The enlightenment was in many respects a continuation of a process which was begun by the Scientific Revolution. Today, the Age of Enlightenment is synonymous with the Scientific Revolution. Choosing to see and anchor the + in every or most situations is that, a choice. Together, they catalysed the Industrial Revolution which begot the Digital Revolution, and the rest is of course History. Wasn’t the enlightenment a revolt against those bad governments as well as the church. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/tyndales-heresy, " It is a fact usually ignored by Protestant historians that many English versions of the Scriptures existed before Wycliff, and these were authorized and perfectly legal (see Where We Got the Bible by Henry Graham, chapter 11, “Vernacular Scriptures Before Wycliff”). The Enlightenment mythology is based on several pillars: Admittedly, it’s possible that this is all true. The Good, the Bad, and the Enlightenment. For those who have not experienced the blissful freedom of Selflessness, Enlightenment as Selflessness probably sounds a little underwhelming — disappointing even. The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions Experience is thus the base layer, the kernel of our operating system, but we depend on conscious ideas and values — the contents of consciousness — in order to act in the world, in the context of a society. While it has ancient roots, the word Enlightenment came into popular use only recently. What transpired we now refer to as the Age of Enlightenment. What bad thing did the Church do that required these nuns to lose their heads? c. do not come from the government. A charismatic figure — in this case Buddha — resonates on some visceral level and inspires a following of people who then project all their hopes and desires onto said figure, worshipping and evangelising, seeking in the object of worship that which is most absent in their own lives. And that’s enough. The enlightened man would cure whatever ailed society by using human reason alone, and human power. What about the opportunity cost argument, the notion that every moment spent meditating or working on oneself is a moment not spent solving the world’s problems? The problem, however, is not with how the idea makes us feel, rather that we have no good reason for believing it to be true. which by the way is on the back of the US dollar bill. We live in an age of unprecedented distraction, a world wherein the thread of our attention is being pulled at from a million different directions, a world wherein our attention has literally been commoditised. Obviously killing nuns isn’t good but the French Revolution isn’t the wholeness of the enlightenment. Take the question at hand, What is Enlightenment? Rather because of science. Saṃsāra, stripped of the metaphysics, is therefore the realm of Self, whereas Nirvana is the world of Selflessness. And with Truth comes power, the power to influence or control the world around us, the power to influence and control our own lives, to rise above our base instincts and live with the better angels of our nature. They could make irrational decisions and go crazy, be corrupted. Over the next six years he met various meditators and learnt some things. I just think that the Church is beginning to understand and gain the ability to spread the knowledge of God and the experience of His love as never before, even in the midst of her own struggles right now. If it’s a real possibility, a landscape of mind available to us all, how are we to get there? The fact it took you a couple posts just to call the martyrdom of Catholic nuns bad makes me concerned. While the two may be correlated, and surely are, there is nothing intrinsic to the phenomenon of being connected to the true nature of consciousness that would imply right or ethical conduct. But, what to make? We are not islands unto ourselves. It was then that he realised that the ultimate perfection he had been seeking must rest inside the mind itself, not outside of it, as he had formerly supposed. As with any religion, or philosophy for that matter, if you can seperate the former from the latter — and not throw out the baby with the bath water — there is great value to be had. There is no thinker of thoughts, no homunculus between the ears pulling strings or calling shots. Previously, ideas like philosophy, reason, and science – these belonged to the higher social classes, to kings and princes and clergymen. I guess my question is why is the enlightenment viewed so negatively by Catholics? The thinkers of the Enlightenment objected to the absolute power of the royal rulers and of the Roman Catholic church. And … It’s sure hard to imagine, but plausible enough. In some highly idealised version of things, ten minutes spent meditating is ten minutes spent not solving climate change or the AI Alignment problem or pandemic preparedness or global poverty or any other of the long list of global problems. According to Lehner, reality is far more complex. While there is obviously a lot of the former going on, for charlatans are everywhere, I suggest that the latter is equally prevalent. Human beings, as one may have noticed, don’t live in vacuums. I mean the inquisition was pretty bad. However, through practice, one will find themselves so less