Enlightenment.

What is Enlightenment?

The Aha! Experience

It is the conscious direct knowing of the SELF.  You could also say it is the direct experience of the absolute truth.  People awakened to direct knowing of the SELF exclaim, "Aha!" or "This is It!," or "Oh my god!," or "It's me!  It's always been me!"   It's often described as the experience of union or oneness.
 
If you ask 1000 people to describe their enlightenment experience, you'd get 1000 different responses ranging from ignorance, uncertainty, preconceived ideas to presentations filled with clarity, truth and direct knowing. 

Pointing at the Moon

Zen masters say that 'pointing at the moon isn't the moon,' which is to say that the idea or words of enlightenment shouldn't be confused with the thing itself.  To know what enlightenment is, you have to directly experience or know it for yourself.  The Western Zen Buddhist meditation teacher, Philip Kapleau, translates the Japanese word 'satori' into the English word enlightenment.  Satori means 'Instantaneous Awakening'.  It is the elevated state of self realization that Zen meditators and Enlightenment Intensive participants aim for.  Zen Masters poetically describe it as 'Opening the Minds Eye' or 'Awakening to your True Nature.'

    Direct Experience is Enlightenment

Words are always inadequate to convey the meaning of enlightenment.   Enlightenment is the conscious direct knowing of the Self.   Self enlightenment is the direct experience of the truth of you.   Direct knowing does not come about through any process such as by seeing, thinking, believing, deciding, reasoning, feeling or by any other way.  It is direct, raw, genuine and authentic.

If you're hungry, why eat the menu?

Reading the menu in a restaurant NEVER fulfills your hunger. To satisfy your hunger you have to eat the Real Food. At the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat the enlightenment experience or direct knowing is always the main feast on the menu.  Why eat the menu when you can eat the Real Food?

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What are the common attributes of the enlightenment experience?

1.  There is a sense of union or oneness. 2.  It is often described as instantaneous and sudden. This is the definition of the Japanese word, satori. 3.  It is often very ordinary and so obvious, that when you experience 'It', you realize that you knew it all the time, but didn't know you knew. 4.  It is experienced as timeless and imbued with a sense of universal love. 5.  And it can be very funny. A cosmic joke and you're often the punch line. 6.  And every enlightenment experience is unique and is uniquely expressed by each individual. top

What are the benifits of being enlightened?

Silly question, isn't it?

Being enlightened or knowing your self is its own reward.  It is its own self contained benefit.  Being enlightened is a major factor in determining whether or not you are happy.  Happiness is knowing the purpose of your life and consciously overcoming the barriers to fulfill that purpose.  The key is that YOU, yourself, must be doing the overcoming of the barriers.  If it is a personality or a fake state of beingness or anything else you are confused with, YOU will not be genuinely happy and fulfilled.  Doing anything, or nothing, is a great joy, if it is the actual true YOU, who is doing it.  If you are conscious, by direct knowing, of who and what you are, you can act directly from YOU. You speak with honest authority and are not just relaying learned information or ideas.   It is a subjective state that is beyond doubt and beyond certainty. top

Can I get enlightened in a weekend?

YES!

The Enlightenment Intensive process has been used by thousands of people the world over since its origination in the California high desert over 37 years ago. The state of enlightenment that people experience is the same that Buddha experienced centuries ago or that anyone has ever experienced through any spiritual or personal growth system.  The focus of concentration on self combined with deep and honest communication accelerates the enlightenment process.  Many people have conscious direct knowing of the SELF in three days or less, though some people need more time.  Hundreds of thousands of people have taken an Enlightenment Intensive in over 40 countries around the world.  It is a powerful personal and spiritual growth process. top

What accelerates the process of enlightenment?

The key principle that accelerates the process of enlightenment is relating or communicating yourself to another. There are several advantages of working with a partner. The live interaction helps keep you at the task of trying to experience yourself.   Communicating the things that you are identified with but that are not actually you, vanish to the degree that they are understood by another. Untruth vanishes by presenting it to another and Truth remains. Presenting to your partner whatever occurs to you as a result of pondering who you are clears mental confusions. Consciousness of yourself grows by presenting yourself to another.   The enlightenment experience stabilizes to the degree that you can present yourself to another. Thus the process of enlightenment is accelerated by relating.  top

What are the stages to enlightenment?

