing personalities that I could not identify as me.

These are the particulars of one of the dreams so you might get a sense of what is going on. At a certain point in my life, I began to pour all of my energy into seeking god so to speak. It involved me taking on unaccustomed
austerities and obsessive focus both day and night. I was working on specific questions about nature and one of these questions regarded something that I had heard from others engaged in the same pursuits as myself and that was that when you were ready for a teacher, that one would appear.

I had a dream. In the dream I was in this incredible building that had a luminous quality to it and I seemed to be in the office of the director of this organization that was housed in this facility. One whole side of the office was glass opening on a delightful pastoral view. The one who's office it was, was a blond man wearing a brightly colored hawaiian patterned shirt and he said to me, "there is someone I would like you to meet". And on one side of the office was a door and the door opened and people began to file in one by one. Men and women and as they came in the blond guy would say this is so and so, and they do this here, and as they greeted me one by one they seemed very happy to see me.

I remember one guy in particular the blond guy introduced as the designer/architect of the building and I asked, blurted out the question, did you incorporate solar energy into the design and he responded that the whole building was made of light, and I felt a profound embarrassment because I realized my question was so far from being astute of the situation. That surprising embarrassment was one of the very peculiar things about the dream in that the information that embarrassed me. seemed to come from beyond me.

Regardless as the dream ended I realized what was happening. The blond guy was telling me that "my teacher" was everyone I met in the course of taking care of affairs. The whole dream was unmistakably answering for me a specific question and I have seen and experienced the reality of that conclusion from the blond guy.


'On behalf of the group and ourselves, I hope we passed the audition"

 

I'm not sure how to tell you what I experienced, but I can tell you I and all of you have experienced it couple of times.

I was at school and between classes I took a walk by the sea. I was looking at the clouds watching the end of the sunset and I associated myself to this view. I felt like I was the clouds and myself at the same time, it was like if I was put into the painting feeling I was everything (the whole universe at same time). I had it a couple of times and I remember hearing some people reporting this situation. When I experienced it I felt very happy inside, like hapiness was being created inside of me. Then a though was created and my attention went away.

I know it is the enlightenment state and I'm sure many of you have experienced it many times in life.

I hope you can remember when it happen to you.

To me, there's nothing more to search, and at this moment I can't describe it better.

Peace!

:sunny:

 

It's not new and it's not a complaint. It's simply a fact about human limitations.

The person who mastered fire might be described as the first scientist and was probably hailed as a genius. But he didn't know all there was to know about fire. Today we know more about fire. But we don't know it all.

Yes. If I ask, "What is 2 plus 2?" the answer "4" will usually be complete.

Of course, certain assumptions are being made about the criteria. If the question is posed in the middle of a discussion about modulo arithmetic then the answer might be wrong.

Yes.

In some discussions I've had in the past I've found that the words "wrong" and "mistake" can carry an emotional load. I will say this, though: I am wrong almost every time I open my mouth, and mistaken besides.

That's okay, though. The way I learn follows the credo, "Take a stupid idea and gradually make it less stupid."

It might indeed be argued that most of our mental activity is preparation for that-which-is-not-yet. However, some of the activity is simply noise in the system. For example, if a tune is maddeningly stuck in your head, the only function it serves is to trigger a mild pleasure in one part of your brain while pissing off the rest of it!

I am not seeking to measure rightness or wrongness; I am simply saying that I am full of crap much of the time and have no idea what the truth actually is. The only way to make headway in such case is to adopt the kind of attitude epitomized by (to give two examples) the scientific method or selfless meditation. In other words, the way to avoid being wrong so much is to stop being upset that one is wrong.

If there's one thing that torpedoes online discussions of this nature, it's defensiveness. People tend to recoil in horror when it appears they've made a mistake that everybody (including them) can see.

I don't know if that's what it is "for", but it's certainly what we do.

If I want to know what "right activity" means, I can read a Buddhist text. At the moment, though, we're just talking about stuff.

