Really? I thought there was no suffering and hence no struggle after enlightenment (as you can tell I'm unenlightened). Assuming for a second enlightenment does exist, are you sure you're not talking about people who think they are enlightened but aren't? Not the easiest thing to measure I'd imagine.
I can remember a few breakthroughs and then plateau's along the way with my trading, not one thing. First was getting an understanding of the markets and money management. Second was realising not to fight against the trend, but to go with it (most of the time!). Third was realising my initial understanding was in fact a complete misunderstanding, despite appearing valid. Fourth was moving to a proper broker rather than spreadbet and making my life easier to enter and adjust trades by using a ladder etc. Fifth was fine tuning. I'm confident there will be a 6th, 7th and on...
And through all those steps, there have been some gradual changes in personality, and how I trade and think about trading and handle losers/boredom etc. There's still some way to go though. A long way in fact. I'm nowhere near the trader I want to be, or can be.
Zen enlightenment is, imo, greatly exaggerated for marketing purposes.
Think of it as one of those "clicks" you get when studying X or Y subject. At one moment, you're struggling with concepts. Then you come to a sudden realization as a confluence of disparate elements suddenly appear in your mind, and.. "click"... it all comes together!
The subject here, though, is life. What Zen wants you to find is peace with yourself and the world. So in
theory there is no "struggle" following enlightenment. But in
practice, anyone would say that's BS. It does, however, make it easier to deal with stuff because you just recognized your "niche" between yourself and the world. Not a bad place to be, imo. But I can sincerely tell you it has been vastly overblown by the literature for it is in reality a simple concept (I imagine the imagery of the emotional weight of enlightenment has lent itself to this. Then you add in a dash of mysticism, a pinch of art, etc. and you have people going "whoa, man!").
Anyway, "second" (and third, and fourth, and fifth) enlightenments are very definitely possible since there is no end to the material you can learn. Each step is an insight in itself, where disparate elements you were viewing suddenly come together. Each step has a period of very rapid progression followed by slower and slower absorption... Until you find your next impasse. Then it's enlightenment all over again, AWW YEAH BABY! :cheesy:
I love me those "clicks", though. It's right then that you do your biggest bits of advancement in XYZ subject and also the point at which your mind is the most creatively "malleable" until you get down and learn the new subject. I imagine any training regiment that can minimize the time between each successive "click" could be incredibly powerful. If you were to train people as such, they would call you... The Buddha. And you would have the world's women at your feet.
