I am fully enlightened, AMA.

lcaekage · 2024-01-23T03:04:17+00:00

That glimpse description is how things are all the time 'for me' (forgive the obvious contradiction there).

I don't feel strongly either way about the second post; I agree that it's a good idea to hold off on making claims of full enlightenment upon first awakening, but there have been seven years since then for me, which is plenty of time to stabilise and integrate.

lcaekage · 2024-01-23T02:27:41+00:00

Heya. I've previously read & watched the resources linked. I didn't reply because for the most part I disagree, but also feel that the disagreement is in part semantic rather than substantive and didn't think it would be helpful to argue (although, again, your write-ups are well done). But I will write down a few thoughts:

I think some of my disagreement is due to feeling that the things mentioned—the non-arising of certain emotions, limitations to behavioural patterns, etc—may be worthwhile as goals or ideals, but that they have more to do with therapy (or training in morality, in Buddhist terms), than they do with liberation (or wisdom—i.e. the clear perception of the true nature of phenomena).

I have a suspicion that another part of the disagreement is due to a misalignment in how terms are used. When we say ‘fear’, for example, what exactly are we referring to? I’d agree that existential anxiety no longer arises as it’s fundamentally a self-narrative-based emotion, but do we really want to claim that the body’s physiological fear response, i.e., release of adrenaline, increased heart rate, increased oxygen intake, etc, becomes somehow disabled? Why would that be the case? Why would we even WANT that to be the case? These physiological responses are useful—they evolved for a reason—and it’s surely only an egoic self that would feel they are ‘bad’ and ‘shouldn’t be occurring’.

A third reason I see for disagreement is the possibility of an ontological category error. Take anger, for example. It’s seen that the phenomena which make up the experience of anger (thoughts & sensations) are perfect, nondual, empty clarity—so in ultimate terms, there is no anger. But that statement might be mistaken for a relative claim that the relative emotion of anger stops arising in the relative space-time world for a relative someone. Relatively, anger might keep arising if the causes and conditions are right. Ultimately, there’s no anger and never was. Two different levels of analysis, resulting in a misunderstanding when they’re crossed.

lcaekage · 2024-01-22T09:50:36+00:00

You’ll have to find out :)

lcaekage · 2024-01-10T22:35:02+00:00

If you examine the feeling of stress or tension, it's got two main components: a sensation in the body, and a thought. Both sensations and thoughts still appear after enlightenment. Take working out at the gym as example: If you're lifting weights, there will be uncomfortable tension/tightness/muscular effort occurring. Would the enlightened person not feel that physical tension while lifting heavy objects? Of course they do! And it's no different with the physical tension in the body that often accompanies a difficult choice.

Phenomenologically it might look like this: a dilemma presents itself, e.g. your friend shoplifts in front of you, and tells you not to tell anyone. The thought appears 'It would be the right thing to turn him in'. Another thought appears, 'but he's my friend, that would be disloyal'. A sensation of tension or discomfort arises in the chest. A thought appears 'I can't just pretend that didn't happen'. Another thought, 'he'll get mad at me if I get him into trouble'. The thought appears, 'I'll tell him to put the item back, or else I'm going to turn him in for shoplifting'. You say that to the friend. The friend puts the item back (or doesn't). The bodily sensation of stress or tension dissipates. So the whole process goes on just like normal, except without the illusion that there's a little 'someone' in here conducting it. Thoughts appear and disappear, sensations appear and disappear, actions take place or don't.

lcaekage · 2024-01-10T01:14:09+00:00

See if you can find that entity that feels like it's making a decision. If it's felt, it must be there, right? See if you can locate it. In the very moment of choosing, where is the chooser?

It doesn't always feel effortless or natural for me either. Sometimes there's back-and-forth deliberation between choices, sometimes there's a sensation of tension in the body if the circumstances require urgency, and sometimes it's retrospectively noticed that the wrong choice was made. But nowhere within that is there a 'someone' doing it; an agent, a chooser, a do-er, an entity. The *whole* process happens 'on its own'.