This is excellent! I read it over and was intrigued. I have also had dreams that have answered questions I've posed, and sometimes I've awoken with a complete poem in my head. In a few cases those poems had so much depth that I didn't understand them until several years later.

I was hoping that we could relate our experiences with enlightenment while fully awake, though. As remarkable as dreams can be, it's a bit too much of a mystery to me. I know that some people spend years delving into dreams, but I haven't. I haven't even cultivated my ability to lucid dream, because I am more interested in being fully and utterly awake.

It has been said that most people are asleep for most of their lives. I find this to be true in many ways. It is that kind of "sleep" that I think is a barrier to enlightenment. If I can awaken (which is what becoming a Buddha means) then I'll have taken some great strides forward.

Do you have some "enlightening" experiences from your waking life? (You may already have mentioned this in a later post; I haven't looked yet.)

 

Yes. I know this.

I'm not saying I "believe" this. I'm not saying I've read this or been taught this. I am saying:

I know this.

Before you continue attempting to help me, please take a moment to consider the possibility that you do not understand what I am doing here.

 

Well, the brain can be full of noise. As long as it's full of "brain noise" the enlightenment cannot be realized. It's just too ... noisy!

Imagine trying to meditate while fretting about bills and car repairs. It can't be done well, can it? So there's a barrier right there.

Quite so!

Oh, wow. This is a problem with analogies. People don't see the point you're making and run off in another direction.

My computer analogy presupposes that (A) this is an old-style computer that doesn't multitask and/or (B) the virus actively prevents its own detection.

Ah, well. I imagined my analogy was a simple one, easily grasped. But if someone needs to find me wrong and themselves right, then my analogies will always have fatal flaws. Such is the way of Internet discussions.

Only one thought at a time? What a remarkable notion. If that was true then ulterior motives would always be known to the person, rather than actively masked and tweaked, as is usually the case. Self-deception would be nearly impossible.

Perhaps you meant only one conscious thought at a time, but even that isn't true, since a thought is always a constellation of correlations. We only imagine we have a single thought at a time; that's part of what makes us believe we are individuals.

Individual thought; ergo individual person. There's a barrier right there. A rather big one, in my opinion.

 

Ah, that's the kind of example I like to see in this thread!

Awesome.

Okay, Vansrouge, can you delve into the experience and write, write, write about it? Have fun with this. Don't take it too seriously. Please be willing to write rubbish. That can open up the floodgates of intuition.

I'm not asking for analysis or science (unless that's what you want to do). I'm asking you to write, write, write so we can get a glimpse of where you're at vis-a-vis this experience.

Thanks!

 

Last things first. I mentioned that I had several ecstatic mystical states during waking hours. One I will recall. I was meditating on the beach in Washington state. It was high summer of 2003 and it was just after dawn. My wife, since diseased, was with me.

I lapsed into an altered state of consciousness. I could see everything bathed in bright and I seemed to be suspended between earth and sky. I was totally and completely dissociated from my body. I had absolutely no physical sensation but my mind was utterly clear. I began to see the curvature of the earth and I began to see the planets of the solar system as well as the moon in the sky, I will say as in a sense of proportion.

All the while my wife was in the background and for some reason she thought that I looked like I was dying. Evidently I was outwardly catatonic but I could see and hear her just fine and I couldn't figure out why she was upset and I kept trying to tell her that everything was wonderful as a matter of fact. I was having the most overwhelming sense of gratitude like nothing I had ever known. Even though my mind was like crystal in one respect, the aspect of my wife fussing over me was disorienting because it wasn't in accord with what I was experiencing.

My wife finally succeeded in rousing me and as I walked down the beach with her, I felt weightless and I couldn't feel my feet touching the sand. I was in
this state of euphoric reverie that subsided after about fifteen minutes walking up the beach. The whole episode lasted about 90 minutes.

