Zen saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water".
Some more from Ram Dass:
“Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.”
"If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, "Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!" it catches you back into the model of "I'm Sam who empties the garbage." You can't maintain these new kinds of structures. It takes a while to realize that God can empty garbage."
What I get from it is that if you are considering starting a cult, creating your own government, going to war, or how to integrate your newfound knowledge into the bureaucracy of the world, you're not quite out of the woods yet.
Your first quote reminded me of this from Bruce Lee:
> Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.
Thanks for the quote, Bruce is a really admirable guy. May have been paying homage to another old Zen saying:
“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”
A hobby of mine is taking sayings like that and saying, "Well, if it weren't mumbo-jumbo, then what might it mean?" In this case, it would seem to be: At the start, you have a bunch of knowledge, concepts built on other concepts; studying Zen involves breaking all of that down and reforming it from scratch; at the end of the process, you have a new bunch of knowledge and concepts built on concepts, and you have similar labels for the concepts of material objects like mountains and waters, but it's possible that (e.g.) the lower-level concepts they're built on are different.
Physics is kind of like that as one develops successively better models of molecules, atoms, and particles, replacing the bottom-level concepts each time. Though the stuff on top of them doesn't change a huge amount every time.
If you are in flat land (a beginner), you see mountains as mountains. Well defined features on the horizon.
Once you start climbing, you concentrate on the details of the concrete mountain in front of you (rocks, moss, shrubs, ice, snow, caves) and your inner concept of a mountain changes into a collection of such details.
But once you summit, mountains around look like well defined features on the horizon again. Just like from the flat land of the beginners, only the perspective has changed.
At first, I saw things in the normal everyday way, with conceptual thought labels attached strongly to everything. Then, through Zen practice, I came to see things in a more direct way, without the constant presence of words and thoughts, and this was kind of amazing. Now, having thoroughly internalized this wordless perspective, I again use words with no problem, seemingly the same as anyone else, but with the freedom and playfulness that comes from the wordless perspective.
I think this is the one I can relate to the most. The 'wordless perspective' is a nice substitute for the common expression of 'you can only experience it and cannot express it'.
I love how “technical & analytical” your interpretation is.
My view: In the same vein but a different lens - enlightenment has a component where it is a “state of mind”/feeling(a kind of ah-ha)/a new perspective where ‘mountains are no longer mountains’.
But it’s also a cycle, one of living->death->rebirth->living where it’s through that process of “enlightenment“, the core and primary concepts and perspectives may have changed, but mountains are again mountains once everything known about mountains from before has been “re-integrated”.
Really? I'm flattered! To me it's just a simple description of what I'm guessing something might be supposed to refer to, but if it's sufficiently non-obvious to others...
Well, I haven't kept a list, but here's another that comes to mind. Someone's signature was "How do you prepare for death? Learn to live. How do you learn to live? Prepare for death."
On the face of it, this is a trollish non-answer. However, there is a way to interpret it. The first sentence is straightforward: Death is going to happen, how do I prepare for it? The second sentence is saying: You can't stop it, so the best you can do is figure out what to do with the life that you have. The third sentence is also straightforward: How do I figure out what to do with my life? The fourth sentence is saying: Imagine you're going to die, figure out your obligations that you'd want to fulfill before you die, fulfill them now, and then you will have freedom to focus on exploring what you really want to do. The phrases "prepare for death" and "learn to live" are each used twice, with different intended meanings each time.
There is always the possibility of getting a quote that is actually nonsense and was meant as nonsense (or, today, was generated by a computer), and "interpreting" wisdom into it that comes from the interpreter rather than from the quote. Or there could be multiple, similarly wise-seeming interpretations. For example, I could have interpreted the fourth sentence instead as: Imagine you're going to die; then, from that perspective, observe which things seem important and which no longer seem so important; thus, the thought-exercise of imagining you'll die is an exercise that teaches you how to live.
