I Don't Want to Be Enlightened. Not Yet, Anyway.

I think my main struggle with Eastern philosophy is the recurring sense that I really don't wish to seek enlightenment. Or at least, not in the all-encompassing sense that I feel many of the leaders in thought and philosophical rhetoric have emphasized in what I have read. I do believe in a state that I would equate with enlightenment...I spend a little time in that state now and again. But it is nothing that I strive for. It generally steals upon me, blooms from some little quirk of thought or observation, and I'm happy to inhabit it for awhile. What that state feels like to me is the absence of peripheries. My eyes feel softer, unfocused, but what I see is very clear. Colors are more vivid, sounds are quieter. It feels like living right beneath the surface of my skin. Smiling feels brighter, like light escaping through the cracks. Speech flows very smoothly, and the words settle just right. It is more immediate living, beyond the layers of heavy thought.

Maybe that is not enlightenment. I certainly didn't do anything to achieve it. I didn't meditate or ingest a drug or climb to a mountain temple beforehand. It is a very good feeling, whatever the root. Very settled. Very sure.

But

Sometimes I don't want to be sure. Sometimes I want to scurry along haphazardly through my day, and be fully present in some other facet of emotion, even if it is negative. I don't enjoy anger, or sadness. But I appreciate the breadth of those emotions nonetheless. If I am angry, at least I am not complacent. If I am sad, at least I get to have that hollowed-out peace after I cry. I truly enjoy what I deem my state of "sometimes-enlightenment." Someday I might even want to live in it full-time. But for now I am pretty comfortable with being young and foolish, and dwelling in each state that happens upon me. That may not be an enlightened way of thinking, but it fits.

Fold Your Own Path

This reading begins by describing itself as a practical guide to end suffering and to discover the "truth of all things". I had a hard time digesting it as such.

On the first read through, these guidelines sounded really good. The idea of a walkway to enlightenment and away from suffering is like el dorado to someone without any plan of achieving salvation (this guy). However, the wording and concepts used reflect the authors belief that there is an objective "right" or even "suffering" that is true to every human. I don't think this is true, salvation and suffering are extremely subjective concepts, what they mean to one person is often very different to another. So, even the concepts of enlightenment and a "truth of all things" seem like things that could be experienced by two seperate people entirely differently, and possibly achieved in two different ways.

Although the eight folds provide the framework for a complex and sophisticated perspective on the world, I think it's impossible for anyone to really put an end to the suffering that is a natural part of being human. People are suffering right now and death is inevitable, not only our own death but that of our friends and our families and our pets and every living thing on this planet. If that doesnt make you anxious then you're in denial. I beleive we have no way of knowing what comes afterwards and that's terrifying too, and I don't think that any amount of self-help can change that.

However, I think there's a real value to realizing the limits of our existence, "to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas" and to use that understanding to expand and enjoy our finite lives. Although i think the broad ideas laid out by the Eightfold path overlook some individual circumstances and conditions, the conceptual frame contains valuable advice: not to act cruelly, to develop compassion, to unify our mental faculties in one direction of our expansion. These are practical steps I think we can use to make our lives better and improve those of people around us, but the underlying path to enlightenment is something we must develop from our own experience.