> >This must be what they call enlightment.
>
> Who said something about 10 years? :-)
>
> Yes, I think it's fair to say you experienced enlightenment -- but
> Enlightenment, on the other hand, is when you know it "with every
> fibre of your being" and act on it spontaneously all the time. Lower
> case enlightenment can be slipped out of, as well, which
> Enlightenment cannot.
Yea, I can feel myself slip in and out of it... But then, hey, I've
still got 9 years 11 months to "acheive" (doh!) "True" (doh!)
Enlightment. Uhh ohh. Think I just lost whatever progress I have
made.
I don't think that Enlightment is really something that one can
possess. The ideas are all wrong. But then you know that already.
> But all that really means is that you can't meditate and study
> at the same time. Zen isn't about adopting a belief intellectually
> and then trying to act in accord with it. It's about meditating to
> make realisation of such stuff easier, but meanwhile going on
> doing what you do.
Yes.
I also have a book here entitled "The Forth Way", which is supposedly
talking about the same kind of thing. It's key emphasis is on "self
consciousness", and being always aware of yourself and that which is
around you. The present. I couldn't for the longest time see how
delibratly making yourself aware of yourself could possibly be talking
about the same thing... but I see now. The observation of yourself will
eventually lead to an awareness that "you" are really nothing but an
illusion. That awareness then feeds right into Zen in the classic
sense. Funny how different paths all lead to the same place, eh?
Level 3, Zen, Post-Structuralism, E-Prime, the Self, God-as-Universe
(pantheism); all of them point in this same direction. I think it was
really just a matter of enough memetic exposure to bring the ideas to
their common ground. I'm so happy!
ERiC