If enlightenment is the truth, then why is it so damn difficult to get enlightened?

[taotemu]

1 minute ago, Blackhawk said:

Well, I guess I can only repeat what I said a bit earlier: everything you people say, I've already heard a million times, and it's quite possible that those things are true, but they don't help at all.

I understand this.  What if what you are experiencing in this moment actually is enlightenment?  Just sit with that.  What if this moment being exactly who you are is what it looks like and feels like?  It isn't something different.  It is like a fish looking for water.  It is all around, there is nothing to do. 

[Blackhawk]

7 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

He is attached to the dream that is the problem as I mentioned earlier 

That's why I said that especially for me it should be easy, because I don't like the dream. Not at all.

And your reply is: "you enjoy suffering".

Ok let's play with the idea that I somehow enjoy suffering: how can I fix that? How do I stop enjoying suffering?

[Inliytened1]

4 minutes ago, Blackhawk said:

Well, I guess I can only repeat what I said a bit earlier: everything you people say, I've already heard a million times, and it's quite possible that those things are true, but they don't help at all.

Well look within and ask yourself why you are seeking enlightenment.  I'm gonna be straight up here.  Enlightenment is death.  You will die.  You as a being will be exposed as an idea.  Are you ready for that?  I can answer that for you.  Absolutely not.  You as an ego just want to feel good.  And you think that by awakening as God it will fix everything.  Well, surprise surprise, you are smarter than that.   That would be way too simple.

[4201]

4 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

But it doesn't help. I don't get enlightened when I stop trying to achieve it. There has been periods when I haven't been trying to achieve it.

So you are saying that you've tried not trying in the past and it didn't work? Not trying is only something you can do now. By refering to the past you are trying to prove that it's impossible, as a distraction from letting go right now.

Enlightenment is not an achievement. What is "hard" or "impossible" is your notion of enlightenment. You can back up  your notion of enlightenment from quotes of "enlightened people" but that's not Truth, that's hearsay.

[Breakingthewall]

it is difficult because you have to be without content, empty, and since you were born you have been conditioned to accumulate content. you are the content, what you know, what you represent to others, what others represent to you, your desires, your fears. This has happened for thousands of generations, it is encoded in your DNA. It is something that makes the human an extremely efficient survival machine, so everything is correct. you are a worker with a software programmed to play your role, evolve. Nobody cares if you are happy or not, obviously. Do you think it is difficult to get rid of that conditioning encoded from the hominids? well it is

Edited August 9, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[Blackhawk]

7 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Well look within and ask yourself why you are seeking enlightenment.  I'm gonna be straight up here.  Enlightenment is death.  You will die.  You as a being will be exposed as an idea.  Are you ready for that?  I can answer that for you.  Absolutely not.  You as an ego just want to feel good.  And you think that by awakening as God it will fix everything.  Well, surprise surprise, you are smarter than that.   That would be way too simple.

So I should committ physical suicide? If not: why not?

5 minutes ago, 4201 said:

So you are saying that you've tried not trying in the past and it didn't work? Not trying is only something you can do now. By refering to the past you are trying to prove that it's impossible, as a distraction from letting go right now.

Enlightenment is not an achievement. What is "hard" or "impossible" is your notion of enlightenment. You can back up  your notion of enlightenment from quotes of "enlightened people" but that's not Truth, that's hearsay.

In the past I simply didn't try getting enlightened. I didn't try to stop trying, trying just fell off because of disinterest.

So I should let go now? Ok 1 sec... 

No that didn't work either.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Blackhawk

[undeather]

"If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.

I am not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it, I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities, I am not trying to prove it. I am just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have.

And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be."

And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.

That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have. Of playing that you weren't God, because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not God in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not."

- Some wise guy with an alcohol problem 

 

[4201]

4 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

In the past I simply didn't try getting enlightened. I didn't try to stop trying, trying just fell off because of disinterest.

So I should let go now? Ok 1 sec... 

No that didn't work either.

A nice attempt (trying) to not trying indeed 

No matter what you were doing in the past, you likely had other concerns, other struggles. Something else you were trying.

If you actually didn't try anything (for instance if you went out with friends in the past or just had fun without responsibilities), then you problably had fun.

[Blackhawk]

15 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Well look within and ask yourself why you are seeking enlightenment.  I'm gonna be straight up here.  Enlightenment is death.  You will die.  You as a being will be exposed as an idea.  Are you ready for that?  I can answer that for you.  Absolutely not.  You as an ego just want to feel good.  And you think that by awakening as God it will fix everything.  Well, surprise surprise, you are smarter than that.   That would be way too simple.

 

8 minutes ago, Blackhawk said:

So I should committ physical suicide? If not: why not?

When a frustrated seeker has been seeking for years without success, and has tried everything, at some point he/she might feel that only physical suicide is left to try, but the teachers say that physical suicide is absolutely forbidden..

[Goldzilla]

Well, is not difficult. The only difficulty is accepting your drama and the totallity of Thought, it hurts physically, but you get the hang of it in time. Is like working in a mine for a year, 18 hours a day. Somewhat, what is tiredness or pain in the beginning, was only physical and mental atrophy, nothing more. 

[The0Self]

Wanna know how you can know that you do not want enlightenment?

If you think you want enlightenment.

However, what you think you want and what you actually want might be different. If the thought “I want x” feels great, then it’s true for you.

[roopepa]

Because "achieving enlightenment" is delusion.

[Goldzilla]

This buga buga thing, or you like to call it Enlightenment. 

Gautama Sidartha is to blaim ?, go beyond this, into infinity, what we call SHIVA. 

Someone said that the buddha did not reach even 1% of the potential of SHIVA. 

[Leo Gura]

@Blackhawk Look, dude, you are simply not ready for enlightenment. Go back and do basic self-help and enjoy your life. Forget about enlightenment. Enlightenment is not for you.

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, Blackhawk said:

Especially for me it should be easy to attain because I wouldn't mind dying. I have nothing to live for. I'm already done with this life.

Enlightenment is the last thing you should probably be seeking, because you have no idea what it is, and you’ve got bigger fish to fry.

[kieranperez]

You need high quality therapy. I highly recommend psychoanalysis.

[fopylo]

@Leo Gura Maybe not yet  for him

[johnlocke18]

@Blackhawk The way I see it, mediation is proven to make people happy so I do it without worrying about enlightenment, which like you said may not be true. And I do feel like a lot of these people blindly believe it, and then preach it which causes problems.  I personally don’t believe in it. I think the gurus are just really happy from mediation like the monks they did brain scans on, and then they turned it into a dogma. 

[johnlocke18]

@Blackhawk It even makes people feel suicidal, which is why you should take what they say with a grain of salt. This is why it makes me so angry when these people blindly follow and then don’t take anyone’s criticisms seriously, because they think they’re special. Just get help from a therapist man and figure out what you want to do with your life. These gurus aren’t experts and they need to stop giving people advice that isn’t all meditation. 

[Andrea Marchetti]

1 hour ago, Blackhawk said:

But it doesn't help. I don't get enlightened when I stop trying to achieve it. There has been periods when I haven't been trying to achieve it.

And there was any problem about it back in those periods?  Or maybe the problem still was that you didn't get to it. If so then you were expecting it: you were trying to not try, in order to get it. You can't trick your mind with your mind so to transcend your mind.

You see, if you really stopped trying you wouldn't care at all if you got enlightened or not.

What is all this glamor about enlightenment? Why do you even want it? Who would you be without wanting it?

Edited August 9, 2021 by Andrea Marchetti