Is Enlightenment Delusional?
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- Опубліковано 22 кві 2018
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As a person who has been diagnosed with schizoaffective syndrome I feel quite confident in saying that there are profound differences between a psychosis and a spiritual experience. Though hard to explain in words one can say that a psychosis adds while a spiritual experience subtracts. This is of course nothing more than my subjective view on the topic and can be seen as nothing more than a anecdotal argument.
Thank you. That's interesting. I have long thought there might be some connection between states we call "psychotic" and states we call "spiritual." But we do need to make some kind of distinction. I think your criteria is a good one.
@@HardcoreZen In James H. Austin's book - Zen and the brain - he has a chapter about the differences between "psychotic" and "spiritual" states. It's in the earlier part of the book. There's even a chart of comparison, and one part that stands out to me was that after a "psychotic" experience, the person tends to be more agoraphobic and socially withdrawn, anxious etc. whereas after a "spiritual" experience the person has more of the opposite tendencies.
@@davidinspace Interesting. I should take a look!
@@HardcoreZen something that comes to mind which may be interesting for you to explore on this topic is - Eckhart Tolle sometimes refers to an animal, child, drug experience as going "below" the mind, which can still reveal a deeper perception of reality, however a meditative experience is to "transcend" the mind which perhaps is deeper still
You had a lot more patience for that guy than I ever would have! He reminds me of some of the schmoes who would clutter up the comments section of your blog. I never understood what motivated these people. Did they think that if they just presented you with a sterling enough logical argument for the idea that you were just puffing smoke, you'd smack your forehead and go, "Of course! How could I possibly have been so silly all this time!?" and give up on it? (From everything I've seen, they DO seem to think that...)
There's nothing to prove to these people, because their standard of evidence is always going to be outside of anything you can offer them.
But this was a good explanation all the same, and I dug it.
i'd say it is fair game. despite the true path to enlightenment entailing abandonment of delusions, 'spiritual' circles are rife with delusional people. It seems like this person asked some great questions (even if their tone was slightly condescending) hence fuelling an interesting 20 min discourse.
The perspective of this person is the perspective of the vast majority of academics who have bought into the notion that material reality is all that there is. When you think about the years of study that these people put into getting their fancy degrees, and the constant reinforcement of identity that goes along with this, the motivation to spew this type of rhetoric becomes very clear.
The guy reminds me of how cerebral I got about pretty much everything. Then I started sitting consistently and all of that is going flushed away, even without stream entry - yet
It seems to me the writer of the mail confuses a reflection with the object that gets reflected.
“Realization is like the moon reflected in water. The moon doesn’t get wet, and the water isn’t broken. The entire moon and sky can be reflected in a dewdrop on a blade of grass. Realization doesn’t break an individual, just like the moon doesn’t break the water.”
The dewdrop doesn’t become the moon. So, Brad having an enlightenment experience doesn’t become the entire universe. He just reflects the entire universe.
If we follow that analogy, the mail would be the complaint of a pebble on the moon that it didn’t have the memory of the experience of being one with a dewdrop at the moment it reflected the moon. Well.. why would it?
The mail seems to assume some magic going on that I haven’t read about in the descriptions of enlightenment experiences until now.
Well, not really. There is no reflection, you just realize that the universe is one and you are a part of the universe, hence you are the universe. For there to be a reflection there needs to be separation.
I experienced a dissociative disorder (depersonalisation and derealisation) for several years after a trauma. It was this experience and my subsequent recovery that piqued my interest in Zen. Depersonalised, I had almost no sense of self and yet there was still me there, experiencing the absence of self....this sounds like enlightenment but it was a nightmarish state that had me close to suicide. Along with my self had gone all experience of beauty and pleasure leaving only pain and fear behind. I believe this is sometimes referred to as the dark night of the soul.
I rebuilt a self/ego and became healthy again. Now, 6 or 7 years on from my recovery the ground beneath me has become unstable again and I have experienced bouts of severe anxiety but this time with no accompanying dissociation. I have developed a very strong interest in spirituality (which I think of as that which resists intellectual understanding - the unique experience that is consciousness) and I think also an unease which I find the questioner articulates very well. Is this pain trying to wake me up to the suffering I inflict upon myself through my egoic-mind identification? Or am I imagining an illusionary escape that corresponds with the insights I have experienced from a young age that 'I am the universe experiencing itself'. I end up thinking it can't hurt to keep meditating with an open mind and just see where it takes me.
I wonder what you think about Eckhart Tolle, Brad, his words ring very true somewhere deep inside me.
