Santiago Jimenez:
"...the Bodhisattva, through reliance on Prajna paramita, is unimpeded in his mind because there is no impediment, he is not afraid, and he leaves distorted dream-thinking far behind"
Which can be a tangible realization, the world as we have come to know it is experienced more like dream, there is no me, there is no other, there is no fear, there is no impediment. This are all seen as concepts, as ways to try to freeze or pin down a moment by moment ever changing reality using language, we realize that it's all a distorted dream.
How does that (no fear, no impediment) square with this?
The way it has progressed - as this was a few years ago - is like this. I passed some times with extremely big swings between bliss - and the kinds of emotions someone would usually love to have - and pure terror/confusion - or all the emotions you would never wish even on your worst enemy.
Also the swings where from what I would call a state of deep release (no self) and huge contraction (very primitive levels of the self).
So as time progressed it was like I became more and more painfully aware of behaviors that where harmful or unproductive but also very deeply rooted. It's like I could feel in the core of my being the suffering this behaviors where creating.
In my opinion (as a non-Zen practitioner, albeit one with an interest in the Heart sutra), I would offer that these moments are "distorted dream-thinking" which are a form of conceptualization (or mental representation), and without that conceptualization, the illusion of distinct separation between the five skandhas drops away, along with all the imaginary qualities they seemed to have...and with that, all the suffering inherent in that form of thinking.
But then we might try to make THAT the ultimate reality (that it's all an empty dream) So we just found a new way to "delude" ourselves into thinking there is such a "thing" as enlightenment.
I agree that to think "it's an empty dream!" or to experience the world in that way would be more conceptualization.
If we are able to see this we might then leave "enlightenment" behind, realizing that it was just another (and more subtle) way to try to pin down reality.
In your view, is it enlightenment that's a way to try to pin down reality, or thinking about oneself as enlightened or thinking about one's enlightened state?