Dialectic
Oct 25th, 2004, 01:48 AM
I recently read two brief online posts on www.integralnaked.org by Ken Wilber concerning enlightenment. These very clearly and succinctly address some of the thoughts and questions I have had over the past several years, and I think they will be of help to anyone concerned with Buddhism or enlightenment in general.
The first is a response to a question about whether he is "enlightened" and also briefly discusses the nature and limitations of forums:
am i enlightened? well, perhaps the best thing would be for you to read one taste and decide for yourself.
there isnít a state called ìenlightenmentî such that you can have it or not. even asking that question is a mental concept, a mental judgment, far removed from enlightened awareness.
to say, ìis a person fully enlightened?î is like asking, ìis a person fully educated?î it has no meaning. you can be more or less educated. likewise, you can be more or less enlightened. the nondual state FULLY embraces individuality, ego, and every separate thing and event anywhere in existence. It also FULLY transcends them. this is not an idea, but a radical, concrete, profound and living awareness, an awareness that often extends into the dream and even deep-sleep state (ìconstant consciousnessî), an experience of which is categorically unmistakable.
paradoxically, there are simply degrees of that enlightened awareness. you can have more or less of an understanding of THAT which has no degrees. just like you can be more or less educated.
the Integral Naked dialogues are a very limited type of communication, but i think they are very important for what they manage to accomplish. personally, i try to come more from the head than the heart in these dialogues, for various reasons, not the least of which is that here i am pandit more than guru. also, these arenít even interviews with peopleói never come armed with a list of questionsóthese are just conversations that we often have anyway. sometimes they talk all the time, sometimes i talk all time, you can never tell which way itís going to go. but most of them are intentionally intellectual, because the hard part, right now, is figuring out the mental maps that can hold the various degrees of enlightened awareness. also, IN isnít a forum for darshan, which is why even people like father thomas or surya or andrew simply focus on a spiritually-informed intellectual discussion, instead of on a spiritual transmission.
again, if you want to know the type or degree of my ìeducationî in these matters, including constant consciousness, nirvikalpa, and sahaj, read one taste and you will probably be able to decide for yourself just what ìdegreeî i might (or might not) possess. and good luck in your own education in enlightenment!
ken
The second post, one that I found very interesting, concerns how enlightenment manifests itself in the cognitive/ performative realm:
mik i el, thanks very much for your clarifications, they are very helpful. as for this one's realization, don't worry, it is not past tense, that's just a way of speaking (the awakening event or "satori in time" was "past" tense, not the everpresent realization). but what is indeed obvious is that permanent realization of the absolute does not bring with it effective knowledge in the relative--which is why, as you say, your communication style might "suck," which it wouldn't if enlightenment carried omniscience and you were enlightened. but you can have a deep realization, as you seem to have, and still have a relative communication style that "sucks." in fact, this happens all the time. but that tells us something important about what enlightenment can, and cannot, do. absolute realization does not bring relative perfection (or even skill).
likewise with styles of communication. you say your teacher talks about his enlightenment all the time; i come more from the zen tradition, where to talk about one's enlightenment as if it is in any way different from washing the dishes is taken as an indication one hasn't fully integrated the ordinary and the extraordinary. i'm not saying either of those is right or wrong. my point, again, is simply that even "absolute" knowledge doesn't know everything (it knows the ground of everything, not the details of everything), and thus we need to hold our opinions lightly, because the latter might continue to suck, even (and sometimes especially) if imbued with absolute certainly.
in zen, the "stink of zen" (a technical term for focusing on the absolute more than the relative, or abiding in emptiness more than form) comes from holding the absolute dimension so tightly that we can't see all the relative learning that we still have to do. the point is that the realized human being is a wonderful and weird union of emptiness and form, a union of absolute and relative, and this means that, as dogen put it, "permanent enlightenment is endlessly unfolding." so you are learning ways to express more skillfully your realization; so am i, so are we all. one of the real problems when people first get a profound realization is that they confuse the absolute with their relative knowledge, action, and skills, whereas the latter often continue to suck! so as a mixture of absolute and relative, we truly have to hold our opinions lightly, because the only way we can communicate our absolute knowledge is through our relative knowledge and skills, and the latter may indeed suck. and usually do. this paradox keeps humans honest. awakening to the real, and then learning how to express that through the relative, is the endless learning of traceless enlightenment.
but in all events, i hope your guidance indicates you should stay on the forum!
by the way, i'm sorry i can't check into forum more often myself. corey sends me clips of some of the discussions, and i try to respond when i can. forgive me if i'm only responding to snippets. but another clip asked again about IU. i just got back from PA, and it looks like we can start offering a fully accredited masters (and soon after, PhD), starting this fall. we will probably have to wait till spring, but it looks like it is definitely going to happen. as for me, i am trying to clear room so i can finish volume 2 of the kosmos trilogy (about 70% of it has been posted on the shambhala.com site on the kw author page)--i hope by this summer.
