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Posted by Butcho
on 3/28/2009, 10:27 pm, in reply to "Re: Enlightenment"
75.88.41.x
--Previous Message--
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: One day the Master announced that a young
: monk had reached an advanced state of
: enlightment. The news caused some stir. Some
: of the monks went to see the young monk.
: "We heard you are enlightened. Is that
: true?" they asked.
:
: "It is," he replied.
:
: "And how do you feel?"
:
: "As miserable as ever," said the
: monk.
:
: -------------------------
:
: Nice.
:
: My friend Frank (who on rare occasion has
: posted here) first introduced me to that
: ditty.
:
: Forever indebted, Frank. :)
:
: What does that particular chestnut mean to
: you, asininity?
:
: Steve
:
:
:
:
:
: This wont be popular but my interpretation
: of it is - Enlightenment is Useless.
:
: Thats why the monk is miserable,
: enlightenment for him was the answer, a
: goal, and just like those romantic movies
: where the lovers finally end up together you
: never see what happens after, when reality
: kicks in and the goal is achieved.
:
: And ultimately thats what enlightenment is,
: reality kicking in.
:
Assinfinity,
Enlightenment is as useless as an old tree.
The monk that is miserable is not enlightened. Misery is a state of mind. Enlightenment is a state of being. One does not chop wood and carry water grudgingly. One does not do one's dirty laundry with any less enthusiasm than one greets a new day. If you are not enthused, you are not enlightened. One knows a tree by its fruit. The essence of life is liveliness.
There are many monks, priests, preachers, pastors, and other religious middle-men, that talk about things they do not understand. At all. People without any brains sometimes do an awful lot of talking, don't they though.
Enlightenment is not a goal to reach someday. It is a process. A journey. The journey is the goal. To sit is the first step of a journey of a thousand miles. The journey of sagehood. Enlightenment is outside of time. To sit is enlightenment. To walk while sitting is maturity. To talk while sitting is sagehood. Sudden and gradual are just two different ways of looking at the same thing.
By sage I do not mean necessarily perfect in one's understanding. Even the apple with a worm in it is still an apple. Sagehood is an organic process. It unfolds. In stages. Compassion is what unites all the sages, no matter their degree of unfoldment. Understanding is not the hallmark of the sage, compassion is.
And so I see in this post of yours a sign of humility. Others might not agree with you. And a sign of stubborness. But this is the way you see it. A little more humility and a little less stubborness on you part might take you a long way on your journey of sagehood. I know that this is the way it works for me.
And so as an act of good faith I will no longer call you Assinfinity. If you really want to go by assinity, then who am I to say otherwise. Either way, round-eyed zen is not zen. Chaos is not the fundamental. Unity is the butt kicker.
Butcho
307
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"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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