It's possible that cryptic sayings were devised to hold wisdom. It's also possible that they were devised by trolls surrounded by gullible admirers. Perhaps there were wise people who, as an apparently necessary evil, made themselves look cryptically impressive so as to attract funding from gullible rulers, or to keep their ideas from being misused by outsiders who might have bad intent. Perhaps there was a mixture of trolls and well-intentioned wise people. I really don't know.
I am generally a fan of straightforward textbook explanations that don't play word games, or, if they do, they have straightforward explanations of the word games. Still, it is possible that there's something to the cryptic stuff. And so it can be a fun game to try to get meaning from them.
Nice, I like that. It meshes with my own experience learning and internalizing various skills. If I'm interpreting it correctly, upon learning an art, each aspect of that art becomes a wide topic unto itself, to be picked apart and studied in detail. But in mastering an art, those lessons learned are internalized, and each aspect seen again as only its whole self.
At the lsd height, i was everyone and the world only progressed through me.
I also knew that i wanted to keep this enlightend state and thought about mechanism to bring me back into my 'normal' form. I thought up religion to only discover that it did not work, i came to the idea of creating an idol something like lsd. Something which will give me access back to this state and will be discovered and easily to be distributed.
After that, i was normal again. Continuing my life.
It seems to easy to reach enlightenment when you are living in a monastery with a bunch of dudes and no responsibilities but to "chop wood, carry water."
But an enlightenment philosophy that can help a father of 3 with a hard marriage and a fulltime job or two...?
Hmm, maybe the enlightment philosophy project will take a few thousand more years...
The Vimalakirti Sutra is about exactly this. Vimalakirti is a laymen householder who achieves enlightnment. Upon his passing, Buddha sends a bunch of spiritual masters and bodhisattva's to Vimalakirti's deathbed.
Vimalakirti proceeds to chastise them for how useless their 'enlightenment' is when it doesn't help anyone in the real world, and is only a self centered quest to save one's ego from suffering.
The Bhagavad Gita is similar to the OP's issues. It deals with the conflicts we all face in life and how to resolve our wants with our duties. It's not a very long read, actually.
Note: Find a translation that works for you. Specifically, the word 'duty' meant something very different than it does today.
EDIT: For a more western take, I'd also recommend the Bible's knowledge books: Ecclesiastics, Proverbs, and Job. Again, a good translation is essential here, but I'm not about to recommend that.
I agree with you, in parts, but: actual philosophy and meditation is not meant for you to be more productive at your job, or not need sleep to be able to work extra hours, or anything like that.
But it would help you worry less about things that can't be helped, and focus on this that can. It would help lessen the mental strain that we have for not being able to do more, or help us deal with the marriage problems in a way that it affects you less during your work hours.
You still have to work, still have sickness, marriage problems. But being better at separating those things, and suffering less because of the problems, is really beneficial
The very underrated movie "Redbelt" kind of addresses it. It's not about enlightenment, but the challenges of following a warrior's ethos in a modern world. It includes job, money, friendship, legal, and marriage challenges and the main character struggles to stay true to himself and his code throughout.
Makes me think of the thich nhat hanh quote: There is a saying: If a tiger comes down off his mountain and goes to the lowlands, he will be caught by humans and killed. It means if a practitioner leaves his or her Sangha, it becomes difficult to continue the practice. Taking refuge in the Sangha is not a matter of devotion. It is a matter of practice.
>It seems to easy to reach enlightenment when you are living in a monastery with a bunch of dudes and no responsibilities but to "chop wood, carry water."
Do you find it easy to confine yourself to a monastery with a bunch of dudes and no responsibilities but to "chop wood, carry water"?
Because the challenges of marriage and kids and work present challenges for self improvement that are real opportunities for the growth of my soul. I can be happy to have a trainer that gives me such heavy weights to train with
This just sounds like rationalization of your own choices. It is easy to be judgemental about monks when you already think that your choices offer real opportunities for growth.