and less. because it lead to the church losing most of its power! It’s almost certain that the positive valence that characterises the underlying quality of consciousness is bound to shape one’s action in the world for the better, but there is nothing inevitable about it. Growing up, he was also, by accounts, highly intelligent and compassionate, not to mention tall, handsome and strong. All there is is electrochemical signals being sent across various regions of brain tissue. While confronted by the sickness and suffering around and within him, Siddhartha one day stumbled upon a meditator who sat in deep absorption. Imagine you’re walking down the street and you come across what appears to be a snack coiled up on the sidewalk. What did the philosophers of the Enlightenment seek to understand? Good Things; Do Now – Fill out parenting checklist Introduction to the Enlightenment “Are people inherently good or bad?” Discussion – Hobbes and Rousseau’s ideas on whether you think people are good or bad. But as any good spiritual text will tell you, and as you may already know by way of experience, what we are is not a Self at all. As soon as one applies sufficient concentration, however, the experience of Self drops away, leaving only awareness itself. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-real-story-of-the-fourth-crusade. Even when we have set goals for ourselves, when we have decided upon a direction for our lives, the path is notoriously hard to walk, paved as it is with neon signs of diverting temptation. In practice, however, ten minutes spent meditating is ten minutes spent not watching Netflix, Youtube binging, social media scrolling, or simply lost in thought. In fact, it’s essential. What one does and who one chooses to be in the Here and Now is another thing. Once you have you head straight about that, c’mon back and we’ll talk. How did Hobbes’s views differ from those of Locke’s? Should Christians take part in ‘Pride’? When their eyes met, they had a bit of a moment and Siddhartha became mesmerised. While the Buddhist literature has much to say on the question — connection to the true nature of mind, ultimate or supreme awareness and so forth — it uses the dichotomy of Saṃsāra / Nirvana to illustrate the idea. In other words, there is more to flourishing, more to the Good Life, than mere Enlightenment. Approaching his 30th birthday, he came to the realisation that no amount of worldly pleasures or conditioned experiences could provide lasting happiness or insulate one from the suffering that plagues the human condition. Siddhartha was born into royalty, a prince, and was accordingly privy to all the indulgent pleasures of ancient princehood — “hundreds” of the finest women etc. God-given values ar… The best way to answer it is by way of analogy. All valid questions. Stuff like that. There is no such thing as being ‘slightly lost in thought’ or ‘kind of connected to the ultimate nature of experience’. The nature of Self is much the same. And even for those who buy the idea that Enlightenment is a real thing, something to aim for, something that can — even within the context of an all too finite human life — be realised, there is still far from a perfect uniformity of opinion concerning its finer details. Saṃsāra, according to Buddhist thought, is the ordinary state of things — suffering, life and death, the illusion of self, the world of appearances etc. What is an awakened intellect and who or what is a Buddha? Spiritual Liminality: Coming to Terms with an Evolving Faith, Thoughts in Solitude: Celebrating Spiritual Victories. And I believe we’re moving on now-to even greater enlightenment informed by God’s revelation, His light. One may be grounded in love, compassion, and the blissful insight into the unity of all things, and yet nevertheless retain a taste for all kinds of pathological behaviour. Is it simply a matter of enough meditation and mind-altering chemistry? To be free of the Self, for even the briefest moment, is tantamount to the highest form of well-being imaginable. While it’s a very different kind of Enlightenment, it is nevertheless equally significant. Just back from a week in Vermont, baking under the tutelage of Jeffrey Hamelman, I was itching to get into my own kitchen and fire up the oven. Being connected to the true nature of experience, the Great Perfection, does not imply a certain way of life nor a particular hairstyle or a special affinity for Birkenstocks. In this scenario, there would be no debate concerning whether or not the percept in question is a snake or a rope, for it is clear as soon as one applies concentration that the object is a rope. What is Enlightenment? Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that emphasized the use of reason to advance understanding of the universe and to improve the human condition. “We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves.”. Within a particular centre of the brain? I would argue that sacking of Constantinople is just as evil. Monarchy, Royalty, Aristocracy is all of the Old Order! The Enlightenment IS about destroying the Old Order and replacing it with "a better place" or the New Order!! 