T
ThatGirl
Guest
What does it mean to be enlightened?
Would you want to achieve it?
What do you think you would be able to see?
Would you want to achieve it?
What do you think you would be able to see?
What does it mean to be enlightened?
Would you want to achieve it?
What do you think you would be able to see?
Life's a whole lot better when you aren't looking for enlightenment. If you want me to explain further I can, but that's really all I've seen.
What does it mean to be enlightened?
Would you want to achieve it?
What do you think you would be able to see?
The sensation of having the lights turned on.
Yeah, it has many benefits.
The contents of the room, such as the buttons on my remote, or exactly what position I am aiming for the toilet when I go to take a piss, and perhaps the stairs which I could avoid falling down on.
Yes please
I searched for enlightenment for about a year, and towards the end of the year I realized that I always had a hell of a lot more fun when I wasn't worried about how to become enlightened. I would find myself drifting off in thought, laughing to myself, and feeling relaxed. When thinking about enlightenment, I always felt like something was missing and I must do the right thing to obtain it.... but what is the right thing? This made me feel fearful, guilty, inferior, etc. etc.
I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when someone trustworthy said two things:
1: "if you are thinking, think! The very problem is that you are punishing yourself for thinking!"
So I tried giving this a whirl, and I couldn't. I was like "ok, I'm just gonna let myself think now................... trying to let myself think................. come on zago, think and be carefree............. THIS ISN'T WORKING!"
2. "people always want an authority so they don't have to be responsible for their own actions."
So I tried living without any authority; I refused to accept even myself as an authority (knowing that I have been wrong in the past and probably will be many more times). The only possible way to do this was to silence my thoughts.
I found that if you try to force something, you won't get it at all. When my thinking experiment failed, I decided to silence my mind. It was my only option. Look for the space between thoughts, and maintain it. Without words, there can be nothing missing.
At first I felt dumb (and disappointed) in my mental silence, as if I were giving up my intelligence. Over the weeks I have grown to like it a bit more, but as always, forcing it too much tends to drive me crazy. Sometimes I just let myself be myself--angry, rude, judgmental (see my contributions to INTPc for examples of this)--but I guess I am more OK with that now.
If you think something is wrong with you, you have created a perfect standard by which people should live. I live alone now, I'm in a new city, and I have no friends. I could see that as a problem, like I need to make friends or something will be missing. Actually, I have found that I quite like living alone. Whoever said that life had to be lived a certain way? If I am content, I am living a good life. Who cares what people say?
One more thing: I don't think I would have been able to silence my thoughts if I hadn't meditated for 10 weeks. I don't meditate any more, but what I found is that it is nearly impossible to silence thoughts. The mind jumps from one subject to the next, and you can't stop it. The best you can do is stop following the ones that do arise, and not yell at yourself for having them in the first place (because that's more thinking).
Meditation is all about silencing your thoughts so you were correct in doing so. The way to focus the mind is by concentrating on the breathing, that's how you focus the mind away from deviating thoughts, keep it on your breath. Of course it is difficult like any challenge but it gets easier the more you do it.
Eh. When I silence my thoughts, I am meditating... so I guess I lied when I said I don't meditate any more. I just don't see it as meditation. The only thing I improved at in my 10 weeks of breathing meditation (20 minutes twice a day, every day, half lotus position) was not scolding myself for drifting off. Subconsciously, though, I was looking for results. I wanted to see if time passed differently, or if I could enter an altered state. I was looking for signs of improvement.