It will sound silly but my overwhelming impression of the experience in total was, if I had never had a body, I wouldn't have missed one thing. Of course I had a body all the while, so for me to say that means nothing beyond my own impression. The experience of that physically untethered consciousness was convincingly suggestive.

 

It is a supposition about human limitations that I don't necessarily agree with.

There is a saying and I will pass it along because I have demonstrated through practice to myself that it is true, it goes like this.

It is not necessary to be greater than the father, it is enough to be like the father.

In your fire example, I would point out that what ever knowledge was applied at the time was equal to the temporary conditions the person was trying to create for himself. It doesn't seem practically relevant that he should know all the potential or probable aspects to be exhibited by fire. In this instance I would surmise that your characterizations of reality contain within themselves, challenges to clear apprehension, (barriers to enlightenment).

I thought you weren't going to bring up old complaints. If you are wrong every time you open your mouth then your credo is antithetical. If you are wrong every time, you can't gradually make it less stupid. Assuming less stupid means more right. One way to improve our chances in life is to be succinct in our assessments and pointedly consistent with our premises.

While there is very much undisciplined thought, there are no idle thoughts.
In terms of the absolute everything else is an abstraction. The mind is naturally abstract and the scenes and scenarios that we narrate for ourselves
represent corridors of refraction and do not portray all probable events, but just a slice that you decide the proportions of.

Some would argue a strictly biological imperative of reproduction but it seems to me to be the perfect field of being for perfecting the art of creation. It is my impression that there are psychic equivalents for all physical manifestations.

You say you don't know, have you investigated the question at all. What is human consciousness for?

I knew when I saw the words "right activity" I recognized that the term would
reach for buddhist connotations but that is not at all what I meant and I usually don't use such terms. I don't mean right in a moral sense but in a functional sense.

I don't think you quite appreciated what these events were. I call them dreams because they occurred during a hypnagogic state, but they were astounding in detail and specific things were said etc.. It was not like dreamy vague impressions.

 

I'm sorry for the previous posts, I didn't understand what you really meant. I was trying to lead you into the states I have experience. (I'll post the experiences, but I need to keep saying more than the experiences. Everything is related.)

I can't really tell more right now, it was an experience of 2-3 secounds I think. I tried to achieve that state again by forcing my consciousness but my head seemed like it was going to blow up so I stoped. This days I'm geting headaches and pressure on my head, I'm not meditating at home, I'm meditating every time I remember in all situations. So with open eyes and geting into a deep state it's seems like it's taking me in some sort of exhaustion. (I know it's because my mind was used to have many thoughts and now it's experiencing silence. Like if I was running and was used to it, but then I stoped and I started to feel very tired).

I'll be alert on those situations and I'll try to report it, I think you'll understand it better while I'm not complete into a no-mind state.

By the way, I want to tell you I found a trigger to achieve a faster deep state of meditation. Superficially it seems like I have no fears, but going deep they are still there, so every time I want to achieve a deep state faster I go into the wild at night and the thoughts about devil, monsters, etc, come to my mind. At some point I start to freak out and I feel the unwavering point. In this moment I start to be more conscious of my breath and in some minutes there's no mind, it simply go away.

I've been walking around while meditating, I've lived some great moments I want EVERYONE in this world to live it! I've cried for a tree because I have forgotten that we were brothers, and then I saw a car and it was like I felt that everyone can feel exactly like me. I couldn't understand how people are blind by education. Education is just a form to robotize humanity. The true love is always here, and love is pure. There's no need for rules or any bullshit.

The moments were not many, but when you're into it, is like when you're at the highest point of an orgasm. You start to feel the ecstasy.

P.S- After you live some sad moments (about the past) you feel a real joy (the present moment), it's like you're smiling in silence and really living a divinal life. (Present moment is the path).

 

This point is perhaps the easiest of all to demonstrate. The breath is both conscious and autonomic. You may consciously take advantage of autonomic systems through regulation of the breath. If you establish deep calm and regular breathing then the physiology follows, functioning calmly. Then you may notice from this state the effect of gaining conscious control of the breath. The effect is a reliable remedy for any anxiety.

