🇬🇧 What is buddhist enlightenment

Let's talk about well-being. What is the enlightenment that Buddhists talk about so much?

Imagine that you have inherited a house that has been standing (not renting or selling) and without electricity for years. Until that moment you lived for rent in a tiny apartment in a dangerous neighbourhood and the house is so large, in that place you always wanted to live and thought it was impossible... The condition for living there and enjoying the inheritance is to make the necessary renovations.

And when you turn on the light and enter you are faced with everything that is there. Garbage that the former owners left behind, cobwebs, very well-maintained and beautiful antique furniture (perhaps rare!), and much more. Things that must be kept and taken care of, others that must be discarded to make room for what the house deserves. And after cleaning the house, painting the walls, doing all the renovations, you'll still have to buy a few more things to make the house look the way you want it. A rug here, a dinner set there, a little art, and every detail will make this house more cozy and make you want to live there.

Now think that this house is the life you always wanted to have. Reform is the reform of your thoughts and attitudes, it is reforming your mentality and your way of acting. And there are thoughts and attitudes that we inherit from family, the media or society and limit us, and that's why it's better to discard them to make room for new beliefs and attitudes that help us to be who we want to be, better people, with more true friends, better works, etc. And so many other thoughts that are positive, that make us stronger and already contribute to being who we want to be. Without them, we wouldn't even have the will to “clear the house” of our mind, face up to what makes us good and what makes us bad, and it's there, within our reach. We would prefer to stay in the small, rented property away from the paradise where the house is located.

There is a law of cause and effect that governs the universe. If you don't “renovate the house” you can't live the life of your dreams, or maybe you can for a while, but soon you lose.

Buddhism is a philosophy that directs us so that we can become who we want to be in order to have the life we ​​want to have. It's not overnight. Cleaning your mind takes work, it can take a lot of time, it depends on your commitment and how much garbage is there.

Lighting is the act of turning on the light in that home of the initial example each day and engaging in what needs to be done for it to be a warm, welcoming home. It's being able to see every limiting thought you have and push it away, replace it with a different thought (which may also be limiting, but you change it again as soon as you see it). It's having the courage to distance ourselves from people who only slow down our lives and quit jobs that don't get us where we want to go. Enlightenment is being aware that you are the author of your own story, and if it's bad now it's because you've let a lot of rubbish accumulate and have a lot of work to do, but with honesty, persistence and patience you'll get what you want.

Nycka, the Nomad