THE PROCESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT FOUND LIVING LIFE.

Whether we realize it or not; whether we like it or not, there is no sensible way out of this life. We have to stick it out because if we don’t the cosmological laws will have us back in another life doing what we failed to do in this life. It is all up to us how we play it. We do however face the consequences of any way we do it.

What are we about? We are in the process of enlightenment. One of the processes of becoming enlightened is found in living. What is enlightenment?

To be enlightened is to be awake to a Great Reality that most of us do not perceive. Some Zen teachers use the word realized in place of enlightened.

… it's one of-if not the highest level of comprehension of life and yourself as a shared being of life. Knowing everything you feel, do, and think and how it ripples through the waters of life. Along with understanding time, the future, present, and past and what it all means as well as what it means to be human. As so simply just feeling a "click" deep within the depths of your soul that puts you at peace and makes you feel as through everything's alright and is going to be alright

The foregoing, scraps picked of the Net open the door a little as to definition, but… Nothing beyond the experience of seeking enlightenment or realizing it is going to explain it adequately.

One explanation I read in my day book Glimpse after Glimpse dated 4-26 a daily reader written by Sogyal Rinpoche I found this:

Dudjom Rinpoche says of the moment when Rigpa * is directly revealed: “That moment is like taking a hood off your head. What boundless spaciousness and relief! This is the supreme seeing: seeing what was not seen before.” When you “see what was not seen before,” everything opens, expands, and becomes crisp, clear, brimming with life vivid with wonder and freshness. It is as if the roof of your mind were flying off, or a flock of birds suddenly took off from a dark nest. All limitations dissolve and fall away, as if, the Tibetans say, a seal were broken open.

*(Rigpa is the Reality of Mind, our consciousness unfettered by materiality or its consequence)

Rinpoche, Sogyal (2009-10-13). Glimpse After Glimpse: Daily Reflections on Living and Dying (Kindle Locations 822-826). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

From what I read as a novice to understanding Buddhism is this: The Gurus encourage meditation. The teachers describe the life we are in as illusion, illusion with a purpose. Putting these two together I was able to grasp an inkling of what enlightenment is.

In meditation one works at clearing the mind of the many material influences that continually occupy it. It is almost like clearing the chafe to get down to the wheat. It is very difficult to do and when it happens it often is no more the momentary.

The momentary experience of clearing the mind amounts to overcoming your ego. Your ego is what you have identified as yourself acting in the process of this limited time/space dimension. To be more specific it is us acting in this dimension. It is constantly intruding on our mind by way of the connection it has with the brain. The brain is the organ that connects our material existence to our mind which transcends our limited materiality.

Clearing the mind opens the door to the experience which leads to enlightenment. When speaking of meditation the Guru’s describe these moments as apprehending the “Reality of Mind.” This is the state where you are not fettered by any of the material consequence of your life. Among those consequences of which you are free is the thinking part of it. The thinking part of us is the organic brain in operation utilizing all of the data it has accumulated in life, all of the concepts and intuition is has garnered from this, and all of this fueled by the mind to which the brain is connected in this dimension.

The illusory quality of this dimension is best understood by seeing this life as the product of an algorithm applied to this dimension by a higher power, or simply as a result of the workings of the cosmos.

This results in our being a part of a virtual reality in which we function in this world. We begin, we are confined to it, we operate in it, and then we die leaving all that we have here. The only thing we take out when we leave is the effects the experience has had on our consciousness.

This living in the Algorithm is purposeful in this very thing, viz. the affect the experience can have on our consciousness that is contained in what is called reality of mind. This brings in the concept of Karma which is integral in reaching enlightenment, but not necessary to this attempt at defining enlightenment.

Seeking enlightenment is the object of our being part of this material consequence that can both aid and hinder us in reaching it.

This I describe in more detail in an essay written and posted some time ago, revised for this essay and posted again in my archive the title of which is FREEDOM OF NOW Part 7. To read it click on the title to go to the Archive.

This completes this series that started with OUR REALITY According to QUANTUM PHYSICS and flowed into the series THE FREEDOM OF NOW Part 1. I put both titles in Hypertext so you can click on those for reference point. Each essay follows the first which feeds the theme “Is There More Than We Can See?”

I started the series with quantum  physics compared that to the similarity of soul and looked between to see the reality and the virtual reality in which we exist.

For me it is wonderful to see existence through these frames. It gives purpose, it gives understanding and above all it explains why my life is where it is coping with the limitations of Dementia and endeavoring to put that to good use.