Enlightenment

Originally Posted by Rikki

I'm not here to judge man, I don't know what you're really like, any of you, in real life.

If you don't see things as they are, you're disconnected from reality. Living life through a mental filter. A step between what's actually happening, and what's being perceived.

It's being led by an illusionary self, that takes precident in peoples lives. The need to fill that hole. To feel complete. More more more.

If you don't see the truth of the situation, suffering is inevitable.

I find suffering to be more about someone's ontology not corresponding to the reality they experience. Self is just one category. Even without a self, the rest of the ontology can be out of wack and lead to suffering.

Originally Posted by WhiteShaman

Ok.....explain the process then.
Take the senario: Rikki speaks, someone hears, enlightenment happens.

What actually happened? Break it down for me.

Rikki speaks>someone hears> *actual looking takes place* > liberation.

You can see the key step here. The seeing of the illusion, no beliefs or ideology to accept. just the seeing of the illusion in action.

Does this make sense?

Originally Posted by Topology

I find suffering to be more about someone's ontology not corresponding to the reality they experience. Self is just one category. Even without a self, the rest of the ontology can be out of wack and lead to suffering.

Nicely said. Any ontology at all will cause suffering, lack of ontology will lead to vegatablism.

Trick is not to mix up your ontology for reality itself.

Originally Posted by Topology

I find suffering to be more about someone's ontology not corresponding to the reality they experience. Self is just one category. Even without a self, the rest of the ontology can be out of wack and lead to suffering.

Kind of get what you're saying here. Are you saying someone's perceived reality doesn't match the actual reality?

Originally Posted by Stephen

Yeah. But there is no self for you to manipulate in reality to get to work.

That "I" have a work to get to and need to labor at is part of the self-complex. If there was no self, there would be no association of needing to go to work, to meet people, to schedule anything. Having a concept of self enables higher-order orchestration of events that would not be possible without the thought "I need to be at location X at time Y in order to do Z".

Originally Posted by Stephen

Just the idea in your head.

An idea that enables intelligent behavior and that intelligent behavior would not be enabled without that idea.

Originally Posted by Stephen

Are you really going to tell me that something that exists only in your mind and not in your senses is a has existence beyond the mind?

The question isn't about its existence beyond mind, the question of whether or not it is important and relevant to life. And the answer is a resounding YES, at least for humans needing to perform higher-order orchestration of events.

Originally Posted by Rikki

Kind of get what you're saying here. Are you saying someone's perceived reality doesn't match the actual reality?

More along the lines of when someone interprets reality in a way that is inconsistent with reality they enter into dysfunction which leads to suffering if they are not able to release the interpretation and find a new way of understanding and moving through the world.

Originally Posted by Topology

More along the lines of when someone interprets reality in a way that is inconsistent with reality they enter into dysfunction which leads to suffering if they are not able to release the interpretation and find a new way of understanding and moving through the world.

Yeah man, the first part is spot on. This is what I mean by mental filters.

How can you 'find a new way of understanding'?

Isn't it better to realise this process as redundant and just see it as it is? Warts and all?

Originally Posted by Topology

That "I" have a work to get to and need to labor at is part of the self-complex. If there was no self, there would be no association of needing to go to work, to meet people, to schedule anything. Having a concept of self enables higher-order orchestration of events that would not be possible without the thought "I need to be at location X at time Y in order to do Z".

You're not seeing what I've no repeatedly pointed out here.

There is most definitely a distinction between your thought of a self and a self.

Thought of a self is required to operate. No one is denying that.

However there is no self, only this thought of it.

You are saying that the thought of a self equates to an actual self.

When I point out it doesn't you say "yeah, but the thought of a self is useful"

To which I say Yeah. It is. But it's still just a thought not an actual self.


So what is it?


Are you hung up on the fact that the thought of self is needed to make sense of the world?

Or are you saying that this thought equates with an actual self?

An idea that enables intelligent behavior and that intelligent behavior would not be enabled without that idea.

no one denise this.

The question isn't about its existence beyond mind, the question of whether or not it is important and relevant to life. And the answer is a resounding YES, at least for humans needing to perform higher-order orchestration of events.

I've said that over and over.

It's important.

It's useful.

It's core to your life.

It's not true.

Have you judged false to be bad?

Is that what's going on here?

Originally Posted by Stephen

Nicely said. Any ontology at all will cause suffering, lack of ontology will lead to vegatablism.

Trick is not to mix up your ontology for reality itself.

Indeed, and seeing self as illusion isn't the only ontology that needs to be seen for illusion. It all needs to be seen that way, including the premise that there is a need for enlightening others by focusing on the self-category alone.

Originally Posted by Topology

just to short circuit the protocol of questions, when I look into the mind, I see a self. The mind develops a self in order to relate to and interact with the world.

Do you need a self to relate and interact?