3 Things Only Spiritual People Understand. Like most White men, Joyce sees the Enlightenment favorably, as a product of by and for White men. Towards the end of the 17th century, a cast of cats — predominantly white European men — started playing round with a special type of thinking and doing, one that emphasised empirical observation and experimentation. Spirituality and Religion — Are They the Same? Judaism believes that for an ideal world there must be a focus on both God and man. The Enlightenment. Ultimately, the Enlightenment does hold a deeply unpleasant side to its history. Far from a selfish endeavour, tending to the quality of our experience is therefore among the most selfless acts we can partake in. But it seems like the enlightenment just addressed a lot of the bad things the church was doing throughout history. You seem to have more things to say against the Church for things she never condoned than you do against those parading the cause of the Enlightenment and their very deliberate slaughter of Catholics. Saṃsāra is illusion, in other words, while Nirvana is Enlightenment — what is True and Real. Enlightenment is one of the (if not the) most alluring human concepts. Also don’t forget Roman Catholicism sacking of Constantinople. A single human spirit (consciousness) may undergo many cycles of death and rebirth — life, death, life, death, life, death and so on ad nauseam — until it finally attains Enlightenment at which point the cycle of life and death is broken, causing the spirit to transcend (in real-time or upon its final body death?) Why is this bad? Again, this may be the case. It’s a term that has inspired many a philosophy, religion, and cult the world over. The Self is, as they as, an “illusion”. It does not imply a particular destination. Even so, he was discontent. Not that it’s worth much, but people have certainly claimed it to be realisable. — where Nirvana is inner peace, impermanence, selflessness, unity of all things. Just as a mastery of mathematics or carpentry won’t emerge from the experience of Enlightenment, neither will a perfect social or ethical framework. For instance, is it a finite and binary phenomenon, as in you’re either Enlightened or you’re not? What’s the most direct path? Despite the establishment of the Dominicans and their houses near Sonborne and other universities across Europe, despite all the contributions of the Church throughout history for science (the Big Bang, cells in biology, etc. For example, look into the reformers oppression, torture and slaughter of Anabaptists, for one. John Locke thought people were neither good nor bad naturally. Enlightenment is often conflated with some platonic ideal of a human being, perfection embodied. This line of argument, while on its face at least quasi-reasonable, is predicated on an erroneous view of the human predicament. If we put aside the fact that human suffering is the problem and that working on alleviating one’s own suffering is among the most leveraged solutions, there does seem to be some tension here, at least on first glance. Over that time, ‘The Enlightenment’ has been accused of having its hand in every baleful moment of human history: it has been indicted as the destroyer of morality; the harbinger of selfish individualism; as a thief robbing human life of meaning; as being a form of cultural imperialism, and as being directly or indirectly responsible for everything from the Holocaust to global warming. -- In stark contrast to Enlightenment rationality, Rousseau emphasis the primacy of emotion as a means of attending the Truth. It is possible, I suggest, for one to be both grounded in the ultimate nature of the awareness — Enlightened — and morally/ethically twisted. Well, for a while it might be nice to have respect for civil rights, but when it becomes convenient or necessary (for various social or political reasons) to change that focus, then respect for human life becomes just another idea that goes out of style. There are documented cases of criminals blaspheming so that they would be transferred to the Inquisition…which was considered much more merciful than the secular courts of the time. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-witch-hunts-can-teach-us-about-charity-and-fear, “One of the questions I tackled in the booklet was “Did the Church burn witches during the Middle Ages?” The short answer is no. And then there is of course the problem of how to attain it. Consider another psychological illusion. One may also appeal to neuroscience in order to illustrate the logic of Selflessness. One may, and almost invariably will, continue to find themselves distracted by thought. *Illusions are things that exist in the mind only but do not exist in nature. Here the proverbial Socrates may ask, but how do we know the Self is an illusion when our experience of Selfhood is so convincing? In such a world of distraction, focus/concentration/awareness is the ultimate superpower. Polical Ideas of the Enlightenment The Swiss philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed in individual freedom Rousseau believed that people are naturally good, but power corrupts them; Free people form a social contract with gov’t based on the common good of the people Rousseau’s ideal gov’t was centered on a direct democracy Inevitably, we impose our stress and sadness, frustration and anxiety, upon our partners, parents, siblings, colleagues, friends. The basis of