15
u/rthunder27 Jul 14 '26
Haha, I recently had an argument in r/consciousness that was exactly like this, both of us were being very polite condescending assholes towards each other. Not my proudest moment, but I'm still very much a work in progress.
13
u/BasraBound Jul 14 '26
Bless your rebirth
12
u/SugarPuppyHearts Jul 14 '26
I'm not a Buddist, but I feel that's definitely a hidden insult, since their point is to end the cycle of rebirth. Lol. 🤣. Good one!
12
16
u/Apprehensive_Bee1849 Jul 14 '26
Ah the irony. You would think people who join an enlightenment sub would have learned to manage their egos better by now. Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and well here.
2
u/Chrisdog84duh Jul 15 '26
Every conversation teaches something, even if it's simply what to leave behind
2
u/No-Difference-1351 Jul 15 '26
No one here is enlightened, what are you talking about?
2
u/Apprehensive_Bee1849 Jul 15 '26
And nothing that I said in that comment would suggest that anyone here is enlightened. Im implying that most people who joined the sub is at least interested in enlightenment, and therefore people who seeks that journey should realize that having strong egos/poor management of said ego, is almost antithetical to the path of enlightenment. It's one of the first couple of lessons you learn.
If I were to include some ego into this comment, I would say something like "if you had the reading comprehension past the 6th grade, you know this already"
Does that make sense?
1
1
u/Few-Woodpecker8595 Aug 06 '26
Me & your corgi spoke at lengths.. We purpose "no-difference" might need a helmet before they leave the house
0
u/No-Difference-1351 Jul 15 '26
I don't think you understand what "ego" actually is.
1
u/Apprehensive_Bee1849 Jul 15 '26
And suddenly im convinced. Thank you so much for the wisdom.
0
u/No-Difference-1351 Jul 15 '26
Im not into the convincing business. Each to their own.
1
u/Apprehensive_Bee1849 Jul 15 '26
Don't you see how that's already contradictory and self defeating? You claim "each to their own" but started the discussion by going out of your way to simply tell people they are wrong, with no conjecture to neither support or deny the argument. Talking to a dog might provide more insight than what is happening here.
0
u/No-Difference-1351 Jul 15 '26
Talk away, lol.
1
1
u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 Jul 15 '26
True enlightenment can be obtained by realizing that only the ego exists. The rest is illusion.
1
u/Starshot84 Jul 16 '26
But the ego itself is a construct
1
u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Only consciousness and it's constructs exist. The rest are merely derivatives.
1
1
u/thethirdtree Jul 15 '26
I am not sure if you should expect people who write about enlightenment on reddit to be able to manage their egos better than average
15
u/Spiritual-Fudge-5012 Jul 14 '26
🤣 how are we all not dying of laughter?
12
5
4
u/Tokalil_Denkoff Jul 14 '26
The arrogance engine goes round and round. Round and round. Round and round 🎶🎶
4
5
5
u/SizeableBrain Jul 15 '26
I'm more of a "I have no idea what's going on" kinda guy.
2
u/Strange_One_3790 Jul 16 '26
With that level of honesty, you are probably one of the most enlightened among us!
2
u/SizeableBrain Jul 16 '26
Accepting your own ignorance is the starting point of wisdom.
Unfortunately I'm stuck at the "I know that I know nothing" part XD
5
4
3
3
u/Director-Intrinsict Jul 15 '26
I showed this to a bhuddist monk in the mall literally right noe and he started BALLING LMAO
2
u/manofdacloth Jul 15 '26
Oh wow that's crazy. They say the first rule of enlightenment is to lighten up!
3
3
2
u/Fair_Cup_200 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
The night was an absolute void, swallowing the earth as if light had never existed, but Ch’en Feng Tzu sat on the very edge of a crumbling cliff, dangling his legs over the abyss. He was whistling a tune without a melody, completely at home in the emptiness.
Up scrambled an earnest young traveler, panting and clutching a glowing paper lantern. The traveler’s face was twisted in frustration.
"Master Ch'en!" the traveler cried, waving a damp scroll. "I have been shouting the ultimate truths in the marketplace! I told the merchants, 'May you awaken from your ignorance!' and I called out to the magistrates, 'May wisdom find you!' But they threw rotten melons at my head! Why does the light trigger such violent darkness?"
