Back from Germany to a bizarre but maybe wonderful week.

Before I get to that, I need to get out some thoughts on a book I just finished. The appropriately titled, The End of Your World, chronicles what happens after we reach enlightenment.

First of all, let me start of by saying, I would normally never read a book with that title. I would assume that I am so far behind that I would need to read, Enlightenment for Dumb Asses: A Step-By-Step Guide. But lately i’ve been making an effort to elevate my standards by acting as-if, so I gave it a read with the intention of fooling myself into working my way backwards into enlightenment. A clearly full-proof plan.

Today, I finished and tears streamed down my face. I will preface this: it’s not hard for me to cry. Like at all. I cry in movies, commercials, if someone tells me a sad story–– it doesn’t even have to be about them. My empathy has always been hyper-developed to the point where I once donated what was to me a large sum of money after a natural disaster because I was in tears for days thinking of the poor people affected by it. My sister who was studying psychology at the time, said this is apparently a psychological disorder. A normal functioning human with healthy emotions can sympathize but ultimately remain separate from the other person’s experience.

So my serious case of sensitivity has always been “a thing.” However, this is not a problem by Buddhist standards, it’s a part of me that is hyper-developed. According to this book, the goal of ultimate enlightenment is to be awakened to the facade of separation.

To that end, one of the symptoms the author brings up on the path to enlightenment, which often happens in a touch-and-go type of way, is a hyper sensitivity to the world around you. They are you. You are them. Of course you’d cry with that truth in your heart.

The front-end of the book is a lot of setting up and creating distinctions on what enlightenment is and what it isn’t, which is where the author explains an average person experiences enlightenment as brief moments of clarity that can last hours, days, weeks or months, followed by periods of separation (what I would call forgetting that clarity and coming back to your own neurosis and negative thinking). This goes on for as long as it needs to, depending on the person, and he gives some examples of how he dealt with his own journey. This is where it gets highly personal and varies.

The philosophical teachings appear closer to the middle and a particularly notable chapter for me was the breakdown of the illusion of our sense of self. According to the book, here’s what we are not: our emotions or our mind. In Western culture (maybe even the world, but I’ll keep it to my experience), we place such an emphasis on our mind. I have always been fascinated by the mind, believing it has the power to transcend consciousness, time and unlock hidden potential. I still believe it can do this, only it is a tool. The most powerful of tools. And like any other tool it can lead you astray if you make it a golden cow. Our mind, while having the power to transform anything, is also a product of our conditioning (the foundation of which was likely built outside of our control and awareness).

We have constant reactions based on thoughts that create new thoughts and interpretations so quickly, we may not even be aware of what agreements we are making for ourselves and living by to a fault. If we only depend on the mind and ignore everything else, we can get in trouble fast.

In the same vein, emotions are not our self. Though I am accustomed to believing thoughts like, “I feel sad therefore I am sad,” this is a false state, according to the author. An emotion should not be avoided, but it also shouldn’t need to be solved. The concept isn’t nearly as powerful written down, but it can be life changing when put to practice. Could I really let myself off the hook of being sad just because I’m having a sad emotion? Could that pass through me without needing to occupy my time, energy and mental state? Apparently, it can.

Going back to our post-Europe return, this week I received news that altered a significant part of my life. I’ll leave the details out because they’re not important, as we’ve come to understand if you’re tracking with me on this whole enlightened life analysis. Immediately after I received the news, like the lower tier human I am, I went into interpretation mode. Because I am a writer and a masochist, my interpretations are quite sophisticated, little negative arguments of genius.

So I’m there creating terrible interpretations based on reality, when reality itself is simply what is happening at the moment. Reality is not here to piss me off, and any time I have a resistance to what is happening – aka fighting with reality – I lose.