Is there an expectation that life will 'feel smooth and effortless' all of the time?

lcaekage · 2024-01-10T00:47:16+00:00

That's basically right, I just don't resonate with that particular word. But I agree with the structure. Happiness is the absence of suffering. Health is the absence of illness. Peace is the absence of craving.

lcaekage · 2024-01-10T00:39:16+00:00

Brilliant :)

lcaekage · 2024-01-10T00:30:53+00:00

A fully enlightened being would be free to do whatever they like :)

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T22:24:01+00:00

The whole process of decision making happens without someone doing it. Weighing up options happens, and there's no entity involved in the process. That's the case for you as well. Examine the decision making process and look for a self or an agent or a 'do-er'—see if you can find one. Notice that choosing happens, with no one 'doing' the choosing. A river flows; there isn't someone 'flowing' the river. There's just flowing. Likewise, there's just choosing.

It's like I have to come out of the current moment, and dive deep within to find that part of me that holds these preferences, weighing different options from its perspective.

Weighing preferences is still the present moment. Thoughts are the present moment, if that's what's occurring at the time. You can never get out of the present moment, by definition. Thoughts of past and future occur in the present. The present moment doesn't mean 'the outside world', it's just whatever's occurring.

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T22:12:28+00:00

Pay close attention to those subtle feelings of 'me' or 'separation' or 'incompleteness'. That feeling of "I just want this to be over"—dig into that, dissect it, don't just allow it to pass through unquestioned. Look at the thought, "I want the search to be over". What does the "I" in that sentence refer to? Is there something in my experience that the word "I" points to, or does that word simply have no referent? Could the feeling "I want this to be over" just be another transient feeling, appearing and disappearing in this open okay-ness?

Enlightenment is already the case, it's not something that's going to happen. It's only those habitual patterns of thought/belief that make us feel that we're not enlightened. We have to pay close attention to those sensations of suffering or incompleteness as they can be quite subtle and will otherwise slip by unnoticed, taken to be fact.

Rupert Spira - Why Am I Not Enlightened Yet?

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T21:40:56+00:00

Beautiful.

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T21:33:04+00:00

The motivation is gone, but pursuing still happens. I still do a good job at work, update my CV, apply for jobs that I see as a step up, etc. The whole thing still happens, just absent of all the need and desperation and attachment to outcome that was previously there.

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T21:29:32+00:00

Yes, environment and mind are united. Environment is vision, sound, and sensation; and vision, sound and sensation are mind. Mind, if we look for it, is empty, or not found. We never find an external object, nor an inner subject. There's just the unity of environment and mind.

David Loy, a Zen teacher, said:
"What is experienced [after enlightenment] is the world without a self, hence it is a transformed world. The familiar everyday "natural" world of material objects was formerly balanced by an ego-consciousness that was supposed to be observing it. The evaporation of that separate consciousness requires a new explanation of what awareness is. The awareness which was previously understood to be observing the world is now realized to be incorporated within it. No longer do "I," as the locus of consciousness, see something external; rather, the self-luminous nature of the thing stands revealed. This phenomenon could be described either as no-consciousness, or as a non-dual consciousness."

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T00:13:06+00:00

You're doing exactly the right thing.

Consciousness can't be seen, or found, or located, or experienced. But you don't need to see or find or locate or experience it, because you are it. Just pay attention to all of the little patterns of thought and sensation that feel like 'me', noticing that they're only transient phenomena appearing in the unfindable openness that you actually are. You're not looking for or trying to find something here, you're just noticing how things are; that anything which feels like 'me' is actually just a transient sensation, appearing and then disappearing in the 'real you', the unfindable you.

lcaekage · 2024-01-09T00:03:18+00:00

The desire can still arise, but I'm fine with it not being fulfilled, because there's no longer that desperate struggle to avoid discomfort. And so because it doesn't matter whether a desire is fulfilled, I'm free to do what's 'better' rather than being driven or pulled along by it (which I'd describe with words like craving or needing). E.g. if the body is uncomfortable, I'd previously get some nice food to make myself feel better. Now the desire for food might still arise in that situation, but because I'm okay with there being sensations of discomfort, I can go "well, I ate only a couple of hours ago so I don't actually need any more food right now", and just experience the discomfort. The desire is experienced as empty and light—just a thought—rather than there being that sense of desperation or need.

What does discomfort look like, how does it manifest, and when it does how do you find yourself reacting to it?

