How Would You Describe Enlightenment answers

Someone asked me interesting question in one of the on lines about no self and it sort of got me talking and thinking about the topic. There's

Uh.

I sometimes say that the Buddhists are their own worst PR People does this. I mean that the words that are used to try to sell Buddhism suffering impermanence.

Emptiness no self or even more inscrutable and off pudding no soul.

Which is sometimes the translation of course there are very, very good reasons why this terminology is used?

But at first, it's confusing and off Pudding I mean emptiness.

Is that Jewish Buddhist humor thing? I don't know if you've seen on the Internet. All these Jewish Buddhist jokes. And there's one this one, I can't remember exactly I'm paraphrasing but.

Uh what's what's them? Well, you, yeah, bust your tush for 40 years, and what do you have to show for it at the end, Bob Cus.

So Bob Kiss means am humans beings literally but he's like nothing right. You got nothing to show for it or you have it is so very special nothing.

I mean when I started I had no idea what these terms refer to they sounded weird. They sounded interesting. I learned how to say them and a half dozen Asian languages, but it's like I didn't know what they were talking about emptiness well actually sometimes People would say like the void so of course I had this image of this like.

Like this gaping thing that's going to suck you in actually there's so Little Italy in the sense of the expansiveness of the formless jhanas that's part of it, but

But not at all the whole picture so you know, I would hear about the void and or the emptiness and I try to formulate in my mind, web what it must be?

And, of course, it's not just the Buddhists. I talk about things like that. The essentially all the Mystics all around the world have used very similar.

Language Ng and the language is counter Intuitive. It's strained something and yet it lines up across cultures, which tends to indicate that there's something universal going on here? Why would they cultures that had no contact. I mean, there are obviously there's sometimes the cultures have contact. There's cultural diffusion but cult I mean? Why should something written in the 6th century in Srilanka.

Line up so well with something written in the 16th century in Spain and those worlds had no contact at all but you read Theresa Abele's interior Castle, you read the V City Monka and.

There's not perfect, but there's a lot of alignment. Their surprising alignment. Teresa ends up saying in the end took her a lifetime. She went through the Jhanas. When the Christian version of that only at the very end of her karere did she come to this.

Transformation in her understanding and you can see that she struggles to convey the difference, which is described all of these.

Ever deeper states of recollection tranquility, and so forth and then you could see her struggling to try to describe something that belong to a whole other dementia. She said it was an intellectual vision, but then she said. But I don't mean that I saw a vision of Jesus or something something changed in my mind, and my concept about things and.

What changed was to use her words the self forgetting is so profound that it seems as though the soul no longer exists.

Well, that's stream entry, the salient defining feature is insight into.

But non something miss himself Sukhia Dipti, The view that there is a sub kya a thing an entity called self with him now, you might think that.

Writing in the age of the Inquisition in Spain that someone would get in trouble for saying something like that. But she didn't get into trouble at all. In fact, she became the the main map maker for Christian Mystics. It's like OK 'cause. She gave such clear descriptions so it's sort of interesting that these descriptions somewhat lineup and their counter intuitive so emptiness and nothing. This is like across all the traditions.

So you know in my mind, I tried to imagine and I mentioned.

That there was a period in my.

When I am the rest of the United States was doing a lot of LSD. Some of you remember that that time while you're here now, anyway. So I have these ideas about what the void was supposed to be then. and I have ideas now except the ideas now are not based on speculation that based on direct experience.

So if I were if I were to say.

What the emptiness means to me what comes to my mind 1st?

Um.

It's two things.

A kind of Brown cinas like a basketball that like.

Bounces.

Um.

And the second thing would be a connectivity.

A connector that holds the whole universe together and therefore is naturally linked to a sense of love so that's really counter. Intuitive you wouldn't think emptiness would have either this springiness.

Or, a sense if connectivity or love. It just doesn't quite compute but that's those are the first things that come to my mind.

So.

And yet we also I can also understand why they call it vacuity or emptiness or nothingness, etc, etc. So yeah, it's counter Intuitive.

I can also tell you that, like an Apple.

The first thing that hits your teeth when you bite into an Apple as not necessarily representative of the whole Apple.

Unless you peel that you get the skin, which is sort of hard and dry, but most of the Apple is going to be juicy and sweet and the first bite that People take into emptiness, which is a phase that might last.

A few hours or a few years when their teeth are just getting beyond the skin that's not.

That experience might be sort of bleak and flat and vacuous but.

That's that's just getting past the skin. Once you're past that it's this other thing. It's springy connectivity that provides safety fulfillment in a sense of love.

Uh so anyway, um.

The.

