Enlightenment, Awakening, & Unhelpful Sticky Concepts

     "The temptation when thinking about enlightenment is to come up with something defined that you can imagine, such as a state or quality of being, and then fixate on that ideal rather than doing the practices that lead to freedom. It is absolutely guaranteed that anything you can imagine or define as being enlightenment is a limited & incorrect view, but these views are extremely tempting just the same and generally continue to be very seductive ... Every possible description of the potential effects of realization is likely to feed into this unfortunate tendency.
     ... a famous old dead enlightened guy ... said, 'I have gained absolutely nothing through complete & unexcelled enlightenment.'"

       Ingram DM. Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book. ed3, 2007, p261. www.interactivebuddha.com

Mood Swings by Werner Arnold   http://www.fogforestgallery.ca/bios/bio_arnold.html