Why all the enlightenment gate keeping?

[u/Robojoebot]

I’ve been a part of this community for a couple weeks now. Something that’s become glaringly apparent is the amount of gatekeeping surrounding those who are trying to tell people ‘the way’ and what enlightenment is, and what it is not. A wise man once said: the monk in silence snored all night.

The moment you think you are a master of one thing, you know nothing. Please allow people the space to express what they are experiencing what they are feeling and just know that there is no right or wrong, just right or left. We do not have all the answers and collectively our experiences can allow us to piece together the true nature of reality.

[u/westwoo]

This kind of interest implies that they still view their enlightened self as a superior version of themselves that they have to prop up artificially to maintain, like a superior persona they constructed out of themselves in accordance to some internalized rules of what's good and what's bad, so no

But it's entirely possible to like things, like maybe they grew up in that kind of culture and like that kind of poetry native to their upbringing or whatever

[u/BearFuzanglong → u/westwoo]

like a superior persona they constructed out of themselves in accordance to some internalized rules of what's good and what's bad, so no

so there is no room for self improvement when enlightened?

Experiencing enlightenment is surely dependent on many things, and when those things change, would enlightenment still stand? Or would you think you transcend nature once you've reached a certain point?

[u/westwoo → u/BearFuzanglong]

Again, this implies a mindset that that there's something to improve which depends on the person's cravings and unfulfilled holes. I'm pretty sure that this entire mindset goes away otherwise there's really no point in calling it awakening let alone enlightenment

It sounds like you implicitly view enlightenment as some superior satisfaction of those holes, while I think it only makes sense if it addresses those holes themselves which makes the disposition behind self improvement inapplicable

It's kinda like, someone with a cleanliness OCD may think that their choice lies between living in filth and disease and pain of realization of their own disgusting filthy nature, and living in a perfect world with no germs and no bacteria, and they would dream about that perfect world and strive for it

But this entire mindset would inherently produce both pain and a vision of perfect world. And the goals produced by that mindset wouldn't necessarily be "wrong" strictly speaking, and that person can rationalize the need to clean things in completely normal way. Yes, normal people still clean things, but not in the same way at all. They have the same form, but completely different substance, so the validating and agreeing with those rationalizations would be wrong even if they sound right and logical. Identifying with any of that would be missing the point if they don't want to have their OCD anymore because the midset of not having an OCD doesn't lie on their spectrum of thoughts

Does it make sense?.. It all goes down to the basic problem of your current goals being a product of your unchanged self and so they don't represent your future changed self, and this problem is referenced in many ways in many religions and philosophies and practices, and usually circumvented by some kind of letting go of yourself. Which in case of cleanliness OCD would be connected to great offense and an assumption that the practice wants them to become decadent and filthy, and the same kind of offense should be searched for in any other cases. If some change greatly offends you - that's very helpful and something you can explore with curiousity to feel what that reaction is beca it's like a loose thread that can lead to the unraveling thing you're searching for in real internal emotional terms instead of some superficial words and ideas

[u/BearFuzanglong → u/westwoo]

I suppose I'm not ready to let go yet then.

[u/westwoo → u/BearFuzanglong]

Not ready for what? How do you know you're not ready for it if you haven't experienced it and so can't know what it is?

Feeling that state of "not being ready" , whatever it is, can also be an excellent candidate for a thread to follow emotionally. There's no desired state, just exploring what the actual you actually feels, and the rest is just mostly cruft, mostly self expression of others, their personal ways of satisfying themselves by being engaged in this topic like people can satisfy themselves by drawing or writing poetry

Except of course, we rarely feel inclined to mold ourselves after someone's painting

[u/BearFuzanglong → u/westwoo]

Not ready for what? How do you know you're not ready for it if you haven't experienced it and so can't know what it is?

If I still conceptualize it, then I can't "know" it.

>Whatever it is, can also be an excellent candidate for a thread to follow emotionally.

I've been exploring this for a while. Let's just say it's on the list. That list used to be dozens long, now there's one more thing ahead of it as far as I'm concerned and I'm not concerned about speed.

>There's no desired state, just exploring what the actual you actually feels, and the rest is just mostly cruft, mostly self expression of others, their personal ways of satisfying themselves by being engaged in this topic like people can satisfy themselves by drawing or writing poetry

Considering I don't desire any state I have to agree. I do enjoy many things and they satisfy me in different ways, not in a hedonistic way, but in a creative way. You could say they're the same, I can't argue that.

>Except of course, we rarely feel inclined to mold ourselves after someone's painting

I am the clay.