But in the on line someone asked me the different flavors of no self an every time I think about that I come up with a different list over the years, so like this came up to me and I thought it was interesting so I thought I would share it with you, but who knows what it will be. You know next month or next year. That's the thing it's you know the story of the elephant.

The Blind man.

But you may not know that that comes from Buddhism. It's metaphor elephant is Enlightenment and.

But People have?

Tend to see a certain part of it and so describe it. A well it's like a row or it's like a wall or it's like a pillar or it's like a sharp like a Tusk or it's like a hose well, yeah, all of all of that 'cause There's all these different facets.

To it, which is can be confusing.

So.

It's important not to fixate once view, one of my teachers used to say kill know Satori Wah Ashton. Watching I today's enlightenment is tomorrow's mistake, meaning not error. But rather that your perspective broadens and deepens and changes as time goes on. So when People do come to an experience either slowly and smoothly or suddenly of emptiness himself.

What have you one of the first pieces of advice? I give them is don't fix it? However, compelling today's view of it, maybe for you.

Don't fixate that it's gotta be that way. And for God sake don't stop studying with competent teachers. 'cause sometimes People go off. They think they're done when they're just beginning actually so.

Uh.

We have this this.

This meeting that takes place every few years, where the so-called Western teachers, which means People teaching Buddhism. Full time in the West. It doesn't have anything to do with your race. It's just where your main activity is is in the Americas in Europe and so forth as opposed to the Homeland of Buddhism, Asia, so there's this western teachers meeting and it's like a professional.

Meeting for People that do this full time and so it's interesting and it's for me, I've always enjoyed it. It's it's a lot of fun and it's like a professional meeting and People discuss topics and so forth so.

We uh this was a number of years ago we broke up into interest groups.

So you got to choose what interest group you're going to be. And so I choose chose the group that was called quote? How do you deal with the issue of enlightenment so that's I thought that sounds interesting. I'll go? I'll go to that group, 'cause I definitely have some ideas.

Uh.

But it was like.

Sort of.

Sad because it turns out, it wasn't what I thought it was the topic was not what I thought it's like OK is much teachers are going to get together and.

Tell their strategies in their algorithms for the leading People to stream entering.

But that's not what it was about.

It was about.

How do you avoid marginalising students who aren't yet enlightened and still talk about enlightenment?

It was like the avatar of everything that's wrong with politically correct. Sorry if that offended someone, but it's like well. We don't want to make People feel bad because they're not enlightened yet.

Or whatever, so it's like I don't know that's not what I thought that was gonna be.

So let me say what I couldn't say in that meeting.

Well, in general.

The.

Any approach has the potential of showing you know self any approach.

So it's not like what is privileged over another and in fact?

It.

It's not infrequent that no approach shows someone who know self so that People that don't meditate that don't have a practice it just happens.

Uh not uncommon.

So.

In theory, any of the techniques can do the trick or some combination thereof, but if someone were to come to me and actually specifically say. I want to stream entropy well. I would probably start them off on is the focus in technique that entails working with mental images mental talk and body motion.

I'm saying that's what I would probably start off with not like. Oh yes, this is the silver bullet. The White Knight. The Magic thing that guarantees dream entry, but it's for me. It's in my algorithm. It's a good place to start.

Because it's pretty straightforward up together can do it.

And it's likely to bring some sort of insight fairly quickly.

So the idea is that?

You go to image space and there's either images or there isn't so you now see more rest. Then you go to talk space. Same thing, emotional body same thing that you work with the whole system.

So when you're working with the whole system.

Uh.

Different things can happen, one of the things that can happen is that the system goes offline.

Typically, momentarily.

Mental screen is blank at his quiet bodies, emotionally neutral.

Now.

Typically, the reason that happens is that something in the outer system.

Sort of expands in intensity.

A physical sensation or a sound there's a lot of famous than stories. Along these lines. You know, someone's enlightened by by hearing a pebbled you know strike. The broom or the teacher shouts or one of my favourites when you take a bath in the said Temple.

You in Japan and bathe in these in something that looks like this except it's like huge and it's a pot actually. It's heated from the bottom they take off all your clothes and there's a statue of.

Uh.

Bar and watch a who's the patron of the of the bathing area and you have to bow down like this, or whatever. 'cause, he was and are hot and the way he got enlightenment was taking a bath OK like OK. I'm back and do it, so typically.

External site external sound body and our physical body sensation sort of impinges suddenly an if you're monitoring the intersystem.

Instead of getting pulled into that you notice that as that expands the inner system goes into a state of relative rest.

Now that can happen to People at an early part of their practice and that's already. It's not like the alignment or anything, but there are already getting a sort of insight as to how this system works.

Now.

There there's another version of that. That's more dramatic and if that happens and you have a clear experience that might.

