Articles Teachings: enlightenment Nishida Kitaro religion the absolute
by Duncan
31 comments
The Room
I’m not fond of the word ‘enlightenment’ and would prefer something like Nishida Kitaro‘s expression that is translated as ‘religious consciousness’. This would make it clear that what we’re talking about is not a personal attainment but a way of seeing that beings us into alignment with the Absolute. However, its disadvantage is that ‘religious consciousness’ still sounds like a state of mind. And – of course – it contains the endemically misunderstood word ‘religion’. But its biggest disadvantage of all is that if I talked about ‘religious consciousness’ then people might think, ‘Oh, that’s what he means. I thought for a moment he was talking about enlightenment, but of course that would be ridiculous!’
You have to experience enlightenment to know what it means. Someone who says that enlightenment is ‘boundless compassion’ probably hasn’t experienced it, although they may have experienced boundless compassion. Someone who says enlightenment is ‘a perfectly still and tranquil mind’ probably hasn’t experienced it, although they may have experienced a perfectly still and tranquil mind. It sounds stupid to say it, but only a person who has experienced enlightenment has experienced enlightenment, rather than what they suppose the effects of enlightenment to be. If a person who hasn’t experienced enlightenment experienced enlightenment, the discovery that it’s only the realisation of the Absolute (and not any of Its relative effects) would probably disappoint them, because it takes someone who has experienced enlightenment to appreciate what enlightenment is.
So what the hell is it, then?
Well, imagine that there is a room and the room is a metaphor for your experience. In the room are furnishings and objects and these are your experiences. While they are in the room they are part of your awareness. Yet the person who has experienced enlightenment sees how the removal of everything from the room is not the absence of experience, but the experience of absence. The person who has experienced enlightenment can see how the emptiness of the room is what enables things to appear inside it. These things include the person who has experienced enlightenment, who recognises himself as something that can appear in the room because the room is empty. The person who has experienced enlightenment sees how the room appears simply the way it already is, because it’s so empty that even he isn’t in it.
I think the ‘room’ metaphor is the greatest description of enlightened consciousness ever! 
I wish someone had described it in those terms for me… But this kind of stuff is getting boring. I might try to write about something else for a bit…
Duncan,
You articles are like my wife’s food.
When the dish is exceptionally good, I seldom talk or comment. I just enjoy the meal.
Best,
Alex
I also feel that your ‘Room metaphor’ is a brilliant description of enlightened consciousness.
Don’t assume that it is boring. Not at all. However it is rather abstract (for the unenlightened) and therefore difficult to comment. Reason why, I just enjoy the meal.
Wow. So if you get married, a woman comes and starts cooking you food?! For free?! I really must give that a try!
Yeah, there are at least a few advantages.
Getting married could be an interesting new Experiment in the Home
This may be a bit crude, but I’m curious.
Are there any examples of people becoming enlightened and then freaking out? I mean, I know there’s supposedly all the divine unity and increased love and compassion and all that. But are there any known cases of enlightened people having a “laugh” and testing the boundaries of society and morality? Playing outside of rules and taboos because they have a higher awareness that none of it really matters?
Or is the answer yes, but they’re all in prisons or asylums?
MM: “Are there any examples of people becoming enlightened and then freaking out?”
There are plenty of ancient and modern stories of “wise fools” who awaken and embody “crazy wisdom” or even something more diabolical. Awakening experiences are not reserved for those of cognitive, social, or emotional maturity. So it is quite possible for one’s pathological ego to co-opt and awakening experience and use it to justify dastardly speech and behavior. This, of course, goes against any magical or mythical conceptions of awakening, which happen to still be the norm even among otherwise mature, rational Western adults.
Really really love this room metaphor. Reminds me of Beckett!
I’d be curious to hear what you guys think about karma, if you think it’s relevant to the discussion of enlightenment. How would it tie into your room metaphor?
Thanks Jackson. Any specific examples you could point me to? I’m interested to find out more.
Surely there is no dastardly speech or behavior once you perceive everything as one? Just gas filled toy balloon bodies knocking each other about. All filled with the same gas.
(I know that’s a little obtuse and not so straight-forward, and yes, I do still have morals personally).