My combo is bringing together stoic philosophy, perennial enlightenment philosophy (it's all one, man) with a design thinking and new thought mentality (manifesting reality). That's what works for me.
"chop wood, draw water" means "standard daily chores". Perhaps in context of HN and modern times it could be replaced with "drive to work, write code".
It is not that our complicated lives prevent us from enlightenment. Quite the opposite, it is our lack of enlightenment that make our lives appear complicated.
But what do I know, my only zen knowledge comes from C64 game Usagi Yojimbo I played some 30 years ago :)
I think the definitions and models (the four path model specifically) from the pragmatic dharma crowd are the most interesting by far. Mostly because they can be tested. It's (Theravada) Buddhism stripped of a lot of the religious dogma.
They describe awakening as an actual, irreversible natural process that can be triggered by concentrating your awareness onto bare experience for a long enough time. Doing this intensively enough will bring about a "discontinuity" / cessation of space-time experience called a "fruition" (nirvana). Coming out of that discontinuity goes with a blissful "what was that?" feeling and some level of understanding of "ultimate reality", meaning a permanent perspective shift (instead of "I am seeing" and "I am hearing": in seeing there is merely the seen, in hearing the heard, etc...).
My opinion is, it's realizing that your ego is an incredible temporary coincidence and that this doesn't make life meaningless but allows you to choose what meaning you want to give it. Your ego is no more special than the billions of other souls who have rejoined the collective unconsciousness of the universe, which makes us all one in the end.
But as a continual process - you can't just experience that once and go right back into old habits.. Or you can bring it into everyday interactions with the world. Business, family, politics, science, technology - all the hard stuff.
And it manifests as a cultural phenomenon as well an individual experience.
Have you ever lived in a place where you had to chop your own wood and carry your own water? Living at the mercy of nature itself. It can be as challenging and stressful as this whole society thing we put ourselves through, too.
I have felt a great sense of enlightened several times in the past. It's most similar to the feeling of flow while programming... When you're juggling all the pieces of a big question and somehow they all slot into place. Everything just makes sense, but it's easily disrupted.
It's impossible for me to maintain for long, but I do my best to collect takeaways while I can.
Mostly what comes back with me are cheesy phrases like "just do your best" or "everything will be ok". Occasionally I come back with some type of specific insights about how to approach a problem that has been causing me problems or newfound motivation to persevere.
Occasionally I think about starting a cult afterward, but I really just want to collect kind, intelligent and motivated people around me. Would that really be so bad?
I have had a couple of moments in life when a lot of pieces fall in place and perspective changes. A friend of mine found a nice metaphor for this: a supercooled water, the mind looking for an answer or a solution to a problem and then something happens and the crystallization starts and now everything is suddenly ice.
Definitely great moments leaving strong emotional impact and sense of joy and happiness.
The point is that nobody should claim to be free from causality (though maybe the esoteric interpretation is that this is not because one can't be, but because the non-Enlightened will misuse or misunderstand the teaching). We are always culture-bound, and thus always biased, and thus mistake-prone, even if or when we achieve samadhi.
Yes! : ). I came here to remind everyone about chopping water and carrying wood as well ; ).
I'd add that, imho, the aphorism means, enlightenment isn't an answer to the struggles of your material existence, or even your own unhappiness, from whatever source.
Enlightenment is just enlightenment, it's not a magic happy pill which makes you no longer a flawed human being.
> But a question nags at you: why can’t the world already know what you know? They’d be so much better off. So much happier.
we can't define "enlightenment" but we can probably name endless things that would not be a central feature of enlightenment. That above would be pretty high on the list.
Some more from Ram Dass:
“Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.”
"If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, "Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!" it catches you back into the model of "I'm Sam who empties the garbage." You can't maintain these new kinds of structures. It takes a while to realize that God can empty garbage."
What I get from it is that if you are considering starting a cult, creating your own government, going to war, or how to integrate your newfound knowledge into the bureaucracy of the world, you're not quite out of the woods yet.