I knew you'd say that — Janus

Don't go patting yourself on the back for that. Everybody seems to know what I'm going to say. :grin: I should just keep my mouth shut!

Perhaps.. it's as simple as being able to question what it is to be unenlightened? And no, not @unenlightened, not necessarily that is. — Outlander

If there are many ways to be unenlightened, as there seem to be, why do we expect that there is only one way to be enlightened? Are there perhaps some who do not accumulate followers, do not make like social reformers and teachers. Perhaps most of them are no bloody use to us, and not even recognisable; living in barrels or monk's cells, or begging on the street, or working in a cat's home.

unenlightened — unenlightened

We're all supposedly enlightened beings (buddha nature or something like that) but the problem is we fail to realize that (simple) fact.

So, the question:

we fail to realize — TheMadFool

verb: realise
1.
become fully aware of (something) as a fact; understand clearly.
"he realized his mistake at once"

2.
cause to happen.
"his worst fears have been realized"

Kind of like we all - well most of us - have legs, but if you are not fully aware of them, you won't cause much walking to happen.

we fail to realize
— TheMadFool

verb: realise
1.
become fully aware of (something) as a fact; understand clearly.
"he realized his mistake at once"

2.
cause to happen.
"his worst fears have been realized"

Kind of like we all - well most of us - have legs, but if you are not fully aware of them, you won't cause much walking to happen. — unenlightened

Something like that.

Assuming, correctly to my reckoning, that no one alive is enlightened, we could take an apophatic approach to nirvana. I believe that's the classical, textbook method that's also practised in other religions like Christianity.

Algorithm:

1. Is unenlightened enlightened? No! Out goes everything about unenlightened - none of it is the mark of a buddha.

2. Replace unenlightened with another person.

3. Go to step 1.

We would at least know what isn't enlightenment.

Eckardt on Detachment

The mind of him who stands detached is of such nobility that whatever he sees is true and whatever he desires he obtains and whatever he commands must be obeyed. And this you must know for sure: when the free mind is quite detached, it constrains God to itself and if it were able to stand formless and free of all accidentals, it would assume God’s proper nature … The man who stands thus in utter detachment is rapt into eternity in such a way that nothing transient can move him …

Now you may ask what this detachment is, that is so noble in itself. You should know that true detachment is nothing else but a mind that stands unmoved by all accidents of joy or sorrow, honour, shame or disgrace, as a mountain of lead stands unmoved by a breath of wind1. This immovable detachment brings a man into the greatest likeness to God. For the reason why God is God is because of His immovable detachment and from this detachment, He has His purity, His simplicity and His immutability. Therefore, if a man is to be like God, as far as a creature can have likeness with God, this must come from detachment. This draws a man into purity, and from purity into simplicity, and from simplicity into immutability, and these things make a likeness between God and that man …

You should know that the outer man can be active while the inner man is completely free of this activity and unmoved … Here is an analogy: a door swings open and shuts on its hinge. I would compare the outer woodwork of the door to the outer man and the hinge to the inner man. When the door opens and shuts, the boards move back and forth but the hinge stays in the same place and is never moved thereby. It is the same in this case if you understand it rightly.

Now I ask: What is the object of pure detachment? My answer is that the object of pure detachment is neither this nor that 2. It rests on absolutely nothing and I will tell you why: pure detachment rests on the highest and he is at his highest, in whom God can work all His will … And so, if the heart is ready to receive the highest, it must rest on absolutely nothing and in that lies the greatest potentiality which can exist …

Again I ask: What is the prayer of a detached heart? My answer is that detachment and purity cannot pray, for whoever prays wants God to grant him something or else wants God to take something from him. But a detached heart desires nothing at all, nor has it anything it wants to get rid of. Therefore it is free of all prayers or its prayer consists of nothing but being uniform with God. That is all its prayer …

Therefore it is totally subject to God, and therefore it is in the highest degree of uniformity with God and is also the most receptive to divine influence …

Now take note, all who are wise! No man is happier than he who has the greatest detachment.
— Meister Eckhardt On Detachment — Wayfarer

So is this part of a stand-up routine or what? The door hinge bit was particularly hilarious. :lol:

1. Is unenlightened enlightened? No! Out goes everything about unenlightened - none of it is the mark of a buddha. — TheMadFool

But by your own hypothesis this is not true. unenlightened is enlightened; he just doesn't realise/hasn't realised it. In which case, unenlightenment is a 'mistake' that one is continuously making.

