[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

Have had a similar experience.

Congrats, if that is so, then you are a fully realised Buddha, the returning messiah in Chrsitian terminology, and you are far ahead of me - since I never had a Satori experience like this, I think. My mere doubt proves that I never had it for sure.

I would ask this question, Skybird, in regards to any so called enlightenment. Is it only enlightenment when it meets the criteria set by some people who claim to have achieved it or claim to know what it is?

You already went into the trap here. that is why Zen does not like written traditions and thweopreticl studies and clasiscal teaching, but focusses on the ordinary things to do. The relation between master and student, in Asia traditionally differently settled than in the West, is beyond words, and is utmost direct, and must be so. That is hard to explain and cannot even be "described" in words. There is nothing to be described in words, you see. Words just mislead, they call into life all the catogorial thinking and polariszatrion of the images in your minds. A rose is not a rose when you call it that. A rose is the immediate, direct sensation of seeing it, smelling it, hearing the wind in its leaves, seeing it bowing in the moving air - but you cannot pack that into words: youmust experience it.

that is what it is about: own, direct, immediate experience. Awareness in everything you do, every moment you realise, everything that happens to you. Another Zen story goes like this:"Wonder oh marvellous wonder! I chop wood and carry water!" I liked to lead students' focus either to their breathing - or to their hands. Watching it, looking at it, seeing it moving, turningk, the fingers, the figurs you can form with it, the things it can do: what a wonderful tool a human hand is! A true and rteal miracle by design.

You see, there is nothign that can be taught, and there is nothign that you miss. You just need to ralsie it by giving up illusions. Enlightenment is not about something to be gained, but about something to be let. There is nothing you can gain. You must not "do". Just let things, and lead your awareness to what is going on in the focus of your mind. Be aware. Witness, do not judge.

What right do they have to make such a claim? This smacks of the same kind of religious indoctrination and dogma that some here have railed against. I realize that meditation and Buddhism are Atheistic in belief but since atheists believe that God is an invention of man then in all cases we are left with the mere opinions of other humans regardless of how they arrived at them.

Sigh. Atheists do not believe something. Atheists say that if somebody claims God existsa, they want evidence, and until then they say it is unlikjely that he does excist, like it is un likely to thinkg that babies are brought by the stgork as long as you do not prove it. Relgious people claim to kjnow how things are and that God is. Atheists know that they do not know. in logics, you cannot prove the nonexiostence of something, it is impossible, like you cannot divide numbers by zero.

originally, Chan does not hold a dogma or law code that is being told. You seem to compare it to church business, or any of the great world religions' practices. It is not like that - though there were many sects in Buddhism that brought it down to the level of ordinary religion indeed, for reasons of political control and influence over the crowds - Asia was not immune to make the same mistakes like the europeans did with Jesus). People, crowds crave for being led, they want to be led, and thus they fall so easily for false prophets and illmeaning leaders.

There is no manual with categories for englightenment, and when the candidate scores enough points, tha n he is made a Buddha. Nonsense. Master and student have a most direct relation and - bull, I try the impossible although I should know it better. Forget what I said, its all bull. In reply to your question I give you to different alternatives instead to learn about it.

First a wonderful film with almost no words in it, from Korea, I think 1988. "Why has Bodhidharma left for the East?" The film is beautiful like a poem that has been transformed into pictures, it is very calm and uses almost no words. Watch it not with your eyes, but with your heart, and you will learn a lot about what you ask for here. You can find out about it here: LINK.

Second, the only book that I have kept from my former Buddhist library (that I collected in my foolish years is a book by my secind mentor, after I had left Berlin and my first one had died: Wolfgang Kopp: Free yourself of everything. Radical guidance in the spirit of Chan and Christian Mysticism. Cheap kindle version available. The book is not too long, is straight and has no time to waste with mild politeness and flattering. It is somewhat uncompromised and leaves the reader no space to evade in srearch of comfortable consolation and shortcuts. This book is a bazooka against candy-sweet esoteric fantasy-religion and rainbow-coloured naivety. It compares Christian and Chan texts, and teaches you why it is important to die the "mystical death". Period. I have recommended this book often - most people do not read beyond the first few pages - they do not like the uncompromised directness of the text. You want easy solutions and some more entertainment? Spiritual fireworks and happy group sit-ins? Then look elsewhere. what the book does not tell you is about the practice, you cannot teach that in words, you must DO it, and preferrably under supervision by a realised master. Adn these guys are rare, I tell you. I consider myself to be an extremnelyl blessed and gifted man that I were found by such rare persons not juzst once but even twice in my life. I'm a lucky dog. The author btw, was the one who kicked my a$$ and threw me out again vcery early, saying that he coulkd not teach me any more and that nmow I should teach meditation mywself to pepple, which I did for several years. Without his well-meant aggression i maybe would never have gotten that act of my life together - due to fear.
Its the only book I hand to people when they ask for a book about Buddhism. academical study is all nice and well when you want to write a paper, but for your own spiritual cause it helps not at all. It even is a hindering obstacle, and deafens your mind. Find a real master. Or better: let yourself get found. When you are ripe for it, you will be found.

Maybe so but Buddhism has some remarkable beliefs. One is rebirth, a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death. I wonder if you believe this.

I do not know whether it is like this, but I warn to take symbols too literal. I find it very unlikely that I get reborn as a worm when I behave too badly, however, I think nothing goes lost in this unioverse, and nothing gets added, and every cause is followed by a consequnce, no matter how subtle it may be, no matter how well it may be hidden in complexity. Buddha was asked oine day whether there is a surviving indiovidual soul, and he said a clear and sounding "No". However, the thing to be mentionjed here is the idera of atman and an-atman, ego and non-ego. For buddhism, our egolk our ordinary self-conceptions, are just an illusion thatz feeds itself and lets us beolieve in dualiostic terms basiong on the dseparation between "me" and "the world". This individual ego/atman runs by motoions of the mind, which are classified in five categories of decreaisng matetrial density, called skandhas. Buddha denied the lasting nature of such a sould or ego or atman, however he taught that the real self is beyond the individual level, is a non-self (anatman), and maybe it can be grabbed in that nordic and Indsian idea of the collective "world soul". However. That already is much os destracting theory again that helps you nothing in mastering this life that you must live right now, in this moment. I personally am very surfe that not the smallest individual qualkity of myself will survive beyoidn my death. But I do not rule out that there is something beyond death. Of course that makes it difficult for me to beleiie a too linear and simplified idea like causal, linear rebirthing or reincarnation. maybe Carl sagan pout it well when saying "We are all star stuff". When hearing that the first time, for a long time I saw no need to find words in reply to that.

I for one do not care what I come back as, as long as it is not a hamster.

This world is transoitory, and thus life is suffering - the most basic truth in buddhism. Maybe the trick is not to come back at all. And maybe it is altruism making you agreeing to come back nevertheless.

One can play the thinking game until all heaven falls down. Better focus on what you are doing right now. Send all that holiness to hell, and get your things done, and don't do one thing - with your mind being somewhere else. Thats more worth than a hundred temple visits , fifty clever books you learn to recite freely, or a spell given by the pastor.