How did Buddha know he achieved enlightenment?

[duendy]

Leo,
Being coherent, wearing clean shirts, sitting up straight, and drinking tea are all ultimate experiences, but you want the supernatural instead. I would say you take normal existence for granted, and don't appreciate the miracle we call the ordinary.

d_-_- WO YEAHHHHH! that is so true. and it blows my mind how many people DO seem to take ((((THIS))) here for granted. i am not saying to just be happy with 'sobriety'...there are also means for inspiring deeper play. BUT the ones who believe in escape....the eventual attainment of some spiritual pie in the sky with golden roads, or bejewelled jewwled vistas...it's all so childish to take as an actual static state. the whole point is everying Is changin, Is alive...isn't that what alive means...that it is changing....have you ever seen those old films where they have some charaters on the film set and they sky behind is really cardboard and still. it always made me laugh. real sky is in continuous transfomation....yet how many adults ever even LOOK at the sky, the colours, and shapes. not many. they are too tied down with the oppressive need to survive

But this world is mindblowing. why is it that many men-preligions want out? That question's really interesting to look into


(Not to say that your idea isn't interesting, that we are only the visible projections of a being that exists in many dimensions, like the tip of an iceberg.)

yeah. many dimensions. we can feel many dimensions throughout the day with our moods. also when we have had a glass of wine--the dimension chages...a stok of some good draw, a differnt quality....an hallucinogen....Wo YEAHHHHH.....but all these different dimensions are a living continuum. you cant hod up A state, callin it 'en-light-enment' and slag all the other stages of the spectrum off as thogh they are lesser. And thus make people feel like shit when listening or reading your beliefs

 

[Leo Volont]

Leo,
Being coherent, wearing clean shirts, sitting up straight, and drinking tea are all ultimate experiences, but you want the supernatural instead. I would say you take normal existence for granted, and don't appreciate the miracle we call the ordinary.

(Not to say that your idea isn't interesting, that we are only the visible projections of a being that exists in many dimensions, like the tip of an iceberg.)

But the problem with the Ordinary is that it leaves us feeling no better than spiritually abandoned animals in the clutches of an inexorably materialistic fate. Only the Miraculou offers evidence and Hope of Divine Providence. A great Philosopher had said that even if there were a God, but if He were not Benign and Providential, it would be all the same if He did not exist at all. It is Miracles which prove the Benignity and Providential Qualities of God.

Also, the Miraculous offers a good tool for discernment. I recently, on line, ran into a Self Proclaimed Sat Guru who claimed to be Leader of the Next Great World Spiritual Dispensation and that he Ranked even above Mary the Blessed Virgin, laughing at Her pretention to be Queen of Heaven. What do you suppose made me certain that he was a fool and pretender? It was that he obviously had absolutely no Supernatural Assistance. No Visions, No Prophecies, No Miracles... No Truth.

 

[VitalOne]

If you feel 100% completely satisfied (not optimistic) in any situation, all the time, and feel neither pain nor pleasure, then you have achieved enlightenment.

But imagine explaining a feeling to someone to has never felt anything like it.....it's like explaining color to a blind man.

 

[Leo Volont]

yeah. many dimensions. we can feel many dimensions throughout the day with our moods. also when we have had a glass of wine--the dimension chages...a stok of some good draw, a differnt quality....an hallucinogen....Wo YEAHHHHH.....but all these different dimensions are a living continuum. you cant hod up A state, callin it 'en-light-enment' and slag all the other stages of the spectrum off as thogh they are lesser. And thus make people feel like shit when listening or reading your beliefs

But there are Categorical Distinctions and Levels of Enlightenment, and sometimes it may be absolutely dangerous to be stuck on too low a level.

