From: joanna bujes
What he placed the greatest emphasis on was people working it out/through for themselves. It seems astonishing to me that people could reduce enlightenment to just another form of ideology, but so they do.
What it gets down to is that they don't want enlightenment or even consciousness. What they want is the big cosmic/spiritual O. But as Krishnamurti once put it, "if you want to feel good, take drugs." Otherwise, if you want to be enlightened/conscious, learn to pay attention. And don't use people (including yourself) sexually or otherwise.
^^^^^^
CB: Since marriage and sex are ongoing discussion topics, and Brian has also drawn our attention to Buddha, and I am paying attention to Buddha, I focussed for the moment on the website claim that Buddha was celibate. Celibacy is interesting in the context of discussing sex and marriage because it is explicitly and markedly "not having sex". It's not just happening not to have sex , but signifying "hey, I'm not having sex on purpose ".
What is it about enlightened consciousness , paying attention , that would lead to what seems an emphasis on not having sex ; or not getting married; or getting out of the marriage Buddha was in ? I suppose clearly not having sex is one way to not use people. Is that it ? Is enlightenment somehow antithetical to having pleasure ?
To pose one of Brian's recurrent themes, was Buddha sexophobic in enlightenment ? That has to at least cross your mind when somebody says they are celibate.
Surely it is not surprising to you that on a left list with lots of atheists, someone might categorize Buddhist enlightenment as an ideology in some sense. Is it really so impertinent for us to question this "enlightenment"? It's not like we have never heard of or even tried some of the ideas of Buddhism before. You know, Hermann Hesse, and the rest.