Are YOU on the PATH? I hope not.

[Cramulus]

since I've already got the scanner warmed up, here's a few more comics from Zen Speaks about enlightenment














I also like that signature that Kai used to use under the "Buddhist Monk Wannabe" handle --- Ten million buddhas in the world -- 99.99% just don't know it yet

[The Wizard Joseph]

Not sure where I read this story, but it stuck.

Student: Master, what is the key to attaining enlightenment?

Master: Awareness.

Student: Could you expand on that a little?

Master: Awareness awareness awareness.

The thrust of the idea was that being aware of the self and it's reactions to an outside world you are also sharply aware of can allow a person to simply choose to be happy, swift, flexible, or whatever even when sad, alone, scared, or any other "negative" state.
(or vice versa)
This chosen feeling is felt simultaneously with the illusion from the outside. 
It is no less an illusion, but realizing the non-reality of these perceptions can allow the mind to choose reactions spontaneously or with deliberation.
 
To me this personal control/letting go is the fruit of simply being mindful at all times while not bothering to react if you see no point.
Of course, once you have consumed the fruit, the fruit is part of you and no longer an object to look at and (inadequately) describe.

[BabylonHoruv]

I'll disagree with the OP, but very specifically.  I see enlightenment as a normal, if brief and rare, mental state that can be entered by almost any human brain.  I see it as a product of removing certain aspects of conditioning and rationality (via drugs, stress, or intense concentration (among other things)).  The result of this is terror, perspective, and new understanding.  

Because this mental state physically exists, then it should not be rejected.  And if you enjoy the terror and understanding, then it should be persued.  But because this mental state physically exists, it should not be treated as something extraordinary or mystic.  

So: Enlightenment exists, but it's not special.

Sure it is special.

Enlightenment is special, orgasm is special, sheer existential terror is special, laughter is special, That burst of adreneline that a mother gets when her child is trapped under a car that lets her lift it is special.  

Just because all of these things exist and can be explained with rational processes does not stop them from being extraordinary, or mystic.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Tuth. Everything is either mundane as fuck or utterly amazing, just depends how you choose to view it.

[Epimetheus]

You will still have your addictions, flaws and your endless hate against stupid people and so on.

I have no hate for people, I really don't. And it took some realizations to achieve that. And if you call enlightenment that moment where you "get it", then yes, I was enlightened in some respect and achieved (or fell into) hatelessness. I also would accept any mystical metaphor phor the experience. But I guess that's a conversation for a different, too-many-times-rehashed, thread.
To deny that there is a progress or path in life is the wrong denial, I think. On the other hand, to deny that you must go somewhere or do something or progress along a path to be at peace, enlightened, or whichever word you're using; that would be a denial I agree with.

[Worm Rider]

I apologize for the length of this reply. My intention is not to hijack, but to clarify my own thoughts I have been fomenting, and share. These thoughts were brought to a head by this thread, and I composed this little essay in response.

There is an allegory about a dove, who, feeling the resistance of the wind against her wings, imagines that she would fly faster without any air at all. Of course, this is false because it is the wind that holds her up, and in a vacuum, the beating of her wings would indeed encounter no resistance, and thus provide no upward or forward thrust.

This brings to my mind the contrast between freedom, free will, the power of the will, and the measure of control we can have on our lives and our world versus all that we cannot control, all that is handed to us as is. God hands us lemons, we decide what to do with them (my favorite answer is say "Lemons! I love lemons! What else do you have?").

Hypothetically, we all want freedom and happiness. This is subjectively true for me. However the thought experiment of the experience machine points out that happiness and freedom alone are not enough. The experience machine removes the resistance that life offers us.

In a metaphor from physics, this is why a perpetual motion machine won't work. If we completely remove all resistance, how will the moving parts of a machine find any purchase to move? Each individual part will simply glide past every other moving part like dark matter, not interacting at all with the other parts. In order to interact with the world, you must have resistance.

This goes straight to the meaning I find in life. A life without any resistance would be meaningless. I am happier not getting what I want all the time.