I had recently encountered on line a self-proclaimed Sat Guru who was convinced he had achieved the Ultimate Enlightenment, but by his discription he had only experienced his own purely Atmic Soul uncontaminated by any Mental of Emotional veils to his own Glorious Spirit. But rather than being a boon to his own Spiritual Development, the perception of His Own Glory led him to taking on the Meglomanical Delusions of being a New Lucifer -- that His Own Glory equaled or exceeded even God's. Rather than seeking Spiritual Union with God, he dreaded the very idea of Merging into God as destructive of his precious Individuality which he was convinced must exceed any Glory that God might Contain. And so great was his own personal Glory that he quite saw it as the Duty of the Entire World to pay tribute to him. To him, God was just an Abstraction, but he himself was Real, and he quite expected everyone to see it exactly the same way in those exact terms. He was amazed that so many people were treating him like a crank and a crack pot. Indeed, it was refreshing to finally meet somebody who was obviously more of a 'crackpot' than even myself!

 

[Leo Volont]

If you feel 100% completely satisfied (not optimistic) in any situation, all the time, and feel neither pain nor pleasure, then you have achieved enlightenment.

But imagine explaining a feeling to someone to has never felt anything like it.....it's like explaining color to a blind man.

But that is just the achievement of detachment, the goal of the Stoic or the Buddhist. It leads to no very high Moral Development, but can lead counter to Morality, because, as you say, being Satisfied with Everything, the Stoic or the Buddhist is quite Satisfied if everyone else is Rotting in Hell. Buddhism saw this flaw and corrected it with Mahayana Buddhism, but Greek and Roman Stoicism perished at the hands of a Moral Christianity, with perhaps most of the Stoics seeing the error of their ways while they Converted.

The Higher Enlightenment is to Realize the Atmic Individual Soul as but a facet in the World and then the Universal Soul of God, Brahma.

The tipoff is that the Soul who only experiences an Individual Enlightenment is arrogant and proud of his own Glory. The Saint who experiences the Enlightenment of Participation in Godhead, is humbled by the Experience.

 

[VitalOne]

But that is just the achievement of detachment, the goal of the Stoic or the Buddhist. It leads to no very high Moral Development, but can lead counter to Morality, because, as you say, being Satisfied with Everything, the Stoic or the Buddhist is quite Satisfied if everyone else is Rotting in Hell. Buddhism saw this flaw and corrected it with Mahayana Buddhism, but Greek and Roman Stoicism perished at the hands of a Moral Christianity, with perhaps most of the Stoics seeing the error of their ways while they Converted.

The Higher Enlightenment is to Realize the Atmic Individual Soul as but a facet in the World and then the Universal Soul of God, Brahma.

The tipoff is that the Soul who only experiences an Individual Enlightenment is arrogant and proud of his own Glory. The Saint who experiences the Enlightenment of Participation in Godhead, is humbled by the Experience.

So what you are saying is that enlightenment is just the realization of knowledge, rather than a state of true happiness? Actually, in the state of what you call detachment, you would be neither happy nor unhappy by any experience, you would just act as your consciousness flows.

 

[Leo Volont]

So what you are saying is that enlightenment is just the realization of knowledge, rather than a state of true happiness?

What you call Knowledge, I would call experience. Knowledge has too much of the booklearning connotation to it. Conscious Experience is really what Enlightenment is about.

Also, you keep refering to happiness. Happiness is positive, but detachment and depersonalization is typically a contented neutral at best. Stoics were known for their coldness, not for their Joy. Their goal was Peace of Mind, which shunned both the pursuit of a positive happiness as the Trap of Desire, and the avoidance of Pain as the plague of Fear. What was left after that was a Neutrality, not an Ananda.

What gives Joy, Ananda, to those who Experience God is that God substantially is the Love Force which binds together Parents and Babies, close friends, lovers (when love goes beyond just sex), and all things that Attract as desirable. God is the Unifying, Organizing, and Collecting Force. It by its very Nature provides the Sensation of Ultimate Fullfillment.

Of course, any Satanist would tell you that the sense of Pride that comes with pillage and conquest also has its thrill. I remember what Genghis Khan told the Newspapers about what provided him with his happiest memories... he said "I am happiest when I can sit in the place of honor in a man's own home with the man in chains before me, and enjoy his favorite possessions and watch his wives and daughters be raped right before his face and then murder him while my laughter still rings in his ears".

So there is a distinction between those destined for Heaven and those destined for Hell. Those destined for Heaven enjoy Love and the sense of Togetherness and Communion. Those destined for Hell enjoy only Victory and Conquest. Stoics occupy the territory in between, shunning Conquest on the one side, but rejecting love on the other.