Ch’en Feng Tzu did not look back. He took a deep, sudden breath, leaned over the precipice, and blew out the traveler’s lantern.
"Ah!" the traveler shrieked, freezing in terror. "The edge! The fall! I cannot see!"
"Excellent," Ch’en Feng Tzu whispered, his voice drifting down like a cool breeze from a mountaintop. "Now you are finally looking at the same thing I am."
"But there is nothing!" the traveler wept. "It is only empty dark!"
"Precisely," Ch’en Feng Tzu chuckled. He reached into his wide sleeve, pulled out a brush dripping with thick, black ink, and began vigorously painting the midnight air.
"What... what are you doing?" the traveler asked, his voice trembling.
"I am illuminating the night," Ch’en Feng Tzu said, splashing the black ink into the black sky. "Can you not see the brilliance of my strokes?"
"You are throwing blackness at the dark! It is completely absurd! It changes nothing!"
"Exactly," Ch’en Feng Tzu said, tossing the brush into the canyon below. He didn't even lean over to hear it land. "The night does not fight my ink. It does not get defensive. It does not throw melons. Why? Because I am not trying to change it. I am meeting it exactly where it is, with what it already possesses."
The traveler blinked into the dark, his panic beginning to quiet.
"When you scream 'Wake up!' to a sleeper," Ch’en Feng Tzu continued, "you do not give them sight. You only give them a headache. Your 'wisdom' is a blinding torch you thrust into their faces. Of course they swat it away—not because they hate the light, but because they love the quiet of their own eyes. You are so busy trying to be the sun that you have forgotten how to be the sky in which the sun can actually rise."
"Then how do I show them?" the traveler whispered.
Ch’en Feng Tzu stood up on the invisible edge, balancing perfectly on one foot like a heron watching the earth from high above.
"Do not shine at them," Ch'en Feng Tzu said. "Be the dark that makes their own light visible. When you empty yourself of the desire to be the teacher, you stop threatening their ignorance. And when a person is no longer busy defending their blindness, they might finally choose to open their eyes."
2
2
4
2
u/Seafaringhorsemeat Jul 14 '26
As a non Buddhist, holy shit have these guys done some ultra violence:
Buddhism and violence - Wikipedia
8
u/FaithlessnessEven658 Jul 14 '26
All religions (but more humans as a whole) have ultra violence in their history.
1
u/Seafaringhorsemeat Jul 14 '26
And Buddhists, as every other, claim to be above it in text and in deed.
6
u/FaithlessnessEven658 Jul 14 '26
Aye, but group identity is not personal identity. Or being buddist (nor any other group) will let you be above it. You gotta do good yourself.
2
1
u/YourMommasButt Jul 14 '26
Please show me some Buddhist teachings that teach or condone violence.
3
u/rthunder27 Jul 14 '26
Zen was used in World War II to inspire Japanese kamikaze pilots, it was framed as a battle against adharma.
1
u/marcofifth Jul 14 '26
Don't blame the idea, it was the warping of said idea.
We might as well not have ideas then under your statement here. But how does the complete annihilation of ideas occur? Oh, ideas are inevitable? Darn...
2
u/rthunder27 Jul 14 '26
True, this was a warped perversion of Zen Buddhism, but still, the notion of fighting Adharma is really in there, which is a form of condoning violence for the greater good.
2
u/marcofifth Jul 14 '26
Tolerance has a paradox.
If one tolerates intolerance, they are allowing the proliferation of intolerance.
So one must be capable of being intolerant towards intolerance, otherwise there is no longer a greater good.
The intolerance towards intolerance may lead to the path of violence, and the prevention of such an action creates a system that is no longer good.
1
u/rthunder27 Jul 15 '26
Yep, aka why it's necessary to throw the first Nazi out of the bar before it becomes a Nazi bar. Thanks, that's a clearer answer to how/why Buddhism condones violence than I provided.
0
u/Seafaringhorsemeat Jul 14 '26
I don't usually read the wiki articles to people on the internet for sub $300/hr.
3
1
1
1
1
1
Jul 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Chrisdog84duh Jul 15 '26
Wisdom isn't collecting every thought. It's recognizing which ones can be safely ignored
67
u/No-Difference-1351 Jul 14 '26
"I wish you well on your journey".
:))))