In response to this:
Fuck hope. Hope is good in that it can allow you to be open to positivity and thus channel that positivity. But hope is also a fucker. Hope is a bunch of expectation that can leave you disappointed and future-focused rather than enjoying the present.
Persistence is the most important trait for anyone to have. To be persistent you need to be resilient. You can’t hit home runs every time you’re up to bat. You’re going to screw up a lot before you get better.
A discussion follows which you can read at the link above.
I would agree and disagree with all sides. Fuck hope, but hope is necessary. Fuck persistence, but persistence is necessary.
It’s a question of psychic foundation. Upon what rock can one build one’s house? If it’s an island, motivation is lost. If it’s fire, it can go out when most needed. If it’s yourself, you failing becomes a massive problem.
I think life is like an ocean. Sometimes you’re in a yacht, or speedboat, riding gloriously and fast. Sometimes you’re in a rowboat, or swimming, or sinking.
You can try to control whether you’re in a boat, swimming, or drowning, but you won’t always succeed. You can try to interpret away the waves, but if the storm is large enough, the ocean will impose its will upon you. And resisting the waves will only mean a capsizing and lungs full of water.
There are two things you need. First, a point on the horizon towards which to fix your eyes, beaming bright in night and day. This gives you a stable perspective unaffected by the rolling of the waves, which will induce nausea. You cannot select a point upon the featureless ocean and steer towards that; you will lose your way, and upon arriving will find it is the same as everywhere else.
Second, you must humbly accept your own suffering, and resolve no matter what to keep your eyes fixed on that horizon point, even if you drown. Accept your limitation, accept that strength may run out, and resolve to swim/sail/speed towards that point anyway while and when strength permits.
This horizon point must be unreachable, because as soon as it gets close, it loses its effectiveness. And it must be inspiring, to inspire in you the ultimate sacrifice and dedication.
For me, the horizon point is the Christian God. For another, it might be whatever concept of the Ultimate they possess.
Whether I am dying or winning, I fix my gaze on that, with the humble knowledge of my inherent limitation. It is a forever distant and inspiring point, and the labor of rowing is the words, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done.”
** Enlightenment ecstasy vs Koanic Soul
Also, an Illuminatus forum user PM’ed me this recommendation to investigate ecstatic meditation of the “no self” school:
Here’s one fragment of a fresh statement, I’ve read just yesterday:
Quote
(…)no observer, no commentator, no spectator, no I watching, no self having the experience. ‘I’, was just fully being the experience without a commentary voice because there was no such entity. Then my throat and mouth involuntarily began to twist in an odd way. I began to shake slightly with a steady pleasant vibration. Lovely pulsations began to stream up my back, coursing through it pleasurably. My hands became very hot. This moment of realisation was soon joined by the thought/question; ‘Christ, surely it cannot really be this simple?!’
‘I’ now realised that I had seen through the illusion of self, that there was no self doing or having this experience! I now realised that there was no going back. I laughed out loud and shouted; “Fuck the pope!” (I really have nothing against the guy at all, it was just an expletive of disbelief and head-shaking joy) I was buzzing as though on very nice and very, very mild LSD and was up until after midnight. I woke up still buzzing at five next morning and had a lovely time till that evening. Later, an experience of relational tension had me selfing again for a limited period but I saw it now as being an unreal passing phenomenon, with no place to abide, like a lost Mara looking for a home.
Mad Bikerfrom here (he had a ‘revelation’ at the end of the third page).
I understand the ecstatic enlightenment phenomena, but I do not seek that in itself. I do not believe it maximizes effective Kingdom performance.
Ecstatic selflessness is merely one component of my meditative system. When using tongues under ideal conditions, one experiences this. However, the state cannot be relied upon. It is inherently dependent on compatible underlying biological states, which I am often not in due to health. And it is vulnerable to stress and difficulty. Moreover, it encourages a passive state.
When I wrote “I need a meditation that knows how to die”, I was implying that I already had it. I believe the koan system offers a proper balance, in which ecstasy is available, but one is not dependent upon it to function.