If you are not supposed to desire anything, then why should one desire to become enlightened? Isnt that kind of a contradiction?
when buddha sat under the tree and didnt say anything and then that kid laughed he declared him the new buddha because he got the bigger picture.you are enlightened when you are not searching for it. you stumble upon it. im not preaching buddhism this is what i read out of my zen book.
enlightenment is the end product of a lifetime (or more if you are into reincarnation) of spiritual development and expansion of awareness in an individual. In buddhist philosophy, the desire to attain enlightenment is justified if done for the sake and enlightenment of all sentient beings.
The path is not to eschew desire but to use desire. This desirelessness thing is a misinterpretation of Buddhism, from forever until now. Desire is life, desire to be liberated!!! Middle way is truely the yogic way, in which case desire is the substance of stabilizing meditative concentration.
why? who says? ?is not enlightenment the realising there is nothing to attain except the realisation that enlightenment is the realisation that there is nothing to attain? then you can just :lol: and enjoy life, enjoy loving, be free, be happy, and spread joy with the delightful spontaneity of your moment-to-moment existence i could be wrong, but it's working for me in this corner of the pond...
Enlightenment, is as the word suggests, the state of being light, of which you have described the emotional and mental half. Now, there is also the spiritual half, which is the steady state of perceiving of light within, and all that that means. Or else, one would be in a happy happy ignorant state. Basically the same as those happy animals which are being led to the slaughter. We are all being led to the slaughter anyway, and being happy about it is good, but are you trained to get caught up into light when you die, or will you just get caught up in your previous energies? Only you can know. Buddhism is about preparing for the moment of death. If you're stable in your happiness then lucky you. Will you stay stable like that through all the thick and thin of global warming and the tragedies that life has yet to offer? Only you can know. Are there ways to become stable in spite of everything so that you never waver? Yes. What works in your pond's corner is good for you, but do others have that same ability? Maybe not. So there must be some path for those others who are not so fortunate.
as the breast cancer i may be in the early stages of progresses, i will test my stability in that happiness. so far, so good. personally i prefer the words of e e cummings on the subject: seeker of truth follow no path all paths lead where truth is here but certainly i would never expect what works for me to work for others. that is why my post was full of ? marks i was investigating something aloud. like krishnamurti advised, i try not to come to any conclusions, especially about enlightenment, which i see as an unfolding reality always already present, and not some distant goal so beloved by the mind that looks and looks, not knowing that what it is looking for is what is looking.
You are right, one shouldn't desire Enlightnement. But upon hearing it we all want it. That is the nature of the mind. The mind is desire, whether it desires one thing over another is moot, so long as it continues to desire it is happy. It isn't that you are supposed to not desire, it is to see what has happened throughout your life through desire. You desire something to day. You think that it will make you happy. Eventually it wears out and you desire something else. So desire never stops. But we don't desire to breathe, it happens by itself (although it can be said that the Self does desire to keep living.) We do not desire to sleep, it happens by itself. Therefore one has to just become aware of what life is bringing and either go with it or get out of its way. If life is not going the way you want it to, is it because of something we did in the past (karma)? Are we fighting life, wanting it to go the way we want? Suchy desire may bring suffering. We all want this thing called Enlightenment. And if we knew what that would entail we wouldn't want it anywhere near to us. How can the mind desire its own extinction? Does a healthy person desire a tooth ache or a head ache? No, but when we have a tooth ache or a head ache we wish to have it go away, thinking that that is Enlightenment.
ok, i don't make any claims on buddhism either, i just find it more calming to read about then 'western' beliefs. but i think the two posts before (dave's) already answered that. the "u must try to" is, to my limited understanding of the subject, and ALL of my experience outside of it, completely in error. the only thing about trying, and its not trying but choosing, is to avoid getting in your own way. nothing stands in the way of so many things more completely then trying to force them. so its a matter of not putting even trying in your own way. that's another aspect of lao tsu's wu wi bit, or however its spelled. the only other thing that comes anywhere near to trying is the avoidance of deceiving yourself. i'm not saying that there's no work involved. but that is only the work of distracting yourself from getting in the way of yourself. of letting happen rather then beating your head against 'making' happen, which doesn't. =^^= .../\...
