[MD] Is Enlightenment a sort of madness?

[Dallas Van Winkle]

R.H. Blyth put it well in his book, "What is Zen?"
 pg. 79:

'WHEN WE ATTACH OURSELVES TO THIS (IDEA OF ENLIGHTENMENT), WE LOSE OUR
BALANCE: WE INFALLIBLY ENTER THE CROOKED WAY.

Our experience, our deepest experience has taught us something; we wish to
convey it to others. When they question its validity, we become angry,
losing our mental serenity by holding so firmly to what is after all more
intangible than snow-flakes or the rainbow. It is not merely calmness of
mind that we have lost, however, but what is this and more, the Middle Way,
the knowledge (and practice) that our profoundest interperetation of life
also must be thrown overboard altogether with the sentimentality, cruelty,
snobbery, and folly that make our lives a misery. The Crooked Way is
over-grieving at inevitable sorrows, over-clinging to joys which must cease;
it is regarding as permanent what is but transitory; always looking for the
silver lining, desiring to be in the non-existent and impossible "Land
beyond the morning star." '



On 4/7/06, I. <korobkov_ilya at mail.ru> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> Don't you think the buddhist's Enlightenment is a sort of madness?
>
> Was it Enlightenment that led Phadrus to mental hospital?
>
> How would western psychiatrists explain the reasons of Enlightenment?
> (I am sure this explanation can be done and SHOULD be done - to prevent
> new phadruses in mental hospitals. (I think we, MoQ-ers, are the first
> candidates.) Of course this explanation would be SOMist, but it could
> still be of use.)
>
> Ilya
>
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>