How Much To Go Full Buddha?

[Chrissy j]

How much work is it really gonna take? To get all this super deep understanding of everything? For high level or full enlightenment? For all this wisdom and growth mastering this stuff? Mastering nonduality, consciousness, knowledge, wisdom, growth, etc. To becoming a sage? Is it really possible without a life purpose dedicated to doing this stuff? If your life purpose isn't centered around mastering this stuff will you really have the time to do this in life with another life purpose happening? If your a writer do you have the time to do this? Wouldn't you need to be a nonduality teacher or something like that to reach these levels? A life focused completely on it? It doesn't seem possible to me to be honest. What do you guys think?

Edited August 8, 2017 by Chrissy j
Added to it

[Guest username]

I wonder about this a lot myself, and from what I've studied I don't even know if there really is a limit to how deep you can go and to the nuances of the matter. I'm giving it a go of mastering one "practical" domain (math) in tandem with mastering non-duality, but if the work requires figuring something out to go all out on spiritual practice, I might go that way. 

All the enlightened people I've studied, despite having very strong consensus on some things, diverge wildly. It seems as if there's no end to the multiplicity and  to the insight to be acquired on this path.

[Chrissy j]

I want to be able to learn and master all this shit. But I don't think I want to just be a standard teacher. I think it would be cool to bring these ideas into me being a creative making things like comics. I want to be able to go full Buddha and master this stuff on the side while I master my LP in this niche. I'm just wondering if this is just a limiting beleif of me saying I can't do both. All this stuff together is hard  this sage stuff seems tough. 

[Prabhaker]

37 minutes ago, Chrissy j said:

A life focused completely on it?

Full enlightenment happens in many lives, masters like Buddha are very rare. You have no limits but your body has limits so this journey is very long.

[Erlend K]

Even within Buddhism there are muliple different conceptualizations of enlightenment. To reach traditional Buddhist enlightenment (arahatship/fourth path) you should first practice samatha untill you gain access to the jhanas, and preferably samadhi. This can be done in 1-3 years of about 1 hour practice a day pluss some short retreats. You can skip this and do dry vipassana, but this can lead to prolonged, painfull duka nanas, and is not what the Buddha taught. 

After this you swich to vipassana to reach stream entry. The best way to reach stream entry for a housholder is in retreat. Many westeners reach stream entry during a three month mahashi retreat where they meditate 16 houres a day.

Reaching second and third path is more tricky. Some say you should keep doing mahashi right away when the insight cycles start again shortly after stream entry. Others claim that mahasi is ineffective for reaching second path. Getting to fourth path is supposedly very different from the first three, but I dont know much about it. Most arahats achieved forth path in a monastic setting. If you ever get this far, doing a lenghty retreat under the guidance of someone who have completed forth path themselves is probably your best bet.

If you want to go this path finding good teachers are key. 

Edited August 8, 2017 by Erlend K

[Telepresent]

2 hours ago, Chrissy j said:

But I don't think I want to just be a standard teacher

I work in a university setting, and I sometimes think that academics don't realise that not all postgrad students want to become professional academics as well.  However, that often looks like the only path available, because if you're doing a PhD, the only people teaching you, mentoring you, etc., are people who did PhDs and then went on to become academics.

I often think the same thing happens here.  People seem to assume that the end of the path has to be teaching or somesuch.  But guess what?  The people teaching are the people who did the work and then chose to teach it.  They're a limited role-model stock, not the be-all and end-all

[starsofclay]

3 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

Full enlightenment happens in many lives, masters like Buddha are very rare. You have no limits but your body has limits so this journey is very long.

I was going to say something similar to this. You should learn as much as you can before you die, but to answer your question fully, it most likely won't happen in this lifetime, unless you have been working on this for many lifetimes and somehow cognize with one of the masters (buddha, christ, God himself), or your higher self who remembers all of the work you have put into it in the past. Otherwise, just learn what you can and hope you will cognize in a future life. If you don't believe in reincarnation, then you may either end up achieving this, or very disappointed.