Gettin’ Deeper
Into Dialogue and Enlightenment
Sept 15th, 2020
The dialogue forum last night arrived at a place of understanding that I could never have predicted. The group’s cohesiveness, thoughtfulness and comprehension of deep concepts was surprising to me. The flow almost felt like a meditation, like something Dr. Bohm would describe as shared meaning and understanding at a tacit level. We seem, to me at least, to be learning and growing about how to live in love through dialogue.
Let me be clear though, it’s not that dialogue is necessarily about getting anywhere. You can go ahead and add it to all the great paradoxes (which seem to be everywhere when it comes to understanding love)… we have no purpose, but within that purposelessness we grow… and within that growth, we learn to stop trying to grow. To get somewhere, to be something, we need to stop. Listen. Undo. Unknow. Be. Be what? Be nothing! We focused on this big picture last night, this unknowing. “What is the purpose of all this? Of mediation? Of nothingness? Why am I doing this?!”
Through these questions, insights arose (at least for me) over and over again. I felt so grateful for being able to share with others about such meaningful things. When I went to bed last night I remembered something else that brought me to this meaningful place: my (sometimes) practice of listening to Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young.
A friend of mine gave me Shinzen Young’s audio over a year ago, and I’ve used it mainly before bed as a relaxing meditation to center my thoughts… but usually I fall asleep before the chapter is over (once you hear Shinzen’s voice you’ll understand). I usually wake up though thinking about it still, wanting to hear more.
I decided- let’s do this. I listened to the first chapter this morning while I did some stretching, and I plan to continue on with it with focus, instead of my usual jumping around to whatever chapter looks good in that moment. And you know what I learned from that first chapter?? He’s putting words to, and summarizing, main points from last night’s dialogue! The question “what is enlightenment?” yup. “Why do we need it?” yup. “What does meditation look like?” yup. It’s awesome and, I want to share it with you.
Okay so, I wasn’t able to put the audio book below, you’ll need to download that. But I did find a 2 min video with Shinzen Young that gives you an idea of his wisdom, and why discourse around such ideas and working to understand such things is worth it. Enjoy!
Shinzen Young - What Is Enlightenment? (The Science of Enlightenment)
