Is The Key To Enlightenment Stripping Concept From Reality?

[Joseph Maynor]

I can see how non-dualists think all is one if you strip concept out of reality and just take what is in the skandhas in the moment as what is real.  Am I off target here folks?

Take the case of my mom.  One might contend that my mom is part of me when I sense her, and only those elements in my skandhas are really real.  Therefore, my mom is mostly concept.  Am I making sense?  Thinking of my mom as real is like taking a little nugget of idealism and adding it to reality.  What is in my skandhas that I call my mom is not the same as the concept of my mom that I might choose to cling to or to release in a moment.  But reality is not bothered at all by whether I cling to or release that concept.  Therefore, whatever reality is is independent of that concept of my mom that I am clinging to.  My mom is really just a collection of items in my shandhas that change every moment.  Visuals, audibles, touches, etc.  That's my mom really.  And there is no cause to separate-out these items from my skandhas and label them as a separate thing.  That too would be clinging to concept.  Reality just is.  Furthermore, there is no cause to bifurcate reality because that would be clinging to concept, like taking a little nugget of idealism and adding it to reality, looking at reality as though you were looking through a warped lens.  Have I gotten it finally folks!  I think this is the big insight here.  At least one of the biggies.

And this is changing me, this realization.  I can already feel myself transforming.  So, this is not just intellectual masturbation here.  This is an epiphany basically.  The second one I had on here.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[ajasatya]

33 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Am I off target here folks?

no. you're on track. keep going.

if you say that Reality just is and that separation is a concept, then what is it that says "my skandhas"? what is it that possesses skandhas?
you don't have to verbalize an answer. you don't have to answer it here. just contemplate the question and go further.

46 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Have I gotten it finally folks!  I think this is the big insight here.  At least one of the biggies.

it is one of the biggies. but be careful not to think that you're done. if you notice true enlightened masters, you'll see that they completely embody Truth. they think, speak and act naturally accordingly to their insights. their moral behavior is straightforward, clean and compassionate. they move their bodies gracefully in calm and relaxed ways.

the more i read and meditate, the more i appreciate the term self-mastery that @Leo Gura uses. for me, it feels like becoming a servant of Truth.

[Joseph Maynor]

16 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

no. you're on track. keep going.

if you say that Reality just is and that separation is a concept, then what is it that says "my skandhas"? what is it that possesses skandhas?
you don't have to verbalize an answer. you don't have to answer it here. just contemplate the question and go further.

it is one of the biggies. but be careful not to think that you're done. if you notice true enlightened masters, you'll see that they completely embody Truth. they think, speak and act naturally accordingly to their insights. their moral behavior is straightforward, clean and compassionate. they move their bodies gracefully in calm and relaxed ways.

the more i read and meditate, the more i appreciate the term self-mastery that @Leo Gura uses. for me, it feels like becoming a servant of Truth.

Yeah skandhas is a concept, you're right.  Think of what I'm referring to by the word though which is -- what's in your experience in a moment.  That's what I mean.  Skandhas is just a way to communicate that in writing or speaking.  It's a pointing to awareness basically.  But I see your point, even that is a concept that adds a little nugget of idealism to reality.  Reality is independent of concept.  If I do not cling to any concept, nothing in reality changes for me.  If I release any concept, nothing in reality changes for me.  I'm sure you get what I'm trying to say here.  It's hard to write clearly about this stuff, but I am trying very hard.  It's laborious.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[SOUL]

Stripping concept from reality being a key to enlightenment is a concept that would need to be stripped from reality as a key to enlightenment then.... jussayin

Edited June 28, 2017 by SOUL

[Joseph Maynor]

6 minutes ago, SOUL said:

Stripping concept from reality being a key to enlightenment is a concept that would need to be stripped from reality as a key of enlightenment then.... jussayin

No, I'm talking about accepting or releasing a concept.  I advance no theory.  I can observe reality without accepting a concept of reality or a concept of me.  I could release those concepts with no change to empirical reality.  That's what I'm saying.  It's expressed conceptually, but I'm referring to awareness, accepting, and releasing only.  I also don't like the word empirical reality but I'm using the term to mean a snapshot of awareness in a moment.  It's hard not to use that term.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[SOUL]

@Joseph Maynor Well, actually, if stripping concept from reality is a key to enlightenment then even the concept of stripping concept from reality as a key to enlightenment needs to be stripped.... or it isn't.

This is why I try not to apply conditions to the unconditional or limit the infinite...so I just let it be and be at peace with what it is.