what i know now

after about 40 years of practicing off and on in a wide variety of ways (if you include my early participation in christian churches make that 50 years -- do NOT underestimate the spiritual power in those places) and the last year of very intense vipassana work, here is what I know:
- enlightenment is real. however what it is is perfectly ordinary and is only about knowing the truth of who one is, that is all
- once one gets the insight disease one must keep going until it is done
- there is no special person. everyone farts and lies and has BO and is afraid at their core at being seen for who they really are
- everything ends. someday there will be no remnants left of buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam and there will be no entity who has ever heard of those things
- you can't hurry insight, you can't conjure up insight or wisdom with thought, you can only be a sincere yogi in this moment ready and willing to face whatever this moment has in store and you will get what you get in spite of yourself
- if you actually do the developmental insight practices, your mind will change, it WILL develop but it will still be all in your mind
- peace and joy are always available. always, even if one never does any developmental insight practice
- life is hilarious
- I am hilarious
- there is love and there is complete perfect death
- there is no reason to stop practicing
- it is all lovely
- it is all ugly and awful
- despite the fact that there is no permanent self, the self is relentless in its desire to create, justify, and fulfill itself. relentless.
- the emperor has no clothes and the people pointng out that the emperor has no clothes are nakedly in denial just like me
- this website is truly special

Looks like 50 years rather well spent MM. Good list, you may know less than some, but you definitely know more than most.

Thanks, I like your comment about not underestimating the spiritual power of Christianity. I certainly got started on my insight disease as a result of being raised a fundamentalists christian.

Great list, Mike!

I know that what I know now will probably change later.
I know that I am full of BS.
I know that you have to work on being a good person. Enlightenment or semi enlightenment may make it easier to let go of stuff, but if you don't generate love and compassion on a daily basis, you wont generate love and compassion on a daily basis. This knowledge is subject to change.
I know I have gained a little weight and I have more grey hairs. I know it's all impermanent.
I know I am heading in the right direction, whereever that is.
I know this place is awesome and so is Mike!

It's all true, Mike. (Except for the farting. And the BO. Enlightened people smell like sandalwood.)

Here again, I must quibble, Kenneth-- SOME enlightened people smell like juniper.

Then, again, some smell like baby puke.

Gasshos to them all, and you all!

"Gasshos to them all, and you all!" -Roomy

Who you callin' a gas-ho?

;-D

""Gasshos to them all, and you all!" -Roomy

Who you callin' a gas-ho?

;-D
"

'Please don't let me be misunderstood'-- you got the spelling wrong: it is gas-sho -- gas sho 'nuf: Mike started it about farts, not me.

To awaken is to see things as they are.
Seeing things as they are requires a completely open, empty mind.
An open, empty mind has no rules, no ideas, no position, no agenda, no preferences, no past, no future.
Thus, an open, empty mind that can see things as they are also contains everything, all possibilities, every rule, infinite ideas, all positions, every agenda, countless preferences, and both the past and the future.
Therefore, any teaching or teacher that withholds information, that keeps secrets, that decides for the student what the student can handle or is ready to hear at any given time -- any teaching or teacher that does these things is not teaching how to wake up. There is teaching going on, but it won't lead to awakening.