Explain Zen Enlightenment to Me

I've had quite a bit of free time on my hands over the past month in particular so I've been trying to fill it up with meaningful stuff, friends, family and pet projects but over the past few weeks I've been reading a book called 'The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying'. I've no idea how this book is viewed in a wider context but I've found it to be excellent. I don't know, there's something about it. I feel a real warmth whenever I read a chapter, the author speaks with such kindness.

I'm tempted to think that my interest in Buddhism and my longing for some meaning/guide to jump out at me from life is creating a warmth that I've manufactured in some way but who knows. It's funny, I actually get a little emotional when I read this book occasionally, emotional about what I hear you say, nothing really, the writing just seems to really click at times. I guess some of the things that bug me are the problems cliched to hell for people my age, an identity struggle of sorts and a feeling of pressure based on the future and the need to plan or create goals, to accomplish certain things, to live a certain life. Maybe this book brings me back to the here and now if only for a fleeting moment, this is always welcomed with open arms.

Anyway, I'm hoping to join a meditation class in a couple of months time, maybe I should just start now but one thing is for sure, today has been a day of drifting somewhat but it's always nice when, by whatever means necessary, like this thread for example, you get a timely nudge in the right direction or any direction for that matter. :wink:

Nice reading along.

That sounds very nice. Five years...only time will tell for me. How often throughout the week do you meditate as an 'old timer'?

Ashers, it's good to see you! I wonder if you are around the same age range as myself, late 20's? I definetly relate to this

Yup, that is a factor for sure..
.........

Flushd and Ashers, when I first got involved with zen I was a young man in my middle twenties, suffering identity issues. I wanted to free myself from the clutches of society and religion. Zen, it seemed to me after reading the early authors on the subject (by the way, Ashers, most of them were British) that by means of zen meditation I could free myself from the constrictions of social reality. Well, that didn't happen as much as I wanted. By the way, I chose to be a sociology major in college hoping that by understanding the nature of society and culture I would achieve freedom. Then I tried philosophy....etc. Fortunately I stayed with zen meditation, going through a bunch of teachers. Now I just "sit" (meditate) every morning by myself and every Saturday morning with my "sangha" (buddhist old-timers: men and women who did not quit after five years). The rest I'll explain to you if you request it by way of pm

Overall i find this very intriging but why do ppl quit after 5 years? Do they just give up hope?

EN, many quit much earlier. The really ambitious and determined last as long as five years, in my observation. The ones who continue also give up, but in the right way, and much earlier. By "give up" I mean they quit their ambition to achieve a powerful state of being, a super state of mind, and come to gain, instead, a great appreciation of their ordinary minds living in ordinary reality. Appreciation for things as they ultimately are. Meditation then ceases to be a means to an end; it becomes an end in itself. When I am sitting in completely passive alertness, I am, without doubt, my happiest (even though the words "my" and "happiness" are not zen correct language).

Ya got me laughing on that one timber.

I'm gonna have to think about that for a looooooonnnnnnngggg time.

btw Is 4'33" a Buddhist hymn?

Isn't it a piano sonota by John Cage?

Yep. Four minutes , thirty three seconds of silence. In three movements.

Well, no, not silence. It's just that no notes are played. To call it silence is to miss the point of the performance.

Flushd, nice to see you too, I'm 20 but yeah I can really empathise with this. I know someone who's in his mid twenties, he's well on the way to becoming a pilot for BA, he's got loads of friends and acquaintances from around the world now, but in the sense of pressures to accomplish goals and to cement yourself amongst society I do wonder how at ease he really is inside. I say that because despite the outward display of a person, inside there's always the sense in which they're merely on a perpetual struggle up the employment, cultural and social ladders.

I guess what I need to get my head around is to gain a clear state of mind and to feel a sense of ease you need a base of sorts to build from, something you can count on. When I question so much of what goes on around me it's all well and good realising the importance of turning "inwards" but some things simply take time and when the pressures around you are ever present there's a silly but genuine sense of annoyance I guess that you can't just skip to the end of the rocky road to the beautiful countryside that you hope awaits.

