How Do You See The Enlightened?

Although I am fairly certain you have a reasonable expectation of what you are going to find on this site, that does not necessarily mean non-duality or enlightenment is your main interest. Of course, there is probably a high degree of interest, otherwise you would not be here at all, but that does not mean that this is all you are really into.

I have heard many sages of old saying, “If you want to make a change in the world, then you must first change yourself.” I completely understand this, as the only meaningful change is inward. But their implicit message seems to be, Do it in the way that I am doing it. OR, Don’t bother with your own selfish pursuits, be serious, go into yourself, and when you see yourself as you are, go and teach others. That is all well and good.

But what if I have no interest in teaching?

Am I to drop my natural talents in order to be enlightened the way it is supposed to be? People always think of enlightenment in terms of how it should be. And if, after all of this time, I am still only seeing what I think should be, then what is the point of it all? Once I follow the should, I am lost.

How many of us project, or have projected, thoughts similar to these?

1. The enlightened man or woman looks like this. (THIS = whatever you project about that kind of person.)

2. They have a warm smile and exude calming energy.

3. They wear certain kinds of clothes. (Based on their discipline).

4. They don’t say “fuck” or “shit.” (Nor do they write it. Oops.)

5. They are different from me.

6. I am different from them.

7. They are not over weight. (Or they ARE over weight.)

8. They don’t work, or have a job.

9. They are only interested in teaching and freeing the rest of the world.

10. They won’t marry, date, or otherwise be interested in a partner.

Here’s what’s thought about that.

1. How do I know what an enlightened person is supposed to look like? If I build the image, make it sacred to me, then rely on it like I do every other image, then what am I seeing? I could have seen one million enlightened people, but I have no way of knowing what I have seen.

2. I have known serial killers with warm smiles that exuded calm energy. That is one of the reasons why they were so successful at what they did. If you expect to see the smile and feel a shift in yourself, then you are not there at that moment; you are remembering what you think it should be, and are waiting for it to happen. Does that make sense?

3. Again, if I expect to see a certain type of dress, then I cannot be where I am. I can only be stuck in thought.

4. Who the fuck decided this one? OK, I am joking. But this is no indication of anything. It might seem like a lazy way of expressing oneself, but they are just words, after all.

5. The moment you think they are different from you, there is no relationship. There is no connection. And you will go on thinking that they have something you do not. The very thought that they are different, propels you into the belief that what you need is outside of you.

6. Don’t trust me on this, but you ARE NOT any different. If you believe that you are, ask yourself this question: Am I really different? Then, after giving your favorite 100 excuses, ask another question: Do any of these reasons exist outside of my own mind?

7. How can anyone be over weight? They can only be the weight they are. If you think you, or someone else, is over weight, then you are only seeing what you think should be there. Go into it and see it for what it is.

8. This is true and false at the same time. If one loves to do what they do, they will do it. That is it. Most people think of work as something they are not really into; they would rather be doing something else. But there is no rather be doing. There is only what you are doing. Just being. That is all there can ever be.

9. If that is a person’s true interest, then they will go sit on the stage or stand at the podium and talk. But if someone does it because they believe it is what they are supposed to be doing , then there is absolutely no meaning to it.

10. And why not?

The Mind is Slippery

These are examples of beliefs that most have, while on the spiritual path. But they are very slippery and drop in under the radar. Why? Because it is difficult to see a problem with the beliefs we hold about the enlightened. It seems less noticeable, and perhaps even, less dangerous. But those thoughts are just as insidious as any other.

When I see another person, why should I believe anything I think about them? Besides, I don’t want to think about them. I can, after all, stay at home if I want to do that. It is more fulfilling and meaningful to see the person; to be there with them as being unfolds. It is a moment frozen in time, as the past falls away. But due to the nature of being, there is no moment to be frozen. It can only exist as a monument in our memories.

I am not interested in monuments. But I am interested in the people that build them.

The first is from Nur:

A question from those of us still learning to deal with suffering and enlightenment seems far away. How does one drop beliefs about anything?
Very difficult and when one does, what then? Then you just do stuff, because you’re doing it? I don’t know if I am making sense.

I think I get what you are saying. And those are very reasonable questions. But the problem arises when one asks How? When you ask how to do it, you want someone else to show you. You want a method that is fixed, or some steps that lead to a solution.

It is easy to say, “Just look at the belief,” or whatever it is, but what is it that sees the belief? If one says that they see the belief, what it is, how it works, but they have not changed or shifted in any way, could it be that they are seeing the belief through belief? Can you cast aside everything you are, everything you have learned, everything you have become, and see belief for what it is?