Stage One: Giving Answers The initial reaction to the 'Who am I?' contemplation is one of giving answers. The enigma is that there are no right or wrong answers. But in this first stage the hero thinks success can be gained by giving a 'right' answer. And so begins a steady flow of ideas about who one is that are drawn from one's memory previously learned from parents, teachers, clergy, friends, books, TV, media and ideas that you figured out in the past. By presenting these ideas and answers to a partner in the enlightenment dyad process they are dissolved from your mind. Stage Two: Intellectualizing Logical thinking, reasoning and trying to figure out the answer are of the hallmarks to this stage. Sometimes one even succeeds at arriving at a correct answer; but answers, correct or not, is not an enlightenment experience. When you let go of trying to answer a question and set out to directly experience the object of your enlightenment, then the intellectualizing dissolves and you move into the next stages of the hero's journey. Stage Three: Phenomena Phenomena is experienced when one stops intellectualizing and attempts to experience them self, life or others directly. Because one is still using their brain, a variety of hallucinations and bodily phenomena begin to occur. A young women may turn into an old man. The body may have hot and cold flashes or waves of emotion. One may mistake these phenomena for enlightenment; but enlightenment comes only from a direct conscious experience, not from seeing, feeling or perceiving. Stage Four: A Blank or Void When the field of consciousness has been emptied but the meditator continues to 'look' for him or her self, a void is created. In this void or blankness nothing is seen or heard, no thought occurs and progress appears to be at a stand still. But its at his stage that your journey of enlightenment progresses more rapidly if instead of 'looking' you refine your contemplation and seek to experience yourself directly. This stage has been called the quiet mind and for some schools of meditation is an end in itself. Stage Five: The Barriers of Emotion, Pain and Death Surging up next, the hero of the journey of enlightenment encounters emotions, pain and the fear of death. Feelings of grief and anger, apathy and serenity come up and are sometimes confused with the truth of who you are. But as these raw emotions rise up, you de-identify from these states of being and let them go by fully communicating to your partner what you become conscious of. Stage Six: The Enlightenment Experience There are two aspects to the enlightenment experience that occur simultaneously. One aspect is the direct conscious experience of your True Self. The second is the release of energy and other side effects such as laughing, crying, screaming and ecstatic feelings. The direct knowing of Self is a definite breakthrough experience and occurs in a timeless instant. Stage Seven: The Glow Radiating yourself as truth is what happens to the hero on the journey of enlightenment during this glowing stage. The hero feels totally in contact with the Absolute Truth and unselfconsciously radiates his or her presence. This stage continues until the hero fully presents him or herself to others. Stage Eight: The Pure & Steady State Fully presenting yourself to others discharges the energy of the glowing stage. The pure, steady state remains and continues into your life to the degree that you are able to present your true self to others. The Enlightenment Intensive Retreat and the enlightenment dyad process insures the maximum opportunity to gain this ability as you communicate your true self to a broad range of people attending the retreat.

What is the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat?