I have a friend who has a story very similar to yours. His experiences with depersonalization led him to yoga and Zen. There is some kind of connection there. It may be that he and you realized something fundamentally true but lacked a way to process that. My friend's experience also was very painful. Yet the so-called "enlightenment experiences" reported by many in Zen are often described in very similar language. It may be that the experiences are not quite the same, but at least related. It may be that the philosophical framework of Zen makes a big difference in how such experiences are processed.
As for Tolle... I feel like most of what he says (at least what I've heard) is good. My only problem with him is that he's a bit like Jiddu Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti also said some great stuff. Yet he didn't offer any sort of practice or framework for his insights. They just seemed to come to him naturally. Which is fantastic for him. But for most of us (myself included) it's not that easy. We need some sort of structure around this stuff.
Thanks for the reply Brad. I think I agree about Tolle but I wonder if he has left this out of his teaching deliberately as each person will naturally pursue a path that suits them and, given his emphasis on the acceptance of what IS, to avoid the implication of a goal (in the future) that could accompany a recommended practice/framework. Does Zen have an equivalent concept of what ET calls the 'pain body' (perhaps synonymous with what Jung calls 'the shadow')?
@@momsazombie1 Not precisely. The Yogacara Buddhists had a lot of elaborate theories of the subconscious mind (called Alaya Vijnana). I'm sure that kind of thing is in there. The Zen school adopted a lot of Yogacara concepts, but in Zen the tendency is to move away from labeling and categorizing things. So those Yogacara concepts are sort of in there, but rarely discussed very much.
One reason these kinds of experiences are difficult to explain is that they take place in a state that Zen Master Seung Sahn called, "before thinking." According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics, language precedes thought. In other words, you have to have words before you can think. When Buddha saw the bright star, there were no words. This is the same point as in the kong-an in which a monk, having just entered the monastery, asked Joju for guidance. Joju asked the monk, "Have you eaten yet?" The monk said, "Yes." "Then wash your bowl," Joju replied. Upon hearing these words, the monk was enlightened. If you are thinking, this point is very difficult to attain. Before thinking, it is completely clear and simple. After eating, just wash your bowl.
Great video. You have a great understanding of Zen Buddhism. These concepts can be hard to grasp (like the concept of "emptiness of all phenomena"). I agree strongly with many of your points of view in your videos. You're a good teacher. Bless you. Please continue. I am part Buddhist/part Yogi, by the way. Peace, love, and enlightenment to you.
great video, eagerly awaiting the next one!
Thank you for your personal regular knowledge, motivation as well as education to aid my direction to progressively more consciously cognizant moreover spiritually connected.
You're welcome.
good example with the porn vs experience of sex.
you can help clarify how the experience of "being everything" work by explaining how it's really the result of losing the local sense of "me", and without any sense of "me" inside, there's no more division with other people/creatures/things.
losing the sense of "me" begin as a temporary phenomenon but becomes permanent (stream-entry to non-returner to arahant)
stream-enterer has a peek at how it's like to not have a sense of "me" for a moment,
arahant lost (purified themselves of) all of them.
question is why you can loose a local sense of self yet not have it be stable
@@nicbarth3838 because the ego is made up of thousands of little individual selves.
We are our body, our gender, a son/daughter, a brother/sister, a friend, a cousin, a student, a graduate, someone who likes this thing and not that thing, a star trek fan/hater, a yogi, a husband/wife, someone who plans on doing this or that etc...
There's a sense of being a continuous coherent person but when we look at it carefully we realise it is made up of thousands of individual identities, all with their own desires and emotions.
Desires can naturally be satisfied or lost, outgrowing them, naturally shedding identities.
But since we're humans, we accumulate a huge number of them and can therefore only satisfy or shed a small portion of them, leaving us with a huge ego full of unsatisfied desires and all the thoughts and emotions associated with that.
With spirituality we realize that none of the desires are actually ours, they all accumulated on their own and the process of shedding the identities can become a conscious one.
Going from a life of chasing desires to a life of appreciating the absolute majesty of what already is
@@theUnmanifestI agree with you that the ego is sedimentary in that it is an aggregation of things, however were I disagree on is that those collection of things are in themselves agents that I disagree on, I felt similarly to you on this topic a couple years ago until I had my identity loosen up and had no disturbance from thoughts. I would say that these ego is made up of thoughts and that these agents are similarly thoughts. I am talking from my former experience of not having any sense of self from any kind of thought not even thoughts about myself and it was pleasant even blissful, however it lasted for five minutes but during that time I understood something that I do not understand currently. I think it was relating to thoughts or identity but looking back on that it was so long ago that I am hazy
im not implying that those collection of things are in themselves agents, they are recognized as empty like everything else when investigated, and the illusion breaks, that's what self-realization is and is about.
