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Comment by katsume3 | Hacker News Reader

Well Hitler was known to co-opt and misappropriate esoteric teachings[0] for his own horrible acts. That's the problem with occult teachings; so often they are weaponized for evil deeds. As for enlightenment, it can only be understood by explaining it in paradoxes or riddles. My favorite is:

    If you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha

Which is meant to explain how we should not be attached to Buddha as a personality, but rather understand the teachings instead.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultism_in_Nazism

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I would be interested to hear the various things this (initially shocking) phrase means to people. The transformation of consciousness that it invites may be a function of the consciousness of the person considering it. I.e., it might mean different things to different people, each valid in its own way. For me, it means that during meditation practice "profound realizations, deep spiritual or theological insights, etc." are simply distractions, on par with daydreaming about what to have for lunch. Meditation, as a practice of pure consciousness and wordless awareness, invites us to a deeper place than words or concepts can reach. Self-congratulatory ego-driven behavior can be subtle and creative, and can easily don the cloak of the Buddha, especially for practitioners who are starting to move into deeper waters in their practice. It is this "false consciousness" Buddha that the phrase directly addresses for me. In twenty years it may mean something new, depending on where I am at that point.

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