Do You Really Want To Be Enlightened?

This is a very comforting image - :relieved:

Thank you for sharing. I can certainly relate to aspects of this, Its so good to have various approaches and descriptions regarding dhamma
:smiley:

Is it important that it’s comforting, and then for who …

What about that it’s all basically a sad story this ongoing movie?

Maybe this is why western teachers and Ajahn’s don’t like to talk about asubha …

This was a helpful book for me:

Shinran founded Jodo Shinshu, the largest Buddhist tradition in Japan. Jodo Shinshu began when Shinran left the monastic life, married, and had children. As such, it’s always been a family-oriented and lay-oriented form of Buddhism.

The central practice of Jodo Shinshu is reciting the name of Amida Buddha, who Shinran explained as the Buddha-nature in all things, for our future rebirth into the Pure Land, the realm of Nirvana.

Thank you for this. It is interesting - but personally I’m about 110% Theravadin myself :anjal: :smiley:

If the Buddha taught 84,000 paths to enlightenment, that undoubtedly includes Theravada Buddhism as well. Here are some examples:

Having traveled to Thailand and Burma in his youth to investigate the Southern Tradition of Buddhism, Hsuan Hua wanted to bridge what he perceived as a rift between the Northern (Mahayana) and Southern (Theravada) traditions. In an address to Ajahn Sumedho and the monastic community at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery on October 6, 1990, Hsuan Hua stated:[7]

In Buddhism, we should unite the Southern and Northern traditions. From now on, we won’t refer to Mahayana or Theravada. Mahayana is the “Northern Tradition” and Theravada is the “Southern Tradition.” […] Both the Southern and the Northern Traditions’ members are disciples of the Buddha, we are the Buddha’s descendants. As such, we should do what Buddhists ought to do. […] No matter the Southern or the Northern Tradition, both share the common purpose of helping living beings bring forth the Bodhi-mind, to put an end to birth and death, and to leave suffering and attain bliss.

On the occasion of the opening ceremony for the Dharma Realm Buddhist University, Hsuan Hua presented Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda of the Theravada tradition with an honorary Ph.D. He also donated a major piece of the land that would become Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, a Theravada Buddhist monastery in the Thai Forest tradition of Ajahn Chah, located in Redwood Valley, California.

Hsuan Hua would also invite Bhikkhus from both traditions to jointly conduct the High Ordination.
Hsuan Hua - Wikipedia

The Basic Points Unifying the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna is an important Buddhist ecumenical statement created in 1967 during the First Congress of the World Buddhist Sangha Council (WBSC), where its founder Secretary-General, the late Venerable Pandita Pimbure Sorata Thera, requested the Ven. Walpola Rahula to present a concise formula for the unification of all the different Buddhist traditions. This text was then unanimously approved by the Council…
Basic points unifying Theravāda and Mahāyāna - Wikipedia

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… i am thinking, if i practice extinguishing defilements, and keep up meditation practice, this should have some satisfying effects.

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Well, we all seam to value thinking … but there are just a few saying out loud that they believe in their thinking, and in practice itself thinking is not so important as direct knowing, and one doesn’t get to knowing by thinking as far as I have experienced yet

And when one regard the numbers of practitioners disrobing after maybe a decade of more in “right practice”, it just adds to the confusion about thinking.

And I’m not so sure about the dogmas around openness and sharing of attainments among those in robes and us supporting the same. In Buddhas time there was plenty of awakenings, without that doing any known harm to the Dhamma - Lord Buddha himself did confirm this on many occasions, and it’s written down for us to sit and think some more about …

But it’s all right if one is satisfied with the way it is, as my concern is the question of do I really want to be enlightened or do I stop for some more thinking and confirming that this is sound practice the way Buddha meant it?

One thing is sure enough, and that is to say that my loyalty lies with my own heart more than different organisations here

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Forever in deep gratitude to the wise one

Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu anumodana :anjal:

Seeing surety inside or outside is no guarantee, even if it persists. Even the test of time is not perfect, but it can be a helpful indicator. I am glad not to have to wade through claims of attainments, because i might disregard a comment of benefit to this path, based on that and the utterly pointless agreements or disagreements about others. I earnestly hope for the liberation of every one of you, in this life (or when/whereever :slight_smile: but my own mortality tick tick ticks and I want to spend this life well. Is this not the ultimate non delegatable responsibility of sentience?