 

[duendy]

If you feel 100% completely satisfied (not optimistic) in any situation, all the time, and feel neither pain nor pleasure, then you have achieved enlightenment.

But imagine explaining a feeling to someone to has never felt anything like it.....it's like explaining color to a blind man.

Is what you assert an IDEA, or are you seriously telling us you never feel pain or pleasure?

i can't imagine a state WORSe than feeling no pain or pleasure. that is NUMBNESS!

 

[BeHereNow]

Is what you assert an IDEA, or are you seriously telling us you never feel pain or pleasure?
i can't imagine a state WORSe than feeling no pain or pleasure. that is NUMBNESS!

No, it is contentedness.
Contentedness dictates no numbness.

 

[BeHereNow]

True being is beyond sweet or sour, hot or cold, pain or pleasure.
Relative terms such as these lose meaning.

Is what you assert an IDEA, or are you seriously telling us you never feel pain or pleasure?

Not an “idea”, but not lived every moment, of every day, by this one at least.
An “ideal” of sorts I suppose, although it is the weaknss of words that allows me to say that. Not a true statement, but leaning towards the truth.
If I were a monk I would be living it every moment.
All belief systems call us to various levels of participation.
Even Atheism can be practiced more sternly by some than others.

 

[duendy]

True being is beyond sweet or sour, hot or cold, pain or pleasure.
Relative terms such as these lose meaning.


Not an “idea”, but not lived every moment, of every day, by this one at least.
An “ideal” of sorts I suppose, although it is the weaknss of words that allows me to say that. Not a true statement, but leaning towards the truth.
If I were a monk I would be living it every moment.
All belief systems call us to various levels of participation.
Even Atheism can be practiced more sternly by some than others.

look. if i sneaked up on you, with a large pin. you are sat not knowing i am behind you, and i suddenly stick the pin in a particularly sensive part of your anatomy.

what will you feel? pain or pleasure?

 

[BeHereNow]

look. if i sneaked up on you, with a large pin. you are sat not knowing i am behind you, and i suddenly stick the pin in a particularly sensive part of your anatomy.
what will you feel? pain or pleasure?

I’ve already agreed I don’t live it 24/7, so I will answer as me, the potential monk. OK?
I believe I can be in a constant state where the pin is a cool summer breeze brushing my skin, neither pain nor pleasure.

Different, but:
There are recounts (more than stories) where monks have been given many hits of microdot. Good stuff, did not phase them. They continued their social interactions as if nothing happened. At the next visit of the American the monk was eager to have more of the mind candy. I believe this is from one of my Ram Dass readings years ago.

 

[duendy]

I’ve already agreed I don’t live it 24/7, so I will answer as me, the potential monk.

d__ right. the one who has heard a belief, and wants to EVENTUALLY 'get there'.

OK?
I believe I can be in a constant state where the pin is a cool summer breeze brushing my skin, neither pain nor pleasure.

d__you sound like you are ashamed of natrual feeling. of the natrual reaction to suddenly being pricked and going 'OUCH' like most people all over the world do, AND animals, and insects, etc. they may not say 'ouch' but they naturally react. you seem to think this bad.
so, ok, i haven't got a pin now, i've got a really sharp knife. and i stick it in you. do you feel it like a ' gentle summer
wind' then....? if you DO, then you aren't going to repond are you, and you'll bleed to death? if you go 'ahhhh, what a feeling of a gentle summer breeze' you are walking, leaving a trail of blood, going paler and paler, and soon you will die! so it is GOOd to feel pain, no? it is Nature's way of informing. then when someone DOEs caress you, in the hospital bed after, you can then really appreciate that pleasureable caress. C'est Le Vie


Different, but:
There are recounts (more than stories) where monks have been given many hits of microdot. Good stuff, did not phase them. They continued their social interactions as if nothing happened. At the next visit of the American the monk was eager to have more of the mind candy. I believe this is from one of my Ram Dass readings years ago.

you know this is all about 'males' wanting to DOMINATE emotion, Nature, ABANDON. they do this to feel 'bigger' than Nature, the feminine. but really theys just scared cats

 

[BeHereNow]

d__you sound like you are ashamed of natrual feeling. of the natrual reaction to suddenly being pricked and going 'OUCH' like most people all over the world do, AND animals, and insects, etc. they may not say 'ouch' but they naturally react. you seem to think this bad.

