View from a shit-stained boulder

Lost, thirst-maddened, flyblown and with feet burnt black, the Seeker wondered the endless desert. Tongue grotesquely swollen, he climbed the highest mountain. Eyes horribly bulging, he swam the deepest sea.

For untold aeons he searched and looked hither and thither, high and low... driven by the primeval, urgent, elemental urge to Seek. Seek what? Doesn’t matter. Shaddup.

Lost, the Seeker sought.

Out of time, outside of time, high upon a craggy crag the Seeker encountered an elderly guru of dubious provenance, indeterminate gender and reproachable demeanour. Gnarled and nut-brown ze wast, perched cross-legged upon a shit-stained boulder, the smell of an oily rag emanating from zer ambiguous loins.

Jubilation rose within the Seeker’s throbberous heart. Humbly on chafed knees approached he the Nut-brown. Then eyes downcast spake he demurely, saying:

The Sound of One Hand Slapping

The Seeker asks the Mastress: “How may this humble supplicant who kneeleth before thee become enlightened? How doth One enjoin with the All, or is it predestinated forevermore to tread the cyclic wheel of existence, hamster-like, until the wrathful deities take pity on the crusading pilgrim's benighted soul?”

The Mastress — a nut-brown, gnarled and ancient guru of indeterminate gender and reproachable demeanour — respondeth imperturbably saying, “Ask the next six people you meet; perhaps you may find the answers you say you seek.”

“What the fricking flaming biscuit!” exclaimeth the Seeker, on hearing these mysterious words.

Loincloth wafting on a stealthy breeze, the Nut-brown maketh the smile of one lip curling. The visage of the guru wears a veil of inscrutability as profound as the deepest depths of inner space.

Dissatisfied and disgruntled, the Seeker taketh his leave of the Gnarly One and sets his footlings on the path that leadeth to the Inn of the Flowering Beetle, formerly The Queen’s Moustache. On the way he encountereth the first of six respondents — an aged washerwoman squatting phlegmatically in the shade of a cinnabar tree.

“How do you do, O Gentle Crone?” enquireth the Seeker courteously.

“Get lost asshole!” quoth the Crone, waxing wrathful, “or I’ll box thy poxy earhole in the blink of a newt’s eyelid!”

Enlightenment: the Dark Side

Depiction of the Wheel of Existence, showing the six realms of existence, with Lord Yama the "God" of Death in attendance. Applique and embroidery on silk. (circa 1800)

The Question

Abiding in bliss sounds great, but wouldn't it get boring after a while? Why seek to achieve enlightenment and/or nirvana and become One with the All?

From various sources, including conversations with various people (some real), I've constructed a ramshackle, unstable, incomplete and misleading picture of what some aspects of enlightenment/nirvana mean, to some people.

But I don't understand what the benefits are; I don't understand why achieving enlightenment should be set as a goal.

According to some schools of Buddhist thought, life is full of pain and misery. Then you die and are reborn... into another life of pain and suffering... over and over again, until you escape Samsara (the "Wheel of Cyclic Existence"), achieve nirvana and become One with the All.

Reincarnation is to be avoided. Life is to be avoided. The self must be liberated from the endless wheel of cyclic existence.

Or so they say. But is that true for everyone?

Not every life is full of pain and suffering. Life may be full of delusion, but what's so terrible about a bit of delusion once in a while? And even if every single life, without exception, is nothing but pain and suffering and delusion and aversion, some might still prefer that over nothingness, blissful or otherwise.

Enlightenment? Or a Cold Beer Instead?

MAYA, MIRROR OF ILLUSIONS by A.B. Davies

What is this thing called "enlightenment" and why would one want it?

I've got nothing against the concept: I just want to know what the specific benefits are. As it says in the poem in the previous post (below): One wonders why oneness is set as a goal.

Unfortunately, there's not much hard info on the benefits of enlightenment, nor on what it is exactly or how it manifests or how to achieve it. It's one of those slippery words/concepts, like "God", that can mean many things to many people. Conveniently though, we can identify a small number of broad themes to help make sense of all the detail.