When you see belief with belief, you have a conclusion about whether it is good or bad. You might look at your sorrow, but if you look at it as a Christian, or Muslim, or Atheist, you already have an idea of what it is supposed to be. You already have an idea of what everything is supposed to be. Is it possible to see something without any of that?

If you look at the sorrow, or whatever it happens to be, without your ideals, or what you have been taught, then how does it arrive? Ask yourself. How is it seen?

(By the way, Nur, when I say You, I don’t mean you personally. I just mean to say that it is a collective action within. Me or We, would also suffice.)

This bit from Alan:

It is helpful to me to drop belief about belief. If I believe that there is any thing or person to be believed as ultimate truth then that experience is all there is.

A thorough investigation of belief is wonderful, if one has the stomach for it. Looking at it now, it is a very superficial thing to realize. I don’t mean to say that it isn’t important, because it was something I went into right from the beginning. But seeing belief clearly is not THE END, as they say. But we have a tendency to be so cluttered up with all of the residual stuff from daily life, by the time we add belief into it we are ready to jump in front of a train. I found it very helpful to go into belief first, as it can take you (the self) out of the equation rather quickly. But I must have thought about it, explored it, and otherwise bored myself to death with it for more than a year.

I found that beliefs are easy to see, but the movement, or belief itself, is hard to get a hold of. I’ll take it slowly, because it can be confusing. When I say “beliefs,” I am talking about what you might expect; I am a Hindu, Christian, Republican, Wiccan, etc. This also includes thoughts such as, “I am not good enough.” “Women are bad drivers.” “Asian girls are easy.” I am this, you are that, etc. Anything we build up and trust, regardless of reality.

But when I say belief itself, I am talking about the underlying pattern that makes beliefs possible. I know it is terribly confusing, and I should just choose a word other than belief. I’ll think it over this weekend.

You could also see it as, beliefs are the programs we install, but belief itself is the machine that allows the programs to run. (Some might say that belief itself is the programmer that wrote the program.) If you just look at the beliefs as they come and go, but never see the mechanism that makes them possible, you are still there within the program. I suppose there are a ton of analogies we could use for this, so insert your own if necessary. (And if you have a better one, let me know!)

In the beginning, there is a tendency to just look at the beliefs that have little value to our identities; the ones the self won’t mind giving up. We see the “progress” and pat ourselves on the back thinking that we are doing it. So many people are there, but it is a trap. The self is still in operation picking and choosing the toys to play with.

This tendency, to investigate only certain beliefs, keeps the self held firmly in place. There is almost a twinge of pride in there, right? “I am doing well. I can feel a difference.” Your chest swells up and you feel like telling your friends about what it is like to be different. DON’T FALL FOR IT!!

Of course, that is not necessarily every one’s experience, but I am speaking for myself, after all.

And back to Nur:

When one sees the sorrow as sorrow only , the sorrow still remains. The pain doensn’t dissipate when one looks at it without a belief system. Is enlightenment painlessness or acceptance of pain? Is it that when we see the pain as pain only , it dissappears. how can it?

There may be a sorrow that is not dependent of thought, but I will not go into that right now. That is not really what we are talking about anyway.

It is not as if the pain stops, but no one is there to receive it. Pain or sorrow is actually more intense on this side, because it is naked. There is nothing that gets in the way. The self is not there to cushion the blow, so to speak. But at the same time, the self is not there to attach itself to the pain, so it is not experienced. (Again, we could get into the whole meaning of the word “experience,” but we can do that later.)

If I may, I will give an example from my own life. Recently, my uncle (the only uncle I ever really knew) died suddenly of an aneurysm in the brain stem. One moment he was eating dinner, the next moment he was down. Death was not instantaneous, but the point of no return was passed within a few minutes. My mom called me a few hours after, and gave me the news. I knew him well, and there are many memories of our time together.

Upon hearing the news, there was sorrow, but no self could take it. It was not as if I was saying to myself, “Look at the sorrow, look at the sorrow.” Sorrow was present, but it was like the wind on your face; how can you take it and attach to it?

There is great love for my uncle, but there is no sadness or sorrow at the end of that love. There is no opposite to it. There is only the expression of love that would be there, in life or death.

Which brings me to the point, often enlightenment is sought so the pain of our lives may vanish and one live in peace in bliss. But even that is a belief?

If one seeks enlightenment, what will the result be? If it is sought for any reason, then that implies that it is not here now. Any search automatically brings in the notion that there is something missing. Is that true? What is missing? Is there anything we need other than what we have? I am not talking about physical needs, or perhaps going out to get a new job, or moving to a new apartment. Anything we need, that we can get physically, is not the same as enlightenment. You can go out and makes sales and buy a new house, but you can’t go out and buy, get, coax, or otherwise bully your way into enlightenment. If you could, we would all be there.