I can not help what you hear. I did not mean to express any feeling of shame. It may be that under certain circumstance you feel shame and I feel merely being. This should not surprise us, the reverse is probably equally true.

Yes, I would say I try to avoid being reactionary.
And you see reactionary to be a good thing.

you know this is all about 'males' wanting to DOMINATE emotion, Nature, ABANDON. they do this to feel 'bigger' than Nature, the feminine. but really theys just scared cats.

What you say may be true, certainly I see much truth there, but not because of what I have expressed.
I seek to abandon the self. I suppose when this happens we do control emotion, nature, etc. We control it by leaving it alone and saying it has no effect on us. It is the self which will feel the sting of the knife. The ego. I seek to be beyond the self. Beyond the sting.
I do not seek to control nature, as you suggest. I seek to control (eliminate) the self, if I am successful, nature is controlled as well. It can be no other way.

I do not eat donuts so that I will become fat, but if I eat donuts, I will become fat.

 

[duendy]

I can not help what you hear. I did not mean to express any feeling of shame. It may be that under certain circumstance you feel shame and I feel merely being. This should not surprise us, the reverse is probably equally true.

d__But i DON'T feel shame. i am not ashamed to go 'OUUCH...fukin HELLLL that HURT!!!!!" whereas you dream, or feel wone must seek not to feel hurt but constantly feel 'summer breezes'.

Yes, I would say I try to avoid being reactionary.
And you see reactionary to be a good thing.

d__ i react when i read things that seem false, or i want to explore more =, challenge and find out


What you say may be true, certainly I see much truth there, but not because of what I have expressed.
I seek to abandon the self. I suppose when this happens we do control emotion, nature, etc. We control it by leaving it alone and saying it has no effect on us. It is the self which will feel the sting of the knife. The ego. I seek to be beyond the self. Beyond the sting.

d__so your premise then is: the 'self' is ...bad, wrong, ignorant. and from therer you idealize a 'Not-Self' that is superior and don't feel pain, or any of those 'nazsty emotions'. so you then seek out this belief you have chosen.

I do not seek to control nature, as you suggest. I seek to control (eliminate) the self, if I am successful, nature is controlled as well. It can be no other way.

d__actually being/self/one's nature and Nature are same. we aint been dropped INTO Nature, we have grown out Of Nature. we ARe Nature.
most patrircahl religions, which include much of Eastern beliefs--assukme that 'spirit' is ssuperior to Nature, and that Nature is 'maya' and 'mara'. so then the task is to ESCAPE the 'entanglment of delusion/mara'. it is interesting to note that in Hindu mythology, 'Mara' was the god of the underworld. translated into modern lingo, 'mara' = 'the unconscious'. the source of emotions, and feelings....... so really you are trying to escape your depth of being, and fly off to a 'spirit place' that is ABOVE and transcendent from all the 'messy stuff'. i see this as a male drem and childish at that!

I do not eat donuts so that I will become fat, but if I eat donuts, I will become fat.

so. don't EAt donuts. end of problem

 

[duendy]

no. not a 'male' dream. a patriarchal dream. not all males feel that way

 

[BeHereNow]

I’m familiar with mara etc with the traditional Eastern religions.
Zen does away with much/all of that. “Much” for those who choose and “all” for those who choose.
There are no deities, good or bad.
I believe in mystical experiences.
I believe many shamans/monks have completely natural mystical experiences. The goal of this ultimately is to “realize” we are one with nature (there are many other ways to phrase it, but that will do). Not know it, not understand it, but realize it.
Psilocybin and religion (or belief system) share the characteristic that they can mimic, augment, induce, this natural mystical experience, but they also can get in the way. Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware).

