:up: :up:

Thanks a ton for the explication. I was thinking along the lines of how nirvana becomes like any other objective humans set for themselves e.g. aiming to be a lawyer, a CEO, etc. and when that's done nirvana is just like any other worldy aspiration. Hence nirvana = maya/samsara.

If so, nirvana can only be arrived at by accident and not deliberately. We have to stumble upon it via random walks instead of arriving at it with the aid of a well laid out strategem. The level of mindfulness (recommended buddhist practice) required to pull this off is clearly too great for description. It would require complete awareness (self/other) 24/7 for even the slightest sound, the briefest flash of light, a drunk's swearing, etc. could enlighten a person.

If so, nirvana can only be arrived at by accident and not deliberately. We have to stumble upon it via random walks instead of arriving at it with the aid of a well laid out strategem. — Agent Smith

Perhaps there's a sense in which liberation cannot be attained by a deliberate strategy. Nevertheless, in Buddhist cultures, there are strenuous regimens of disciplined practice that are undertaken. Take Antai-ji Monastery - it's a Sōtō Zen monastery that accepts foreign students for residential retreats (subject to qualification and on the basis of being fluent in Japanese.) It's typical of many such centres, and every day comprises a structured routine of several hours zazen, cooking, cleaning, gardening and maintainance. (Here's their summer retreat daily schedule. A walk in the park, it ain't.)

It's true that Zen literature has stories of monks who 'became enlightened' when hearing a sound or seeing a particular sight, seemingly spontaneously. But it ought not to be forgotten that in the traditional setting, many of these individuals had been living that strenuous discipline for many years or decades. There's an old saying, 'the harder I work, the luckier I get'. A lot of Zen lore came into the US through popular books by Alan Watts and the like. There's nothing the matter with them, but they don't convey the actual culture very well. It's not at all happy-go-lucky and doing as you please, far from it.

I'm on the mailing list of Zen teacher, Ven. Meido Roshi. He has built a monastery in Wisconsin, https://www.korinji.org/ . I've visited there and met him, although I've never committed to following his style of Rinzai Zen teaching, it's very rigorous. Nevertheless I consider him a genuine Buddhist teacher. He has a couple of books out and online training. Worth checking out.

Perhaps there's a sense in which liberation cannot be attained by a deliberate strategy — Wayfarer

No plan is the plan! :chin: I have no idea why philosophy (religions inclusive) are riddled with paradoxes like this.

I agree with the rest of what you said - it's possible to manipulate the environment and reorganize our lives (zen monasteries/retreats) to put us in the right frame of mind to notice those small details which may be the key to nirvana, details which we gloss over in ordinary settings.

:up:

If so, nirvana can only be arrived at by accident and not deliberately. We have to stumble upon it via random walks instead of arriving at it with the aid of a well laid out strategem. The level of mindfulness (recommended buddhist practice) required to pull this off is clearly too great for description. It would require complete awareness (self/other) 24/7 — Agent Smith

I don't know about "nirvana" but I tend to doubt that enlightenment can be arrived at "by accident". The enlightened person must have gone through a process of inner transformation for the final "enlightenment moment" to happen.

This transformation must in turn be the result of an effort, conscious or subconscious, on the part of the individual in question.

A conscious intention that initiates this effort or process seems to be necessary as most people who are said to have attained enlightenment (or some form of spiritual realization) seem to have started from a deliberate effort to attain this.

If we start from the assumption that there is a higher reality behind the world of appearances or phenomena, then the initial intention is an intention to see behind and beyond this world.

This is why Plato says that discovering the source of knowledge and truth, i.e the source of ordinary reality, is the highest thing to learn. As the faculty of optic perception plays a dominant role in the experience humans have of reality, he recommends tracing the source of beauty, for example, to arrive at Beauty itself which stands, as it were, at the threshold of a higher level of reality.

Following Plato, Plotinus says:

If someone, seeing beauty well-represented in a face, is transported into the intelligible region, would such a person be so sluggish and immobile of mind that when he sees all the beauties of the sensible world, he will fail to say 'What things are these and whence are they?' (Ennead 2.9(33)16, 49).

The process of discovering reality, then, is a process of "purification" (katharsis) of individual consciousness which trains itself to increasingly remove unreality from its field of perception by looking behind and beyond appearances until the "light of reality" dawns on it in an act of "illumination" (ellampsis) that reveals not only "objective reality" but also the true identity of the "subject":

Consider it by removing, or rather let the one who is removing see himself and he will feel confident that he is immortal, when he beholds himself as one who has come to be in the intelligible and the pure. For he will see an intellect (nous), which sees no sensible thing nor any of these mortal things, but which grasps the eternal by the eternal, and all the things in the intelligible world, having become himself an intelligible universe and shining, illuminated by the truth from the Good [a.k.a. "the One", the source of all knowledge and truth], which makes truth shine upon all the intelligibles (Enn. 4.7.10.30-37).