Eventually enough bubbles pop that the default mode shifts from ego to unidentified awareness.
Every bubbles taking with it a form of rejection of what is, a fear, a plan or hope..
But it's just a way to look at it, a few more thoughts appearing in the totality of what is..
@@nicbarth3838
i do not believe that those collection of things are in themselves agents. The sense of self reveals itself to be empty like everything else when examined closely. This is the essence of awakening, spirituality, enlightenment.
As adults, we usually first experience life only as the ego, from the moment we wake up in the morning to bed time.
When the self bubbles begin to pop as the result of being recognized as they truly are, as empty; the system will snap out of the mode of the ego, eventually resulting in periods of no-self. (years ago my first real experience of no self lasted a week, i ended up dubbing it my Maharaji week hehe)
But since the ego has lots of roots, the system will likely shift back to the ego mode as the default, as you and countless other experienced.
If enough bubbles pop, after a period of back and forth between no-self and ego, eventually no-self will become the default mode, but the ego will keep popping in until more of it is recognized and the knots released.
Eventually we run out of accumulated identities, but this takes time as the lotus flower has thousands of petals, and it gets really subtle after a while.
bless you
@@nicbarth3838
gotta say, you’re bookshelf is wonderfully distracting :-)
To me too!
lol "og Buddha" that tickled my funny bone.
that lens distortion is phychedelic
For years I chased enlightenment. Then suddenly one day I had the sense that everything was alright. Then I sensed that everything had always been alright.
And then I realized I, along with everyone else, was enlightened all along, just had been missing the thing I was looking for all along.
As you said, it’s all so impossible to explain. But that’s how I feel.
Any thoughts on that?
Also, thanks for the videos. Enjoy them all!
I never think of myself as "enlightened." That's too much! But whatever enlightenment is, it's always available.
Hardcore Zen I like that. That’s how I feel. If everyone’s “enlightened” does that mean enlightenment is even a thing?
@@coldwinter4959 I think that what most people call "enlightenment" is a fantasy. But I do think that there is something...
Very interesting video, one of your best (to me anyway). I wonder what the sender of the email expected to happen?
So generous and elegant, this talk. Thank you
I always liked the parable about the frog who lives in a well its whole life. You can tell it about the ocean and describe its size, but that does not really convey what it's like to see the ocean with your own eyes.
Someone asked my teacher if all is one and he was enlightened can he read the questioners mind. His answer was, in your dreams they are many different characters, all produced by the same mind. So within your dream can you read the minds of the other characters? He said no.
No you cant read the minds of other characters within the dream because they never had individual thoughts nor individual minds to begin with. Its the dreamers creation. Its a failed response to the question.
An individual, are you sure? That we are is certain, what we are, not so much. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj "You are not what you think you are" Zen master Hakuin "True self is no self" Zen Master Joshu "Life is a butterflies dream" and the last quote which I think was Buddha but I'm not quite sure, "One does not wake up from a dream, one wakes up to the dream". Have you read The Diamond Sutra? If not may I recommend it. Go in peace.@@Uji_Metal
Good vlog, Brad. I have to say, you took a different approach to it than I thought you would, which was basically, 'It doesn't matter,' especially in light of the difference between Rinzai and Soto and the latter's emphasis on meditation over the enlightenment experience. Going back to HCZ, it seemed like you found the experience interesting but not particularly meaningful. Or more broadly, that enlightenment experiences can be fascinating in the original and not entirely positive sense of the word.
Yeah. That's true. The experience was/is meaningful. It just doesn't fix everything.
Isn't all perception just a hallucination?
I've been trying to find a way to articulate my understanding of this, which is a bit different from what I hear from you here Brad. I think you can either enclose the Buddhist experience/views as a phenomenon explained by and contained within the mail writer's views of reality OR you can enclose the mail writer's ideas as explained by and contained within the Buddhist views of reality. I think it's a draw as they are both somehow able to mutually include each other. From each perspective the other appears to be an artifact and the very reasoning they use don't function in the reality of the other. Really intriguing 😃
Yeah... that could be a way of putting it. But I think he email writer is getting confused by the metaphorical expressions used by people who've had these experiences. He says things like "if that's true, then you must have..." and riffs on the metaphor being used. But those metaphors are just ways of trying to express a very uncommon experience. They're sort of like trying to describe colors to a blind person. Maybe you'd describe red as being hot or spicy. If the blind person then put his tongue on a red piece of paper and found that it was not hot or spicy, he might say that the person describing the color red was obviously delusional.
@@HardcoreZen ooh!
