In my OP, I was wondering if enlightenment means the same thing in different cultures. I guess I was asking if it is the case that enlightenment (if and when it takes place) transcends culture and religion.
I am somewhat surprised that no one yet has said something like 'enlightenment is a myth'. — Tom Storm
Or a little stupid. — Janus
That was unnecessary harsh, and you still haven’t adequately explained non-attachment. You’ve described how people get stuck on something and then let it go. This is pretty much what we normally do, in some cases effortlessly. Non-attachment indicates no further attachment and therefore nothing to let go of once one is non-attached. — praxis
Is that relevant to whether it is the best way to understand what enlightenment is? Should philosophers only be interested in, only take seriously, ideas that "roll of the tongue" and don't sound boring? — Janus
sounds kind of dull. — Tom Storm
What do you mean "harsh"? I'm using stupidity as an analogy to attachment; unlike pregnancy there are degrees. — Janus
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” — Tom Storm
The quote, as you probably know, is Jung's - his model of human consciousness incorporated the 'shadow side' or darkness. Pretty sure he is saying that to be enlightened means to integrate all elements of your conscious being (including your evils) in the process he called individuation. When complete, you are enlightened... I guess. I think this says a lot about Jung's notions of attachment, and he is probably saying too that everyone is on a path to enlightenment but only some 'complete' this individuation process. However, I don't think he is saying that we are all partly enlightened. That sounds suspiciously like being partly pregnant. But who knows? — Tom Storm
This requires very careful interpretation as it is easily misconstrued. — Wayfarer
I think the matter goes here: when one simply opens one's eyes, one faced with familiarity instantly; always, already, if you like. Discover the nature of this familiarity and you will know what it is that stands between you and enlightenment.
The awful truth of this is that, this familiarity is the world, and to be enlightened, in the deepest sense of te term, one has to give up living in the world. — Constance
in my language community "enlighten" has to do with knowledge. "Let me enlighten you as to the right way to blah blah blah". There's a connotation of preceding delusion. — frank
Having said that, I'm the only enlightened person here. I'm pretty sure about that. — frank
Everything you've been claiming appears to be 'less' and not 'non'. Less can be great, but less is not non. 'Non' may not even really be desirable since we need to live in this world, and if we don't want to live in this world, a well-aimed bullet is an expedient solution. — praxis
In eastern philosophy, it means something different. There has been a lot of back and forth about what exactly that something different is. — T Clark
I'm much closer to enlightenment than you are — T Clark
So I don’t think this sounds like nihilism. On the contrary, it seems to suggest that after all there may be something that is “permanent, blissful, and self”, to which conditioned phenomena are contrasted as “not so” (cf. the Upanishadic “neti”/”na iti”, “not so”). — Apollodorus
Freed from the classification of consciousness, Vaccha, the Tathāgata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. ‘Reappears’ doesn’t apply. ‘Does not reappear’ doesn’t apply. ‘Both does & does not reappear’ doesn’t apply. ‘Neither reappears nor does not reappear’ doesn’t apply.”
In Western traditions like Platonism and Hindu ones like Advaita Vedanta, the answer would be “consciousness”. — Apollodorus
So in this matter, the reason why you and others are skeptical about revelatory enlightenment is, it seems, because you are too fixated on a propositional conclusion that requires no foundational alterations in the act of perception itself. — Constance
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