Obviously, the vast majority of mankind just want to get on with their daily life and have no time for anything of this sort. And even from among the small minority who take an interest in these things and try their best to have a realization of them, very few actually succeed.

But the main confusion arises from a lack of understanding of what "enlightenment" actually is, which is not surprising given that many definitions or descriptions are offered, often by individuals who have no personal experience of what they are defining or describing, and is compounded by the general attitude of consumerism prevalent in modern society based on the belief that everything is (a) personally achievable and (b) achievable on command, which belief is often little more than an expression of the desire to gratify one's ego and tends to lead in a direction that is contrary to the one leading to anything resembling enlightenment ....

If so, nirvana can only be arrived at by accident and not deliberately. — Agent Smith

No wonder most people don't even try.

All human activity can be viewed as an interplay between two contrary but equally essential factors -- vision and repetitive routine. Vision is the creative element in activity, whose presence ensures that over and above the settled conditions pressing down upon us from the past we still enjoy a margin of openness to the future, a freedom to discern more meaningful ends and to discover more efficient ways to achieve them. Repetitive routine, in contrast, provides the conservative element in activity. It is the principle that accounts for the persistence of the past in the present, and it enables the successful achievements of the present to be preserved intact and faithfully transmitted to the future.

Vision and Routine, Bhikkhu Bodhi

If so, nirvana can only be arrived at by accident and not deliberately.
— Agent Smith

No wonder most people don't even try. — baker

Complete awareness or what Buddhists call mindfulness is paramount. You never know when or where an opportunity for nirvana might present itself. You have to be on high alert 24/7, but that drains you physically and mentally. What you need then is practice of mindfulness until it comes naturally, is second nature to you, and most importantly, is effortless.

To be enlightened is to have discovered that you know nothing without the application of philosophy.

-G

To be enlightened is to have discovered that you know nothing without the application of philosophy. — Garrett Travers

That sounds like a very brief journey to enlightenment then. "I am ignorant without philosophy; I wonder if there is something new up on Netflix..."

Journey to enlightenment? Enlightenment is a state one journeys through life in, not a place one journeys to. Enlightenment entails the recognition of the limitations of one's breadth of knowledge, and the acknowledgement of the method(s) by which we obtain it, which is exclusively the legacy of the philosophical tradition. Enlightenment is waking up from the somnabulatory state of cluelessness.

Enlightenment is waking up from the somnabulatory state cluelessness. — Garrett Travers

I wasn't using the term journey literally. :wink:

If you wake up from a clueless state you are still clueless. That's my point about a brief 'journey'. Recognizing you are clueless is an important step but in philosophical terms, is this not to enlightenment what premature ejaculation is to sex?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'philosophical tradition'. Do you mean all of them? Every one?

Yes, as in, the body of philosophical work dating back to the presocratics and the Easterners. Waking from your state of cluelessness is what enlightenment is. That doesn't imply that you won't become more knowledgable and wise within that state of enlightenment, but the state itself does not change. And no on the ejaculation bit. More like being pre-pubescent and having no knowledge of such a phenomenon, then discovering you can ejaculate post-pubescence. Ejaculation and sex are separate things entirely. To drive it home, it's more like having no knowledge of sex, then becoming informed of the act and what it is for. Once you learn, you cannot unlearn. The philosophical tradition exposes one to the basic element of enlightenment: awareness of self-ignorance.

Ok. I'll sit with that for a bit.

Get back with me if you feel like chasing this down further. I thought it was a great question from OP. It's healthy for us to revisit long-established understandings, if only just to see if anything has changed.

Sure. I originally did the OP because I wanted to understand better the options available under that famous rubric, given the dispirit traditions one can shoehorn enlightenment into. And I wanted to separate it from The Enlightenment, a similarly named but different project. Personally I think people's notions of enlightenment usually reflect their value system and don't often point outside of their experience or their attractions.

Yes, that's an issue. The Enlightenment was called that becuase of the mass proliferation of philosophical material and social commentary. People feel enlightened when they reach conclusions that seem to make sense to them, that they use to build a coherent worldview. However, enlightenment itself is quite literally the state of being enlightened, awareness. The most fundamental awareness in philosophy is awareness of one's limited capacity and wealth of knowledge.

I'll sit with that for a bit. — Tom Storm

The Pragmatic Buddhists eschew the very notion of enlightenment as a dangerous fantasy or pitfall, instead focusing on a gradualistic increase in self- and world-awareness. Or, say, a gradualistic decrease in ego-illusion.

Worth mentioning.

They call it gradualism, that's why I say gradualistic instead of gradual. :smile:

A good point. However, gradualistic increase in self and world awareness is itself enlightenment, if achieved. And ego cannot be an illusion if one desires to be more self and world aware, as that would imply an ego directing the process of, or coming in contact with said self and world awareness. You cannot have self without self. And if self is guiding self to self awareness, or enlightenment, then ego is a fundamental aspect of the process. I would argue an indespensible one.