I thought the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita) said there was no enlightenment. So now I wonder if some use the illusion of enlightenment for whatever rather than the dispelling of all illusions or just seeing the dream with nothing being concrete.
very very good video, well done
Why everyone doesn't experience it all the time is a very interesting question, I keep thinking about that everytime i take psychedelics. It would make so much more sense if everyone experienced super consciousness all the time
First, definitions:
1. Consciousness: a field of the nervous system wherein sensory input is radiated.
2. Awareness: presence, wherever we are present, awareness of an environment exists, even if the environment is pure emptiness.
With those definitions, there definitely, 100% exists a state where awareness can completely disconnect from consciousness. It seems to me to be the state labeled Cessation, or death. Pure emptiness. It is preceded by a sleep-like state wherein all awareness of body/mind/world is shut down, probably using the same mechanism that is used for ordinary sleep (I see this as the Sphere/State of Neither Perception nor Non Perception). This is repeatable for me, and provides at least some supporting evidence that there is a core in Buddhism that is very true and real. My guess is that full enlightenment is a nearly complete severance of awareness/spirit from consciousness, so that consciousness is seen as a foreign object. Cessation demonstrates what remains when everything possible has dropped away, the core of our being/existence, and I call that our spirit. It is zero dimensional and outside of spacetime. It has 3 main aspects which come under the heading of spirit, presence, sense of 'am here', life, and it is no different than what we already are:
1. Awareness. This reads consciousness and is bound to it due to sensual intents.
2. Conscience. The basis of virtue, a sense of ok, not ok.
3. A power of intent. This writes to consciousness to initiate thought or muscle movement.
Being zero dimensional, the spirit cannot decay. None of these 3 things can be created by mechanical building blocks like atoms. The material powers in this world have good reason to prevent an orientation of large numbers of people in dedication to overcoming material existence. Most all religions, including modern society, can be understood when these things are understood. I hope, but do not know, that there is a destination beyond emptiness. Emptiness is not good or bad, but it's not a place I would want to enter for an eternity, even though there is no time or space or pain or anything there 😇
All other things are nonsense in my view. You either disconnect from consciousness, or you are lost in it, lost in the delusions of it.
6 months after these 'attainments', I tried 15mg of pure 5-meo-dmt crystals. And I'd say that experience provides 90% of the experience of Cessation. The difference is that Cessation is totally pure+serene, whereas the 5-meo-dmt experience is tainted, and is not completely unbound from consciousness. There remains some fear, steadying, subtle perception, etc. I note this only because it is very similar and can be experienced even by those without the requirements that ripen one for the meditative path. So, to some degree, what I say is open to verification by most anyone.
It's easy for me to understand why these states evade those that seek them:
1. They don't put forth the effort required, which IMHO is an ability to not miss a single breath for 12-16 hours. This is required to lock-in self-awareness. Missing even a single breath is not good enough.
2. They don't understand the dangers of sensual desires. You really do have to give up and release from all things of this world, even electricity in my view. Wet wood doesn't catch fire. You have to give up life itself. Nobody wants to believe this. You really can't delight in anything of this world. The world must exhaust you in some way so that you don't want any part of it.
We don't all experience enlightenment when one person experiences enlightenment for the same reason that when it rains in Idaho the same rain doesnt fall in Malaysia, except instead of working with local matter we're working with local mind. Mind and matter exist within the same plane and interact, but the terrain is much more vast and diffused. When you do have that experience it's like opening a lot more connections, but the data doesn't run in two directions. Anyway, thats my take.
I will never feel bad for sending someone a long message ever again... #justsaying
According to Julius Evola Buddha was from the warrior nobility class of Sakya. An elitist class on the very top of society at the time. There was a common saying at the time: "Proud as a Sakya". The Sakyas were notorious for their great pride in themselves. I like the analogy of the mind as a ripple free lake in pure moonlight. I think that is what enlightenment is about reaching that state in your everyday life, ripple free. An active process in which consciousness/awareness wisdom and thought is laser-honed to peak perfection by constant vigilance. Not an passive potted plant attitude as seen in Maharishi Ramana lying around all day self-absorbed in his self. What I mean is to always and everywhere have a enlightened attitude to thoughts, people, problems, joy, sorrow, tragedy, happiness and surroundings. Being on the middlepath perfectly balanced mind,body and soul towards everything.In this state lies the best opportunity for comprehending truth and objective reality unobscured. Neither ignoring nor overreacting towards what befalls us. This is how I understand a enlightened viewpoint to be. Possible to all, but where the full enlightenment is reached only by one in a billion.
