Barbelith Underground > Temple

Papess: Our bodies and our minds are not as separate as they seem. It is like compartmentalizing one's existence when you explain things the way you have.

Everything in this discussion is compartmentalisation, whether it be the divide of Body and Mind, or Enlightenment and Non-Enlightenment. As soon as you draw boundries between anything, drawing boundries between everything is equally valid. It's only the opinion of the viewer which makes one subjectively more true or false.

Ev: it's more helpful, and even more accurate, to say that we ARE our bodies: our blood, our bones, our brains and nervous systems, and so forth down the line. (The fact that we're capable of perceiving, communicating, and acting beyond our own personal bodily boundaries doesn't change that.)

If we agree that the body and mind are the same thing that make up "I", how do we then draw a distinction between "I" and the world around "us", when they both feed into and inform one another in exactly the same way? They're as inextricable as to be validly recognised as the same thing.

"Attaining" enlightenment is impossible because "enlightenment" is only a word. A word that points the way to something that isn't even a concept. Whatever "it" is, it exists outside conceptualisation and cannot be pinned down or recorded in any fashion outside of the moment it is experienced. As I understand it, this is why Zen parables generally come off as nonsensical or contradictory, because the true teaching lies outside of the language and ideas we try to squish it inside of. It can't even be directly pointed to, the best you can hope to do is trip someone over so it smacks them in the face on the way down.

The search for "enlightenment" is a goose chase (and by this, I don't mean to denigrate practices that focus on that. I only mean that the result obtained will always be something totally different from what was thought to be sought). So often the word becomes a peg on which the person chasing it hangs a mirror. It's a string of letters we use to wave a hand at a whole bunch of criss-crossing, half-formed brainectronics that bleed into each other and have no clear boundaries. It means something completely different to each person describing it, just like "love" or "hate" or "table". And people can only define their own concept of things with the information they have on-hand.

We're never truthfully looking for enlightenment when we're on the quest for it. It becomes a road that leads us "away" from where we are now, but destinations are defined by their starting points. The more you strive for something you think you're not, the more it reinforces what you actually are.

Maybe it's more like a massive hole covered with sticks and leaves, that could be anywhere along the path. Won't know until your foot hits air. Even then, who knows what's in it? Or what the fuck you'd actually do with it once you've got it? Or even if it's there at all? Who even cares?

More likely it's something that has no relation at all to that shite little analogy.

Enlightenment is not a destination. There is no starting point. If you don't think you have it, why look for it? Is it going to make you a more able and content person if you're focussing your energies on a future state that exists nowhere but in your mind, instead of all that wonderful buzzing and crackling you're making with the world right at this moment? Expect to find it in the future and you'll always be looking there, missing it as it dances right under your nose.

Maybe it's simpler than all of that. Maybe it's as simple as knowing that where you are is the best place to be. Because in your life you're sure as fuck never to be anywhere but there. To me, that's what tales of instant enlightenment point to. It's not something that can be gotten away from, lost or attained. The truth of the situation is there the whole time. When the subject stops incessantly talking over themselves is when the background noise comes up and their solo becomes a concerto.