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the_thinking_pagan'Enlightenment' is one of those specifically Buddhist and/or Hindu ideas, like 'karma', which has come into Western New Age and Pagan thinking and practice via, amongst others, the Theosophists and the Order of the Golden Dawn. Along the way, it got rather bent out of shape.
The concepts of enlightenment and karma, within Buddhist and Hindu thought both, are very closely connected: karma is the law of action and consequence, and drives the cycle of reincarnation; enlightenment springs one out of this cycle, because achieving enlightenment means that one's actions have no consequences. This may sound very peculiar, until one realises that karma is itself driven by maya - illusion, i.e. the illusory nature of most of our perceptions. By freeing oneself of this - by becoming fully disillusioned, i.e. by becoming enlightened, by realising that nothing is separate from anything else - one escapes the operation of karma, and thus the cycle of reincarnation. In Buddhist thought, those who become enlightened yet choose to forego Nirvana (the state of bliss achieved through enlightenment) to help others become enlightened are known as Bodhisattvas, or saints. I don't know about Hindu thought, but in Buddhist thought as it is thought in places such as Thailand and Vietnam, incarnation is not to be escaped through enlightenment, but transformed by the full understanding of non-duality, non-separation. The main mode for attaining enlightenment in Buddhism is meditation, through stilling the mind, in which all perceptions are generated.
The bent and bulbous version we get of it in the West within New Age thinking however is for the most part deeply affected by the Western philosophical tendency towards hierarchical over network thinking, and accompanying placing of embodiment at the bottom of that hierarchy. Enlightenment becomes associated with sloughing off the needs of the physical body, of the material world, of 'ascending' to a state of 'light' which means leaving daily life behind; it becomes synonymous with escape, and thus meditation is regarded similarly. This is the direct opposite of Buddhism as practiced in the East, in which meditation takes one into deeper and deeper connection with self-and-other, with self-as-other and other-as-self. As the joke goes, Q. What did the Buddhist say to the hotdog server? A. "Make me one with everything!"
What we have in Paganism in its various branches, it seems to me, is a combination of the Ascensionist and Buddhist approaches to meditation and its purposes.
Firstly, there is the use of meditation to make oneself a 'better', more 'spiritual' person, which is often not stated outright as such, but may nonetheless be present as a motivation. Although a person taking this approach may scoff at 'love and light' New Agery, may utterly reject the idea of ascension to a 'higher plane', the same hierarchical, dualist, spirit-over-matter philosophy can be seen at the root of their thinking as in the idea of Ascended Masters, etc.
Secondly, there is the use of meditation to still the mind as a goal in itself, or in order to make one more powerful and/or clearer as a magical practitioner. This may be to a different end than Buddhist meditation, but takes a similar underlying approach.
Thirdly, and not only similar in underlying approach, but also in philosophy to Buddhist meditation, is the use of meditation to still the self in toto, in order better to be able to pay attention to the more-than-human world around one, to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel what is present, rather than what we think is there, or wish would be there. This is a useful form of meditation for building relationship with other beings, whether those are animal, vegetable, mineral or spirit.
The concepts of enlightenment and karma, within Buddhist and Hindu thought both, are very closely connected: karma is the law of action and consequence, and drives the cycle of reincarnation; enlightenment springs one out of this cycle, because achieving enlightenment means that one's actions have no consequences. This may sound very peculiar, until one realises that karma is itself driven by maya - illusion, i.e. the illusory nature of most of our perceptions. By freeing oneself of this - by becoming fully disillusioned, i.e. by becoming enlightened, by realising that nothing is separate from anything else - one escapes the operation of karma, and thus the cycle of reincarnation. In Buddhist thought, those who become enlightened yet choose to forego Nirvana (the state of bliss achieved through enlightenment) to help others become enlightened are known as Bodhisattvas, or saints. I don't know about Hindu thought, but in Buddhist thought as it is thought in places such as Thailand and Vietnam, incarnation is not to be escaped through enlightenment, but transformed by the full understanding of non-duality, non-separation. The main mode for attaining enlightenment in Buddhism is meditation, through stilling the mind, in which all perceptions are generated.
The bent and bulbous version we get of it in the West within New Age thinking however is for the most part deeply affected by the Western philosophical tendency towards hierarchical over network thinking, and accompanying placing of embodiment at the bottom of that hierarchy. Enlightenment becomes associated with sloughing off the needs of the physical body, of the material world, of 'ascending' to a state of 'light' which means leaving daily life behind; it becomes synonymous with escape, and thus meditation is regarded similarly. This is the direct opposite of Buddhism as practiced in the East, in which meditation takes one into deeper and deeper connection with self-and-other, with self-as-other and other-as-self. As the joke goes, Q. What did the Buddhist say to the hotdog server? A. "Make me one with everything!"
What we have in Paganism in its various branches, it seems to me, is a combination of the Ascensionist and Buddhist approaches to meditation and its purposes.
Firstly, there is the use of meditation to make oneself a 'better', more 'spiritual' person, which is often not stated outright as such, but may nonetheless be present as a motivation. Although a person taking this approach may scoff at 'love and light' New Agery, may utterly reject the idea of ascension to a 'higher plane', the same hierarchical, dualist, spirit-over-matter philosophy can be seen at the root of their thinking as in the idea of Ascended Masters, etc.
Secondly, there is the use of meditation to still the mind as a goal in itself, or in order to make one more powerful and/or clearer as a magical practitioner. This may be to a different end than Buddhist meditation, but takes a similar underlying approach.
Thirdly, and not only similar in underlying approach, but also in philosophy to Buddhist meditation, is the use of meditation to still the self in toto, in order better to be able to pay attention to the more-than-human world around one, to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel what is present, rather than what we think is there, or wish would be there. This is a useful form of meditation for building relationship with other beings, whether those are animal, vegetable, mineral or spirit.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 05:34 pm (UTC)Thank you for sharing ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-03 06:24 am (UTC)I've been meditating daily recently, but living in a soup of influences as I do, it's a pretty muddled affair. I have never quite got the hang of stilling the mind, and my meditation tends to fall into ecstatic shambles. I've been reading about meditation trying to sort it out, but it seems like I am always rushing to the summit without actually making the journey. People are describing the things that come easy to me as the end of a long journey of stillness meditation.
I figure that narrative meditation is as legit as silence-meditation, but it certainly is easier and closer to mind-engineering/hypnosis than enlightenment. I keep trying for stillness.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-01 10:49 am (UTC)http://www.ahamsa.com/2/post/2011/08/the-meditatrix-why-meditate.html
http://www.ahamsa.com/2/post/2011/08/the-meditatrix-how-to-meditate.html
http://www.ahamsa.com/2/post/2011/09/the-meditatrix-meditations-downside.html
no subject
Date: 2012-07-01 02:28 pm (UTC)