Morrowind is a computer game in which you are a character exploring a fictional world. The game is open-ended; you can do whatever you want and define your own goals -there is no single way to "win". This game is able to be modified by the player, and you can pull up a console in which you can change any part of the game. You can give your character superhuman powers of flight, give them every magical spell and weapon, make them invisible and invincible. You can fly around the world and kill all of your enemies with mind bullets, take anything you want with telekinesis, walk on water and breathe underwater. There really is nothing you can't do. If you try cheating this way once, you won't ever do it again. It is terribly boring. The game becomes the dumbest, most pointless game ever. Imagine a simple game: push the "g" key on your keyboard. Oh my God wasn't that fun! Too easy right? Not enough resistance?

I have always been paralyzed by choice. I hate ordering at restaurants. I just want them to give me some good food, but I don't want to decide. All the best things in my life have happened to me accidentally. Living in a world where I instantaneously got whatever I wanted would mean that I had to constantly decide on what I wanted. What if I want to be surprised? What if I want some contrast? What if I don't want every meal to taste like the best meal in my life? Wouldn't that make everything insipid? What if life already is perfect because it is not perfect?

If you owned everything in the world, where would you put it?

If you tricked the genie by wishing for infinite wishes, when would you stop wishing? When would you meet life on its terms, rather than cheating?

Wishing for enlightenment carries the same pitfall. "Well, if I could just have a state of mind where I wasn't bothered by all of life's little annoyances and setbacks and enormous tragedies and cancers and that little pain in the back of my neck..."

Maybe wishing for enlightenment, even though you know it is unwise, is just another of life's little annoyances you must accept by saying "Lemons! I love lemons! What else do you have?"

[BabylonHoruv]

Personally I enjoy cheats because they allow me to explore and experience games in ways that I could not otherwise.  Mind you I will not usually use them, especcially when I first play the game, but after I have played a while and either defeated it or found that it is beyond my capabilities then cheats become much more interesting.  They let me get into places that I can't otherwise and do things that I can't otherwise.  I don't play to win, I play for fun and there are times when cheats create a novel experience that is more fun, for a while, than playing the game normally.  There are also some games which include cheats that actually make the game harder and those can add to the fun as well.  Personally I like my experience to be as customizable as possible, and if I could apply this to real life I would very much appreciate it.

[Reeducation]

Cool. My thread didn't die yet. 

@ Cramulus 

That's a great comic. I found that same item from a flea market about two weeks ago.

[Triple Zero]

This brings to my mind the contrast between freedom, free will, the power of the will, and the measure of control we can have on our lives and our world versus all that we cannot control, all that is handed to us as is. God hands us lemons, we decide what to do with them (my favorite answer is say "Lemons! I love lemons! What else do you have?").

I don't understand. They're not actually lemons, but a metaphor for unpleasant things.

In the original saying, that means "When life gives you unpleasant things <lemons>, make the best of it / turn it into a positive <lemonade>".

Your answer is kind of confusing and nonsensical, "Unpleasant things! I love unpleasant things! What else  do you have?". If you love them, they're no longer unpleasant, so they're more like grapefruit or something.

Hypothetically, we all want freedom and happiness. This is subjectively true for me. However the thought experiment of the experience machine points out that happiness and freedom alone are not enough. The experience machine removes the resistance that life offers us.

actually, the machine is supposed to provide happiness without freedom (because you decide your fate the moment you get in), in order to show that just happiness is not enough.

however, your point about resistance is good. I believe Nigel called it "challenge" in another thread, I think that's an even better term.

Imagine a simple game: push the "g" key on your keyboard. Oh my God wasn't that fun! Too easy right? Not enough resistance?

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

this game is too hard.

I have always been paralyzed by choice. I hate ordering at restaurants. I just want them to give me some good food, but I don't want to decide. All the best things in my life have happened to me accidentally. Living in a world where I instantaneously got whatever I wanted would mean that I had to constantly decide on what I wanted. What if I want to be surprised? What if I want some contrast? What if I don't want every meal to taste like the best meal in my life? Wouldn't that make everything insipid? What if life already is perfect because it is not perfect?