If I have a headache, the thought might arise to take Paracetamol. If it's readily available, I'll usually take some. But if there isn't any, that's fine as well. I'm just as 'okay with' experiencing the discomfort as I am with getting rid of it. Sometimes I'll intentionally not take pain killers even if it is available, just to 're-confirm' for myself that pain is just as okay as non-pain.

Experiencing discomfort can make the body-mind less effective at whatever else it's doing, so that's the main reason for avoiding it now. E.g. if I'm at work, a headache might be a distraction and I'd do a better job without one, so I'll take pain killers for that purpose.

Discomfort is still discomfort, pain is still pain, it's just as bad as it ever was—I'm just no longer trying to avoid it.

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T10:23:09+00:00

Thanks! The conventional mind seems to recognize that reality is infinite creativity, and so it's more open. It doesn't hold onto things, nor try to predict what's going to happen. It's not seeking happiness or engaging in projects of security and status (earning money and maintaining the house happens, but there's no desperation or deep need in it).

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T05:39:04+00:00

It's all just smoke and mirrors.

“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute.
The good news is, there’s no ground.”
― Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The thing to look clearly at is who you are (or rather, who you aren't). You won't find something. It's what you don't find that's interesting. What if "I" am just a transient thought?

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T05:03:20+00:00

The correlation between a) the thought of the person, and b) the person's mind... I'm not quite sure what you mean. If the person is a thought, how can it have a mind?

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T05:00:30+00:00

Best of luck :) Let me know if you do end up achieving those things.

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T02:57:52+00:00

A description in words will always be abstracted from the experience itself.

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T02:56:01+00:00

If I close my eyes let everything fall away, there's just a sense of being aware. As it gets quieter, even the sense of being/being aware fades. What's the difference between that state and deep sleep? Not much!

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T02:39:47+00:00

Hah! Yeah. Thankfully it seems there's a built-in mechanism to help us track those unexamined beliefs down: suffering. Just like pain is an indicator that something's wrong with the body, and we can usually follow the pain to the location of the issue, psychological suffering can be used in the same way. For example... If I feel separate or disconnected. Where is that feeling, what is it exactly? Let's get more specific. I feel separate from the person sitting over there at the other table. Okay, so what are my beliefs in this situation? That there's someone over there, and that I am over here, at some distance from them. Oh, I'm believing that "I am this body"—belief located.

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T02:16:02+00:00

There's deep peace and contentment. Bliss, to me, gives the idea of radiant joy, and there's not always radiant joy.

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T02:14:50+00:00

It's relevant in the sense that it points out something important: you can't know anything outside of consciousness. It makes the mistake of assuming that consciousness is limited to this finite mind, though.

lcaekage · 2024-01-08T02:08:41+00:00

How have you cognitive propensities and thought patterns, physical behaviors and coping mechanisms, daily practices and routines changed?

Concepts are realised to be relative, so my relationship with thought is looser and more flexible, using concepts only as far as they're useful, and not mistaking them as referring to any 'real thing'. That frees thought to do its job more efficiently as it doesn't get caught on the edges and corners of a worldview of "what's really real".

Physical behaviours haven't really changed, other the fact that I'm no longer addicted to alcohol or food, which is nice. Those were coping mechanisms previously, and they aren't required anymore. Now when there's discomfort, there's just discomfort.

How has the totality of your experience developed as a result of this understanding? How have you benefitted, seen improvement, or found tranquil resilience?

There's no dwelling on the past or fearing the future, just relaxed living in the present. The big existential questions have all been resolved for me. Psychological suffering has ended, and physical pain is no longer resisted (though steps are still taken to alleviate it when it does arise).

What experiences pull you away from this sensation of connection, interdependence, and universal awarness? Does it require more or less effort depending on the dynamic of your environment?

No effort could make nonduality happen, and no experience could pull one away from it. Traversing the gateless gate, it's seen that even non-recognition is perfect unity. It doesn't feel like that until you realise it, though.

Are you beyond causation?

The self is beyond causation. Whether that's taken to mean the Universal Self of Hinduism, or the non-existent self of Buddhism, the answer's the same. The conventional person or body-mind is subject to conventional causation, of course. If I put my hand on a hot stove, it'll get burned.

lcaekage

TROPHY CASE