:slight_smile:

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The way Luang Por Chah, and Lungtha Maha Boowa confirmed it is sufficient for me, because i relay on monks that trained with those teachers and matured in knowing by directly living and practicing in the environment made around those distinguished beings.
Maha Boowa is said to have claimed it directly, and Luang Por Chah indirectly, but me myself have received most of all of the important teachings from their spoken or written words, or by listening to those who actually met these and made their different aspects available as skilled teachers, and being thorough monks themselves by not disrobing so easily

That is good enough claiming, just walk the talk

If everybody run around claiming, it would just be tragic, but I don’t believe I would fall for teachers putting on quite a show … I do believe i know enough to see for myself who is true and who is faking

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When the Buddha stopped reciting the Rules, many were there, but only one identified, confronted, and eventually bodily threw out the corrupt monk in the assembly. It seemed he thought he could bluff them all.

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“Suffering exists, but no sufferer can be found.
Actions exist, but no doer of actions is there.
Nirvana exists, but [no one] who enters it.
The Path exists, but no one who enters it.” - (Visuddimagga, 513)

Question: Who suffers and wants liberation?
Answer: no sufferer can be found.
Question: who is on the path to enlightenment?
Answer: no doer of actions is there.
Question: do you really want to be enlightened?
Answer: there is no one who enters it.
Nobody gets enlightened whether they want it or not.
What would you do with it if you ‘got’ enlightened?
What is it that is gotten and by who?

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Well friend @laurence - this is kindergarten for this blob of feelings and it understands that the show must go home, but where is it located exactly?

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In a community of people where everybody thinks the same, thinking has stopped

Are you asking for the time-space coordinates of a timeless insight beyond the perception of infinite space?

No, maybe asking for something or a kind of response from outside of the learned boxes that ordinary practitioners usually throwtell each other

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I burst out laughing at the video at the start- his body language…!

Mahayana (?) seems to use words to contradict each other- and to end in ‘nothingness’. This to me however if a mental state (citta) devoid of thought (vitakka, vicara) lasting only a brief second. Not really enlightenment, in any shape or form, though there is equanimity. In fact, it contains ignorance, as impermanence is not seen, nor its unsatisfactoriness (it great- enlightenment, actually), nor its not-self (nothing to stop believing it is me who was enlightened). Note how he ‘owns’ the bit of drama he creates…!

True enlightenment comes from seeing the truths of causality and tilakkhana, or in short, the Four Noble Truths. At the point it happens it is thunderstrike moment. It cannot be intentionally given rise to, using conflicting sentences. It arises from gradual practice, of the N8FP; samatha and vipassana. It is a samadhi past the samadhi of the 8th immaterial attainments. Its a sudden rise, not stepwise. Nothing is perceived, not even the mind. To claim it is meaningless as claiming mastery over a stroke of thunder. All clinging, all phenomena, is at an end. It is beyond space, beyond consciousness, beyond emptiness. It is leaves suffering behind, like a rocket leaves the empty fuel rockets behind… to fall back into the atmosphere. This is sometimes accompanied by rapture lasting hours or days. I mean here the arising of the ‘Dhamma eye’, the first glimpse of Nibbana at stream entry.

with metta,

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yes, at least it puts a smile on my face, and that is in itself a bit uplifting - btw, thanks for your contribution, it’s as usual insightful and gentle :anjal:

As said before do I really appreciate when questions as this arise, because they make me a little bit crazy, and maybe that energy is something that will drive the process further here …
And another aspect I found being skillful, is to check out other teachings without loosing one’s footing in “our” ways of doing it.

Have you seen/tried these (direct pointing) before?

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yes, it can knock out from our hands what is comfortable, and hence, allow for something deeper.

Yes, someone once said they understand the world solely through football. :rofl: It helps to, …or there is no option but to…, see relative to ones own current understanding.

I have tried it many times- or more specifically, it has happened to me many times. Its really good to stop the semantic chatter for a bit. But I think most people who do samatha meditation can recognise that for what it is. There is another thread about Mahayana practitioenrs not practicing dhyana anymore and I wondered if this was why they value ‘thoughtlessness’ so much. However I cant rule out a distant memory of the Dhamma eye, handed down from generation to generation, but later becoming corrupted with sunyata (emptiness), and lack of pragnapti (concepts) and so on, without the real understanding of how to get there being lost. I can see how the Buddha would disagree with a non-verbal form of transmission, as it would be easily become confusing, but may have actually happened.

with metta

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Which video?