Can humans reach enlightenment?

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by Grantywanty, Nov 1, 2007.

  1. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    What do you think enlightenment would be like? Or maybe a better way to ask: what do you hope it is like?
     
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  3. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    Why don't you like it? Is it misleading? wrong?

    Why do you say 'destroy' insecurities?
    Why not find confidence, etc.?

    If it is not difficult why haven't you done it yet, other than having fleeting experiences of it?
     
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  5. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    I am not sure how this relates to enlightenment. It sounds like you want to stop existing.
     
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  7. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    A complete cessation of suffering.
     
  8. VitalOne Banned Banned

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    The term can mean a variation of things that I wouldn't consider actual enlightenment

    It is your insecurities preventing you from having confidence, if you wanted confidence then you should destroy your insecurities...and also if you had destroyed all insecurities, defiling impulses, destructive thoughts, etc...you would naturally have confidence, unlimited confidence, as well as enjoyment, freedom, happiness, perfection, you would be who you really are, not pretending, suppressing, and suffocating yourself

    So if you really wanted to find confidence then you would destroy your insecurities, defiling impulses, etc...

    The reason I haven't done it is because the deep-rooted insecurites within me try to prevent me from confronting it
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2007
  9. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    For example?


    I could see this the other way. It is a lack of confidence that leaves one insecure. And this is not simply playing with words. A child who has gone through something terrible in relation to one or both parents may very likely be insecure. I think walking around thinking they have to destroy their insecurities is misleading. Certain experiences did not give them the confidence others may be more likely to assume. If, however, they can find that confidence through new, positive experiences the insecurities, which to me are more like a lack, disappear on their own.



    Then perhaps it is difficult, after all. Your use of 'deep-rooted' implies this. I am not sure the idea that it really is easy is a helpful one. I think it can add to feelings of shame or guilt that one has not done this 'not difficult' thing.
     
  10. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    And you are still alive, I hope?
     
  11. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Yes - as in body being alive and person being functional.
     
  12. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    So we have a functioning living person who is not suffering at all. And that seems like a good definition. I want to note how little razzmatazz there is in this definition. No oneness of the universe or overwhelming wisdom, etc. etc.

    And for me it points to first and formost not torturing ourselves.
     
  13. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Yes and yes.
     
  14. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    I made a thread over in philosophy about your definition. I wanted to move it away from Eastern Religion, because I am pretty solid about how the Buddhists, for example, think we end suffering and I would like to see a wider set of responses.
     
  15. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Okay. (But I don't think I can contribute much there.)
     
  16. VitalOne Banned Banned

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    Well it can mean simple understanding to some, knowing something, giving up all desires, etc...and many variations of things I don't consider true enlightenment

    I don't understand how you can see it like this...

    A lack of confidence can only exist if insecurities, defiling impulses, destructive thoughts, etc...exist within you, not the other way around, a lack of confidence is caused by a feeling

    All problems are simply negative feelings, that's all they actually exist as, how can a lack of confidence exist without the feeling, thought, insecurity, impulse, et.c..causing the lack of confidence?

    When there are no more destructive feelings, insecurities, defiling impulses, etc...there are no more problems, not simply in perception, but quite literally, physically in reality

    Yes, difficult to a certain extent, but not as difficult as most think, they think you have to meditate for 50 years or something
     
  17. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
     
  18. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    I can appreciate VitalOne's take on the issue. It seems to me he isn't going into how that insecurity came about, but only on the fact that it is there.

    And I think this is all that really matters anyway.

    One could spend lifetimes in analysis, trying to work out how this or that in one's psyche came about, all the connections and causes, Freudian style.

    Or one could focus only on how to better oneself, right here right now, without poking into old wounds.

    I think it is scary, for many people too scary, to detach oneself from one's past this way - as one could feel one has found oneself in a void, things seem meaningless, life worthless.

    But I imagine a Japanese warrior, a samurai, and I don't think he has got his peace of mind neither by having been born perferct, nor by nothing bad ever happening to him, nor by poking into old wounds. He must be having a completely different approach.
     
  19. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    One could. But the Freudian route is very mental and too much of the processing takes place in the analyst's brain. There are vastly more direct ways of getting at roots.

    But If it doesn't interest you, it doesn't. I would never suggest to my teenage son, for example, that he 'destroy his insecurities'. Nor would I suggest that his problems come from 'defiling impulses'. And whatever consideration goes into my not suggesting that attitude to him also keeps from finding it good - to be very general - for me.

    To me Vital Ones ideas include a kind of self-hatred.

    I don't see them as mutually exclusive.
    I see people doing this all the time, both consciously and unconsciously. There are a wide range of platitudes we use with each other and ourselves to do this. The business world offers many examples of positive thinking, not thinking about the past, never dwelling on the negative, get over it and so on. Certainly there are subcultures that linger and get stuck and are mental about the past without ever actually dealing with it. But I hardly see these subcultures as dominant or the only way of approaching this. If one is attracted to the other camp, disclipline based, suck it up approaches abound: the military, the business world, traditional pedagogy, whatever ESt is calling itself these days, ashrams, temples, monasteries can all help one squeeze out those portions of the self one deems defiling or worth destroying.
    Denial.
    Anyway. They are mythologized figures. What makes you think they have peace of mind. They are trained not to show their minds or feelings.
     
  20. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Your son is not a Buddhist or Hindu, is he? If he's not, then using specific Buddhist or Hindu terminology would not be appropriate. Whereas for someone who is a Buddhist or Hindu, it would - although even then, the person's familiarity with the terminology must be taken into consideration.


    You seem to think that our thoughts, emotions are part of the self.
    I think that in the conventional sense, they are, yes. But otherwise, no.


    I would say that this is a very Western interpretation.
    I think a Westerner would have to be in denial, would have to be trained not to show their mind or feelings - in order to appear like a samurai.


    I admit, I inferred that. But I have some athletic training under my belt and I have some notion of what it's like and what it takes to be really good at something. "Peace of mind" is a good way to put it.
     
  21. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    One, I think a lot of Buddhists and Hindus would avoid such terminology.
    Two, a battered wife may learn to get used to thinking her name is bitch.


    Well, it sounds like you are on the Buddhist end of things.




    I've read about their training and it appears to me they also needed this kind of training. And cultures, of course, train us not to seem like what we are.




    If I look at top atheletes I do not see a group that is especially peaceful.
     
  22. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Perhaps. But they are likely familiar with the "three poisons", "uprooting of defilements" and so on, and those terms aren't offensive to them.


    Yes, which makes me wonder how much further we can take our conversations.


    Professional sports is a rather dog-eat-dog world, yes.
    But my comment wasn't about them - but about being really good at something in relation to one's own accomplishments.
     
  23. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    Which was my other point: people can get used to thinking poorly of themselves. If we look back in time we can see all sorts of class, race, etc. situations where people thought it was OK (with exceptions) to being called this or that. That many peasants thought the royal family were noble and closer to God doesn't therefore mean that the demeaning way nobles referred to peasants was somehow ok or grounded in reality.

    there are many who would teach us to do the same on the inside. set up a caste system, complete with untouchables, or all that nasty lower chakra stuff.




    Yeah, I got that feeling a few days ago. Ah, well. We'll see what happens.



    I was responding to 'what it takes to be really good at something'. Clearly they are very good and clearly they are not at peace, in general.
     

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