In the restaurant, don't look at the menu, order last and pick something that your friends ordered, the one that sounds best. That way, you reduce your choices to three or four, and in addition you reduce the chance that during the meal you look at another plate and think "hmm I wish I had ordered that instead" (because you got the same as at least one other plate).
For some reason I used to always think you're all supposed to order something different in a restaurant. Dunno why, but I've really had  discussions along the lines of "oh if you're going to have that, I'll have the other thing". In hindsight it really doesn't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, I don't know if you're already familiar with it, but this TED Talk pretty much describes exactly what you're saying:

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_choice

Additionally, this has nothing to do with what you're saying but I've never been able to wrap my head around it, yet it allows you to mathemagically turn one ball into two balls of the same size and it makes no sense whatsoever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice

If you owned everything in the world, where would you put it?

Well, informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin. In many cases such a selection can be made without invoking the axiom of choice; this is in particular the case if the number of bins is finite, or if a selection rule is available: a distinguishing property that happens to hold for exactly one object in each bin. For example for any (even infinite) collection of pairs of shoes, one can pick out the left shoe from each pair to obtain an appropriate selection, but for an infinite collection of pairs of socks (assumed to have no distinguishing features), such a selection can only be obtained by invoking the axiom of choice.

So I guess either they'd get lost in the washer or dryer or something, or maybe I'll just put all my stuff on the moon.

If you tricked the genie by wishing for infinite wishes, when would you stop wishing? When would you meet life on its terms, rather than cheating?

Wasn't there a comic or something about this premise? Like an omnipotent godlike being, gotten so bored of being able to do everything that he wished himself a mortal life (returning to being a god again after his mortal life was over, I guess).

(But then of course, if the cat's away the mice dance on the table, and some big bad evil demigod decides to do his evil thing as long as the god is away on his mortal vacation and the plot thickens ...)

Wishing for enlightenment carries the same pitfall. "Well, if I could just have a state of mind where I wasn't bothered by all of life's little annoyances and setbacks and enormous tragedies and cancers and that little pain in the back of my neck..."

If you wish for that though, most genies would probably just kill you dead.

Maybe wishing for enlightenment, even though you know it is unwise, is just another of life's little annoyances you must accept by saying "Lemons! I love lemons! What else do you have?"

Except in this case it'd go "Lemons! I love le--GAK URK SPLATTER"

[BabylonHoruv]

One reason to all get something different in a restaurant is so that you can share, and you thus have a wider range of choices.

Of course people generally don't do this usually, but it is a lot of fun when people do.

[Worm Rider]

Triple Zero: thank you for the rather detailed response. I agree with everything you said. Except the axiom of choice thing, which I don't see how it applies. I can pick one individual thing from each of all the groups of things? There are certainly worse things in life than some lemons, and it doesn't make sense to say you love them, because you don't, nor should you. I think making the distinction between things that are actually unlovable and things that are lovable if you just change your attitude is important.

Sometimes I think enlightenment is freedom from wanting to be enlightened. Sometimes this all just hurts my head, the self-referential circles. 

[Triple Zero]

The "axiom of choice" thing is bullshit, sorry, I just got reminded of it cause it sounds like "paradox of choice", and this axiom (which is aa completely different subject) has been bugging me for years now.

You didn't mention if you already were familiar with the TED Talk or not. If you haven't watched it, I strongly suggest you do. It's like 15 minutes or so.

[Worm Rider]

Yes, I saw the talk. It has made me a lot more comfortable with my indecisiveness. I'm fairly decisive where it matters, but there are times when it just doesn't, and I can get caught spinning my wheels instead of just moving on, because I am looking for meaning where there is none.  I think decisions are best made subconsciously, or intuitively. When I get to the point where I am trying to rationalize the entirely unrational decision about what I want, I try to get back to making an intuitive choice. No amount of reason is going to help me decide if I want blackberry jam or raspberry jam when standing in the grocery store. I know some people that insist on making up post-hoc reasons for liking the things they like (my mother in law is the worst). She always has some long, well thought out explanation for her preference in wine or the color she painted the wall or whatever. She can't ever just admit that she liked it for no particular fucking reason. I think she thinks these rational explanations lend more credence to her opinions, whereas I think our opinions are just as valid as our reason, and neither needs to appeal to the other in defense of our decisions. Which is, I think, the point of "Or kill me" , i.e. no explanation necessary.