You cannot “get” what you already have.

But I think you understand this, and I am not talking to you, individually.

What happens then, when we simply learn to be.? Is sorrow still painful?

I can  give you a good example of this, although it might not be what you are looking for. What are you doing right now? As you read these words, what is it that you are doing? Sitting, standing, lying down, or whatever it happens to be. THAT is what happens in enlightenment. YOU ARE THERE.

Are you frustrated at reading these words? Then sit with that and be enlightened. Do you think I am wrong? Then go there, see it, and be enlightened. This state is nothing different from what you are already doing. There is no difference in the way we function. If it is here, then is it also there.

We cannot “learn to be,” because we already are. Being is here at every moment. What is it that tells you differently? Question it. Find out why you need to be somewhere other than you are. Find out why you cannot see yourself as already present.

And this from Albert @ Urbanmonk.net :

Nur, I am getting the impression that you expect pain to disappear instantly when accepted. With smaller pains, it does, and you have acknowledged that in your emails. With deeper pains, it takes a lot more time, and also you might have to do some exploring to get to the root of the problem.

Hey Albert, I really like the redesign of your site. It looks great.

Something I have noticed over the past year is, when pain comes there is no longer any resistance. There is nothing that desires to resist, anyhow. Pain, or whatever, is there, but nothing can attach itself to the pain. There is no motive, or anything that might view the experience of pain as being important. So if someone asks me “Do you have pain?” I can say yes. But if there is no one to receive and hang on to it, is there pain? I could just as easily have answered No.

There is a problem with answering those kinds of questions. When someone asks me How or Do You or Why Does questions, is it because they want to know, or do they want to use my answer as the truth? As I have seen, it is not necessarily because they want to know. If someone wants to know, they will find out, without relying on outside authority. But if I give an answer, what will they do with it? Use it like a formula? What will happen then? Will anything change?

I will say this; if you want to know, then find out. But don’t rely on anyone else to give you the answer. Look within. You already have just as much wisdom as any sage on the planet.

So, get to work!

Where is the Moment?

For ages we hear the “enlightened” ones telling us they are in the moment. “We should be in the moment.” Even Takuin has said similar things on this site. (although, I’ve never said I was enlightened, or that you should be anything other than what you are.) But what does that mean? What does it mean to be in the moment? Does the “moment” actually exist?

This seems strange to me. Whenever I hear someone talk about it, they say they are “in the moment.” But is that possible? Can they, meaning their selves, be there? If they are seeing from the position of “I,” then one has to question what is really there. Is this real, and has the moment arrived, or am I still dreaming?

It even felt strange when I talked about it, because I never questioned it. I assumed that the feeling I had was in the moment. And while others tell me that is the truth, I have to question everything. And the question I ended up at is, “Does the moment exist?”

I am not at all sure that it does.

Are We Fooling Ourselves?

The very phrase, “in the moment,” would seem to imply that there is an ending of some sort. An ending meaning a temporary condition. “I am currently in the moment, unlike regular life.” As if it is a condition that will gradually pass. But is there a moment that is different from life? Or is there just life?

If the self claims to be in the moment, and there is no permanence to the self, there is automatically a dualistic separation. It treats the moment as any other condition, but puts greater significance on it for being “spiritual.” But it is still something that the self plays with.

The “I” will only fool itself into thinking that the moment has been had, as if it is something to possess. But what is there to be had? How can I touch it? How can I take it? All time has ended, so how can there be a moment?

Questions Arise 

These are questions that arise in this organism. The realization that occurred in December was the end. Or the ending of time, as some might say. So, if there is no time, meaning no self, how can there be any moment, even the moment that one is in?

(I might have jumped too far ahead, just then. I am not sure if I have talked about the self and time, and how that affects perception. Maybe that will be next week’s question? Well, at any rate, don’t take my word for it. Go into it for yourselves to try and see what is there.)

 As the body sits here in this chair, there is no “I” that is in the moment. The sensation of the moment is not here, because there is no one here. How can there be a moment without a self? There is no state to be in, and no one to be in it. This body lives, my fingers type, things happen, but no moment. How can there be a moment?

In order to be in a state, I have to stop. No, not “I.” Time enters, the self enters, and awareness ends. So the “I” surfaces in order for there to be a state. The very self becomes the state it believes is real.

Is liberation a state? Is it something to be learned or improved upon? Can one be liberated, or is there just liberation?

If there is no self, there is no time. If there is no time, there is no measurement. If there is no measurement, there is no moment.

I should mention, when I say there is no moment, I mean there is no moment to be in. If there is a moment, no one is here to be in it. We can call it the moment, as one word is just a good as any other, but it is just a word.

Is there a moment to be in, or is there just being?

