--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Anybody else identify with this? I ask because > some on this forum have characterized those of us > who have had such experiences and talk about them > openly here as somehow presenting ourselves as > authorities on or representatives of enlighten- > ment.
Maybe it's because you say things like this-- "[Enlightenment is] *just* like ignorance. Before enlightenment, ignorance; after enlightenment, ignorance. But still, enlightenment is there. And the funny thing is, at that point you realize it was *always* there." --and then have a hissy fit when someone whom *you* have determined (incorrectly in this case) has never had an enlightenment experience takes issue with your characterization. > I don't think of myself that way. Gosh, you coulda fooled me. > I don't even use the word 'enlightenment' any more; Except when you do, you mean. > it's a bad word, colored by too many meanings in too > many contexts. It doesn't matter whether you use "enlightenment" or "realization" or "awakening." Whatever meanings one word is colored by, when you substitute another word in the same context, it just takes on that same profusion of meanings. We could call it "Irving" for all the difference it makes. > I don't know what the fuck I am, > and don't worry about it overmuch. However, in that same post you said: "I've tried to tell you what I've come up with after 20 years or so of trying to make sense of enlightenment experiences." And this assertion was followed immediately by: "You keep rejecting what I say, and clinging to the illusion that you CAN intellectually understand a phenomenon that transcends intellectual understanding." Nah, no claim to authority there. Not to mention that you put me down for trying to make sense of enlightenment experiences immediately after having cited your own 20 years or so of having tried to make sense of them. And not to mention that I had no problem with most of what you said in that post. I took issue with only *one* thing you said, i.e., that enlightenment is *just* like ignorance. Of course, in your very next sentence you went on to very clearly define the difference. A major part of the difficulty in talking about enlightenment, it seems to me, is that folks-- *especially* you, Barry--don't bother to think through what they're saying. Describing enlightenment is problematic enough when you knock yourself out to be precise in the way you use words. When you use them *sloppily*, when you don't respect the exigiencies of language or the nature of dialectic, you introduce all kinds of unnecessary obstacles (especially when you allow personal animus to make putting somebody down more important than communicating). Even when you use paradox or contradiction or infinite regress--or imagery, analogy, and metaphor, for that matter--as pointers, you need to do it with awareness and precision and attention to context. If you break a rule of language or logic to try to get around its limitations, you need to know that you're doing it and *why* you're doing it. It has to be done purposefully if you want it to further rather than impede communication. It isn't possible to describe enlightenment precisely, but that doesn't mean it can't be talked about at all. It does mean that precision and care in the *way* you use language to communicate about enlightenment is crucial if the discussion is to be at all useful. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