Change things on a more permanent basis instead of the inner system going into a relative state of rest, meaning see rest here. Rest feel rested or where your screen is blank. You're losing the quiet in your head and bought bodies emotionally neutral instead of that you're aware that the inner space itself.

Just an issues.

There is no image space there is no talk space there is no emotion body space. That's absolute rest in the inner system.

It's like the relative rest that a beginner can have only more so.

So wanna flavor of no self even a beginner can experience it's like.

For a moment there's relative rest, baby because there's a strong activation on the outside the inner system gets relatively restful. Then there's a much more impactful.

Restful state that's an absolute rest cessation of the space of self itself, so there's 2 flavors of no self right there.

What else well does that mean that in order to experience no self the inner system has to turn off?

No, not necessarily.

The inner system can be quite active.

But.

It's not tangled.

And not coagulate eed.

If the inner system activates even strongly but all the strands are clearly separate. They're not crisscrossing in an unconscious way. And if there's little or no freezing or coagulations in that system.

It will be active, but it's A kind of flow self.

And that is yet another flavor of no self.

It's tricky, though to truly untangle that inner system.

Because the tangling is at many scales simultaneously. My metaphor would be if let's say you have 3 kinds of strands red, green and blue.

The problem is, they exist at many, many diameters there is like.

You know.

Please when is 3 inch thick and one inch thick and a 10th of an inch thick and you know a half a centimeter and Millimeter, an even submillimeter is all for each one of the 3:00.

A colours there's all these different scales.

And now they're all.

Intertwined so inside red is subtle blue and inside that is sutler green, etc, etc. And then maybe even sutler read again? So to fully untangle that scape takes a little bit of practice. But if you can sufficiently untangle it and if you can.

Let go of the tendency to tighten around its arising and passing Oh my God, did it. Take me years.

To not resist the arising of self?

'Cause I thought well the goal of this practice is called no self so if I'm aware of itself. I'm a failure with the practice and that creates all sorts of tension took a long time to get out of that.

Bad rookie habit so anyway.

The soul of the inner system activates perhaps even strongly perhaps even in a very negative way.

But.

There's it's untangle Denon Blood, then creative another flavor of self self of no self. Rather, it's a Freedom because of?

Intensity of clarity.

It's an untangling effect it's an anti emergent quality turns out that.

One of the requisites for the something miss of self is that there be a kind of tangling of things, so the Sukhia ***** depends on lack of clarity.

In fact, you probably know that there's a.

Traditional metaphor that's very famous in the Buddhist world, the amount name Nagasena.

Uh.

Converted from a non native Adjule and he passed it on to King Melinda also known as Kingman and rose, so Melinda is what he was known in as in in Poly, but his Greek name was Monandrous. He was he was a Greek King up. Yeah, about 2000 years ago in the western part of India.

Remnant from Alexanders invasions of India and so he's a Westerner on, he had this dialogue with the Buddhist monk. Nagasena and it's recorded in Poly literatures fascinating and we know that this monandrous was a real person because he's recorded in western Greek history also and in the western accounts.

It is said that he died very peacefully. So maybe it's true that he did actually become Buddhist meditator in any event. The The Conversation has been preserved. It's called Milinda Panha, the questions of King Melinda Orman Andros, so nagasena.

Our gives the metaphor of a chariot and he says he goes all the different parts of the chariot. Ann says you know is the cherry at the wheels is the cherry at the body is it cherry at the axle tree is a chariot. This that and the King has to admit no none of those parts are at and. Then he says, well and it's the same for self and then he goes through the 5:00 aggregates or something like that. I can't remember exactly these.

He sort of breaks cell foot into its components and tries to show the King that there is nothing inside called itself, so that's a famous metaphor.

I.

And my own version, which I think is more to the point and Neuroanatomic Lee.

Uh.

And most of you heard this, but I'll just go for it quickly so the other old fashion CRT.

TV screen.

And monitor and your and there's white on the screen. It's a color monitor, but it shows white on the screen.

Can I say to you there? Is no quality of white on the screen?

When you say are you not just look at it. It's white and I say well. Here's a magnifying glass and we agree that this does nothing but.

Make things a little bigger and resolve resolve means things that fall together to the naked eye are separated by the lens. You can look this up if you want to know what the resolution. Powers resolution power doesn't change what's out there? It just means that things that are tangled get untangled.

And I say OK so now we're going to approach this white screen with this magnifying glass, which we agreed does nothing but make things look larger and resolve.

In other words, untangle the sensory components and what's going to happen as we approach.

The impression white will go away, and depression, Red Green Blue Little pixels bullet rise and that's what was always there, so an emergent quality. This is a metaphor just like Naga singing out Buger us.