If you want to say mystical experiences/lives do not exist, I can not prove you wrong.
I believe most people do not want to have a mystical experience or mystical life.
I believe many people who think they have a mystical life or experience are under delusion.
I do not believe that what works for me would work for most people.
I follow my belief system because it offers me the ability to have mystical experiences (with or without inducements).
Some claim to have mystical experiences they never expected, sort of “hit by lightning”. By having a structured belief system I am making myself into a lightning rod. If you are intent on being hit by lightning, I believe you can make it happen.

I believe the self is not the real me.
Self is not bad, wrong, etc. Self is a mirror that blocks my vision of the world.
Its trite to say you can’t put it into words, but you can’t put it into words. Isn’t that what the mystical is all about.

 

[duendy]

m

Psilocybin and religion (or belief system) share the characteristic that they can mimic, augment, induce, this natural mystical experience, but they also can get in the way. Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware).

d__let us understand what we mean by 'mystical'...you use that term quite a lot. i have been interested myself in that term, and have stuff about it in my notes, but for now will have to talk about it from memory.
mystical really originates from EaSTERN metaphysicians, especially from the Upanishads, where there is the idea of a 'One' and a 'Many'...the latter is seeen as an illusion, and a hindrance, and ignoreance which gets in the way of realizing the former.
EARTH religion, or the pagan variety (checkout From Orphism to Gnosticism, at google, to study this in more depth) of religion is more NOt dividning a sacred from a proffane. their way is CELEBRATORY, and the other mystical way uis usually ascetic--in the sense of 'purification'. so for example, the idea of 'meditation' which has come from mainly Buddhistic monasticsm is the practice of pacifying the natrual being. as you say, you sant a kind of stasis of everlasting 'summer breezes'. whereas Earth religious orgia--as inspired with psiloctybin would be the utter abandon into the extremes of sensual and emotional expression. an abandonment to erotic energy. and of course that is not acetic but celebratory--celeBRATING life, diversity, naturalnature and Nature, and is participatory, in that one will have these rituals in Nature and PLAY WITH surrounding and others, rather than the more introspective formal ascetic meditation technique where you sit still for hours with eyes half shut cutting off the outside world
When Buddhsts and Zennists warn about hallucinogenic expreience they are warning about becoming 'entangled' in all of that. their philosophy interprets 'all that' as 'Maya' and 'Mara'....now it gets interesting. the etymology of those words are connected with the Goddess/Feminine and 'MATTER'/Nature. thus their warnings are revealing their FEAR OF Nature which they equate with the Feminine. yes? they see it as a TRAP of the MALE spirit

If you want to say mystical experiences/lives do not exist, I can not prove you wrong.
I believe most people do not want to have a mystical experience or mystical life.
I believe many people who think they have a mystical life or experience are under delusion.
I do not believe that what works for me would work for most people.
I follow my belief system because it offers me the ability to have mystical experiences (with or without inducements).
Some claim to have mystical experiences they never expected, sort of “hit by lightning”. By having a structured belief system I am making myself into a lightning rod. If you are intent on being hit by lightning, I believe you can make it happen.

I believe the self is not the real me.
Self is not bad, wrong, etc. Self is a mirror that blocks my vision of the world.
Its trite to say you can’t put it into words, but you can’t put it into words. Isn’t that what the mystical is all about.

basically you want what the person taking psilocybin wants.....ECSTASY. a sense of release--from the humdrum. from boredom, routine. being 'me'...etc.and WHY not!!! when we eat certain foods we get pleasure. wehn we do activities we do them for pleasure--some of em anyway. YET....there is enormous prejudice and even a drug war against people who wanto to eat or drink hallucinogenic foods! i have been severly abused by a contingent of Buddhists when mentioning hallucinogens. so this fear and prejudice is failry shared by a cros section of the community

but where me and they--the ascetic differ. is they seem to believe in a permanent 'mystical' stat. and i see it as a coninuum. that there is nothing wrong with profane bordeom, and all the emotions including pleasue and pain, but also we must have freedom for ecstasy and the integration coming FROM such deep explorations------especially in Nature. we NEEd to bond with Nature. look at what's being done to it, bt a soul-starved mindset!

 

[Jolly Rodger]

wouldn't he have just said one day, wow i am feeling great, i am going to tell everyone how i live, so they can be enlightened to how to feel how i am.....