It does if you think Enlightenment (or being Awake) is a state of mind, but it’s not.
Enlightenment is what consciousness is BEFORE the dualistic mind creates any states.
That’s the point of a lot of my posts. I’m not trying to sell anything or convince anyone. I’m simply trying to clarify what the term ‘Enlightenment’ referred to before Buddhism was turned into a religion and new agers hijacked it and sold it as a perpetual orgasm of bliss and pink, fluffy clouds.
Being Awake is just being Awake. It is not an emotional, religious or ‘spiritual’ state of mind.
If we use a computer analogy, we could say that being Awake is analogous to being “On” while emotional/spiritual states are programs that run on top of that. Most seekers are looking for a program called “Enlightenment” and in doing so, their focus is wrong. It’s like the proverbial fish looking for water or the dude looking for his glasses while he’s wearing them.
“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me….” Meister Eckhart. Consciousness is that ‘eye’ (or is it “I”?)
We need to reexamine what it is we’re really looking for: Enlightenment (liberation from the dream) or spiritual experiences inside the dream. One is not more ‘right’ than the other (and they can overlap a bit) but you do have to know what you’re seeking and what you’re experiencing.
That image is the sort of hijacking I’m talking about. In many ways, the Buddha was an ordinary dude who had a dramatic shift of consciousness. I doubt he always looked like he had just stepped out of a lovely hot bath and into freshly pressed clothes, make-up, perfumes and all the other paraphernalia. I’m sure he spent most of his life as a smelling, unkempt beggar but that doesn’t sell too well.
In this style of art, the artist imagines what Buddha’s inner world might look like then tries to represent that image by exaggerating Buddha’s exterior world. As lovey as it is, it’s just pretty visual poetry. It’s candy for the mind.
If the artist was to make a more accurate depiction of Buddha’s interior world he/she might do better to install a pane of clear glass. If the pane was positioned so that it reflected the world around the viewer, then that would be a better depiction of the Buddha’s transparent mind than the image above, but I digress…
(I’m going to be busy for a while so I may not be able to respond as quickly as I’d like. )
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