--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajranatha@> wrote: > > > > On Dec 5, 2007, at 4:28 PM, Alex Stanley wrote: > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <rick@> wrote: > > > > > > > > I may be misjudging this, but I'm sensing a "I'm taking my > > > > football and going home" reaction in Rory's and Jim's desire > > > > to drop out because they were shut down for a week. Not that > > > > it's their football, but somehow they seem miffed. As if they > > > > were asked to take a timeout from the game and their response > > > > was, "I'm quitting altogether. I didn't want to play this game > > > > anyway." > > > > > > I didn't see it that way. What I got from their posts is that > > > taking a break let them reflect and see how futile it is for > > > them to argue with those who haven't "died" in the dark night > > > and had their perspective flipped inside out. My guess is that > > > they're looking at the status quo knee-jerk reactions to today's > > > posts and thinking they made the right choice in bowing out. > > > > Dying in the dark night? Samadhi is death, and I'm sure more > > than a few here have experienced this, but not everyone has > > long, drawn out "dark nights". > > Vaj makes an excellent point IMO. > > There seems to be an assumption on the part of > both Jim and Rory that because they went through > a period they refer to as their "dark night," > everyone has to do so. > > There seems to be a further assumption that > anyone who questions their claim of not only > permanent realization but the upper ranges of > it is to be looked down upon because they're > obviously still going through their own "dark > night." > > As Vaj said, more than a few of us here have > had our own realization experiences. We are > *not* disbelievers in enlightenment. Been > there, done that. It's a real thing. Despite > how we have been characterized, it has never > been our intention to pooh-pooh the existence > of enlightenment.
Are you sure *anybody* has characterized you as pooh-poohing the existence of enlightenment? > What I pooh-pooh every so often is *claims* > of enlightenment by those whose pronouncements > about that the pathway to enlightenment must > be preceded by a "dark night" just don't > strike us as accurate. I didn't get the impression either Jim or Rory was saying any such thing. Nor, for that matter, did I get that this is what you were criticizing them for. I thought they were talking about surrender, letting go of ignorance. <snip> > I know others whose experience is similar. > Some are Buddhists who, like me, managed to > stumble upon experiences of enlightenment -- > some fleeting, some less so -- but never > experienced Buddha's first noble truth, > that life is suffering. "Life is suffering" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a "dark night" experience, first of all. And second, the usual understanding of Buddha's "Life is suffering" is that Buddha was defining ignorance relative to enlightenment. If you've led a relatively happy life, you may not even realize you were "suffering" in this sense until you're enlightened, in other words. The second noble truth, of course, is that suffering originates in attachment. Since nothing in life is permanent, if you're attached to anything, you will suffer to some degree, because what you're attached to won't last. I mean, this is pretty basic stuff, you know, Buddhism 101.
