mike..good advice..thank you...merle
Merle, You'll know because you won't have to ask anyone if you've awakened. Of course, a teacher can gauge the depth of awakening and what will help you deepen it. But just like you don't need someone to tell you if that McDonalds coffee is hot - with the same certainty you'll know your perception of the world has changed. Just as reality is experienced moment to moment, so is enlightenment. Our conditioning and beliefs etc. go deep and even though our initial awakening might have blown much of the dust from our eyes, some of that conditioning still remains. It's very much a work in progress! The biggest mistake to be made would be to believe that the first glimpse of our true nature is *it* and no further practice is necessary (you can see here that some people still cling to their cherished beliefs of what enlightenment is). Before awakening 'letting go' is a struggle. After awakening you simply realise there is nothing to let go of. Mike Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad ________________________________ From: Merle Lester <merlewiit...@yahoo.com>; To: Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com <Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com>; Subject: [Zen] keeping the mind in balance Sent: Thu, May 23, 2013 3:26:06 AM mike i get your drift.. however how does one know when one is awakened?... and can one be awakened permanently or does one fall back to "sleep" so to speak..and loose the drift... merle Merle, There have no doubt been many who have wiped the dust from their eyes since, and before, the historical Buddha. The important thing is that just like Sidharta Guatama, you too can awaken in this very lifetime; this very moment. Mike Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad ________________________________ From: Merle Lester <merlewiit...@yahoo.com>; To: Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com <Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com>; Subject: Re: [Zen] Re: Id, ego and super-ego - keeping the mind in balance Sent: Wed, May 22, 2013 8:21:04 AM mike..i see..thank you... can you point to me a person in history apart from buddha who has reached the pinnacle of enlightenment?..merle Merle, The only thing the Freudian concept of 'ego' shares with the Buddhist concept of the same is the name. They're quite different concepts. Check this out from www.luminousbuddha.com: "The Latin term ego was first used in a translation of Freud’s work to refer to his idea of the “I” or the reality principle within the dynamic forces of the psyche. He suggests the functions of the “I” include reasoning, a sense of self-capacity and the mediator between the polarized demands of instinctual drives and societal expectations. While he considered the “I” a mechanism of the self, he did not use the term ego. Nevertheless the word ego entered the mainstream in professional conversations of the analytic understanding of the human being as it began with Freud’s thought. As psychology became popularized the word ego entered the common vernacular to describe attitudes and behaviors considered selfish or inflated. The slang use of ego is generally a derogatory term for behaviors considered out of the range of social acceptance. Slang borrows from the inflated side of the psychodynamic description of the unhealthy manifestations of ego yet lacks a deeper understanding of its causes. In the 1970’s Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama, began utilizing the term ego to describe a neurotic process based on the ignorance of our actual situation (Trungpa, 1978) resulting in a solidified sense of self that is separate and self-referential and as such is the cause of suffering. He saw the projections of the ego as an incorrect understanding of the interdependent nature of reality and the primary obstruction to clear seeing and compassion. He borrowed aspects of the term from both psychology and modern vernacular usage. Buddhists around the world have embraced this usage of the term ego and use it regularly to describe the common illusion of a static separate self that emphasizes it’s self-importance in relation to the world. This Buddhist definition can now be understood as a unique understanding of the word ego as well. The field of transpersonal psychology has borrowed from the Buddhist usage of the term ego in the psychological and spiritual mapping of human development. The confusion that has arisen from the different usages of the term ego is significant to those in the field of psychology as well as Buddhist practitioners who have an incomplete understanding of the word in its several contexts. The general public would also benefit from a further understanding of the factors relating to the formation of an aggrandized sense of self to which the slang usage of ego refers." Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad ________________________________ From: Merle Lester <merlewiit...@yahoo.com>; To: Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com <Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com>; Subject: Re: [Zen] Re: Id, ego and super-ego - keeping the mind in balance Sent: Wed, May 22, 2013 12:33:42 AM joe... no i do not disagree however you are sweeping his work away with a very large brush.. and labelling him judging him to be unfit.. can you point to me where freud deviates from the "self "of buddhadharma merle Merle, Huh? No, Dr. Freud first used the word "ego"; I think he scrounged it from the Latin, to fill in for something in his model of the small mind as he studied neurotic Jewish ladies in his neighborhood who came to him for what he called "analysis". Freud had it right for himself and his theories; but the buck stops THERE. It's of no value in Buddhadharma. "Self" has always been the operative word, there. So far so good. Do you disagree somehow? --Joe > Merle Lester <merlewiitpom@...> wrote: > > joe.. > > can you direct me to some relevant web info on this... > so are you saying that dr. freud got it all wrong? > are we not all buddhas and demons and mixtures of both? > so why are you suggesting dr. Freud is a demon and a fraud?
