This is a very interesting post, thank you for bringing this up. This a going to be a very personal thought i’d like to share.
I think that, as you well sayed, your enlightenment needs to follow both paths; “emotionnal” and “rationnal” to simplify. The difference imo lays in the distance you can travel on these paths. I actually think this distance is finite and actually pretty limited. Every questioning whether it is about the nature of reality, consciousness, or the inner meaning of our joys or fears ends in a space where words lack. I truly believe this is the root of every fear, every question. We have a tendency to find sentences, maxims that synthesize our fears and our thoughts because this is our only way of retranscribing our insights and this is great ! But i’ve always found these summary of a vaccum ironically pretty empty and meaningless.
My opinions on the subject is that we can reach SOME unlightenment by questionning our relation to this “End of the word”. But most part of the work is to admit that we NEED put words and ideas on things in order to appreciate them as thinking beings, and that in this way we’re unable to reach anything further. Whoever wants to reach some answer needs to give up the very word answer and admit that all he can do is scratch the edges of the caneva forever.
A lot of religions/spiritualitys adress this opinion but still let a door opened to Unicity, this is the idea of a buddha, if there is one person who succeded to transcend word and meaning it’s him. But I think, and again this is abundantly subjective, that a buddha is and must stay an unreachable goal.
In way the key to unlightenment is giving up the idea of unlightenment but still perpetually trying to reach for it. It’s in this way that all people needs a different path, everyone needs a different way to “loose the word without loosing the mind”. Personally I like trying to reach some contemplation of the unthinkable, at least contemplating the beauty OF the unthinkable, i won’t be able to go any further anyway.
So this is my personnal opinion, scratch the edges, abandon the idea of ever getting out because your bounded to the word, and try to appreciate the beauty of what will ever be unreachable and the eternal terror that emanates from it, which is imo the elemental brick of every existential question. (If i had to speculate as a psychology student i would say that this is the very begenning of every psychopathology, but this is another topic that needs strongest arguments than philosophy itself)
Thank you for taking the time to read, sorry if this is a bit clumsy English is not my native language i tried to correct this post several times.
Yes. A certain amount of seeking is required to make progress on the path, at a different point on the path, all seeking must be abandoned. And all not-seeking must also be abandoned and all abandon must also be abandoned.
Yes there is also a balance between the words and the wordless (3 things, “words”, “wordless” and “balance”)
Just wordless is not the solution, just words is not the solution and just balance is really not anything at all without both sides to balance.
Exactly, I think words are conforting, they give us something to rely on. As they are barely the only thing we can rely on, more than useful they’re a essential. But I think it’s indispensable not because the balance between word and wordless is the thing that makes us progress but because the word keeps us bounded to our condition. As we can’t let us drown into the speechless and the silence we need some sort of rope to ride up the cliff afterward (or get down the moutain depending on your personnal and cultural orientation and symbolic). I think a balance can be found here, we need to loose words to approch some interesting “non-thoughts like things” and we need words in order to not loose sanity in the process and be able continue on living our human lifes after this.
Thanks again.
I’m not a budhist neither a Taoist. I make my own soup with all this really… but i’m really limited to the only few books i’ve read, i’m more confortable with vedantic and post vedantic cultures and spiritualities.
Agreed. The unfortunate thing about wordless experience for me is that I can’t record and therefore can’t repeat it very well.
I’ve woken up from a dream feeling like just when it got less describey I had a realisation and feel better. I don’t know what happened or why or how. And I’d like to be able to repeat that while awake. There are no words for that.
I like the phrase “I make my own soup”. Me too. I wonder if everyone does a bit. (obviously to certain degrees, talking here about a larger degree for myself). My phrase is “I am my own guide”
I’m from an occidental culture… It’s difficult to understand and to adopt a spirituality from the opposite side of the world, codes and symbols are upside down (or downside up ! ) and it’s easy to get “cultural interference” that mislead you in your path. When i think about it i thought about cultural appropriation before it was a cool hipster thing… Now i tend to feed on everything I found and make my own occidental mess of a spirituality. I guess everyone who’s a minimum curious tends to mix up different ideas he can rely on.
Thank you very much it was a really good talk !