Hi MM
You might want to check out Georg Feuerstien’s book: ‘Holy Madness: the shock tactics and radical teachings of crazy-wise adepts, holy fools and rascal guru’s’
Here’s the link to Amazon:
enlightenment…seeing for your own Self…Truth not emptiness underlies everything…yet the mind must be empty of ideas concepts and beliefs of what Truth is…inorder to see for the Self… enlightenment fills the empty mind with the water of Truth…yet to each one…Truth is seen and experienced differently through the eye of the mind…because of the impurities of the conditioned mind…prior to the pure crystalline water of Truth entering into it…the awakening to the Self…enlightenment…it is not an end to the journey…there is no i have arrived…yet it is the end of judging who is enlightented and who is not…jaya shiva…
Thanks Mike, I’ll shove that one on the list.
Related thread over at Kenneth Folk Dharma:
Cheers,
Florian
> I’m not fond of the word ‘enlightenment’
Isn’t it a bit strange that you claim you’re not fond of the word enlightenment? And you make the claim on a site called “Open Enlightenment,” a site on which you over and over and over and over use the word enlightenment?
Your claim is like someone saying they hate smoking, while puffing on a cigarette. Or claiming they’re not fond of meat, and saying so in between bites of a cheeseburger.
> and would prefer something like Nishida
> Kitaro’s expression that is translated as
> ‘religious consciousness’.
But why not let go of all your concepts, both “enlightenment” and “religous consciousness” and all the other such jargon? IF you want to cling to the idea that you’ve got something special, IF you’re attached to believing that you’re on some higher platform than ordinary people, only THEN do you need to cling to fancy-sounding terms like this. WHY do you cling to them? From the get-go, you have never answered this.
> You have to experience enlightenment
> to know what it means.
But EVERYONE is experiencing something all the time. And you can tag whatever name you like onto your experience. You can do what you’ve done, and call it “enlightenment.” ANYONE can do it, and it means nothing.
A good teacher can point others to clear awareness of their just-now experience, to the truth that’s already appeared in this moment, not dependent on BS words and ideas like “enlightenment” or “religious consciousness.” Then there are the countless bad teachers, stuck in some egotistic idea, focusing on I/my/me, claiming that they’re own person state is something exalted and special.
We use certain words not because we like them, Stuart, but so that other people can understand what we mean. Not that this seems to have led to much headway in your case. You make yourself at home in the comments frequently, and yet you never engage in a conversation. You also seem comfortable leaving links to your own blog all over this one. You’re like a guest at a dinner party who helps themselves to the food, complains about the quality of it, and then walks out on the host and all the other guests, only to return the next week expecting another helping. But sadly you’re not going to get one, because you’ve earned yourself a ban.
duncan…with all due respect…is it possible that stuart is only offering his or a perspective that reflects his current level of awareness…as you offer your perspective at your current level of awareness…as there are only perspectives being offered here…let us not pretend that we are offering one another Truth…maybe you might ask yourSelf…what is it in you…that stuart has provoked in which case you have become concluded…stuart is this stuart is that…offering perspectives is about sharing at our current level of awareness…in this sharing there is an openess that allows for other perspectives…in this there is relationship…a communion of giving…jaya shiva
This is, of course, just my humble opinion, but the way Stuart expresses himself doesn’t exactly lead to open communication. I think it’s perfectly appropriate to point that out. and to point to the behavior as observed over time and say — WTF is up with that, Stuart? Openness does not equal wimpiness. Truth does matter, and it’s perfectly okay by me for the owner of a blog like this one to call out the folks who are, in effect, trolling. And… I’ve seen that kind of honesty and directness called out by folks who seem to think tolerance should be endless, despite ample evidence of boorish behavior. I’m not on board with the idea that awakening turns one into a doormat.
Oh, BTW, I also think it’s okay to parse words and for very good reasons decide the word “enlightenment” is such a loaded term that it’s almost crazy to use it. It brings a million connotations with it that get in the way of truly open communication, you see.
But that’s just “me”.
Thanks Chris!
Jaya, if you read the previous threads Stuart has ‘participated’ in (and I won’t blame you if you don’t bother) you’ll see he’s had fair warning but he never engages in dialogue. Criticism is fine, as long as it involves conversation. Otherwise it’s just graffiti. Would you tolerate graffiti sprayed on your house ‘because it reflects the culprit’s current level of awareness’? I wouldn’t!
@Duncan: “Would you tolerate graffiti sprayed on your house ‘because it reflects the culprit’s current level of awareness’?”
Absolutely NOT. To do so would indirectly validate and encourage more of the same unwise behavior, which is harmful both to the offender and the offended alike. I’m happy to see that both you and Alan refuse to engage in ‘idiot compassion’ on this site.
