Weird experiences of altered consciousness, whether just due to neurological confusion or linked to some insight into experience itself, can actually accentuate the problem of the known.
We feel that we are privvy to special knowledge now, have been spiritually augmented - thus the authority of the known and the knower has been magically enhanced.
Some folks who speak as if they have just come down from the sacred mountain may be under this type of influence, some of course may just talk like that for some other psychological or neurological reason.
The idea pointing to a brain emptying itself, being silent etc. is obviously not about any sort of âacquisitionâ, which is a description of âadding toâ or increasingâŚ
Which acquisition,it seems, would not apply to practical technical prowess but only to acquisition by the illusory individual self?
I was wondering if Mr. Robert Waldinger is aware that he is interpreting Shunryu Suzukiâs words (min 4:00 in the video) in order to justify his thesis; and also if all those who may accept his interpretation as if it were their own, as if they had thought it up themselves, are aware that they are simply accepting an interpretation without having looked at Shunryu Suzumiâs words themselves and finding out for themselves what he is saying 
Thanks for posting this very interesting short article Dev.
For me, it brings up questions of accumulation and emptying, things weâve often debated here. As far as I can see, an enlightened approach involves a kind of starting from zero, over and over again. Only in this way can there be the possibility of discovering something new. I have no idea if some kind of powerful experience can shake one up to such as degree that there is a re-set and there follows great clarity in seeing the limitations of the accumulation of knowledge. Perhaps this is the case for some people.
Yes - either I am a fixed image, and what I know is perfect for each moment - or not.
If you observed them, may I ask you what resonated with you when you yourself observed Shunryu Suzukiâs words without the influence/interference of Mr. Robert Waldinger?
Thank you!
There is no such thing as an enlightened person,
There is only enlightened activity.Shunryu Suzuki (1904 - 1971)
The enlightened person is the static image (eg. I am the person that had that insight into self last friday)
The enlightened activity is the moment to moment action of freedom from images via awareness.
Hi Fraggle. Actually, I didnât notice there was a video but just read the short article below it. I will now watch the video âŚ
Having now watched the video, I can only say that what Mr. Robert Waldinger says makes a lot of sense to me. Iâm not sure what the issue is here Fraggle.
Good. Now letâs try to look at it in another way where Mr. Robert Waldinger has no influenceâŚ
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How can there be such a thing as an enlightened person when so-called enlightenment supposedly dwells in the void?
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How can anyone say whether that enlightened activity that arises from voidness/emptiness exists all the time or only at times?
So, Mr. Robert Waldingerâs claim that Shunryu Suzukiâs words support his thesis is, at the very least, a mere speculation/interpretation of those words trying to make others believe that they actually support his thesis.
See my previous post to @macdougdoug.
On the other hand, and if you donât mind, Iâd like to know what exactly âmakes a lot of sense to meâ means to you.
Hi again Fraggle. I answered this on an earlier post in this thread when I said that for me, the article raised very interesting questions about accumulation and emptying. The whole issue of what enlightenment is and means is something which has generated a lot of debate here over the years. The video articulates a number of points which, according to what I have observed, seems to be true.
We are claiming that the concept of the perfectly enlightened person is unhelpful - we say : does not exist. Agreed?
So hopefully âhow can there be such a thing as an enlightened person?â is a rhetorical question
Also what do you mean by âenlightenement dwells in the voidâ ?
Do you mean something like âenlightenment is merely a conceptâ ?
Zen is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism and, as such, is based on the realization of emptiness, that is, both the emptiness of the self and the emptiness of the reality that appears to that self.
Now, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, in section 2b on the word ârhetoricâ, says: âa type or mode of language or speech; also: insincere or grandiloquent languageâ, which I imagine is what you mean when you say âhopefully your question is a rhetorical questionâ (correct me if thatâs not the case).
If so, to see whether the question was rhetorical or not, the one who hopes it to be rhetorical should make it clear (before the other can say anything about it, either in form of agreement, disagreement, or neither of the two) whether for him there is no such thing as an enlightened person at all (just as there is no such thing as a frog with the head of a lion), or there is no such thing as an enlightened person because once enlightened (according to Zen Buddhist teaching), there is no longer any basis for imputing âhere is an enlightened personâ (as when one realizes that what appeared to be a snake in the distance is nothing more than a piece of coiled rope as one gets closer to it).
So, going back to Zen and its foundations â since the one who says the sentence was a Zen master â such a thing as an enlightened person (i.e., one who has realized the emptiness of himself and of the reality of everything around him) would not exist because there is no longer any basis on which to impute âI am an enlightened personâ (although our ignorance continues to impute âhe/she is actually an enlightened personâ on the basis of that personâs apparent bodily expressions and ignoranceâs belief that âI am one thingâ and âhe is anotherâ).
Yes, just as âemptinessâ is not emptiness. Or as Nagarjuna said in his â70 Stanzas on Emptiness (Sunyatasaptati)â:
âArisingâ, âenduringâ and âdisintegratingâ, âexistingâ and ânon-existingâ, âinferiorâ, âintermediateâ and âsuperiorâ have no true existence. The Buddha uses these terms according to worldly conventions.
Or put even more simply, in Krishnamurtiâs way:
The word is not the thing.
There is an extensive corpus of Buddhist literature on what the true nature of a Buddha (or fully enlightened being/person) is, if you were interested in it. There are also 10 questions that Buddha never answered.
A rhetorical question means we are making a statement in the form of a question as a figure of speech - we are not really asking about something in order to obtain an answer.
Like âhow could you be so beautiful/stupid/clumsy ?!?â
The article talks about a âpermanently enlightenedâ person rarely, if ever, existing. Another thing is when someone claims to be enlightened. Doesnât such a claim come from the ego? Isnât enlightenment connected to emptiness and the absence of ego?
So, according to your definition of ârhetoricalâ, I think it is obvious that my question was not rhetorical at all, but straightforward. In fact, you yourself confirmed that it was not rhetorical (in the sense you define above) when you asked, âAlso what do you mean by enlightenment dwells in the void?â, which in a way can be considered an answer to a question that actually did seek an answer to keep looking more closely at the topic of the thread.
Which is nothing more than mere speculation on the part of anyone claiming that this is so. For how can ignorance, unable to see the actual reality of what is before its eyes, know if there is such a thing as an enlightened person, let alone if that supposed enlightenment is there all the time or only part of it?
A speculation, on the other hand, which rather has the appearance of a justification. As if to say: âSince (for whatever reason) I am not able to become enlightened (whatever that means) beyond an insight of a few seconds or minutes, no one else can become enlightened, and therefore the conclusion is that there is no such thing as a constantly enlightened person".
Yes, an impostor who identifies himself with something that is no longer there, and who is convinced that he is performing enlightened actions.
Yes, the total absence of any basis on which to impute an enlightened person (although to the ignorance that observes such a person, he still appears as a self-existent enlightened person totally separate from it).
The problem with this is that we can say that almost any statement we make (including all your contributions) are the product of a conditioned mind and therefore have little value. This leads to a dead end as far as I can see with little chance of exploring deeply together. If you think the statement I referred to isnât true, you could say why.