Short Answer It is a residential retreat for awakening the expanded state of consciousness called enlightenment or direct knowing of the self.  The Retreat combines a 10,000 year old  self inquiry yoga meditation, 'who am I' with a modern, western listening and communication technique. The increased consciousness and understanding that results from the combination of meditation and communication accelerates the process of enlightenment and brings it into the immediacy of one's life.  The Retreat is a safe, supportive environment that encourages honesty, authenticity, contact, understanding and deep meditative self  reflection.  Longer Answer The caterpillar, in the book, Alice in Wonderland, asks Alice,  "Who are you?"  Alice hesitantly replied, "I......I hardly know."     Most people share her uncertainty.  People  may speculate,  think, and theorize an answer to the question, "who am I".   They may accept the answers of some psychologist, philosopher or religious leader.   They may come to a conclusion or reach a decision or glean an insight.  But few individuals  have directly experienced  their own true nature even though it's been sought after by countless  millions of people throughout the centuries.   The experience,  known as self realization  or enlightenment has been a most elusive goal. What must one do to obtain the treasure of an unshakable certainty of who or what one really is?   Must one sit in meditation  under a  tree  twenty hours a day  for seven years, as did Gautama the Buddha?   Must one leave one's friends and society  and live in a cave?  Is enlightenment unattainable  except  by a person with vast amounts of both self-discipline and spare time? Instant Enlightenment in a Week-end It has been universally assumed that enlightenment is necessarily  preceded  by a long, hard struggle, and available only to a dedicated few.  But that has now changed.   The Enlightenment Intensive Retreat offers you a way  based upon a new western technology that has a record of getting people enlightened within a week-end!   The depth  of enlightenment may not match that of the Buddha,  but the direct experience of self is the same.    And those who don't  attain  the enlightenment experience do make substantial progress and can see that the goal is within reach.   It may sound hard to believe even in this age of 'Instant Everything' because the contrast between seven years and three days is startling.  But it is true. The Enlightenment Intensive Retreat is a period of concentrated effort.    The key  to its success is a western developed technique  called the 'enlightenment  dyad technique.'   You begin the process by sitting opposite a partner who says to you, "Tell me who you are."  After you  receive the instruction you 'hold' it.  'Holding the instruction' is a process of contemplating or keeping it in your consciousness.  Other thoughts and phenomena will occur as you attempt  to hold your contemplation.  When this happens, you communicate to your partner what you become conscious of.   Your partner listens.  When you've finished telling him/her what has occurred,  you continue contemplating your question:  "Who  am I?  Who? Who?  Who?"  Whenever you notice something,  you articulate it to your partner,  trying to get the other  to understand what it is.    At the end  of five minutes  a bell rings and  your partner says, "Thank you."  The roles now reverse.    You say to your partner, "Tell me who you are."   While your partner is alternately  meditating and speaking, you put your full attention on him/her and try to understand what he/she is going through as well as you can.  At the end of five minutes you say, "thank you",  and once again it is your turn to contemplate and express yourself.  At the end of forty-five minutes you've completed one cycle and the exercise ends.    The one essential factor that has been lacking in all previous enlightenment methods is communication and relating.   Enlightenment itself takes but a shattering timeless instant.   But what keeps you from that 'instantaneous awakening' are barriers of uncompleted communications. When you succeed in communicating  your barriers to another,  the barriers vanish.  The thoughts, emotions and body-sensations that catch your attention when you meditate, and so distract you, tend to disappear  precisely  to  the  extent that you get them understood  by another person.   It is for this reason, I use meditation plus communication in the form of the Enlightenment Dyad Exercise. In an Enlightenment Intensive Retreat you work single-pointedly.  Everything is arranged to make that possible for you.  Your day is spent doing Enlightenment Dyad Exercises, walking and movement meditations, sitting meditations,  breath awareness meditations,  physical exercises, massage meditations, three light vegetarian meals and two snacks,  lectures on enlightenment, etc. The schedule is rigorous but varied to  minimise body stress and keep you alert so you can  aim  at  enlightenment.    Interviews with the Master Facilitator are  available at any time so that you can discuss any problems you are having.  If he/she verifies  that you have had an enlightenment experience,  you may change your contemplation from  'Who am I?"  to  one of the other contemplations:  "What am I?", "What is Life? or What is another?" The entire Retreat is spent  actively contemplating on the nature or yourself, others or life or getting another to understand what is happening for you.  Conversation about anything but enlightenment is considered "gossip" and is not permitted during the Retreat. It's exciting to communicate your insights and increased consciousness to the others.  Within a day you become very conscious of other people and what they are experiencing.  You  can  see, feel and experience the increased openness building between you and your partners.   It is this  contact, communication and understanding  that  accelerates the process of enlightenment.    This  single principle of  involvement  through understanding is the missing link in  the field of enlightenment.   And it works for everyone.  It's effectiveness has been proven in thousands of Retreats in over 25 countries around the world in the last 35 years.

What are the origins of the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat?

The Retreat was inspired by three unique self improvement practices fused together by Charles Berner in 1968. Two of them are ancient and Eastern ways and the third is a newer Western approach.   Zen Sesshin A Zen sesshin is a self awareness retreat that has been practised for over 3000 years. It originally came from China before it migrated to Japan where it became popular in  the 12th Century.  Today, it is still used and practised in Japan and around the world.  The Enlightenment Intensive Retreat borrowed certain elements from the ancient sesshin, notably the use of a ‘koan.’  A ‘koan’ is a riddle-like question to help a meditator focus and penetrate into the absolute truths of life.  Hundreds have been developed over the years.     “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”  and “What  was your face before you were born,” are two well known koans.   The  practise of contemplating on a ‘koan isn’t  concerned with philosophy, ideas or religion, but with direct experiencing. Ramana Maharshi  The Enlightenment Intensive Retreat also makes use of  the koan, ‘Tell me who you are.”  This riddle like question is a yoga meditation that dates back 10,000 years.  Its modern proponent, Ramana Maharshi, lived a simple life in India. He taught during the first part of the 20th Century inspiring a constant stream of local and international visitors who sought his company and spiritual guidance.  His guidance was always the same.  “Seek to know yourself.  Practise self inquiry by asking yourself, ‘who am I’  then you will know everything.   Relating Dyads  Dyad is a Greek word that means ‘two’.  A relating dyad is two people who work together to bring about understanding through effective communication and focused listening.  It is this element of relating that accelerates the process of enlightenment. top

What Do Others Say About Enlightenment and the Enlightenment Intensive?

END=NAM MO SAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).WORLD VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST ORDER=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=GOLDEN LOTUS MONASTERY=AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.20/10/2013.THICH CHAN TANH.THE MIND OF ENLIGHTMENT.