Leaving morality to one side, the fact remains that a firm moderation policy makes a huge difference to a blog’s general usefulness. Brad Warner writes some interesting stuff about Zen, but his high-minded refusal to moderate the comments has made his site a howling abyss of mean craziness, and it’s hard to get much out of it. Some people will say that you can’t do much about the trolls, but I’ve found this not to be true. If all a site proprietor does is post the occasional “dude, WTF” when commenters take it too far and ban the odd troll (after repeated bad behavior and with an explanation), it sets the tone. Trolls don’t bother when they know they’re going to get called on their bullshit. The American political blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates writes on much more incendiary subjects than enlightenment and has a huge readership (he writes for the Atlantic), and yet his comments section is a model of civilized contention. It’s not that hard, but it’s like being a parent: there have to be predictable limits and consequences. Some will not like this, but if you don’t like this particular flavor of free ice cream you can find another. (Or better yet, mix your own.) It’s not censorship if I kick you out of my house for pissing in my tuba, even if you call it performance art. (Did that make sense? It’s been a long day.)
duncan…thank you for bringing some clarity into the picture here…i see…yes cyberpathic behavior must be exposed…for me…i always just try to talk to people in cyberspace as if they were right here in front of me…
phil…thank you for your offering here…next time someone pisses on your tuba…be sure to make them clean it up before you kick them out:)
chris…thanks for your directness and honesty…i am new here so there is no past/history…so many times it happens that one carries the past into this present moment and there are underlying resentments and hostilities that come to the surface during discussion…this can be an opportunity to resolve those issues in the light of Consciousness…as you may well know…much of what we see in others can be a reflection of something we dislike within our ownSelf…in terms of open enlightenment inwhich oneness is realized…the observer and the observed are one and the same…so to become the doormat one must believe or think that there is someone other than ones own Self to stand one it…in this there is no open enlightenment…only a dog barking at its own reflection…ah but sometimes the sound of the dog barking can awaken one…
jackson…thank you for your perspective…i have been the fool and the wise man many times…and it is only by grace that i see that compassion allows enough space for this to be…
i always say…its a new day…in this way i will always see you anew…jaya shiva
jay shiva, I salute you!
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes once famously relied on the dog that did not bark
“…have been the fool and the wise man many times…and it is only by grace that i see that compassion allows enough space for this to be…
i always say…its a new day…in this way i will always see you anew…jaya shiva
Yes, and what you say resonates jaya shiva. we are always in flux as nature is in flux….the movement between, the space for grace to enter unencumbered.
allowing removes the you and i and me and us and we and them and those…so the something new may enter…jaya shiva
Duncan~~this is a wonderful forum for civil, intelligent discussion. I bow to you for creating this site. This is only my second post : )
Enlightenment is such a loaded word that I would use awakening as an alternative. And I feel every person in the universe is on the threshold of awakening to the unspeakable wonder and beauty of existence. There is a force that always leads us back to the Heart. It could witnessing the astounding radiance of the sunrise or the deepest sorrow from the death of a loved one or the pit of despair and confusion in the darkest hours. But, at every turn there is a doorway that opens into the Heart, if we don’t run away in fear. This is ‘enlightenment’ or ‘awakening’ in the sense that you don’t run away from the beauty or the pain or the sorrow. It moves through you like the wind.
“Those that make you return, for whatever reason, to the spirit, be grateful to them.” (rumi)
Duncan~~this is a wonderful forum for civil, intelligent discussion. I bow to you for creating this site. This is only my second post : )
Enlightenment is such a loaded word that I would use awakening as an alternative. And I feel every person in the universe is on the threshold of awakening to the unspeakable wonder and beauty of existence. There is a force that always leads us back to the Heart. It could witnessing the astounding radiance of the sunrise or the deepest sorrow from the death of a loved one or the pit of despair and confusion in the darkest hours. But, at every turn there is a doorway that opens into the Heart, if we don’t run away in fear. This is ‘enlightenment’ or ‘awakening’ in the sense that you don’t run away from the beauty or the pain or the sorrow. It moves through you like the wind.
“Those that make you return, for whatever reason, to the spirit, be grateful to them.” (rumi)
How nice to find other awakened folks on the interwebs.
Great metaphor. Though, the preceding paragraph – the one about all of the experiences that are NOT awakening – was the real gem, in my view.
Good to meet you, Sam. And congratulations on your wonderful blog. Have you discovered Being Ordinary yet? That’s a pretty wonderful website too…
Thank you, Duncan. Good to meet you as well.
I have not discovered the Being Ordinary site. I’ll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
There go those crazy, wonderful, self-contradictory sounding explanations again
Oh you guys.
- Chris