Enlightenment
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No! To answer both Toni Packer's questions of "are we here?" and "Can we discern it effortlessly?". It is like Buddha asking non-dual practitioners the non-local aspect of our nature.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
The open windows, fresh air touching the skin, bright sunshine everywhere, all kinds of twittering sounds, crows calling and breathing, pulsating life! Caw, caw, caw, caw.. Sensations throughout the body, breathing, beholding it, not the words, but the aliveness of it all. Can we realize now that “complete unexcelled enlightenment” is a concept?
You may sincerely object, “How can I know for sure that enlightenment is just a concept? Maybe it is real. Lots of enlightened teachers have told and written about it. So – shall we then ask together: “What is enlightenment without all concepts?”
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.Are we here?
I think wisdom should also involve the clear discernment of the entire working of our conditioning, not only the non-dual aspect of it. -
Originally posted by Thusness:
ImpermanenceÂ…
Thoughts, feelings and perceptions come and go; they are not ‘me’; they are transient in nature. Isn’t it clear that if I am aware of these passing thoughts, feelings and perceptions, then it proves some entity is immutable and unchanging? This is a logical conclusion rather than experiential truth. The formless reality seems real and unchanging because of propensities (conditioning) and the power to recall a previous experience and the experience of ‘impersonality’ may not be able to bring sufficient clarity to the ‘impermanent and dynamic’ aspect of isness presence. The bliss and peace experienced here, is still the bliss of formlessness.
just to add:
This experience somehow creates a sense of alienation. There is really nothing to alienate as the fundamental cause of suffering is not the inherent existence of evil in the transient but ignorance; ignorance of the true nature of things.
There is also another experience, this experience does not discard or disown the transients -- forms, thoughts, feelings and perceptions. It is the experience that thought thinks and sound hears. Thought knows not because there is a separate knower but because it is that which is known. It knows because it's it. It gives rise to the insight that isness never exists in an undifferentiated state but as transient manifestation; each moment of manifestation is an entirely new reality, complete in its own. This brings about the insight of non-duality but the experience of ‘impersonality need not necessarily arise. -
I see..Originally posted by Thusness:No! To answer both Toni Packer's questions of "are we here?" and "Can we discern it effortlessly?". It is like Buddha asking non-dual practitioners the non-local aspect of our nature.
I think wisdom should also involve the clear discernment of the entire working of our conditioning, not only the non-dual aspect of it.