PS : again sorry for misspost my pc is a mad beast… sorry mods
This is a very interesting post, thank you for bringing this up. This a going to be a very personal thought i’d like to share.
I think that, as you well sayed, your enlightenment needs to follow both paths; “emotionnal” and “rationnal” to simplify. The difference imo lays in the distance you can travel on these paths. I actually think this distance is finite and actually pretty limited. Every questioning whether it is about the nature of reality, consciousness, or the inner meaning of our joys or fears ends in a space where words lack. I truly believe this is the root of every fear, every question. We have a tendency to find sentences, maxims that synthesize our fears and our thoughts because this is our only way of retranscribing our insights and this is great ! But i’ve always found these summary of a vaccum ironically pretty empty and meaningless.
My opinions on the subject is that we can reach SOME unlightenment by questionning our relation to this “End of the word”. But most part of the work is to admit that we NEED put words and ideas on things in order to appreciate them as thinking beings, and that in this way we’re unable to reach anything further. Whoever wants to reach some answer needs to give up the very word answer and admit that all he can do is scratch the edges of the caneva forever.
A lot of religions/spiritualitys adress this opinion but still let a door opened to Unicity, this is the idea of a buddha, if there is one person who succeded to transcend word and meaning it’s him. But I think, and again this is abundantly subjective, that a buddha is and must stay an unreachable goal.
In way the key to unlightenment is giving up the idea of unlightenment but still perpetually trying to reach for it. It’s in this way that all people needs a different path, everyone needs a different way to “loose the word without loosing the mind”. Personally I like trying to reach some contemplation of the unthinkable, at least contemplating the beauty OF the unthinkable, i won’t be able to go any further anyway.
So this is my personnal opinion, scratch the edges, abandon the idea of ever getting out because your bounded to the word, and try to appreciate the beauty of what will ever be unreachable and the eternal terror that emanates from it, which is imo the elemental brick of every existential question. (If i had to speculate as a psychology student i would say that this is the very begenning of every psychopathology, but this is another topic that needs strongest arguments than philosophy itself)
Thank you for taking the time to read, sorry if this is a bit clumsy English is not my native language i tried to correct this post several times.
Yes. A certain amount of seeking is required to make progress on the path, at a different point on the path, all seeking must be abandoned. And all not-seeking must also be abandoned and all abandon must also be abandoned.
Yes there is also a balance between the words and the wordless (3 things, “words”, “wordless” and “balance”)
Just wordless is not the solution, just words is not the solution and just balance is really not anything at all without both sides to balance.
Exactly, I think words are conforting, they give us something to rely on. As they are barely the only thing we can rely on, more than useful they’re a essential. But I think it’s indispensable not because the balance between word and wordless is the thing that makes us progress but because the word keeps us bounded to our condition. As we can’t let us drown into the speechless and the silence we need some sort of rope to ride up the cliff afterward (or get down the moutain depending on your personnal and cultural orientation and symbolic). I think a balance can be found here, we need to loose words to approch some interesting “non-thoughts like things” and we need words in order to not loose sanity in the process and be able continue on living our human lifes after this.
Thanks again.
I’m not a budhist neither a Taoist. I make my own soup with all this really… but i’m really limited to the only few books i’ve read, i’m more confortable with vedantic and post vedantic cultures and spiritualities.
PS : Sorry for misspost
Agreed. The unfortunate thing about wordless experience for me is that I can’t record and therefore can’t repeat it very well.
I’ve woken up from a dream feeling like just when it got less describey I had a realisation and feel better. I don’t know what happened or why or how. And I’d like to be able to repeat that while awake. There are no words for that.
I like the phrase “I make my own soup”. Me too. I wonder if everyone does a bit. (obviously to certain degrees, talking here about a larger degree for myself). My phrase is “I am my own guide”
I’m from an occidental culture… It’s difficult to understand and to adopt a spirituality from the opposite side of the world, codes and symbols are upside down (or downside up ! ) and it’s easy to get “cultural interference” that mislead you in your path. When i think about it i thought about cultural appropriation before it was a cool hipster thing… Now i tend to feed on everything I found and make my own occidental mess of a spirituality. I guess everyone who’s a minimum curious tends to mix up different ideas he can rely on.
Thank you very much it was a really good talk !
PS : again sorry for misspost my pc is a mad beast… sorry mods