these metaphysical claims are supposedly direct insight, knowledge acquired through communion with the Divine itself. Time allocation is, after all, a function of mind. John Locke believed that natural rights. One can't be for the Old Order and look at the Enlightenment as a "good thing". What does that mean? Past, present, and future, near and far, melted into one radiant state of intuitive bliss as he became timeless, all-pervading awareness.” Ultimately, Siddhartha Guatama became Buddha, the Awakened One. After six days and nights, cutting through the various illusions of mind, he reached supreme and unsurpassed Enlightenment. The main problem is enlightenment makes humanity confined to this world alone. There are good reasons to admire the Enlightenment as a cultural movement. With practice, such experiences become more regular and longer in duration. It denies the afterlife and any supernatural end for humanity. The Buddhist variety of Enlightenment is, in secular terms, is — I believe — synonymous with the cessation of “Self”. the realm of Samsara into Nirvana — a place beyond space and time, life and death — where they will rest in eternity. Also legal would be any future authorized translations. Having gleaned this insight, really the central insight, Siddhartha left his family and royal life, setting out on a journey to realise the treasures of mind. The Good, the Bad, and the Enlightenment. It is not the case, however, that upon breaking through the subject/object illusion that one is permanently Enlightened. It’s sure a trippy idea and either depressing as shit or hopeful as a daisy depending on one’s perspective. Need the world really be a bowl of sunshine before we can swim in it? Experience and action in the world are, though related, two seperate programs. This is a bad thing. Is there anything to this type of claim? The word Enlightenment is a western translation of Bodhi, Sanskrit for the knowledge/wisdom/awakened intellect of a Buddha (Budh meaning “to awaken”). One of the major philosophical developments of the Enlightenment was rationalism. Enlightenment thought was also attacked for not criticizing the emerging capitalist systems. Heaven on earth, religion-inspiring type stuff. The Galileo case, for many anti-Catholics, is thought to prove that the Church abhors science, refuses to abandon outdated teachings and is not infallible. For it’s hard to overstate the benefit to well-being that puncturing experiencing with this insight, even if such experiences are only ever highly ephemeral. 6 years ago. So far your only defense of the Enlightenment has been “Well the Catholics were bad”. While we all seem to have some almost inborn understanding of what the word means, for how else would we explain its powerful resonance, we nevertheless seem to be rather hazy on the details and by default deeply suspicious as to whether or not it is in fact a genuine phenomenon or merely philosophical snake oil. Until we are overwhelmed with evidence to suggest this is Reality, however, I suggest it makes sense to take what is interesting and empirically verifiable within the Buddhist account of Enlightenment, and discard that which is interesting only. A gross oversimplification of the Tyndale and his Bible to the point of error. For Enlightenment without Reason is a waste of potential, and Reason without Enlightenment is a waste of experience. The eighteenth century was a century of mind-boggling change; when Europeans entered the nineteenth century, they lived in a world that barley resembled the beginning of the eighteenth century. Our well-being or lack thereof, by virtue of our interconnectedness, invariably affects the quality of the web of minds of which we are a part. Once enlightened, there is no good or bad as enlightenment is about, among other things, acceptance and no judgments. For official apologetics resources please visit, The French Revolution and the Carmelites of Compiègne. Think of it this way: our operating systems — our modus operandi for moving through the world — are made of values and ideas that are layered through and on top of experience. They referred to this “new” way of thinking as ‘Reason’, and the product of reasoned experimentation — the doing — ‘Science’. Naturally, it scares the shit out of you. It’s also binary, in that one is either concentrated on the nature of awareness, the Selflessness of experience, or they are lost in thought. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority ; Embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change; THIS INCLUDED GOVERNMENT AS WELL! Because without a focus on God, all moral values become relative. This is true. Whether or not it’s possible to realise some final state of ‘ultimate Enlightenment’ wherein one will never again be distracted by thought — never again suffer the illusion of Self — is of course hard to say. “Are these the rights of man”? The Church, as an institution, did not authorize the execution of witches. David Brooks, a writer for the New York Times, discusses the topic of the French Enlightenment versus British Enlightenment in his article Two Theories of Change. The intellectual movement spans the better part of 150 years and had a profound impact on Western culture. If desire for enlightenment is supported by unshakable faith in