thanks to all of you for making this the most intelligent--and enlightened!--forum on the web. kw
The first is a response to a question about whether he is "enlightened" and also briefly discusses the nature and limitations of forums:
am i enlightened? well, perhaps the best thing would be for you to read one taste and decide for yourself.
there isnít a state called ìenlightenmentî such that you can have it or not. even asking that question is a mental concept, a mental judgment, far removed from enlightened awareness.
to say, ìis a person fully enlightened?î is like asking, ìis a person fully educated?î it has no meaning. you can be more or less educated. likewise, you can be more or less enlightened. the nondual state FULLY embraces individuality, ego, and every separate thing and event anywhere in existence. It also FULLY transcends them. this is not an idea, but a radical, concrete, profound and living awareness, an awareness that often extends into the dream and even deep-sleep state (ìconstant consciousnessî), an experience of which is categorically unmistakable.
paradoxically, there are simply degrees of that enlightened awareness. you can have more or less of an understanding of THAT which has no degrees. just like you can be more or less educated.
the Integral Naked dialogues are a very limited type of communication, but i think they are very important for what they manage to accomplish. personally, i try to come more from the head than the heart in these dialogues, for various reasons, not the least of which is that here i am pandit more than guru. also, these arenít even interviews with peopleói never come armed with a list of questionsóthese are just conversations that we often have anyway. sometimes they talk all the time, sometimes i talk all time, you can never tell which way itís going to go. but most of them are intentionally intellectual, because the hard part, right now, is figuring out the mental maps that can hold the various degrees of enlightened awareness. also, IN isnít a forum for darshan, which is why even people like father thomas or surya or andrew simply focus on a spiritually-informed intellectual discussion, instead of on a spiritual transmission.
again, if you want to know the type or degree of my ìeducationî in these matters, including constant consciousness, nirvikalpa, and sahaj, read one taste and you will probably be able to decide for yourself just what ìdegreeî i might (or might not) possess. and good luck in your own education in enlightenment!
ken
The second post, one that I found very interesting, concerns how enlightenment manifests itself in the cognitive/ performative realm:
mik i el, thanks very much for your clarifications, they are very helpful. as for this one's realization, don't worry, it is not past tense, that's just a way of speaking (the awakening event or "satori in time" was "past" tense, not the everpresent realization). but what is indeed obvious is that permanent realization of the absolute does not bring with it effective knowledge in the relative--which is why, as you say, your communication style might "suck," which it wouldn't if enlightenment carried omniscience and you were enlightened. but you can have a deep realization, as you seem to have, and still have a relative communication style that "sucks." in fact, this happens all the time. but that tells us something important about what enlightenment can, and cannot, do. absolute realization does not bring relative perfection (or even skill).
likewise with styles of communication. you say your teacher talks about his enlightenment all the time; i come more from the zen tradition, where to talk about one's enlightenment as if it is in any way different from washing the dishes is taken as an indication one hasn't fully integrated the ordinary and the extraordinary. i'm not saying either of those is right or wrong. my point, again, is simply that even "absolute" knowledge doesn't know everything (it knows the ground of everything, not the details of everything), and thus we need to hold our opinions lightly, because the latter might continue to suck, even (and sometimes especially) if imbued with absolute certainly.
in zen, the "stink of zen" (a technical term for focusing on the absolute more than the relative, or abiding in emptiness more than form) comes from holding the absolute dimension so tightly that we can't see all the relative learning that we still have to do. the point is that the realized human being is a wonderful and weird union of emptiness and form, a union of absolute and relative, and this means that, as dogen put it, "permanent enlightenment is endlessly unfolding." so you are learning ways to express more skillfully your realization; so am i, so are we all. one of the real problems when people first get a profound realization is that they confuse the absolute with their relative knowledge, action, and skills, whereas the latter often continue to suck! so as a mixture of absolute and relative, we truly have to hold our opinions lightly, because the only way we can communicate our absolute knowledge is through our relative knowledge and skills, and the latter may indeed suck. and usually do. this paradox keeps humans honest. awakening to the real, and then learning how to express that through the relative, is the endless learning of traceless enlightenment.
but in all events, i hope your guidance indicates you should stay on the forum!
by the way, i'm sorry i can't check into forum more often myself. corey sends me clips of some of the discussions, and i try to respond when i can. forgive me if i'm only responding to snippets. but another clip asked again about IU. i just got back from PA, and it looks like we can start offering a fully accredited masters (and soon after, PhD), starting this fall. we will probably have to wait till spring, but it looks like it is definitely going to happen. as for me, i am trying to clear room so i can finish volume 2 of the kosmos trilogy (about 70% of it has been posted on the shambhala.com site on the kw author page)--i hope by this summer.
thanks to all of you for making this the most intelligent--and enlightened!--forum on the web. kw