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements." {I,v,9}

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements." {I,v,10}

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed run-of-the-mill person doesn't discern that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person — there is no development of the mind." {I,vi,1}

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind." {I,vi,2} — The Buddha, Pabhassara Sutta

The mind is something more radiant than anything else can be, but because counterfeits – passing defilements – come and obscure it, it loses its radiance, like the sun when obscured by clouds. Don’t go thinking that the sun goes after the clouds. Instead, the clouds come drifting along and obscure the sun. So meditators, when they know in this manner, should do away with these counterfeits by analyzing them shrewdly... When they develop the mind to the stage of the primal mind, this will mean that all counterfeits are destroyed, or rather, counterfeit things won’t be able to reach into the primal mind, because the bridge making the connection will have been destroyed. Even though the mind may then still have to come into contact with the preoccupations of the world, its contact will be like that of a bead of water rolling over a lotus leaf. — Ajahn Mun

This mind is no-mind ¹, because its natural character is luminous. What is this state of the mind’s luminosity? When the mind is neither associated with nor dissociated from greed, hatred, delusion, proclivities, fetters, or false views, then this constitutes its luminosity. Does the mind exist as no-mind? In the state of no-mind, the states of existence or non-existence can be neither found nor established... What is this state of no-mind? The state of no-mind, which is immutable and undifferentiated, constitutes the ultimate reality of all dharmas. Such is the state of no-mind. — Consciousness and Luminosity in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism

1. 'No mind' is a synonym for the dissolution of self-centred consciousness with its inherent sense of 'I and mine.'

Hence Jesus as being described by some as a bodhisattva. — Tom Storm

Bodhisattva means 'a buddha-to-be', ie. a person on the path to buddhahood, but not yet a buddha.

Soto Zen conceives of enlightenment or nirvana precisely in this way as practicing zazen; that is transcending the body and mind in maintaining perfect sitting posture. Dogen equates this with enlightenment because it is impossible to sit this way while being attached to the body and mind. — Janus

Meaning that chicken are enlightened.

Meaning that chicken are enlightened. — baker

And...?

Bodhisattva means 'a buddha-to-be', ie. a person on the path to buddhahood, but not yet a buddha. — baker

Could be. The way it was taught to me was that a Bodhisattva postpones entering Nirvana in order to teach humanity. For what it is worth, I noticed that the Dalai Lama has said that Jesus may have been a Bodhisattva.

Now I am talking about a mythic traditions and they don't always compare neatly. In my worldview Jesus never existed as described in the fan fiction (the gospels). These are myths, perhaps based on original stories of an itinerant preacher.

Does anyone have comments on Nietzsche's ideas of self-overcoming? — Tom Storm

Someone once told me that it has to do with "being better than you were before". E.g. if yesterday, it took you 15 sec to run 100 yards, aim to run the distance in 14 sec next time around. And so on; it's about improving one's results in reference to one's previous results.

Guess I'm on the right track. Although i should warn you the path of mediocrity is long and hard; it leaves a substantial amount of regret in its wonderful wake.

I think this is on the right track. Nietzsche conceived of the fundamental aim of all life to be, not merely survival, but power; by which I take him to mean, not power over others or physical strength, but power over oneself, over one's own desire for comfort, ease and distraction at the expense of flourishing and becoming the best you can be. So I understand Nietzsche to be talking along similar lines as Aristotle did with his notions of eudamonia and arete.