Master Dôgen`s conception of time, resp. being-time, is a holistic one (special reference: the fascicle "yuji" in the Shôbôgenzô, as well as the "gestalt" of Indra´s net or the "room full of mirrors" as exhorted by Huáyán-Buddhism) ----- and, maybe, in a pre-modern sense (when people knew nearly nothing about, e.g., the function of the brain in the process of "sense-making"), one could also call it "radically constructivist".
Insofar, the cited (rather sceptical) interlocutor and (rather apodictic) You may share some "truth" about the "immo" (or Buddha-nature, and so forth), seen from different angles of view.
If the interlocutor cites reports on "enlightlenment" (--> problems of definition, resp. equivocations) experiences (reported ex post), this does not necessarily mean, this person is "literate only", rather he/her is conscious of the (mundane human) fact, that language is the great meta-institution which carries human culture by greatly attributing to "making (non-)sense".
If You criticize this as alienation, this critic would also apply to Master Dôgen, who presents us with so many propositions, of which some are very cryptic, resp. enigmatic; that`s why editions in Japanese abound with annotations and comments, to help the recipient to make (more adequate) sense of what seems to be the message.
By the way, there is a long tradition of "literate Zen", beginning, so to speak, with the "narrative" about Master Hùinéng (jap. Eno), as critical, yet well founded ("in-group" and "out-group") studies show ----- as well as a long standing tradition of factionalism, because, it seems, the simplest is the most complicated, which lead to nearly endless struggles between "orthodoxies" and "heterodoxies".
Thanks for the vid! The writer is expressing (very articulately) a sort of scientism which (roughly) is the idea that the scientific method is the only way to acquire knowledge about the world around us and anything else cannot possibly be considered real, there is only rational cold materialism. And i'm not dismissing the scientific method. But I also doubt that it's the only way we can know the world. Allen Watts remarked how the idea that man's place in the universe as a scared, cowering animal defiantly living out it's brief life is the rationalists reaction to the previously held paradigm (in the West at least) that we were all God's children. Perhaps they are both kinda right but also kinda wrong. And I have come to think that mystical spiritual traditions and psychedelics, kinda provide us with a third way to understand the world by getting out of the analytic mess we have inherited. Of course you have to take the leap and actually practice meditation or take the shrooms to understand.
The dude who wrote the email is basically stating the reductive materialist idea that we are nothing but meat machines, shaped by evolution and natural selection, and living in a vast and ultimately meaningless universe. This is the so called “realist” position. What this idea assumes, first of all, is that in our current state of understanding we have it all figured out, and as you suggest, that our senses are giving us a full picture of reality. Both of these assumptions are demonstrably false.
Anyway, I liked your analysis and deconstruction of this concept from a Buddhist perspective.
Cheers
This video gives an answer not I expected.
Alternative answer: the 1st rule of enlightment is stop seeking enlighment. The 2nd rule there is no enlightment.
Well, there is, and it is tripping, and because of that it is easer to say there is no englightment, assuming most of you are in healthy state of mind and don't need spiritual psychosis. Otherwise it might become healing experience, still i would recommend avoiding it because of risks associated. (unless you are mentally & physically strong, & prepared/trained).
And the 3rd rule : start living your life.
it sounds like this dude's cup is already full
but op, i need to believe my senses or else i have an existential crisis !
How do you validate an enlightenment experience? Do you need somebody else or do you know that its the real thing when it happens?
There are lots of people out there in the business of validating enlightenment experiences. I would not trust any of them.
I don’t. But I don’t trust myself ether:)
I don't like the word "enlightenment." It has a kind of finality to it. Sometimes when Zen ppl comment about this stuff they'll say things like, "It's as if you're tasting water and you know for yourself if it's hot or cold." That's a metaphor, of course. But it's kind of like that. There's no need for affirmation. There are other sorts of experiences you can have while meditating that seem weird or spooky, and when I've had those I have sought validation for them. But my teachers never validated them. Then there were experiences that didn't need to be validated. In a sense you might call them extraordinary or unusual, but not because they were in any way weird. It was more like, "Oh! I knew that! How could I have forgotten?"
Hardcore Zen
Ahhh, I can relate to everything you said. Could it be that some experiences don't care if they are validated or not? Either by yourself or somebody else? Like hitting your thumb with a hammer, it just hurts. Thanks!
Hardcore Zen Perhaps we westerners unconsciously equate “enlightenment” with ascending to heaven after being judged by God? In Christianity, the judgment is final. It’s impossible to become flawed again after being found holy once.
Great video but I have a question: What are you getting out of a daily meditation for decades that you don't get out of psychedelics?
