On 8/26/2014 8:51 PM, s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
Re "You are not going to get any more enlightenment than you are going
to get."
That's necessarily true by definition but isn't it a little vacuous?
>
If you can give up striving, you'll be in an enlightened state. But
striving, like craving, is very difficult to overcome. The very moment
you desire to be enlightened, you are off the program.
You should not have any thought about gaining a state of enlightenment.
All you need to do is sit and be aware. That's what real meditation is -
just sitting and being aware of being aware. There's no goal, no steps
on The Way - there is just the sitting without the striving.
There is a striving to stay alive, a striving for material things, and a
striving to stay competitive; there is even a very subtle 'greed for
views' that must be overcome. Because if you desire to be enlightened
and you strive for it, you will be creating a desire or craving.
Desire for what will not be attained ends in frustration which is a form
of suffering. How to avoid suffering? You must adopt the 'Middle Way'.
And what is the Middle Way? The Middle Way is the avoidance of extremes.
How to avoid extremes? Do not extremely avoid extremes.
>
Re "When you realize this, you will be free and there won't be any
more stress.":
Hmm. But isn't here a difference between
1) saying to yourself that nothing I do is going to make a blind bit
of difference and carrying on as everyone else does (wine, women and
song, or whatever floats your boat) and
2) following a spiritual path - meditation, say - which only makes
sense if you think the practice chosen will make *some* difference,
however little, to your life?
And re Dan's (following MMY): "Material possessions are not a means of
bondage. ":
They sure are! What we think we own actually owns us. All the
(pitifully few) possessions I have surrounding me right now are also
what help define me as a person (my learned role play in this life).
We all need certain basic essentials - and yes, what we regard as
basic has expanded over the centuries - but beyond that point
accumulating possessions is like decorating your prison cell. It makes
you feel more at home (and so apathetic) but the point is to break
down the prison walls and escape!
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote :
On 8/26/2014 9:38 AM, Share Long sharelong60@...
<mailto:sharelong60@...> [FairfieldLife] wrote:
Thanks, Richard, cool info. I once heard from a friend that we can
fulfill those less than wonderful desires in dream state. And that
counts too but doesn't, I guess, accrue any negative karma.
>
It is obviously counter-productive to desire to be enlightened more
than one is going to be enlightened. Desiring more than one is going
to get leads to frustration, lamentation, and grief. It is impossible
to to stop desiring, and at a more subtle level, it is fruitless to
want to stop desiring more than one is going to stop desiring,
relative to wanting to stop wanting.
According to Professor A.J. Bahm, these practical difficulties do not
invalidate the principle of wanting to attain a state of
desirelessness, they merely indicate desire's universality, the
subtlety with which it operates, the reason why it is commonly
misunderstood, and the need for a special meditation to bring it into
manageable operation.
Base desire also works subtly, not merely because desires are
emotively imprecise, but especially because the desire to prevent
desiring more than will be attained is itself unconsciously desired
too much. For whenever one desires to stop 'desiring more than will
be attained', this additional, deeper desire also becomes a desire for
more stopping than will be attained. Thus this additional, deeper
desire requires its own additional, still deeper desire to stop
desiring more stopping than will be attained.
You are not going to get any more enlightenment than you are going to
get. When you realize this, you will be free and there won't be any
more stress. Any time there is stress there is wanting - even if it is
wanting less stress. The answer to this riddle is actually very simple
when you think about it.
According to Bahm, /"He who finally gives up trying to solve the
problem of frustration, thereby becoming willing to accept his desires
and frustrations for what they are, finds the problem solved."/
>
On Monday, August 25, 2014 9:16 PM, "'Richard J. Williams'
punditster@... <mailto:punditster@...> [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
On 8/25/2014 8:59 PM, s3raphita@... <mailto:s3raphita@...>
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
Re"I have never met a single TM'er who could honestly say they had
fulfilled all desires":
And yet, . . ., and yet . . . Isn't it the case that *when you are
meditating* you often enter a state in which your quotidian desires
no longer impinge on your consciousness and you are happy to remain
just where you are. True, one could say the same thing about being
asleep, but Indian philosophers have often taken the deep sleep state
as a paradigm for enlightenment. No desires = fulfillment of desires.
>
In /Tibetan Dream Yoga/, maintaining full consciousness while in the
dream state is part of Dzogchen training. This training is described
by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche as /'Rigpa Awareness'./ Lucid dreaming is
secondary to the experience of '/Diamond Light'/. Rigpa Awareness is
very similar to 'witnessing sleep' in TM, which helps the individual
understand the unreality of waking consciousness as phenomena.
Apparently the EEG patterns are the same in Rigpa Awareness as in TM.
Read more:
'Tibetan Yoga Of Dream And Sleep'
by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Snow Lion, 1998
>