Obviously, the vast majority of mankind just want to get on with their daily life and have no time for anything of this sort. And even from among the small minority who take an interest in these things and try their best to have a realization of them, very few actually succeed. — Apollodorus

Reminds me of the 20% (forgot the actual figure) rule in hypertension: Only 20% of hypertensives are diagnosed. Of them, only 20% are actually treated. Of those treated, only in 20% is the hypertension actually cured.

The most fundamental awareness in philosophy is awareness of one's limited capacity and wealth of knowledge. — Garrett Travers

That feeling has always filled me with a kind of dread. :wink:

The Pragmatic Buddhists eschew the very notion of enlightenment as a dangerous fantasy or pitfall, instead focusing on a gradualistic increase in self- and world-awareness. Or, say, a gradualistic decrease in ego-illusion. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes, that is worth mentioning.

The Pragmatic Buddhists eschew the very notion of enlightenment as a dangerous fantasy or pitfall, instead focusing on a gradualistic increase in self- and world-awareness. Or, say, a gradualistic decrease in ego-illusion.

Worth mentioning. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Not so. 'Sudden vs gradual' was a debate that ran for centuries in Chinese Buddhism. I've never read any reference to 'pragmatic Buddhists' in this regard. See https://www.amazon.com/Gradual-Approaches-Enlightenment-Chinese-Thought/dp/8120808193

To reiterate: enlightenment, in Buddhism, is the English word that was used to translate the Buddhist word 'bodhi', which can also be translated as 'wisdom'. The Buddhist term 'Nirvāṇa' means 'a state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth. In Hindu religions, the equivalent is mokṣa, also translated as 'liberation', meaning 'freedom from all suffering and from the cycle of birth and death through knowledge of the Self'. Both of these are completely different from the Enlightenment of 17th-18th century Europe which occurs in a very different cultural and historical context.

Don't forget the oral tradition. :smile:

http://www.pragmaticbuddhism.org/

one swallow doth not a summer make.

It came out of the mouth of the founder of the organization I linked you to.

Both of these are completely different from the Enlightenment of 17th-18th century Europe which occurs in a very different cultural and historical context. — Wayfarer

Do you think the 'spiritual' use of the word enlightenment is useful? It seems to me a theme here has been those who think of it as knowledge (in the more rationalist sense) and those who see it as part of a contemplative tradition - emerging, let's say from the logos?

Do you think the 'spiritual' use of the word enlightenment is useful? — Tom Storm

I don't like the word 'spiritual' much but I think English doesn't have many useful equivalents. I found this passage in one of the essays of Nishijima roshi.

The Universe is, according to philosophers who base their beliefs on idealism, a place of the spirit. Other philosophers whose beliefs are based on a materialistic view, say that the Universe is composed of the matter we see in front of our eyes.

Buddhist philosophy takes a view which is neither idealistic nor materialistic; Buddhists do not believe that the Universe is composed of only matter. They believe that there is something else other than matter. But there is a difficulty here; if we use a concept like 'spirit' to describe that 'something else other than matter', people are prone to interpret Buddhism as some form of spiritualistic religion and think that Buddhists must therefore believe in the actual existence of spirit. So it becomes very important to understand the Buddhist view of the concept 'spirit'. I am careful to refer to spirit as a concept here because in fact Buddhism does not believe in the actual existence of spirit.

So what is this something else other than matter which exists in this Universe? If we think that there is a something which actually exists other than matter, our understanding will not be correct; nothing physical exists outside of matter....Some people explain the Universe as a universe based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures. Matter alone has no value. We can say that the Universe is constructed with matter, but we must also say that matter works for some purpose. So in our understanding of the Universe we should recognize the existence of something other than matter. We can call that something spirit, but if we do we should remember that in Buddhism, the word 'spirit' is a figurative expression for value or meaning. We do not say that spirit exists in reality; we use the concept only figuratively.

That avoids the problem of reification or objectification associated with using the word 'spirit'. I sometimes reflect on the meaning of spirit as 'gist' - like 'the gist of a story'. So spirit is like the gist, the meaning. Does it exist? I think 'exist' is not the right word. But it is real nonetheless. What is real is much greater than what exists. Hard idea to get.

(Note the similarity with TLP 6.41 "The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.

If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.

What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.

It must lie outside the world.")

Some people explain the Universe as a universe based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures.

I think this is wrong on account of treating matter as "raw" particles, understood as utterly devoid of meaning, which ignores the fact that beings which are nothing other than material, in any substantive sense, create meaning in interaction with environments which are nothing other than material.

What matter is on the basic level does not exhaust what it can be on the cellular and sentient fleshly levels.

What is real is much greater than what exists. Hard idea to get. — Wayfarer

Hard to get because it is impossible to explain, meaning it is not a discursive idea at all (since any discursive idea can be explained). So, really it is nothing but an intimation, a kind of feeling; the stuff of poetry; which is certainly not without value, since it opens up the human imagination; a faculty of equal or greater importance than the intellect. But it is certainly not something that can be cogently argued for or demonstrated to be true.