God, love and devotion, sincere effort and complete surrender to God, it's not at all a bad thing. At the moment of Enlightenment, “all veils of mixed feelings and stiff ideas dissolved and Buddha experienced the all-encompassing here and now”. Before people start getting into the Inquisition, just to be clear, because of the Inquisition, these nuns deserved to die? In the end, he came to the conclusion: “Dare to know! Enlightenment is merely the difference between being asleep at the wheel and awake. But what does that even mean? Here, the whole Enlightenment thing does appear to be a phenomenon that stretches along a continuum. As in, one may be more or less frequently connected to the Selflessness of experience. Meditation, and the entire Enlightenment regime, is therefore perfectly consistent with the requirements of a world that requires our deliberate effort. Which act could be considered an acceptance of the social contract? Change: For Good or Bad" The Enlightenment is a name give by historians to an intellectual movement that was predominant in the Western world during the 18th century. Within a particular collection of neutrons? Or is it more like an infinite continuum stretching the horizon towards ever greater Enlightenment? This knowledge should provide a level of contentment. Enlightenment is one of the (if not the) most alluring human concepts. I would agree that personal enlightenment requires introspection, “To know thyself.” Learning to know yourself gives you greater understanding of human nature (the good & the bad). Lastly, the idea that Enlightenment requires the renunciation of all material possessions and the seclusion of a cave is nothing but a trope. February 2, 2010 - 11:10am. I'm using the author of the blog posts' description as he has experienced it. If one looks at the track record of Enlightened “gurus” or spiritual leaders throughout history, this is not the story that emerges. As such, the quality of our experience is not confined to our own minds. But what is it exactly? – 10 minutes; The Age of Enlightenment Guided Notes slides 1-5 … Hobbes thought people were naturally violent. It is more than conceivable, therefore, that even the most ethically abhorrent gurus through time have possessed genuinely profound/Enlightened states of mind. However, when we are facing the light we sometimes are oblivious of the shadows we cast on those near us. Then it remains merely a wish. So where are you hearing all of this from? Roman Catholicism sacking of Constantinople. Through the application of Reason, Enlightenment thinkers espoused, we could attain Truth. The key insight of The Enlightenment, in many respects, was that nothing is to be taken for granted. Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality; ... Obviously there is good and bad. Excommunicated troops acting against orders is Roman Catholicism, but the French Revolution isn’t representative of the Enlightenment? For a while, in the nineteenth century, it was common for the Enlightenment to be attacked as the liberal work of utopian fantasists, with critics pointing out there were plenty of good things about humanity not based on reason. Major Aspects of the Enlightenment: Philosophy. Instead, we are all part of the intricate web of human experience, intimately and inextricably connected to other beings. That is bogus. We can be — if we choose, if we put in the work — sources of light in the world, beacons of love and joy and calm and peace and all the good stuff. I’m not sure that provides … Philosopher Immanuel Kant asked the self-same question in his essay of the same name. Together, they’re lock and key. But it seems like the enlightenment just addressed a lot of the bad things the church was doing throughout history. a. The … Individual Catholics did, however, at various times take part in the execution of witches, along with Protestants who also took part in witch hunts.”. The reality, for the overwhelming majority of us, is that our problem is not that we don’t have enough time, rather that we struggle to spend what time we have wisely. And this is not to say that darkness and ignorance do not also continue to march forward and broaden themselves. This was/is Buddha’s big insight. It is therefore to Buddhist literature, somewhat reluctantly, that we look to for dialogue concerning the nature of Enlightenment. “For instance literally murdering a guy for just wanting to give English readers a Bible that can be read in their language.”. It is the power to move with purpose, to live one’s time intentionally. What is at stake here is more than a matter of the influence of personalities, or questions of good or bad faith (did cynical enlightened absolutist rulers abuse naive philosophes? b. the natural rights governing human behavior and society. When one is lost in thought — distracted — the existence of the Self is as good as irrefutable. You’re either one or the other. I read once that people used to commit blasphemy just to wind up in the hands of the Inquisition because they were more afraid of the local government. Just as our well-being is infectious, so too is our suffering borne by those around us. Contrary to the idea that meditation is incompatible with “productivity”, it is in fact a powerful enabler. In bettering our own vibes, we are