>
> --- In
> FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis"
> <tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlist@> wrote:
> >
> > You are very right Judy in that Yes can not be intentional.
>
> Coming from a Buddhist perspective, in which intent
> and focus are very *much* a part of the realization
> process, I'd have to disagree with you, Tom.
>
> I think that the issue that some people are reacting
> to in my little cafe story is that it pushes their
> *religious* buttons, the ones they don't like
> to admit they have. They have been convinced, after
> decades of indoctrination by the TM movement and
> its Hindu underpinnings, that passivity is the *only*
> way to go in the quest for enlightenment. Don't ever
> work at anything because that would be "straining"
> or "effort" or the imposition of will, and thus
> an aspect of ego. So the "proper" attitude towards
> enlightenment is to just sit around and wait for it
> to happen on its own.
There are two ways to address a disagreement. One is
to make a positive case for one's own perspective; the
other is to trash the other perspective.
The disadvantage of choosing the second route is that
one can be tempted to caricature the opposing viewpoint
rather than presenting it fairly, in order to make it
easier to trash. And if one convinces oneself of the
truth of one's caricature, it makes it easier to
convince oneself of the truth of one's own
perspective without ever considering the possible
merits of the other.
This may raise suspicions that the person doing the
trashing is deep down not so confident of his
perspective as he pretends to be, since he has to
distort the other to make it appear less valid
than his own.
> And wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait.
>
> And if it *doesn't* happen, after decades of
> sitting around and waiting and doing what you're
> told, that's somehow "all right" because it isn't
> really "you" who has anything to do with your
> enlightenment. It's really the universe, or Natural
> Law, or God that's made the decision to leave you
> lost in the illusion of unenlightenment.
In my experience (doing what I feel is right for
me, not "what I'm told"), I make more progress
when I take responsibility without assigning blame.
The former does not necessarily imply the latter.
I don't assume "something else" has made any
decisions about me, but by the same token, I do not
assume I am somehow "not all right" because this or
that hasn't happened yet.
In other contexts, Barry has vigorously scorned the
"seeking" mentality that requires one to feel "not
all right" about oneself until one has "found" one's
"all-rightness." But here he seems to be claiming
the opposite. That suggests a certain degree of
confusion.
> That's an Ok set of things to believe, I guess,
> if what you want is to never realize your enlight-
> enment. Me, I prefer the Buddhist approach, in
> which one's intent and ability to focus come into
> play and in which talents and ability other than
> waiting and hoping become part of the realization
> process.
>
> I'm not comfortable with the just-be-patient-and-
> wait approach to enlightenment, in which one is told
> over and over by the *vendor* of that approach to
> enlightenment that their UNenlightenment "isn't
> their fault." What a fuckin' lie that is.
Hmm, I've never heard any "vendor" say that. I
suspect that notion is a function of the caricature
Barry has created to bolster his own perspective.
> It's a lie even if you believe in the model their
> system is based on. If you believe that "stress"
> is what keeps you from being enlightened, then who
> created your stress? Well duh, you did. If you
> believe it's karma that keeps you from being
> enlightened, well who created the karma? Well
> duh, again, you did. Take some responsibility fer
> chrssakes...if you're convinced that you are not
> enlightened, YOU created that reality (or, as it
> turns out, unreality).
Yes, duh. Again, though, taking responsibility is
not the same as blaming oneself.
> I *know* that saying these things on a TM forum
> is going to rile people up, and make some of them
> crazy. It's absolute HERESY to a person who has drunk
> the TM Kool-Aid and believes that effortlessness is
> the *only* model that leads to transcendence and
> eventually enlightenment to suggest that there are
> *other* models -- models that involve will and
> intention -- and that they lead there, too.
It's not the "heresy" that's the problem, of course,
it's the caricature of what the "heresy" is presented
as opposing.
Perhaps the reason it's a caricature is because the
caricaturist has never quite understood the real
nature of the alternative to his own perspective.
> The people who have spent their lives -- sometimes
> thirty or forty years of their lives -- sitting
> and waiting and waiting and waiting for something
> else to "do enlightenment" for them are *affronted*
> when they hear from someone who is part of a diff-
> erent tradition, one that believes that one can,
> and should, "do enlightenment" oneself.
>
> They're especially affronted if the offending
> person seems to have had a few experiences that
> indicate that the intent/focus approach has actually
> *worked* for them. Such stories might make seekers
> who are part of the "wait patiently for enlightenment;
> it's out of your hands" school of thought think,
> "Gee...what if I really *have* been wasting my time
> waiting around all these years for enlightenment to
> reveal itself to me?"
Or not. Perhaps they are trusting their own experience
of what results in progress and what does not. And
perhaps they look at how the folks behave who claim
"I am in control of my enlightenment" and wonder about
what those people have actually achieved as a function
of their supposedly enlightening experiences.
> Can't have that. So the hard-line passive, wait-
> and-see types get a little uppity and they spout the
> dogma they've been taught, that the effortless, do-
> nothing-and-wait approach to enlightenment they've
> been taught is the ONLY way that enlightenment can
> possibly happen. And I actually understand why people
> do this -- repeating the dogma that there is
> nothing you can do but wait gives you something to
> *do* while you're sitting around waiting...it relieves
> the boredom. :-)
Again, you can make a case for your own experience, or
you can trash the other guy's. Or in this case, trash
your own fantasy of the other guy's. Because if you
really *knew* what the other guy's experience was, you
might not be quite so sure of the superiority of your
own.
> I'm not going to pursue this whole subject here any
> more, though. There is just too much resistance on
> this forum to presenting the taking-an-active-role-
> in-your-own-realization approach.
It isn't the approach, it's the *presentation* of
that approach, the compulsion to trash any other
approach, the ferocious, vicious hostility born of
a stark terror of the idea of not being in
absolute control.
. It's just a waste
> of time to talk about it, because the decades of
> indoctrination have been too effective. The waiters
> have been waiting so long that they can't even
> imagine that there is something they could do
> other than waiting. And they get angry when someone
> *does* suggest such a thing. So I'm going to leave
> them to their waiting, and hope that approach works
> out for them in the future a little better than it's
> worked out for them so far.
Than you *fantasize* it has worked out for them so
far, you mean.
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