A long time ago, I used to be obsessed with enlightenment. Then, a long time ago, I stopped. Then I had that enlightenment experience on the mountain with the moon, and I’ve been vibing with that experience ever since. More recently, I went from vibing to curiosity. I haven’t been curious for decades.

While manic, I wrote the Heart Sutra in Chinese on trace paper. I sent a picture to my teacher, and he said I should write it every day. I’m finally set up to do that, and I immediately wanted to break down each line, so I “dusted off” my digital copy of Red Pine’s translation and commentary on the Heart Sutra.

It seems like my teacher is right. I’m deeply invested in learning all of the characters, memorizing them, and going deep into each line. This highlighted bit is from Red Pine’s commentary on the Heart Sutra’s title alone. 😳😂

It was already highlighted in my last attempt to read this book (I’ve never made it far). The third level made sense to me conceptually the last time I read it, but after the mountain, it makes sense experientially. Not only that, but I was able to begin integrating the experience into the dualistic “me”-centered world we all live in.

I’m going to seem like I’m selling this on the regular, but the experience and integration don’t happen without Internal Family Systems. It made both the space for the experience and the capacity to change from it.

I’ve long thought to myself, “What happens if you get enlightened but have mad trauma and internal work to do?” From personal experience, the answer is either “You can’t,” or “It’s gonna give you more trouble.” I don’t know which is true. 😝😂 Can’t because your mind isn’t stable enough to hang on, more trouble because you’re going to have a bunch of friction with your “self-life,” ie, your mind isn’t stable enough to hang on.

That said, enlightenment experiences can definitely motivate you to do more work! That’s where I’m at now, back on that enlightenment 💩 from a place of curiosity! 😁 For how long, only time will tell.

Bonus Content

I’ve gotten into the habit of sharing content I post to Instagram/Facebook here. I honestly wish I started doing this a decade ago. First, what is Prajna?

Prajñā (प्रज्ञा) or paññā (𑀧𑀜𑁆𑀜𑀸) is a Buddhist term often translated as “wisdom”, “transcendental wisdom”, “insight”, “intelligence”, or “understanding”

I made a meme to capture the essence of the passage above.

No-self is “better,” but once you’re on the “better” side, you’re supposed to kill that too. While I was finishing this meme and posting it to Instagram, I got a new idea for it.

This one feels (no?) self explanatory. It feels that way, maybe because I get what it is, but I feel like I’d have trouble trying to explain it! Let’s try anyway!

This meme has the first meme at the third layer and this meme with the first meme at the second layer. Wait… Maybe I should include that!

The idea is that the first level is killing the self, and then no-self at the end. Then let’s jump to the last meme. You’ve killed self & no-self and it seems like the job is done, but there’s one more thing to do… KILL EVERYTHING! 😂

Basically you need to kill the idea of killing things… Wait a minute… I feel another meme coming on…

😂 I’m either gonna get bored with enlightenment stuff (again), or ride it out until the “end”. Either way, I’m playing Yakuza 3 Kiwami when it goes on sale. 😂

I suppose I’m also saying is that it’s less about killing in the end and more about letting go… For Yakuza. ;) lol

Note about my enlightenment experience

I’ll keep it simple. I was on a mountain, sitting on a rock. There was techno music going on in the distance on one side of me and a river rushing on the other. I looked up at the moon and… It happened. Hard to explain. The subject and object between me and the moon flipped, and then everything was nothing, and nothing was everything.

A strange thing about the experience is that I wasn’t trying to have an experience. This wasn’t like other enlightenment experiences I’ve had. This happened back in October (3 months ago), and the effects are still strong. Shout out to the Heart Sutra for getting me back into investigating enlightenment with curiosity. ❤️‍🔥