Sister budget as metaphor. This is a metaphor that probably is a little closer to the actual underlying neuroscience of the thing. Although it's probably not identical, but I think it's closer than the traditional one. There's an emergent property in perception.

That requieres a tangling.

Of the sensory components and as they get untangled that emergent quality disappears.

In the case of the white on the screen, the emerging quality is the impression of whiteness.

In the case of self the emergent quality is the impression it's a think.

So as you look more and more carefully.

I like to do it in her see, hear feel, but we could do the 5:00 scanned as we could do. The four elements. We could do the four foundations of mindfulness. There's a lot of ways that you can.

Parse horse.

That pie the important thing is not so much. What categories you use but the magic of?

Um the dimensional analysis. I like the inner see, hear feel because it satisfies Occam's razor. It's the simplest one that I know of you can look up the 5:00 aggregates or 5 scan does on wika. Pedia an see if you can imagine meditating based on the definitions you see, there 'cause it's pretty inscrutable.

But anyway,

So that's why I like to use this other thing it's similar and it's immediately observable. You have to be a very, very advanced meditator to be able to observe the song Scar's for example, no beginner can.

Can observe that but any beginner could observe enter see hear feel so?

So that that's another flavor of no stuff that's the no self that just comes from untangling.

Up the system.

Uh.

Are there other?

Flavors of know Sophia.

Um.

If there's enough unblocking if there's enough D coagulations?

The inner system arises as sort of like.

Uh.

A lot of vibrating bubbles.

It's like effervescent bubbles.

It's all flow.

And if you get that where the intersystem sort of is mostly like just shivering on your screen, and stirring and talk space and kind of undercurrent of activity and the emotional body that may not have any particular flavor to it, but it's like the emotional circuits are set up idling down there if you get this fluid experience of the inner system.

That's another whole other flavor of no self.

What I like to do when that happens is cover inner space because you may not be able to parse?

The see, hear feel very clearly when it goes into that subtle level of Vibra. Tori flow, but what you can do is cover the whole space and then just let your awareness soak into it and the more you soak into it. The more vibrant. The space becomes OK well. That's a whole. Other flavor of no self, which is sort of like the?

The flow self.

Um.

So some of these flavors of no self are available to beginning meditators. Some of them not so much that the disappearance of inner space. That's a little bit on the advance side.

And there's also an advanced version of the flow self.

Um.

If the if the system becomes client enough.

Each time there is an inner activation. That means each time there's a reaction to the outer world each time. There's memory plan. Fantasy 8 each time there's a judgment or a conviction aura confusion that arises in the inner system each time.

There's an awareness.

That that was.

Fermented into existence by.

Simultaneous expansion and contraction.

Now, when that starts to happen.

The ordinary self all these ordinary things, including your confusions and your desires.

And your judgments.

There never disconnected from.

The sorts.

Because they arise in the folds of expansion and contraction.

An but sort of the 2 sides of God if you want to sort of get.

Use the G word some People don't like that word. But I I like it, then if you don't then you something else expansion and contraction so expansion and contraction.

They touch.

Each ordinary part of.

And Uhm.

On the other hand.

They touch that collapse of space thing also because that's where they come from.

The.

Expansion plus and minus pull apart expansion and contraction polarize.

Uh.

And then they neutralize when they neutralize the space of experience goes away.

And when that happens with the inner space.

That's absolute rest and then that absolute rest breaks apart into the absolute flow of simultaneous expansion and contraction. So it's an extraordinary thing when your ordinary experience of self is in.

Is embraced?

On the inside and outside by the spiritual source.

Uh.

And then

There's no reason why that doesn't also extend out to the outer see, hear feel.

So actually when someone gets in light of the world gets enlightened as a famous Zedd story to that effect. This person struggled for years and years and years to as amount to get enlightenment. It didn't workout and he was living at this on this mountain called those on.

And finally gave up and went to the Master and the master told him something. I don't remember the exact story. But it's OK. If you have to leave the temple. You know, we have to leave but but something I've sorry. I forgot what the something was. But as he's going down the mountain whatever that something was it had planted the seed.

And he

Suddenly had this realization after all these years of.

Struggling and confusion and he blurted out the words that just came out of his mouth were.

The mountain has become in light, not I became enlightened.

So what does that mean?

Um.

It just means that the external see, hear feel.

Or is born in the folds of the same polarization of the source that's all.

Um.

So traditionally when it happens to the.

Intersystem we call it.

Moogan Japanese means no self and when it happens to everything in turn out are. It's called cooler emptiness, but the the really just the same thing.

So uhm.

These are a few ways to think tangibly.

Uh about

No self and at least a couple of those would be something you can understand that even beginner can pursue with practice.