Everything. Psychedelic drugs can give you a huge jolt. But the effect is ultimately confusing. You've seen something, but you have no idea what it is or what to do with it. Meditation takes you to these same sorts of places, but it does it slowly, so that you have time to integrate what you're learning. Meditation provides a stabilizing effect that no drug can offer. I've written a number of articles on this subject. The way I usually find them is by Googling "Brad Warner drugs" or "Brad Warner psychedelics." You'd probably think I'd have a better way of finding my own writings, but I don't!
Thank you for responding, that is very interesting to me. I will check out your articles!
Boiee. So much thinking
In Mahayana Buddhism, which Zen is situated within, all people are already enlightened, as far as I understand things. I interpret this to mean that at all times we are enlightened, whether we are doing mundane things, painful things, or things we may later regret. We, you and I, and everyone else are aware of reality and our situation within it. We are aware and yet we grasp, and in grasping cause dukkha. We do not grasp because we are unaware, we do so because we have habituated ourselves to act as though we are unaware. The experiences, such as the one you had on the bridge in Japan on your way to work, in which our situation within interdependent co-arising, and sunyata are very clearly brought to our attention are real, but in my understanding are not any more enlightened than watching a cartoon or writing an unnecessarily long comment on a youtube video. This idea of all beings experiencing the enlightenment of The Buddha is true because the conditions that bring about the present moment are necessarily tied to the ever changing condition of the universe previous to the moment, this includes all beings. Hopefully that made some sense. Thank you for your videos and your books. It was reading Hardcore zen about 15 years ago that caused me to start my journey in Zen.
I like the way you put that. Thank you!
damn. That's quite a letter.
Watched for the Which Witch!
Meditate until you can see the emperor's new clothes
OH MY GLOB! LUMPY SPACE PRINCESS!!!!
I love Lumpy Space Princess because her boyfriend was named Brad.
@@HardcoreZen my friend's been recommending your videos to me for ages. only just started watching. Great stuff. gonna stay for LSP
I'm glad you brought up infrared and ultraviolet light, sub-sonic and ultra-sonic sound, and all the other ways our physical senses are limited. That fact alone suggests that there is more going on in the world, in reality, that we are aware of, but there is even more to it than that. I remember reading, many many years ago, that our senses take in a huge amount of information every moment, every second....something like 2,400 bits of information a second. But that due to the way our brains evolved, a great deal of that information is simply irrelevant to whatever we're focused on at the moment so it get's filter out of our perception, we're only consciously aware of about 800 bits of information every second. The author said that the information is still there in our brains, we're just not conscious of it. It resides in the unconscious. That other 1,600 bits of information a second that the brain ignores is still part of "reality", we're just not accessing it because we're so focused on something that it's not really relevant to.... or so our brains have decided.
I remember they talked about a navy radar operator who reported that they got an odd feeling that their destroyer was in danger even though they had not consciously seen anything on their radar screen. The feeling got stronger and stronger until they felt they had to notify their commanding officer that they felt something was wrong. Turns out there was an incoming attack, I forget whether it was a torpedo or a missile or what, but it had not been picked up on the radar and yet the operator had unconsciously noted something that triggered an instinctive reaction that their was incoming danger. The article talked about how the subconscious recognizes patterns based on experience, but the important part that stood out was that the operator's conscious mind had not caught whatever telltale signs that had triggered the reaction. Those bits of sensory information had been filtered out of his awareness and landed in his subconscious where they fit a pattern. Likewise, a show on NHK World I was watching later brought up lab technicians looking at medical scans looking for tumors in patients. It was about a research study that looked at their eye movements and showed that in cases where signs of tumors on the scans were not consciously seen, the technicians eyes lingered on those areas for significantly longer than on clear areas. The idea was that their subconscious mind recognized the signs of a tumor in the scan, but their conscious mind did not see it. So tracking eye-movements and noting areas where the technicians focus longer than normal, would give doctors additional information. Basically they'd look closer at the areas of the scans to see if the tech' missed something due to fatigue or boredom. Sometimes when people are tired or lazy, they get stuck on autopilot doing repetitive jobs and missed things that are not outrageously out of the ordinary to snap them out of it. They just stop paying close attention.
