How Can You Tell If A Person Is Enlightened? (response To Leo's May 18 Insight)

[Extreme Z7]

In my opinion, it's a lot easier to see what Leo is pointing to if you have more of a recluse-type personality. I know I do.

If you're not able to comprehend how it's possible that all these 'heinous' acts are perfectly acceptable, it's probably because your mind is struggling to let go of mainstream moralistic thinking or not even making any effort to do so. I notice that it's rare that people only talk to themselves about how they hate certain acts of 'evil'. They usually like to bicker their opinions with other people, probably to get some ego gratification out of it.

When you're a recluse-type, you're not really compelled to converse with others about what you think, not even online. And likewise the overall toxicity of mainstream culture barely affects you.

[Prabhaker]

8 minutes ago, Pierre said:

Man, I guess we still have a long way to go before we reach Leo's enchanted Realm, where children's rape is not a problem...

Muhammad married Aisha when she was not adult. 

Hindus have playful Gods but when you see the Hindu Gods play you will find human faces. Brahma created the world and created the first woman and fell in love with her – his own daughter – and started chasing her. A very Hindu God! More like Hindus than like God. Chasing his own daughter! And the daughter became very much afraid – naturally. She started rushing about, hiding herself in different forms. She became a cow, and the God became a bull – definitely a Hindu God! When the woman becomes the cow the God becomes the bull.

God is responsible for everything happening, including children's rape. 

[Pierre]

@Dodo Yeah, sure, what is is (Isis, ha ha!)

Anyway, this idea that value doesn't exist is grotesque. The smallest of our decisions is based on value. Atoms get together to form molecules because it has more value. What Leo ate at breakfast is a value-choice.

Of course I mean it in a much broader sense than traditional moral value. That is just one set of static social values.

Value is what boosts evolution (towards God if you want), and the values that go down the ladder can legitimately be considered wrong.

 

[Prabhaker]

11 minutes ago, Fidelio said:

If you have a desire to harm someone, you aren't enlightened. There is a difference between accidentally stepping on an ant, and going out of your way to step on an ant.

An enlightened person can kill someone, it doesn't mean he enjoys killing. Killing can be out of compassion. Sometimes not killing someone can cause more harm.

[Dodo]

10 minutes ago, Fidelio said:

I can't believe I was trolled out of retirement. And why is everyone up so late in America?

If you have a desire to harm someone, you aren't enlightened. There is a difference between accidentally stepping on an ant, and going out of your way to step on an ant. You can't accidentally rape someone. People who "accept themselves for who they are" and use that to justify raping or killing are called psychopaths.

And also: Annie has cats. Cats meow. It's what they do. But did they like their new cat food?

Everyone acts based on their level of consciousness and based on what they identify with.

We are mostly identified with our programming, and it is ok, but the truth lies before the programming.

This means that those who you perceive as bad programs are not the actual program, but the root of the program. And this root is also you and me and the only thing there is.

So to radically accept the reality of the present moment, not even opposing evil, because you know it is only illusory, a bad fruit. 

If you were in the rapist shoes you would rape too, because it is already the case.

There is no separate you to separate you from the rapist.  How to judge after having this insight? You can only judge as part of the game, the game doesn't judge the bad characters, because it programmed them in place.

 

 

[Pierre]

Let's embrace our humanity, judgments included.

[Prabhaker]

7 minutes ago, Pierre said:

Value is what boosts evolution (towards God if you want)

Morality is not spirituality. Morality is a social politics. When you kill someone , you are a murderer. When you kill thousands in a war with enemy nation , you are a Hero. 

An enlightened person can't do anything wrong, even if he is killing someone. Sometimes killing is inevitable. 

[Dodo]

12 minutes ago, Pierre said:

@Dodo Yeah, sure, what is is (Isis, ha ha!)

Anyway, this idea that value doesn't exist is grotesque. The smallest of our decisions is based on value. Atoms get together to form molecules because it has more value. What Leo ate at breakfast is a value-choice.

Of course I mean it in a much broader sense than traditional moral value. That is just one set of static social values.

Value is what boosts evolution (towards God if you want), and the values that go down the ladder can legitimately be considered wrong.

 

This is the game of snakes and ladders. But it's all based on the dice. Where you're born, what conditioning you get and other factors.

The individual pawns have no choice whether they hit a ladder or a snake. Do you judge the pawn that hit a snake? Makes more sense to feel companion for the bad luck. 