Of course that itself is the wrong motivation or at least, an unhelpful one. JL's post about "giving up" was a good one on this but what struck me with that was the changing motivations or lack thereof for the meditation. The initial reasoning for meditation in this case, may vary on specifics but there is a sense in which the idea of motivation, that which is needed to take a certain path, becomes meaningless in the end. So it seems like in this specific example, in a sense, you almost have to take one step back in order to take two forward. I think I could apply that in a broader sense for me in terms of needing to place just a little extra confidence in things which I may have questions marks over, if only to experience more of the world and to become a more well rounded person who does then appreciate, to the fullest extent, let's say, the inner workings of Buddhism etc at a later date.

I guess this is why living in the moment is so important, if you can focus that compassionate outlook on every individual moment of your life then not only are you maybe working towards something that's worthwhile in any future that unfolds but you've also kinda found that something upon which you can depend and fall back upon whenever you need to re-focus your energies. Erm, bit of a ramble there...

Oh and JLN, I'd love to hear more about your experiences with meditation.

I dont really believe all the spiritual stuff but i definately believe atachment to earthly things cuases pain and ,editation is a great way to achieve peace within yourslef

Epinirvana, there you go. As far as I'm concerned that's all the spiritual "stuff" you need to know. Now DO it.
Oops! I got that wrong; it's not attachment to earthly things--there are only earthly, no other worldly, things. It our attachments to our thoughts about "things" that causes our suffering.

Thats what i meant but i used the wrong terminology.

Good comments to Flushd, Ashers.
I would not recommend meditation to anyone IN PLACE OF the pursuit of a meaningful vocation that provides both a living and an interesting life. I know some serious zen students from the 60s who confined themselves to the pursuit of mystical fulfillment. Some of them succeeded, I presume, but a lot of them seem to have no means for making a living.
I'm glad I went to college and gained a number of degrees permitting me to have an interesting academic career and a decent retirement. AT THE SAME TIME I was able to continue meditating, studying the violin and, upon retirement, I resumed the practice of painting that I began in the 50s. Life requires more than meditation--at least for me--but without it much of my "meaningful" activities might have been not quite enough.
Moreover, the occasional therapy I underwent helped me with some of the "growing up" problems of my early adulthood. I would never recommend zen meditation as a substitute for some kind of psychotherapy, if and when the latter is needed. Zen is not for the treatment of insufficiencies; its for the enhancement of our strengths (I'm thinking right now of Abraham Maslow)

Good comments to Flushd, Ashers.
I would not recommend meditation to anyone IN PLACE OF the pursuit of a meaningful vocation that provides both a living and an interesting life. I know some serious zen students from the 60s who confined themselves to the pursuit of mystical fulfillment. Some of them succeeded, I presume, but a lot of them seem to have no means for making a living.
I'm glad I went to college and gained a number of degrees permitting me to have an interesting academic career and a decent retirement. AT THE SAME TIME I was able to continue meditating, studying the violin and, upon retirement, I resumed the practice of painting that I began in the 50s. Life requires more than meditation--at least for me--but without it much of my "meaningful" activities might have been not quite enough.
Moreover, the occasional therapy I underwent helped me with some of the "growing up" problems of my early adulthood. I would never recommend zen meditation as a substitute for some kind of psychotherapy, if and when the latter is needed. Zen is not for the treatment of insufficiencies; its for the enhancement of our strengths (I'm thinking right now of Abraham Maslow)

I didn't mean to brag, but, then, why did I say it twice?

I live in Ocala Florida.

Thanks for recognizing that these posts in this forum were not serious opinions. I have no idea what the teaching of Zen is ok. I was just cracking some jokes is all, your the only one who caught on to that. Thanks.

Yeah you did! Admit it!.

Scott, o.k., I'll admit it twice. But when you guys are as old as me you'll very likely have as much or more to brag about. Enjoy it.

By the way, this thread is about "explaining" zen. Zen is NOT something that one understands; it, itself, has no intellectual aspects and therefore cannot be explained. I think of explaining as the transfer of intellectual understanding from one person's consciousness to anothers. Zen literature sometimes talks about this as the "transmission" of zen wisdom from one person (usually a teacher/master) to another (a student/monk). But what is transmitted is something that is profoundly subjective, even unconscious and therefore ineffable.
Here we are skirting about the subject of zen, talking ABOUT intellectually accessible aspects which are tangential but external to zen itself.
Let me add that your "enlightenment" can never be mine, just as your feeling of pain cannot be mine. You can talk to me about your pain but that will not result in my knowing your pain as the subjective phenomenon that it is. The same with zen experience/perspective. It is immediate, private and personal like pain.
Or pleasure.