So not only are our physical senses limited in what they can detect, we also have to contend with this innate filtering of information that our brains perform when something is not relevant to our focus which serves to block out what distracts us from our moment to moment goals in everyday life. And just for good measure, there the additional problem of Information Overload where the brain is so constantly bombarded with information that it never gets around to organizing it. Another NHK World documentary I saw talked about that called "Scrolling The Brain Away: The Dangers Of Smartphone Dependence" talked about a structure in the brain called The Default Mode Network that organizes sensory input, only it needs downtime to work and make sense of what the brain has taken in. It only becomes active when you take time to "zone out" and stop reading texts, or browsing websites, or reading books.... like you literally need to just sit by a campfire and watch the random flames flickering and not think about anything. When you don't take time to zone out, and this network of neurons that organizes information does not work, it affects not just your ability to focus, but you also have less patience, a shorter temper, you snap at people, get irritated and talk down to them more often. They also showed addiction-like behaviors like checking the phone every few minutes, feeling it vibrate when it doesn't.... "the phantom buzz" associated with thinking there is an incoming notification. Perhaps Zen Meditation, thinking the thought of not thinking, allows the Default Mode Network in the brain to activate and sort though everything. Could help to clear out the mental background noise or static that further distracts the brain from noticing what's going.
Anyway, with everything that's currently known about just how limited our senses are, and how little our conscious mind is aware of, it's not just entirely possible, but highly likely that there is more going on in the world that we are aware of.
this guy is right
This letter sounds like the guy who wonders why women never talk to him at parties.
Maybe so!
This is a link to a video interview with Ken Wilber talking about the difference between subjective and objective knowledge framed as a explanation as to why Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris are often speaking past each other.
m.ua-cam.com/video/iLhC8SgDRVw/v-deo.html
Enlightenment experiences of various kinds have been thoroughly documented at various times and in very different cultural, geographical and historical contexts. They're not to be confused with psychriatric pathological events. They're not magical nor they guarantee anything to the ones that experience them. They may be in some cases more a hindrance than anything better...
I agree. That is one reason why I love the story of Dogen's "Dropping Dropped." Supposedly when Dogen told his teacher that 'body and mind have dropped away,' Tendo Nyojo affirmed his realization. Dogen replied, 'Don't be so quick to sanction me!' Tendo said, 'That is "dropping" dropped.' When someone has a genuine realization, they will almost always let it go, because if you cling to ANYTHING, that is delusion.
Right. Also another fine point enphasized by Brad : the E... thing is not really an "experience" and certainly not something you can "obtain". It's rather a perception more accurate of Reality ... nothing surnatural here on the contrary it's quite natural. Actually our habitual way of thinking seems so to be a clever artificial montage set up by our brain and which can easily fool us - for instance when making a decision : ua-cam.com/video/OjCt-L0Ph5o/v-deo.html
So basically your correspondent is saying that all constructs are constructs except his own construct? Why did he need to communicate that to you?
Maybe the questioner is talking about deluded over absorption ? Can be fun enveloping absolute eyesight into a zoom in as an absorption, but really your connected non-dual with a tree but you are not a tree.
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Years of staring at a wall and gradual awakening and change, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't mean it is not a hallucination. It's simply a matter of faith if you accept the Zen view of that or not. Dogen's idea of time is unfalsifiable, any experience that supports it could easily be just another way the human mind tricks itself into finding a pattern that isn't there.
Sure it could be. It could also be that the world is actually a mass of green Jell-O and we just think it's something else. The difference is when there's no pattern at all and you're still there.
Hardcore Zen that would be hell. Green is the worst flavor. I hope reality, time-being, practice-enlightenment are all the Red Jell-Os working together. I don't if I'll ever realize "it", but if I do, then I know Red Jell-O will spew out my mouth and stick on the wall.
Good point!
And so much for me thinking all my lifelong porn watching made me a real life pimp....
Wait. People come to zazen for enlightenment? I personally come for the free cookies
We actually used to give out cookies after zazen!
The correspondent's email was such nonsense. It seemed to me as he didn't even bother nor pay attention to get to know the main pillars of Buddhism. Most of the attacks were misdirected and embarrassingly wrong due to his lack of understanding and complete lack of effort towards knowing precepts of Buddhist philosophy.
Why would you confuse individual's experience with the experience of the whole life. We are interconnected into single causatic reality, but at the same time we are also separate phenomena/ingredients of it, and this is the most basic Buddhist idea. There isn't any more elementary one to know.
Still kudos for responding to such nonsense.
BTW, I think he singlehandedly put all American transcendentalists (Whitman, Emerson) to one bag with psychotics. Such delusional egomaniac belief for undeniable and unmistaken power of one's reason doesn't sound too good. There must be plenty of suffering and self-scorning in that vessel!
Longest. Email. Ever.
Not really
MY first question to the letter writer would be: Have you ever had an experience that you could call mystical?
This argument depends entirely on your position regarding if Essence precedes existence or if Existence precedes essence.
Most science lovers believe the brain produces consciousness, this leads to the so called 'hard problem' of explaining how this occurs.