If you accept that there is no free will, this metaphor makes perfect sense.

[Bastian]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Hehe, they cannot be killed! They are literally immortal for all of eternity.

I think you're wrong about this. They have no way to know for sure that consciousness will remain after physical death. It's just speculation

[abrakamowse]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

"This rapist is a lovely person, one of God's creatures. I understand that he only broken an arbitrary law which our community has created. But, he broke the law, for which there are consequences! So I will put him to death. I will chop off his head with my own hand because that's what our community has agreed to as the proper punishment, and I swore that I would uphold the law when I took this job."

That makes me remember a part in the Bible where a soldier goes and asks John The Baptist about what he should be, because he was a soldier and he had to kill enemies. John said "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely--be content with your pay."

He didn't tell him not to kill... 

[eputkonen]

9 hours ago, Alii said:

Haha  I don’t know if I’m just that narcissistic with my judgement, but the LAST thing I would imagine an enlightened person to be doing is eating a cheeseburger at the cheesecake factory.  After reading that insight I felt like all my beliefs of what an enlightened person would look like were shattered. This resulted in me wondering what a person has to be like (in everyday life) to be “enlightened”.

It would be better to not hold onto any image or belief of what an enlightened person would look like. 

A caterpillar could interview as many butterflies as he wants...and then say to himself, "now I know what it to be a butterfly."  But one day that caterpillar will enter the cocoon and when he comes out...the first thought will be, "I never thought it would be like this."

I can say there are no limitation on what an enlightened person could do. 

Eating cheeseburgers, pizza, fried chicken, or whatever is fine.  It does not matter what they eat.

Some may teach or become monks, but others could be taxi drivers, waitresses, plumbers, entrepreneurs, etc.  It does not matter what they do for a living.  Even homeless vagrant is possible.  There is even a story of one who woke up in prison (From Onions to Pearls)...so even in prison there may be enlightened people.

I would say the most outwardly visible trait is the one the Buddha spoke about.  Enlightenment is the cessation of dukkha.  Dukkha is often translated as suffering, but could also mean discontentment or dissatisfaction.  So the enlightened person doesn't really suffer anymore and is satisfied/content with himself/herself and life.

There were may teachers and "gurus" that talked a good game and many were convinced they were enlightened, but then Trump was elected as president in the US.  Suddenly, some of these teachers/gurus Facebook posts were nothing about how the world is ending, this is not right, etc, etc.  The suffering and discontent was visible to all.  Now if it was a flash and passed (like surprise and disappointment)...I wouldn't call that outright suffering and discontentment...but for many of these teachers it was days, weeks, or months on angst.  They exposed themselves (in my opinion) of just talking a good game but not being enlightened.

So if you have problems, fears, worries/anxieties, guilt, etc. (i.e. suffer)...then you are not enlightened yet.

[Bastian]

2 minutes ago, Snick said:

@Bastian Consciousness doesn't know anything. You are that consciousness.

The body-mind for sure know it will die! But those enlightened body-minds knows that they are not self aware, therefore they know nothing really dies! 

Not sure I understand you. What do you mean by "consciousness doesn't know anything"? I 'd rather say that the body-mind doesn't know anything.

[Loreena]

22 minutes ago, Snick said:

The body-mind appear IN consciousness, not the other way around. Consciousness is not arising within the body-mind. Consciousness is aware of the body-mind as well as of all the thoughts, sensations and perceptions that arise in the body-mind.

The body-mind is a machine so to speak. If the "machine" is not enlightened it thinks that the awareness of the thoughts is a property of the body-mind. 

Enlightened persons, know they are not that very person, but EVERYTHING. Including the one with the gun. Living this understanding is hard though, because we are not wired to understand it! 

We are wired to be naive realists in every possible way. Just analyze your visual system. You are never "see" anything really. Definitely you don't see anything outside your brain. And definitely not with your eyes. Your visual system analyze the light unconsciously and then the brain "build" a model that suits its interests. Thats why a stone can look like a wolf in the dark, it's wired to protect you and filter information. It highlight with magnitude that which is important. 

In relative realm of things, nonduality and enlightenment is the most stupid thing. Life is an ongoing happening, if you really enjoy it, you never questioned deeply. It's unnatural to seek the truth in a way. And it's definitely unnatural and a sign of failure to LIVE the truth. Thats how paradoxical it is! 

What if consciousness appear in body-mind ?

