Is enlightenment even possible?

[Sugarcoat]

16 minutes ago, James123 said:

In the skull, there is a pink mind, where are you in that?

I don’t know exactly where but it just feels like I am here.

[James123]

Just now, Sugarcoat said:

I don’t know exactly where but it just feels like I am here.

Close your eyes, and squeeze your right hand as much as possible and concentrate.

 

Did you do it?

[Sugarcoat]

4 minutes ago, James123 said:

Close your eyes, and squeeze your right hand as much as possible and concentrate.

 

Did you do it?

It feels like I did it

[Sugarcoat]

@James123 I’ve started to meditate again how many hours do you recommend each day? Is more automatically better? How much did you do may I ask ?

[James123]

2 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

It feels like I did it

In that moment, did you feel the entire body or you just felt the right hand?

[Sugarcoat]

Just now, James123 said:

In that moment, did you feel the entire body or you just felt the right hand?

I felt mostly right hand but just a little bit body too 

[James123]

Just now, Sugarcoat said:

I felt mostly right hand but just a little bit body too 

If you concentrate enough, you will just feel the right hand. Which mean is what you concentrate that's what you are. If you feel so happy you don't feel the body you are the happiness etc...

But this is just the beginning..

I started to sit 15 minutes and peak was 5 hours something like that. But, time was vanished in those sittings. There was no mind chatting. Therefore, I am not exactly sure how long did I do. 

[Sugarcoat]

5 minutes ago, James123 said:

If you concentrate enough, you will just feel the right hand. Which mean is what you concentrate that's what you are. If you feel so happy you don't feel the body you are the happiness etc...

But this is just the beginning..

I started to sit 15 minutes and peak was 5 hours something like that. But, time was vanished in those sittings. There was no mind chatting. Therefore, I am not exactly sure how long did I do. 

Okay I see what you mean there. It’s like if someone plays video game and is fully concentrated and immersed into it that they don’t sense themselves anymore 

 

ok . I’m steadily increasing the time of my sittings.

[Ishanga]

10 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

@James123 I’ve started to meditate again how many hours do you recommend each day? Is more automatically better? How much did you do may I ask ?

watch that video I shared on the Sadhana thread I started, the ppl in the video are long time, serious practitioners, they share some of the do's and don't.. like don't set a time limit on the practices, like above, I want to do 2-5 hrs a day, that puts automatic pressure on you, so that when you don't want to do it and you do it it messes things up,, things have to work naturally, so start with short timed practices, build up a practice where You look forward to it and while doing it its not forced, you like the feeling of it, then if You feel like putting more time and effort into it that will come naturally.

When I started training in Martial Arts, I luv'd it, so training 4 or 5hrs a day was easy, I just wanted to do all the time, now I don't lol, so if I try to do that now with this feeling I won't progress at all with it!

[Javfly33]

17 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

@James123 I’ve started to meditate again how many hours do you recommend each day? Is more automatically better? How much did you do may I ask ?

If I may contribute, ime more than time what matters is intensity/awareness.

So try to meditate when you know you will be at your peak of mental clarity but physically relaxed.

You want to create this sweet mix: Alert mind but relaxed/calm body

Some tips:

• Take a shower before (it activates energy body but calms you physically)
• Do it at "spiritual prone' times of the day: 4:30, Sunrise, Noon, or Sunset.
• Before you do meditation, sit and just spend a couple of minutes reminding you 'I am not this body, I am not this mind'. This sets a certain atmosphere/ambience and makes the meditation an alive process, instead of a mechanical thing.

If you implement these things you will notice that even if you do not increase your meditation time, it should amplify your results. 

Edited Monday at 09:48 PM by Javfly33

[Ishanga]

Just now, Javfly33 said:

If I may contribute, ime more than time what matters is intensity/awareness.

So try to meditate when you know you will be at your peak of mental clarity/activation but also physically relaxed.

Some tips:

Take a shower before (it activates energy body but calms you physically)

Do it at "spiritual prone' times of the day: 4:30, Sunrise, Noon, or Sunset.

Before you do meditation, sit and just spend a couple of minutes reminding you 'I am not this body, I am not this mind'. This sets a certain atmosphere/ambience and makes the meditation an alive process, instead of a mechanical thing.

If you implement these things you will notice that even if you do not increase your meditation time, it should amplify your results. 

Good Advice, Quality or Quantity!! 

[James123]

4 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Okay I see what you mean there. It’s like if someone plays video game and is fully concentrated and immersed into it that they don’t sense themselves anymore

Definitely.

5 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

ok . I’m steadily increasing the time of my sittings.

Good. 

[Javfly33]

2 minutes ago, Ishanga said:

Good Advice, Quality or Quantity!! 

🙌 Just sharing what best works for me! 🤜

Edited Monday at 09:49 PM by Javfly33

[Sugarcoat]

2 minutes ago, Ishanga said:

watch that video I shared on the Sadhana thread I started, the ppl in the video are long time, serious practitioners, they share some of the do's and don't.. like don't set a time limit on the practices, like above, I want to do 2-5 hrs a day, that puts automatic pressure on you, so that when you don't want to do it and you do it it messes things up,, things have to work naturally, so start with short timed practices, build up a practice where You look forward to it and while doing it its not forced, you like the feeling of it, then if You feel like putting more time and effort into it that will come naturally.

When I started training in Martial Arts, I luv'd it, so training 4 or 5hrs a day was easy, I just wanted to do all the time, now I don't lol, so if I try to do that now with this feeling I won't progress at all with it!