If consciousness is the ground of being, and Existence precedes essence then we don't need a human body or brain or mind to have experience. As one meditates and focuses on the ground of being and ignores the stream of mental objects and body sensations they discover first hand thier enduring existence apart from the changing stimulus. This discovery is liberating though could also lead to ego inflation and delusion.
I am so embarrassed to hear this statement- sounds like me years ago.
The commenter is dead-wrong. The mystical experience does NOT demonstrate INFORMATION to the experiencer, rather what's being realized is specifically NON INFORMATIONAL, ie "pure stasis", this being the global or God-like nature of reality.
I'd love to debate whomever wrote the comment to Brad, because I'd absolutely shred their argument to pieces instead of being nice to them like Brad is. Apparently, nobody knows Enlightenment from a scientific perspective except myself, a daunting life-path to say the least, but then neither can anyone bullshit their way past me in a debate, at least not on-line, so that's the up-side.
Experiencing "everything" has nothing to do with experiencing the delusional minds of "all 7 billion people on Earth", rather it's the categorical opposite of any sense-based or rational experience. As with every other clownish comment I've encountered, the commenter here couldn't possibly reveal their own delusional psychology more clearly than via their own comment. Nietzsche is rolling over in his grave.
The non-informational can't be taught directly, at best people can understand that discrete quantum systems have zero entropy, while the universe is a discrete quantum system. The purpose being "worked out" via enlightenment is that the "self-containment" of reality by itself entails by necessity the realization of the absolute nature of the universe at the global scale. Just as any relative aspect of reality can potentially be realized, regardless if it's directly realized or not, so too must the absolute nature be realized, as "realization" of any sort amounts to self-containment, a requirement of reality upon itself for it to be self contained.
Unless Karmic (volitional, free-willed) beings are the only means by which "the absolute" can be realized, life has no meaning or purpose, but where (ie, in reality) Karmic beings are the only means by which "the absolute" can be realized, as it categorically MUST be realized (pure stasis = infinite potential), the meaning and purpose of life is crystal clear. Mysteries are for unenlightened ignoramuses.
The sort of person who wrote this comment is the stereotypical "secular dictator" persona, the sort who claims "you have no proof" while their own comments offer nothing in the way of proof or even the possibility thereof. Self-contradictory views are the hallmark of delusional would-be dictators. The commenter has neither the experience nor inclination to know their own mind, so they default to dictating what your mind can or can't know instead.
if it's not something you really understand, why do you accept it as dogma? must be a westerner thing. like, someone just accepting the faith of a religion at face value. may be you're in the wrong business?
I don't think I understand the question. I do not accept the faith of a religion at face value. At least I would not put it that way. Is there something specific that makes you say that I do?
I'm sorry but, this is getting tiresome. What was the point of that guy's post? It just sounded like another "I'm smarter and more enlightened than you are" rant. And if he was, so what? What have you gained by nit-picking the minutiae? The Buddha also taught compassion. Where was that in his argument? We can argue the meaning of reality til the cows come home and it will mean nothing. Are you kind? Are you nice to your neighbors? Show me that and I will see your Buddha.
Mark Caselius He’s not claiming he’s enlightened, the experience he is describing is what is known as “kensho” or “satori” which is a glimpse of enlightenment. In Hinduism, this same experience is called samadhi and is well documented.
what i have noticed, especially in zen is people "craft" enlightenment experiences, i wish i could say zen teachers weren't fake, but 99.99% are delusional schizophrenics !
you have to have had enlightenment experiences as child, the adult brain is just not capable of the shifts required from a developmental point of of view !
i don't know why brad, who i feel has had genuine experiences is so supportive of buddhism and zen, as mired in pretending and fakeness and stupidity as they are !
that's one of your better videos !
When we are small children, every new experience is an enlightenment experience. (Ah! A sunset! How wonderful!) When we have these experiences as children, we do not find them remarkable because every experience we have is remarkable, and therefore ordinary. When we have these experiences as adults, we think they are remarkable, because we have become jaded due to extensive knowledge of the world. Actually, these experiences are nothing more than a bright star, or the sound of a stone hitting bamboo. Nothing to see here. Move on.
why are you telling me this rot, obviously from the way i phrase my first reply i am taking about something totally out of the ordinary in terms of childhood or any human experience !
'remarkable' doesn't even begin to hint at what they are !
its totally outside your experience and blind donkey you are, the world has to be the dull brick wall it is for you !
Not that obviously, as I found Barry's response rather germane to the subject of your post, to the best that I could understand it. Your response seems unnecessarily harsh. But hey, UA-cam.
but hey, usual ignorant hubric rubbish by a pretender !
@@osip7315 you seem full of bitterness brother...