Does anyone have comments on Nietzsche's ideas of self-overcoming?
— Tom Storm

Someone once told me that it has to do with "being better than you were before". — baker

↪baker I think this is on the right track. Nietzsche conceived of the fundamental aim of all life to be, not merely survival, but power; by which I take him to mean, not power over others or physical strength, but power over oneself, over one's own desire for comfort, ease and distraction at the expense of flourishing and becoming the best you can be. — Janus

I read Nietzsche’s self-overcoming ( will to power) as being different than you were before, not better in the sense of some kind of cumulative progress or organic growth.

“… The ‘development' of a thing, a tradition, an organ is therefore certainly not its progressus towards a goal, still less is it a logical progressus, taking the shortest route with least expenditure of energy and cost, – instead it is a succession of more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of subjugation exacted on the thing, added to this the resistances encountered every time, the attempted transformations.”

I read Nietzsche’s self-overcoming ( will to power) as being different than you were before, not better in the sense of some kind of cumulative progress or organic growth. — Joshs

You don't understand it as an idea of flourishing, but simply of change, whether for the better or worse?

I read Nietzsche’s self-overcoming ( will to power) as being different than you were before, not better in the sense of some kind of cumulative progress or organic growth. — Joshs

That's intriguing, Joshs - I know my thinking is conventional but I wonder why be different if it isn't in some greater sense, better? What is the impetus for transformation - is it being who you really are, which may not be an improvement?

You can life the most non-mediocre life in each reality. You will have no regret. As long as you take that reality as a joke. Saves a lot of misery.

is it being who you really are, which may not be an improvement? — Tom Storm

The real you is an illusion. You are always you. The idea of a person behind the face, the real you, is caused by forces that make you wanna be a person you don't want to. Acting accordingly to these images of other people creates the split. Modern society especially creates an image of people many people don't want to be but have to be (or can't be but want to, which is even worse as it creates shitty feelings). The dichotomy is solved by not thinking about what others think. If you do so you can grow or change continually. Or settle in an image you like.

What is the impetus for transformation - is it being who you really are, which may not be an improvement? — Tom Storm

Surely Nietzsche would have said that "being who you really are" is preferable to not being who you really are. It seem to me this is where the existentialist notion of authenticity comes into play.

The real you is an illusion. — Cartuna

You can live more or less enslaved to what you might think are the expectations of others.

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” — Tom Storm

I don’t know if that has anything to do with Nietzsche, but I think Jung is making a good point.

The main problem seems to be that people want to be enlightened without being enlightened. In other words, they want to be at once what they are now and enlightened. This, of course, is not possible because when you are enlightened, you no longer are what you were before.

Instead of being “what you are now (and enlightened)”, you will be “enlightened (and what you are now)”. The enlightened aspect being the dominant element, the what-you-are-now aspect will be completely subordinate to it, which means that you no longer are what you were before, though you may appear to be so externally, i.e., to others.

Enlightenment is often referred to as a form of “liberation”. In the Western tradition, this goes back to Socrates, Plato, and others for whom this liberation (lysis) is a liberation of the conscious soul, i.e., of intelligence, from the confines of embodied existence.

Intelligence or consciousness is, by definition, the principle of life, which is a free, living and creative force. However, through association with the limited and limiting physical body it inhabits, intelligence becomes caught up in limiting modes of experience in which it identifies more and more with the objective element of consciousness, i.e., body, material possessions, thoughts, and emotions associated with these, until awareness of one’s real identity recedes into the background almost completely.

The liberation process consists in intelligence extricating itself from everyday experience that is based on material reality. But this does not mean that material reality disappears, only that it is recognized as a product of intelligence.

According to Plato, there is no Reality other than Intelligence (Nous). Even if another reality existed, intelligence would be still needed in order for there to be awareness of it. It follows that there is nothing higher than the Intelligence that sees and imparts reality to all things, and everything else is secondary to it.