I will check the video out. Thanks. I’m building it up. Today I did it quite scattered. 20 min then break , 20 min again then an hour . 

[Sugarcoat]

5 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

If I may contribute, ime more than time what matters is intensity/awareness.

So try to meditate when you know you will be at your peak of mental clarity but physically relaxed.

You want to create this sweet mix: Alert mind but relaxed/calm body

Some tips:

• Take a shower before (it activates energy body but calms you physically)
• Do it at "spiritual prone' times of the day: 4:30, Sunrise, Noon, or Sunset.
• Before you do meditation, sit and just spend a couple of minutes reminding you 'I am not this body, I am not this mind'. This sets a certain atmosphere/ambience and makes the meditation an alive process, instead of a mechanical thing.

If you implement these things you will notice that even if you do not increase your meditation time, it should amplify your results. 

thanks so much for the tips

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Ishanga said:

.. like don't set a time limit on the practices

Timing your practice (by using a literal timer where you pre-set how long you will meditate), besides mere practicality with respect to your overall schedule and ensuring consistency in your practice (which is probably the single most important thing), it can eliminate indecisive thoughts like "have I meditated long enough?" or "should I meditate more?" or expectations like "when will I enter the feel-good zone?".

If you know that you're going to sit for e.g. 30 minutes no matter what, that ironically puts a lot of pressure off of you. You just sit there and do the practice and then you stop when it's over. That's as simple as it gets. There is no pressure to perform, because even if you're doing bad, nothing changes. And if you feel it's too long or too short, you can adjust the time for the next session.

In general, offloading responsibility from your impulsive and limited-capacity homosapien mind onto structured habits (e.g. schedules, plans, lists, journalling) is beneficial for keeping a calm mind. This of course applies to meditation as well.

Edited Tuesday at 02:24 AM by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

21 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Which is non-duality.

It really isn't. I was questioning the self-confidence we often build through our ‘knowledge’ of enlightenment, which is just another form of ignorance, except for the actual breakthroughs themselves. 

We unquestioningly accept hearsay as if it were a personal experience or insight. "The tea is hot; everyone else says so. Surely, the authorities on the subject must be right." And yet, we make this claim without ever truly tasting it ourselves, perhaps a sip here and there.

21 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's true that there are many aspects of the mind that are not instantly transformed as you reach a non-dual baseline. You don't instantly become a saint. You can be flawed in many ways. However, you don't torture yourself over it. You have let go of your attachments and disidentified with the entire game. The character can be flawed, but you are not it.

You can define enlightenment as the disidentification that happens when all attachments are let go, going from being identified with the personal self to the trans-personal self. But that's not very easy to measure "scientifically", through observation. That's where self-referential thoughts at baseline comes in.

You can still suffer after it. Measurement requires something to be there for it to be measured. To put it poetically, nothing can not be measured in any way, not even "approached." 

That above is one type of conflating I’m pointing to. The way you cook omelets (self and life) will generally stay much the same—unless it is a profound shift, which is not very common. What awakening does is reveal what’s already the case. Much work has to happen on your part for certain things to occur, which aren't brought up by a couple kenshos or satoris. It seems what you describe is mostly self-transformation.

To be clear, I'm not talking about an ideal state or complete enlightenment; I'm talking about you, right there, grasping your nature. It's easy to fantasize about this notion. 

[UnbornTao]

22 hours ago, zurew said:

@UnbornTao Do you have any book recommendation that roughly describes what you mean by enlightenment?

As a sidenote - to elevate the productivity of the convos around enlightenment it would be probably helpful to make actualizers to read into the same materials, so at the very least those can be used as a reference for wtf is being talked about.

The idea that some of you guys need to start almost all conversations from scratch and you need to establish what is meant by awakening and enlightenment is a job that is close to impossible - but if you can refer to a given book or a work, that gives the advantage of communicating with hopefully more clarity and in more detail. There is just too much nuance and detail that needs to be described in any given thread to even lay down the groundwork to start the conversation.

 

I would say the exact same thing for more philosophical convos - it would be good to have familiarity with the same set of concepts and not using private language that no one understands, but of course, again ,this would require us reading and engaging with the same set of books and materials in detail.

Rinzai is one of good ones. But the "answers" aren't to be found within explanations and notions. This is why someone like Rinzai talked like he did.

Becoming conscious of the absolute nature of existence—of you—is a clear definition of “enlightenment.” When stripped of fantasy, terms like kensho and satori might provide useful direction to open the mind. But these definitions don’t say much on their own. No amount of talk will change our condition on this matter.

Better than reading is working to generate insights for oneself. Thanks for the feedback, though.

[UnbornTao]

22 hours ago, Salvijus said:

I'm flabbergasted

Which is to say, in this analogy, that Rome stands for relative, and Greece for absolute.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself or speculate.

Edited Tuesday at 03:47 PM by UnbornTao

[zurew]

6 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Better than reading is working to generate insights for oneself. Thanks for the feedback, though.

Reading is not to replace the work ,but to become better at communicating and it is to compare the insights you have with other people who are probably much better at explicating those insights. Also if you have an insight + you read books you will be able to recognize better who is talking about the thing you have insight about and then you can point other people to that work. It can fasten up the communication quite a bit, if you don't need to write down a book amount of information in every given thread.

Most of the confusion about definitions can be cleared up if there is a work or set of works that everyone is familiar with. This can also help with clearing up somewhat who had what kind of insight and what kind of awakening.