 

I think he had asked for both. I posited since enlightenment is of the mind, it is at the level of thought or conception where whatever needs be unraveled is unraveled.

There are certain rules of thumb so to speak that I lean toward to alert me to such barriers. Always anxiety is caused by the misapprehension of what is so. Correct identification in these instances, we consider will enlighten. The cause of shadows, barriers to the perception of light, is invariably some form held up or preferred between the truth, light, and the one who perceives.

There is a particular mantra of truth that has served me very well and that is
Fear is a Liar. I have considered the statement in countless situations where I was apt to speculate negatively and it has safely guided me to deserved calm time and again. In other words, never was a time in my life when my fear ever spoke for a potential real outcome. Fear always seems to imagine what does not in fact appear.

 

Okay, before we talk about barriers within ourselves, let's see if we can address the barriers between us.

For you (TheDope) to tell me that you don't agree with what I said about limitations is like me saying, "Two plus two equals four" and you responding, "No, I don't agree, because dogs don't have wings." If my simple statement about limitations — or my simple computer analogy for MeAgain — can generate disagreement, then this discussion is doomed from the outset. I simply cannot comprehend how you misunderstand my simple statements, and (assuming your delusion is less than mine) you're not helping me understand.

Well, actually, I do comprehend the process of misunderstanding. You can always find fault in what I say. I can always find fault in what you say. But I am seeking some common ground from which we can all move. Perhaps there's some situation or example that one of us can posit where we all go, "Yes! I know what you mean!"

What we have here is a failure to communicate. It's the story of the Internet, ironically.

I have been using online forums for 35 years or so. That's a long time. Yet during that time I have only rarely seen people get onto the same wavelength and resonate. What usually happens, instead, is that people want to fix or convert the other participants and thereby validate their own worldview.

I've seen it over and over again. I believe I'm seeing it here. I know you believe you're immune — that's you're posting in good faith, with great and unappreciated wisdom. But it all sounds so familiar. Nothing new gets discovered. Nobody grows.

I am going to attempt to find some common ground in today's batch of posts. If you feel that I have glossed over some criticism, you'll be right. I can consider you wrong without saying so.

Moreover, I can consider you right but see no way to communicate between our different representations.

Can we please try to find some common ground, here? Something we all agree upon? If we can't do that then we're simply talking to ourselves. And if you can't even see that then I'm wasting my time here.

And yes, I can already predict an objection to my last paragraph. After 35 years of posting online one acquires a knack for knowing how people will employ their cleverness to miss the point. Everybody's a genius in that regard.

 

I had a somewhat similar experience; it affected me so profoundly that in a sense my life can be marked with "before" and "after" that experience.

In my experience there was a sense of detaching from myself and apprehending the great sweep of the world and the people in it, and another sensation of seeing a continuity in every level of physical existence from quark up to galactical superclusters.

What I am curious about, now, is your interpretation of your experience. In my case I do not imagine that I left my body or that I was remotely sensing the world or distant galaxies. I am well aware that some people would swear they'd had an out-of-body experience. In my case, though, I conclude (rightly or wrongly) that my mind was simply representing a viewpoint in a new and highly compressed way.

Even that explanation is wrong, but it's the closest I can come up with on short notice. My point is two-fold. (1) I do not expect that my experience was necessarily what it appeared to be and (2) The possibility for self-deception and misinterpretation is huge.

I will admit that after this experience I had to rein in my ego. It didn't take long, actually, but there was a sense of "Why did I get to see all this? What's special about me?" I now see that as a stupid thing to think or wonder about, but I'm reporting what happened in the aftermath.

So how about you? What did you (and do you) make of that experience you had?

Also, did that experience change your behavior? In my case, my behavior changed greatly because a vast range of fears vanished and I began to see how limited I'd been by petty goals. How about your post-experience changes, if any?