There are so many ideas of what "enlightenment" or "awakening" or "liberation" is supposed to be like. We are, with few exceptions, terribly caught up in the story. The story is what we think we are. If on a journey of spiritual seeking, we are dismayed by the hold the story has on us; this is a clever plot twist, worthy of M. Night Shyamalan or Charlie Kaufman. No matter how clever the story, it is a story. Beingness, liberation, awakening, enlightenment, whatever we're calling it today is simply what is. There's loads of ideas of what it looks like, feels like, is like. Some of my favourites are: there is no concern for material things. The world is renounced. The world is experienced through heightened senses; auras are seen, the visual world blurs into some kind of white noise oneness, or else every leaf is stark, more itself, real-life HD. There is a detached compassion, a general unperturbance, an inability to be hurt that must certainly come from not identifying with a separate personality. A great charismatic energy emanates from the enlightened one, and everybody is drawn to them. Or, the no-personhood of the enlightened one is so pronounced that apparent others barely notice their presence. It is surmised that there is little thinking; every action is entirely spontaneous, natural, and unselfconscious. Or, when the "ah-ha" moment happens, what is changes somehow to some glorious, fantastical, enchanted version of itself, and the self, gone for good, is somehow coalesced into everything else. This is what is looked for. This is what the mind looks for in the future, but what is looked for never left. This is it, just as it is. Exactly as it is. It is enough, "now".
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Nor Hath Love's Mind Of Any Judgement Taste.
There are so many ideas of what "enlightenment" or "awakening" or "liberation" is supposed to be like. We are, with few exceptions, terribly caught up in the story. The story is what we think we are. If on a journey of spiritual seeking, we are dismayed by the hold the story has on us; this is a clever plot twist, worthy of M. Night Shyamalan or Charlie Kaufman. No matter how clever the story, it is a story. Beingness, liberation, awakening, enlightenment, whatever we're calling it today is simply what is. There's loads of ideas of what it looks like, feels like, is like. Some of my favourites are: there is no concern for material things. The world is renounced. The world is experienced through heightened senses; auras are seen, the visual world blurs into some kind of white noise oneness, or else every leaf is stark, more itself, real-life HD. There is a detached compassion, a general unperturbance, an inability to be hurt that must certainly come from not identifying with a separate personality. A great charismatic energy emanates from the enlightened one, and everybody is drawn to them. Or, the no-personhood of the enlightened one is so pronounced that apparent others barely notice their presence. It is surmised that there is little thinking; every action is entirely spontaneous, natural, and unselfconscious. Or, when the "ah-ha" moment happens, what is changes somehow to some glorious, fantastical, enchanted version of itself, and the self, gone for good, is somehow coalesced into everything else. This is what is looked for. This is what the mind looks for in the future, but what is looked for never left. This is it, just as it is. Exactly as it is. It is enough, "now".
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4 comments:
Yep, there's nothing than can beat enlightenment. Apart from mango ice-cream, perhaps.
There is no mango ice cream. It is a construct, the energy of consciousness. It is part of a story of a mango tree, grown from a seed, the mangos harvested by agile youths, the milk pulled by Frankensteinian machines clamped to the cows' unsuspecting udders. The ice cream is churned in a bright white factory, the trucks bring it to your local market. The story ends with matted chin fur. But it's just another story.
What happens to real-life HD when the signal goes out?
I seem to really love that analogy!
When the real-life HD goes there is nothingness, obviously.
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