by extension bettering the vibes of those we travel round the sun with — and that’s what it means to better the world. But it seems like the enlightenment just addressed a lot of the bad things the church was doing throughout history. How did Hobbes's views differ from Locke's? I’m talking about all the doctors and scientists who were burned as witches for like several hundred years. See, most of us walk around as if we were a Self — a voice, a personality, a thinker of thoughts — that lives behind our eyes and between our ears. They used reason, or logical thinking, and science to attack this power. That’s why many countries moved towards democracy and republics. Those under our shadows might feel we are treating them badly. It is heavily associated with the 18th century Enlightenment era, also known as the Age of … There are two ( ) opposing forces which both have a pull. The world without a God-given standard gets itself in trouble sooner or later. I assure you, however, that it’s not. because it lead to the church losing most of its power! Enlightenment is a funny word. Mind is the arbiter of time, the ultimate source of productivity. It might in fact be the case that the universe and human consciousness is structured in such a fashion that a human life is not a singular phenomenon — that is, confined to a single meatsuit occupying a single slice of space and time — but is rather some kind of cyclical deal. Change: For Good or Bad" The Enlightenment is a name give by historians to an intellectual movement that was predominant in the Western world during the 18th century. The rest of the story is the age old one of how religions/cults/celebrities materialise. Once you regather your shit, however, you realise that what appeared to be a snake was not a snake at all but rather a coiled rope. That this is so is by no means a human failing, simply a function of the laws of human experience. Thomas Hobbes. “All separation in time and space disappeared. Even if such a state is, for some strange metaphysical reason, unattainable, it’s not all bad. If there was a Self, where would it reside? John Locke thought that people were neither good nor bad innately. They would have complete control. Debra Wink. Try reading far less biased sources, my fellow “Catholic”. And certainly reading these translations was not only legal but also encouraged.". It’s a term that has inspired many a philosophy, religion, and cult the world over. So on this thread we have two commonly used attacks against the Church generally grounded in misunderstanding. Just because one may experience the loss of Self, why should that mean that the experience of Self is somehow on lower ontological footing than Selflessness? Siddhartha was, in every sense of the word, blessed. Even if it is necessary to qualify Gay’s exaggerated claim that Enlightenment was responsible for all good, the Christian religion, and Catholicism in particular, could be thought responsible for the bad. Have courage to use your own reason!” This was an immensely radical statement for this time period. Rather than authority or superstition, we should demand evidence to support our beliefs or truth claims. They also stopped the development of science as well as oppressing minority groups like Jews. The Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, began in Europe in the 1700s and spread to many parts of the world. Why not reverse the claim and suggest that it’s the ephemeral moments of Selflessness that’s the illusion? I see this in the words of many of our Church leaders, for one. The church also was causing a lot of oppression and persecution of free thinkers. Or is gratitude journaling, ice bathing, and drinking coffee with grass-fed butter also necessary? The goals of the Enlightenment were knowledge, freedom, and happiness. But while we aren’t in control of the mechanical cause-effect relationship between human minds, we do have control — a truly astounding degree in fact — over the quality of those relationships. How we live, how we move through the world, is largely a conceptual thing — ideas, beliefs etc. That’s what the whole Enlightenment deal is about. “Because what does not survive scrutiny cannot be real.”. But what is it exactly? Start studying the enlightenment thinkers world history questions. Before we can conscionably spend hours doing nothing but concentrating on the “true nature of awareness”, or any other such flowery nonsense, the world must be an oyster of peace and perfectly equal prosperity. In some sense, it is what we mean by freedom. supported the Enlightenment idea that people are naturally selfish. It is this illusion — the sense that we are a thing that experience happens to rather than experience itself — that is the primary/ultimate source of human suffering. IMO the enlightenment was inevitable-an aspect of humanity’s growing pains. What began as nothing but a secular methodology for reducing suffering and connecting with the ultimate state of mind — meditation — was then converted/perverted into a religion known as Buddhism. But it didn’t enter the common parlance because of a sudden interest in esoteric psychology or eastern mysticism. That change itself is always good, and that good intentions are sufficient to guarantee a good long-term outcome. However, it wasn’t