"You're perfect, the world is perfect as it is, and be proud of who you are!"

No, no and no.

"You're perfect"

No, you're not perfect. Neither are you imperfect. There just is no standard of perfection for a human being.

You might have a crooked nose. That's not perfect. Is the classic "greek nose" perfect? No. Just as your crooked nose, it simply is the way it is, that's all. If you want, you can tell yourself that it's ugly, or that it's beautiful. That won't change a thing about the nose itself (though it will drastically change the way you relate to it). It is what it is.

"The world is perfect"

There are numerous wars going on right now. We're almost done destroying our own habitat. Almost all of the universe is uninhabitable, and if there are intelligent alien beings out there, they're so far away that we'll probably never meet.

Again, who sets the standard of perfection for the universe? Do you think you know how a universe is supposed to be? How many universes have you seen, so you can compare them to each other?

The world is the way it is. You can take yourself out of the equation, strive to lose ego, and I very much recommend that path, but that doesn't mean that the world is perfect or imperfect, it just means that you stop judging it.

"Be proud of who you are"

I'm not proud of being heterosexual. I'm not proud that my girlfriend is bi. I'm not proud of my country, my ancestry, my race. Should the 19th century British Earl of Hamletshire on the Brook be proud of his wealth and "nobility"? He didn't do a bloody lot to get it.

I know where the LGBTQAs are going with their pride movement, and I support their cause on a political level, but if you take it at face value, "pride" of being homosexual makes no sense.

Be proud of the good job you do, the good service you provide. Be proud of fighting for more equality. Be proud of the love you give to your partner (and the loving, for sure!), regardless of homo/hetero/nonbinary. Be proud of your actions, not of the way you were born.

I am enlightened!

It is done. The work is over. Everything falls into place.

Truly, the world does not really exist. I am but a part of the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There is no more suffering. Not for me, man. I'm done with it.

We are all interlinked. Panta rei. Everything is connected to everything else. Discursive thinking is blahblah, duhduhduh, monkey minding monkey mind. You and me are all the same, that's the name of the rhyming... um... frame.

There is reason and purpose in the universe. Everything is exactly as it should be. You are perfect.

There is no self. No, not really, but there is not a self. There is not-self. And there is not not-self. And all of these, and not quite, but almost. The All is the One is the None. And I am enlightened.

Things are without essence, impermanent, unsatisfying.

Just let your thoughts pass. Let them go. The Buddha says what the Dalai Lama says what Thich Nhat Hanh says (and Thanissaro Bhikku, too, and basically Eckart Tolle) what I say what I like to be said by old sages. Some of whom can't defend themselves any longer on account of their being dead and rotten.

Oh, and Jesus, of course, says the same thing too. Basically.

And it's really a process, and nobody can describe it, and the Buddha and Jesus and Eckart Tolle didn't mean it that way at all, quite regardless of how you phrased it, you're always wrong, right from the start.

This is stream entry! Yippee. It's the first jhana. Let us jump into the flow!

I am an enlightened being.

All of these did I find. All of them, and then some. And yet, none of them at all.
All of them did I find in my meditation.

And I came out of my meditation, same old me, with my scars and fears and anxieties.

All of these, did I find them in meditation?
It would seem so, when I sit down and when I gather myself up again.

But who did say what, who said what first? Did I honestly find it in meditation? Or did I just take it with me into my sittings, and then pretend? When I first sat down, did I not go in with an expectation already established? Is it any surprise that I found just precisely what I had read in the books?

If I found that the self is eternal, that discursive thinking is the only reliable path to truth and math describes the universe perfectly, that things are eternal and solid and real, that the Buddha was wrong and Ajahn Brahm was a big fat liar... now, THAT would have been a surprise, and it might have had some significance.

If Siddharta Gotama himself had come out of his final enlightenment experience, telling everyone that the sun consists largely of hydrogen, or that there was no reincarnation, the Jews were right all along, and karma was a false teaching - now, *that* would have been significant.

As things are, I only managed to solidify my beliefs and get my hopes high. And so did dear Siddharta. Or not?

I am so fucking enlightened, it's not even funny.

(Sorry for my little ruse. I hope you saw through it right from the start. If you didn't, I hope you were able to get a bit of a healthy shock out of it.)

Discovering stoicism / general update

I just realized I haven't blogged in a while.

For shame!

As the title suggests, I recently got into the stoa. Mainly I've been reading a modern popular introduction by Massimo Pigliucci, and then went on to study me some Epiktet.

I find that stoicism gives me a really good cognitive framework for my meditative practice. It's like the other half of buddhism, the intellectual part of the practice; replacing those parts of buddhism I reject.

Two main ideas that I really enjoy: the "dichotomy of control" and the idea that you should only care about your own virtue, everything else is simply not your concern. It sounds grim, but once you're into it, it's highly liberating and very joyful.

The core idea is very simple, even trivial, but pose a lifelong challenge: Only some things are under your control. Your judgments are under your control. Your opinions, desires, aversions are under your control. On the other hand, your body is not under your control.

(Of course, our desires are not directly under our control, it takes time and practice, and a good reason for practicing, to get there, and the work is probably never finished.)

It's a fundamentally good place to start. There are even a lot of practical exercises. The only thing it doesn't seem to have, is a formal meditation practice.

Which brings me to...

I am now into regular, formal practice. First time in my life. I do one hour per day. I have done so for maybe two months now. It's tremendously, enormously beneficial. Anger goes away much faster, impacts me much less. I sometimes almost grasp impermanence and no-self, for a bit. Lots of anxieties just fall away.

Plus, it helps me keep up a good exercise regime, which is really good for my diabetes and my CP.

Interesting how I tried to read up on stoicism a few years ago, because one of my best friends is into it a lot. I just didn't grok it. Now, with regular meditation, suddenly it's... fairly obvious, really. Almost self-evident. A lot of the time, when I read the stuff, I'm like "oh yeah, sure, why didn't I see it before?"

I'm actually meditating (ha) to go on a buddhist weekend retreat next year. I just really really would like to beware of any cultish groups (I don't mind mainstream buddhism, I don't have to agree with what they say), and I need them to realize that I have to have some kind of back rest, I simply cannot sit in a lotus pose for more than a few minutes.

So, yey, I guess.

Also, the sex has never been better, thanks for asking. :-)