This is why Plato refers to the Highest Truth or Ultimate Reality as the “Light of All” (to Phos pasi), i.e., that which gives light, and reality, to all things (Republic 540a).

Plotinus explains how individual intelligence comes to have an experience of Intelligence:

When it is in that place it must necessarily come to union with Intelligence, since it has been turned to it. And having been turned to it, it has nothing in between, and when it has come to Intelligence, it is fitted to it. And having been fitted to it, it is united with it while not being dissolved, but both are one, while still being two. When it is in this state it would not change, but would be in an unchanging state in relation to intellection, while having at the same time awareness of itself (synaisthesin hautes), as having become simultaneously one and identical with the intelligible (Ennead IV.4.2.25-34)

Those who have some experience of lucid dreams are in a better position to understand the true nature of consciousness. As research has shown, in the “ambient” type of lucid dreams, the dreamer is passively, though consciously, aware of the fact that he or she is dreaming. In the “active” type, the dreamer is able to actively engage with the events taking place in the dream and influence their course.

This illustrates how cognition is ultimately nothing but self-aware intelligence affected by the modifications brought about in itself by itself, and this gives us an idea of how a higher Intelligence might be able to bring about the whole of reality as a manifestation of itself.

Plato repeatedly draws parallels between the individual self and the Universal Self. The point he is making is that in the same way the individual self uses its cognitive powers to generate cognition in the form of thoughts, etc., the Universal Self uses its powers to generate the Universe.

As stated in the Phaedo and elsewhere, the only way to obtain a vision of higher realities is by intelligence extricating itself from the confines of everyday experience. Any mental state in which consciousness detaches itself from normal experience and returns to its natural state of freedom may be used for this purpose.

Such states can occur naturally, e.g. lucid dreaming or the state between waking and sleeping, etc., but also as a result of meditation or contemplation. Plotinus compares contemplation on light or light-like intelligence itself, to awaiting the Sun to rise from beyond the ocean, culminating in an experience of Oneness:

But as contemplation ascends from nature to soul and from soul to Intelligence, the act of contemplation becomes ever more personal [i.e., closer to the contemplating subject] and produces unity within the contemplator (III.8.8.1-8)

In other words, during the ascent to higher reality, the objective aspect of intellection becomes closer and closer to, and ultimately identical with, the subjective aspect.

Most modern philosophers are conditioned, or have conditioned themselves, to prefer to remain in the realm of thought. But, however “abstract” it might be, thought belongs to the objective side of consciousness. The subjective side, the thinker’s true self, is above that.

By dismissing Platonism and similar philosophical systems as “mysticism” they deliberately reject their higher self which is their true identity. This renders it impossible for them to understand the concept of enlightenment and, ultimately, to understand themselves.

In contrast, whatever philosophical systems like Platonism might seem to be to outsiders at first sight, they are first and foremost practical philosophy from start to finish, progressing upward from ethical conduct to intellectual and spiritual development and from there to realization of Ultimate Reality.

Plato explains, repeatedly and in unambiguous terms, that self-effort is required, and that this self-effort consists in a conscious redirection of our intelligence away from everyday experience and toward the Light of Reality.

Plotinus shows that the Platonic Way Upward does yield concrete results and he gives us an idea of the state of awakening experienced when individual intelligence approaches Universal Intelligence:

Often I wake up from the body into myself, and since I come to be outside of other things and within myself, I have a vision of extraordinary beauty and I feel supremely confident that I belong to a higher realm, and having come to identity with the Divine, and being established in it I have come to that actuality above all the rest of the intelligible world (IV.8.1.1-11)

The concept of “darkness” or “going through darkness” in order to see the light, is equally revealing. Obviously, this can be interpreted in many different ways. But in cognitive terms, the process leading to enlightenment is often described as a process of interiorization of consciousness consisting of several distinct phases: (1) waking, (2) dreaming, (3) deep sleep, and (4) pure, awakened consciousness.