The first is from Jeff @ Micropolitan Living

If we talk about time as a continuum, as we are used to doing, it is a real number line; between any two points on that line there is another point. If we define a “moment” as a point on that time line, it has infinitesimal (practically zero) duration, we pass from “before the moment” to “after the moment” in no time at all.

This is clear. Within this organism, there is no line that can be perceived. I can imagine that time will pass when I am on the train to Tokyo, but that is only useful for planning. Beyond that, there no use, that I can see, to live in that fame of mind.

We see time as it unfolds chronologically. (That is not the case inside of this organism, but I think we can safely say that most people live their lives as slaves to this kind of time.) The problem arises when the self carries that action over to everything that it does. The only way this is possible is through thought. When thought enters, time is present within the mind. But it is not enough to just use thought when it is needed. The self, being as needy as it is, really feels that it needs this time to survive. I have gone into all of this myself, and a useful question to ask might be, “Why does thought carry over in this way?” or, “What is the need behind the constant dullness that time brings into the mind.”

There is really nothing wrong with the conceptual thinking of time. It is useful for various undertakings, whether it is planning a trip to see your brother, or using Newtonian principles to land a probe on the moon. But is thought useful anywhere else? I am not saying it is or it isn’t. Just go into the question and see what comes up.

Someone might say, “What if someone attacks you? Don’t you need thought to survive or escape?” That is a great question. Ask yourself. What is the answer? If thought was important for immediate survival, instinctual survival, would we have survived as a species?

When others talk about being in the moment, most likely they are speaking the same language that we are, but it is useful to find out what is really there. How can we know that we are really coming together to find something out, if we can’t even understand each other?

But is there a “self” that is the perceiver? No. The brain, three pounds of gray flesh, is doing the perceiving. If we go looking for the self within the brain (or, more broadly, the nervous system), it disappears.

It is easy to say all of this, and because it has been written about ad nauseum, it is also easy to just swallow and repeat. When we see words like these, and we agree, what is it that agrees? Is the person that agrees really in that place, or are they just repeating? One moment, a person might be talking about enlightenment and a silent mind and there is no self, etc., and the next moment they scream at their significant other for being home late. They talk about peace and bliss, only to truly feel hate for the person that cut them off on the freeway.

I am not saying anything about anyone; just asking. What is really there?

I remember watching the stand-up of Rowan Atkinson some years ago. The one sketch I can easily remember was of him portraying the doorman to hell, as it were. He greeted all the new entrants and grouped them up accordingly and explained their fate. (Ooh, I found the video HERE) 

All of the Christians were in hell because, according to the devil, “The Jews were right.“ 

At the time, I wondered, if that were real, where did I fall on the scale? Of course, I was a teenager at that time, as near as I can recall, and those were the kind of questions I had back then.

Testing Your Fate

I took a test a few minutes ago called, Dante’s Inferno Test. I am a Heretic (apparently), and the afterlife does not look too good.

Here are the results.

Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis

---

You approach Satan’s wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.I am also moderately violent, gluttonous, and lustful, so in other words, a well rounded human being.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante’s Inferno Test

Lustful and gluttonous? I guess I can go there. At least I am only moderately violent.

There are a multitude of gurus and anti-gurus out there. All of them, it would seem, have a way, a method, a system to follow. ”If you do these things, enlightenment, freedom, moksha, will be yours. Just follow what I say. Sit in this position, chant these words, silence your mind, control your thoughts, and freedom will appear”.

How many of us do these things? How many of us sit, exhausted, on the cushion, trying to get what others have told us is here? Does anyone listen to what we are told and then question it all?

In the past, I wondered why that was the case. Why do we follow without question? Why do we keep going from one to another, only to be left in the same place?

Now, I see clearly what has, and is, taking place. The cause of my own stupidity is clear to me.

Is it clear to you?

At the end of the day all I know is, I have heard what they told me, I listened intently, and read tirelessly. Then it was all cast aside, and I found out for myself. No, not for myself; it was revealed, and I could do nothing about it. It arrived whether or not I wanted it.

It arrived despite all I did to make it happen.

Don’t try so hard. Let life happen.

Just a quick update for those of you regularly checking-in. I am now “officially” moved-in to my new place in Tokyo, but still have no internet access. It should be connected tomorrow afternoon, if all goes well. From that point on, I will be back to the regular posting schedule.

It has been more difficult to access the internet than I thought. I guess one would think the internet would be all over the place in Tokyo, and that is true, but in order to install it into your house you need anywhere from two weeks to one month. For Akiko and I, it will be right at 15 days.

I am still writing, and am looking forward to getting back to this tomorrow night.

See you all tomorrow after plugging-in.

Takuin