The Buddha's Final Enlightenment
 

This is the Buddha's own account of the final stage of his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree as supposedly related directly to his immediate disciple and personal attendant Ananda:

"I thought: 'This is the path to enlightenment that I have now reached, that is to say: With cessation of name-and-form there is cessation of consciousness; with cessation of consciousness, cessation of name-and-form"

It would seem that consciousness and name-and-form are intimately related to each other, since each ceases with the cessation of the other.

I wonder if he meant `individual` consciousness

But it doesn't. No matter how the Buddha's words were interpreted or translated, in deep meditation we are aware but without name or form.


Xan

Buddhas interpretation is just that, he's interpretation, he can only point you to what he himself experienced, you must find that experience for yourself, and through that realization you can point others, as Buddha did to that inner world of Bliss. In fact the Buddha never really said anything, it was Gautama that said what he said.

This is the problem when non enlightned beings write down stuff from enlightned ones, if they get the slightest thing wrong its all cocked up. I really struggle with this too, all the time

In my opinion , by common human nature / lifestyles human is creating its own "self" and name it as a marking for the body .
I was born 43 years ago and named by my father CSEe , I grew up with the knowledge provided & influenced by the information by my parent , my teachers in school , by my race's culture , by my local traditions , by my parents beliefs in their religion and filling in this body with my own skills , knowledge & information and shape it as a "self" in a body marked as CSEe , I grew up believing I own this body with all the conciousness , all the knowledge and defended / proctect this body of pride , ego , desire , emotions etc ...........I will defend & flight this body from all sickness , from old age and even from death because I BELIEVE I am CSEe and I owned CSEe .
That is MYSELF...............a human NOT awake of ownself .

The fact is in Buddhism I currently accepted that I am actually a POLLUTANT against purity . I with all my desire, emotions , greed , ego , compassion , love etc that I know it as "myself" is actually the pollutant that caused all my suffering , the pollutant that I should learn to understand , to discover and to be free of ...........In buddhism I should free "myself" from me .

The PROCESS of understanding , discovering , learning ownself in this purification process leading to purity ( that I WANT to believe that Mr Siddharta named this purity as Buddha) is Buddhism .

Thks
CSEe

The "should" as in " should free myself" in my current opinion is not a desire , not a goal of emotion or a choice but " the should" is in the "knowledge" of myself which is only a tiny part of the process of realization .

The process of purification is not a process of collecting knowledge but is a process of freeling from the creation resulted from ownself .

perhaps after I moved to more greater realization I will erase the word 'should"
but at my current stage...........I am still full of pollutant and not yet reach to that realization yet ... that is perhaps the reason I am here ........
Thks
CSEe

a process of freeing from the creation resulted from ownself .

Yep... that's our spiritual work.

Someone once suggested I might change all my "should's" to "want to's" and see if they still fit as I was then. Another step in freeing.


Xan

To me current as long as there is " want to" , " wish for" is to collect more rubbish and carry on the back in the journey . Buddhism to me is letting go all and be empty not to increase the "self" .
Be " nobody" not " somebody".....thats Buddhism that I currently understand and realized .

Thks
CSEe