until he got to a place called Bodhgaya, a week before his 35th birthday, when he decided that he would remain in meditation until he finally acquainted himself with mind’s true nature. ... Is this a good or a bad thing? I hear a lot of Catholics talk negatively about the enlightenment because it lead to the church losing most of its power! Set to become a great king or spiritual leader, he mastered the arts of combat, even winning his wife — you wouldn’t believe — in an archery contest of all things. The thing with Buddhism is that it centres around some extraordinarily deep, empirical insights into the human condition, those gleaned by the Buddha himself, but is unfortunately shrouded in unnecessary metaphysical and esoteric baggage. The English slaughter of hundreds of Catholics during the penal times. Now, suddenly, reason was f… But that’s because they are not enlightened. Where it gets funky, however, is when one begins claiming that Saṃsāra is the realm of death and rebirth — as any pureblood Buddhist is want to do — whereas Nirvana is where one ends up once one has broken free of the shackles of karma, alongside other such claims about the nature of mind and universe. * Cutting through the illusion of the self brings one closer to the factual realities of existence. The Blessed Carmelites of Compiègne were guillotined on July 17, 1794. Before focusing on the allocation of the latter, it stands to reason that the focus should instead be on the on the nature of the former. The ideals of the Enlightenment are products of human reason, but they always struggle with other strands of human nature: loyalty to tribe, deference to authority, magical thinking, the blaming of misfortune on evildoers. Where traditional productivity literature emphasises ways to slice and dice and god bless “hack” one’s time, the Enlightenment deal flips this logic on its head, emphasising the quality and control of mind over the administration of time. And wishful thinking without efforts is not a good thing. Enlightenment is therefore little more than concentration, concentration fixed on the nature of awareness itself. While we all have a vague notion of who the Buddha was, some well fed cat who loved to meditate and wore a big smile, better understanding the story helps to contextualise the concept of Enlightenment. — a product of the contents or appearances in consciousness, whereas Enlightenment is simply about recognising the nature of consciousness and living in the Here and Now. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled, : The views and opinions expressed in these forums do not necessarily reflect those of Catholic Answers. Beyond the fight between whether American Exceptionalism is good or bad for the rest of the world, American exceptionalism has deep roots showing how it got to the status it is in today. Because of the demand that religious people obey their dogma unquestioningly many problems have developed and the Enlightenment has, at minimum, encouraged worthwhile questioning of absolute conformity to doctrine whatever its source and the rise of technology, although not always a good thing, has, in general, lead to more human prosperity and innovative thought than total conformity to ancient … I see it more as typical jew arrogance, as the criminal claiming responsibility, boasting about their crime long after they imagine anything can be done about it. In particular, the fields of philosophy, science, and politics were forever changed. The Enlightenment by Satori The enlightenment and understanding of life and nature as it is can be reached after a crisis or a hard work of many years, often with many difficulties and suffering in the learning or it can be reached by Satori: a moment full of joy and complete inspiration. Rather, what the history renders apparent is that either such gurus are a) faking the whole Enlightenment thing or b) Simultaneously Enlightened and deranged. ), the Church halted science because it censured Galileo for using Scripture to support his then unsupported claims? But there is definitely also -. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. If you desire for enlightenment and don't do anything to deserve it then it's not gonna help you. No matter where we look, there is nothing to find. We bring the quality of our experience to bear on our every interaction. A common criticism of the whole Enlightenment program — the first one, not the other one — is that it requires, rather ironically, a level of self-centredness that borders on pathological. ... Social institutions and education (basically "experience") are responsible for all that human beings learn, be it good or bad. In Nepal some 2600 years ago, give or take, one Siddhartha Guatama was born. ). In the context of a world where billions live in poverty and shit’s blowing up everywhere — a world that requires work — to concern oneself with one’s own “Enlightenment”, so the criticism goes, is a grossly unethical indulgence, a betrayal of one’s responsibilities to the world. Explain. It has deep spiritual context from Buddhism and eastern philosophy. While it runs counter to our current popular theories of knowledge, it’s possible that knowledge about the nature of the universe can be acquired through meditative insight, direct communion, as it were.