[Loreena]

@Snick Ghost in the Machine. 

[Dodo]

15 minutes ago, Loreena said:

What if consciousness appear in body-mind ?

The way I see it currently is that the bodymind is another aggregate form of consciousness, so is no different ultimately, just like ice is ultimately water, but it has other properties now, until it goes back to it's natural state.

What do you think

Just like you need to apply cold to make ice, you need to apply resistance and ignorance to make body mind.

All our muscles are made from resisting gravity for example.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Dodo

[electroBeam]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Absolute Infinite Nothingness.

Yeah but the illusion is still real. Just because its essence isn't real, doesn't mean its appearance is. 

rape itself is an appearance, like everything, but appearances are still real and important. And don't think you can step outside the stream of appearances. Your desires are appearances, your feelings about things are appearances, your dislike to rape someone is still a very real appearance. You're a slave to appearances, even after realizing their true nature. Your body has inbuilt desires that just pop out of no where which control your entire life. 

And thank god the 'real world' exists. Thankgod all of this bullshit exists, because if it didn't, god wouldn't exist. For god to exists, he needs a complement, i.e. bullshit. Its just an existential fact, as Lao Tzu says 

Quote

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;

It is the center hole that makes it

useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it

useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes which make it useful.

Therefore benefit comes from what is

there;

A window is only useful because of the emptiness it contains. God only exists because of the bullshit that he produced. 

[Pierre]

I found a good translation of what Leo is trying to say, with an added maturity and nuance that make it much more acceptable:

"It is indeed the basic intuition of Zen that there is an ultimate standpoint from which "anything goes". But this standpoint does not exclude and is not hostile towards the distinction between right and wrong at other levels and in more limited frames of references. The world is seen to be beyond right and wrong when it is not framed: that is to say, when we are not looking at a particular situation by itself - out of relation to the rest of the universe. Within this room there is a clear difference between up and down; out in interstellar space there is not. Within the conventional limits of a human community there are clear distinctions between good and evil. But these disappear when human affairs are seen as part and parcel of the whole realm of nature. Every framework sets up a restricted field of relationships, and restriction is law or rule. (...) The realization of the unswerving "rightness" of whatever happens is no more manifested by utter lawlessness in social conduct than by sheer caprice in art. As Zen has been used as a pretext for the latter in our times, its use as a pretext for the former is ancient history. Many a rogue has justified himself with the Buddhist formula, "Birth-and-death (samsara) is Nirvana; worldly passions are Enlightenment." This danger is implicit in Zen because it is implicit in freedom. Power and freedom can never be safe. They are dangerous in the same way that  fire and electricity are dangerous. But it is quite pitiful to see Zen used as a pretext for license when the Zen in question is no more than an idea in the head, a simple rationalization."

Alan Watts, Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen (1959).

[abrakamowse]

5 minutes ago, Snick said:

You are not the machine! It's obvious if you examine any thought! 

The body-mind come up with thoughts and decide what thoughts that pops up into your consciousness, you never decide that! 

But again, this misunderstanding is a part of Gods trick, part of his magic so to speak. Not sure if its a good thing to look behind the scenes really. Body-minds can't help being wired for duality. 

I had the feeling that the body mind creates the thoughts and consciousness picks up which one is the one needed to experience.

Consciousness is the discriminator that the advaita vedanta teachers talk about. But I don't know, just guessing.

[Loreena]

8 minutes ago, Dodo said:

The way I see it currently is that the bodymind is another aggregate form of consciousness, so is no different ultimately, just like ice is ultimately water, but it has other properties now, until it goes back to it's natural state.

What do you think

Imo, body mind is a physical entity, like a machine and consciousness is the software that runs on it. If the hardware is bad, the software cannot last long. If the software is bad, the hardware loses its value. But in case of body mind the connection is deeper and the correlation is stronger so they impact each other equally.

[abrakamowse]

3 minutes ago, Loreena said:

Imo, body mind is a physical entity, like a machine and consciousness is the software that runs on it. If the hardware is bad, the software cannot last long. If the software is bad, the hardware loses its value. But in case of body mind the connection is deeper and the correlation is stronger so they impact each other equally.

But how that sensation of physicality is created? If there's no consciousness we wouldn't be knowing that there's a body. That's why I think that the body is inside consciousness. In fact there's no inside or outside, but you got the idea...

Edited May 24, 2017 by abrakamowse