On this account, consciousness in the first three stages withdraws as it were into itself until no awareness of external, material reality is left. From this point, consciousness either (a) returns to the dreaming and waking states (which is what normally happens), or (b) goes in the opposite direction, and having overcome the darkness of deep sleep, emerges on the other side, the side of infinite light from where the material reality left behind is seen as nothing but a manifestation of the same living, creative light of consciousness that is experienced as oneself.

The whole process is based on maintaining consciousness through all the phases of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. In the same way as we can be consciously aware of the fact that we are dreaming, we can (though with much greater difficulty) be aware that we are in deep sleep. This is when the true light of consciousness, the light of liberated intelligence, dawns on us and the enlightenment process proper begins.

This is what Plotinus and others are describing. Anything beyond that can no longer be described. But life becomes an expression of that state and the desire “to be one’s (unenlightened) old self and at the same time enlightened” becomes a fading memory.

What is the impetus for transformation - is it being who you really are, which may not be an improvement? — Tom Storm

Lao Tzu writes about wu wei, which means acting without acting. Acting that arises from your true self without intention. As to whether or not that is an improvement, I always think of lines that I love from Emerson's "Self-Reliance."

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — “But these impulses may be from below, not from above.” I replied, “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.” No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.

It always makes me laugh and brings tears to my eyes.

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You don't understand it as an idea of flourishing, but simply of change, whether for the better or worse? — Janus

I think the route to flourishing for Nietzsche was maintaining continuous movement, embracing transformation, and allowing oneself to get held captive (ascetic ideal) by any particular valuative concept of flourishing.

Surely Nietzsche would have said that "being who you really are" is preferable to not being who you really are. It seem to me this is where the existentialist notion of authenticity comes into play. — Janus

But Nietzsche did not believe that the self is a fixed identity. That is one reason he is embraced by postmodern philosophers like Foucault and Deleuze , who see the self as socially constructed.

“To indulge the fable of ‘unity,’ ‘soul,’ ‘person,’ this we have forbidden: with such hypotheses one only covers up the problem” ( Nietzsche)

He describes the soul as “subjective multiplicity”, and “social structure of the drives and affects”.

Stanford Encyclopedia suggests that “Nietzsche’s psychology treats the self as something that has to be achieved or constructed, rather than as something fundamentally given as part of the basic metaphysical equipment with which a person enters the world.”

I know my thinking is conventional but I wonder why be different if it isn't in some greater sense, better? What is the impetus for transformation - is it being who you really are, which may not be an improvement? — Tom Storm

We have no choice , because whether we like it or not, whatever valuative framework we choose will eventually collapse and be transformed from within its own resources( the best becomes the worst, good becomes evil) .This is the meaning of will to power as self-overcoming. We are driven to embrace schemes of meaning and then to exhaust ourselves within them and move beyond them.

and allowing oneself to get held captive (ascetic ideal) by any particular valuative concept of flourishing. — Joshs

Did you mean "not allowing..."?

But Nietzsche did not believe that the self is a fixed identity. That is one reason he is embraced by postmodern philosophers like Foucault and Deleuze , who see the self as socially constructed. — Joshs

Regardless of what the self is, would Nietzsche not agree that you must follow your own passion and not live according to the mores and expectations of others, and that to do this would constitute flourishing?

The main problem seems to be that people want to be enlightened without being enlightened. In other words, they want to be at once what they are now and enlightened. — Apollodorus

This point really resonates. Thank you for a very considered response.

We have no choice , because whether we like it or not, whatever valuative framework we choose will eventually collapse and be transformed from within its own resources( the best becomes the worst, good becomes evil) . — Joshs

Perhaps I don't fully understand. I have certainly never had this experience but I do accept that beliefs and thought systems are not immutable.