Enlightenment is believed to involve:

• escaping the endless cycle of reincarnation -- the recurring samsara of birth, death, rebirth -- in which every soul is believed to be trapped
• quantum entanglement in the biological sense, ie being "at one" with all living things
• getting closer to God (I don't know what "closer" or what "God" means; but some people do, apparently)
• absence of personal identity, or the state in which one finds oneself after losing oneself
• living outside of time / "living in the now", a technique believed to lighten the (alleged) psychological burden of regrets about the past and anxieties about the future
• accessing lost or secret knowledge about how things really work, and our individual roles in the process
• seeing through the illusion, the maya, of a time-bound, material world in which everything is relative to every other thing, and nothing stands still long enough to be real.

Enlightenment for Dummies

“How do I become enlightened?” asked the Seeker of his aged guru — a nut-brown, gnarled and wizened personage of indeterminate gender.

Sitting in padmasana on a large boulder on top of a high mountain, at first the Gnarly One treated the question with the stupefied silence it deserved. But the Seeker persisted, much to the Guru’s disgust and annoyance. Still the Nut-brown made no answer.

Still the Seeker persisted, until the Guru’s patience and forbearance evaporated, and ze quoth unto the Seeker, saying “if you want to know how to become enlightened, leave now, and address your question to each of the next five people you meet, from this moment on, henceforth to be precise.”

Dissatisfied and mumbling imprecations under his breath, the Seeker took leave of the Guru and made his stumbling way down the mountain.

At the foot of the mountain, he set his feet toward the dwelling place of his aged parents. On his way he came across an old woman sitting in the shade of a cinnabar tree.

“How do I become enlightened?” the Seeker asked, without even so much as a how-do-you-do.

“Get lost asshole!” replied the old woman. Which is what the Seeker proceeded to do — he chose a path along which he had never previously travelled, and after some time wandering through the foothills, became absolutely, totally, horribly lost.

The next person he met was a short and rather chubby man, with a twinkle in his eye and mischief in his heart. The twinkling man was sitting on a blanket in the middle of which was a large picnic basket. Behind the twinkler was a fork in the road and a signpost with two signs posted.

The Plughole of Nothingness

Mastress, a gnarled and nut-brown guru of indeterminate gender

“Uncanny, Mastress is it not, how the processes of consciousness conspire to emerge unwittingly, unknowingly and unknowably behind the Curtains of Myness on the Stage of Solipsism in the Life Drama now playing at the Theatre of Self,” said the Novice to the Guru, a gnarled and nut-brown mendicant of indeterminate extraction and inherence, naked but for a dubious loincloth in the early years of retirement.

Having spoken informally, in a cringingly nervous and offputting attempt at the easy badinage of one learned colleague with another, the Novice flinched then winced then cowered behind the large laundry basket that doubled as a small laundry basket on top of another.

“If that’s what you’ve derived from the Teachings,” quoth the aged Guru, imperturbably eating a banana,” then you have derived yourself. Ex nihilo nihil fit. As it is written, so shall it be...”

“But Mastress, if I am not for myself, who is?” implored the Novice piteously, “and if not now, then when?”

“Nobody, never. Or everybody always. Now go sweep the stair. Perhaps you’ll meet a man who isn’t there. If only he were you,” grumbled the Nut-brown querulously, dugs flapping mysteriously in a windless breeze.

broken on the wheel (the keys to your karma)

If there aren’t enough bodies for the souls of the dead, the problem is ghosts.

If there aren’t enough souls for the bodies of the living, the problem is zombies.

If there are more dead ancestors than living descendants, the problem is grave.

But there are solutions to these problems, at least in theory.

It’s not true that every body implies at least two others. Sex isn’t the only way to reproduce, though it’s more fun than gene-splicing. Progenitors can and do produce multiple offspring, and are frequently alive during the lifespan of their offspring, though mostly wish they weren’t. And what about weird stuff like in vitro fertilisation, cloning, parthenogenesis, toner-less photocopying, and virgin birth?