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Can Enlightenment Be Taught?
- Thread starter wizanda
- Start date
stvdv
Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
Enlightenment = When "matches" and "box" meetInterested in your thoughts on it?
In my opinion.
leov
Well-Known Member
E.g. Christ Jesus, the teacher of Mysteries.Interested in your thoughts on it?
In my opinion.
Spirit of Light
Be who ever you want
This going to sound strange i think since i see my self as a Buddhist, But no enlightenment can not be thought, only realizedInterested in your thoughts on it?
In my opinion.
Yes you do need a teacher to reach enlightenment, but the teacher can not get you to enlighten, only your own shredding of attachments can and your own effort to do as the teacher and the teaching guide you to do will lead you toward the enlightenment (IMHO)
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
If you wish to be saved you may learn. You cant climb the mountain, and be upon the paramount.
Interested in your thoughts on it?
In my opinion.
No but it can be encouraged. We are all unique individuals and will all take unique paths to get to enlightenment. What works for me won't work for you. Also enlightenment is based on the person's unique experiences as well. You have to cut through all the falsehoods in yourself to be enlightened.
Interested in your thoughts on it?
In my opinion.
No, it cannot be taught. "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink." A teacher's job is to give you the tools to reach enlightenment, it is up to you, what you do with those tools.
steveb1
Member
Interested in your thoughts on it?
In my opinion.
In my opinion, Enlightenment can be indicated and circumambulated by Enlightened teachers like the Buddha, but it cannot be conferred by anyone except the seeker him or herself. Put the methods into practice and analyze the results - as the Buddha said, don't believe his teachings, but test them for yourself. The idea is that, sometime during the testing, Enlightenment will emerge within oneself or fall upon oneself. The teacher is the finger pointing at the moon. But it is the moon itself that embraces the successful seeker.
Enlightenment can be taught inasmuch as the experience of an orgasm can be taught...or as much as the taste of a kiwi can be taught.
In other words, enlightenment is something experienced, not taught.
One can show you a door and tell you that you need to enter a 4 digit code on the pinpad to get through it, but until you have an understanding of which four digits will open the door, you'll remain on the side of samsara.
In other words, enlightenment is something experienced, not taught.
One can show you a door and tell you that you need to enter a 4 digit code on the pinpad to get through it, but until you have an understanding of which four digits will open the door, you'll remain on the side of samsara.
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
It can be taught. Since enlightenment is a state of mind, a person is capable of setting the conditions for another person to experience it.
How are you defining "state of mind?" As an intellectual experience of the brain?
Enlightenment is an experience that neuroscience has revealed to be associated with changes in how the brain interprets "information" (i.e. input from the external and internal senses), especially as regards the parietal lobe. It is not a science, religion, or ideology to be taught, but an experience to be attained to.
An analogy is sex. The philosophy, science, knowledge etc. of sex is quite distinct from the experience of sex. People who argue enlightenment can be taught are in a position similar to that of arguing you can lose your virginity by reading a high school textbook on human sexuality.
Not even the Zen masters try to teach enlightenment -- they merely try to teach what they believe is a path to it.
An analogy is sex. The philosophy, science, knowledge etc. of sex is quite distinct from the experience of sex. People who argue enlightenment can be taught are in a position similar to that of arguing you can lose your virginity by reading a high school textbook on human sexuality.
Not even the Zen masters try to teach enlightenment -- they merely try to teach what they believe is a path to it.
That there is a close association between claims
of having experienced enlightenment and physical
changes in the functioning of the brain has been
established over the past 30 or so years by
Andrew Newberg and several other neuroscientists.
Although the majority of people who experience
enlightenment do associate it with deity,
enlightenment is not necessarily associated
with god. A significant, but unknown, percentage
of people who have apparently experienced it
are atheists and/or explicitly deny it has
much of anything to do with deity.
As a Pythagorean philosopher once said, "God is
not a name, but an interpretation."
In sum, "enlightenment" gives every appearance
of being a natural event brought about by changes
in the functioning of the brain, especially as
regards the parietal lobe, the frontal lobe, the
thalamus, the amygdala, and the striatum.
What triggers those changes remains a mystery.
Also, and please correct me if I'm wrong, Andrew references atheists that have had such experiences.
Audie
Veteran Member
Could you or SS describe such an experience?
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
That reminds me. Know what the difference between a human and a horse is?
You can lead a horse to water.
Indeed he does, Salix. The experiences of atheists are in general indistinguishable from the experience of theists -- the only distinction lies in the differing interpretations the two groups give the experience. Atheists, of course, interpret their experience as not having been an experience of god, while theists do just the opposite.
Newberg has compiled the largest database of enlightenment experiences that I have heard of. About 22% of the people self-reporting enlightenment experiences in his database are atheists. Please note: That does not mean 22% of all enlightenment experiences happen to atheists, but only that 22% of the people who volunteered accounts of their experiences to him are atheists.