Short version: In our sicks and psychs, we regain all but a bit of our losses, and retain only a bit of our gains. The remains define our character.
. . In our sicknesses and psychologies, we regain all but a bit of our losses, and retain only a bit of our gains. In the accumulation of those leftovers, leaden and light, some cancel out, and their weight and balance --and how we deal with them-- is both the baggage and character of our lives.

. . You are insignificant. That's the best thing I can tell you.

. . I suppose that's the lowest common denominator of "enlightenment". But not very "Buddhesque". I wonder how you're s'posta know when you really get enlightened? How do any of us know that anybody ever really got it? I know, it's supposed to be some big opening up of the sky --a super "defining-moment". We've all had those, to various degrees. They may be great, but most of the effects pass slowly away.

. . I've had several, so have you. I'd love to collect a lot of them from many people --that'd be a good book! I wanna tell you about my last moment, tho. I emphasize that I do NOT call it the "big one".

. . First... about how I lost ten pounds... a whole 'nother "enlightening"! From what little I've heard about achieving the Zen kind of enlightenment, my diet method sounds similar. I make a single-stage decision at a time --say, stop sugar-- then do it... without payin' attention. Forget you did it, just do it. Ya kinda sneak up on it. Like enlightenment, ya can't get there by tryin' to go there. Also, I happened to have always studied science; which was lucky, 'cause both that & Zen are about finding the way things really are --without the contamination of the way we think they are... or how we want them to be. Science gets to the truth by a rigorous method that eliminates "experimenter bias". Zen tries to eliminate ego-centered bias directly.

. . Enlightenment requires a state of UN-belief (not DIS-belief), a kind of a healthy fugue state; an "unconcerned doubt". It requires a rejection of requirements! And an unconcern about concerns. And a lack of thought... even a thought about being unconcerned. If that sounds difficult.. just ignore it --KNOW it, then ignore it.

. . It's harder to unlearn the crap that society sneaks into your head, than learning all you ever will! ... That's both my diet and my path to Zen; there are many diets and many paths. Fortunately, enlightenment has many keys. Unfortunately, the door has many locks.

. . As well as sugar, I ignore the various gods --thousands of them. I finally decided that I know as much about any real god as anybody on earth --namely nuthin'. I guess this makes me the world's foremost authority! :) All the religions think that everybody else's idea of God is wrong, and they're all probably right about that! Religion so often gets in the way of spirituality. I think... Full awareness of reality is the greatest prayer and adoration. In this, the fool may surpass the genius in his awe of the ineffable.

. . Notice... when you fall, you don't feel gravity. Something not in resistance to a force does not feel that force. (It's not just physics --there's something very Zen in that.) That's what I'm sayin'! Don't resist the real picture. We paint pictures on the universe, like we gild the lily. When you try to see it, you paint it --to the degree that you try. When you see it as it is, without resistance, you'll lose the "gravity" of the situation. (enlightening!) (You'll still "chop wood, carry water", but... differently.)

. . To vastly over-simplify, "enlightenment" might be an awareness of the pure reality that is hidden from our awareness by the colors of our preconceptions.

. . Note that "reality" is popularly used in two senses: objective, scientific reality; and someone's experience of it. ONLY in the latter sense can there be more than one "reality".

. . Reality, science, and Gaia/Zen spirituality have this in common: that all see things as nature insists they are, rather than as modified by the trip thru human perceptions and pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions. (Pre-)Conception colors perception. ...gilds the lily. To perceive, de-conceive. What misguided conceptions color your world? What would it be if you didn't?

. . Various of my moments were revelations --I loved 'em... like, 1: Darwin; 2: that the function of genes is just to make proteins that do and influence other stuff; 3: Socio-Biology, to explain motives and identity; 4: the ever-larger cosmos, compared to the insignificant Earth.
. . The earth is insignificant; you are insignificant. But I repeat myself --you and the Earth are the same, just as your every cell knows how to make all of you. (See the Socio-Bio page.)

. . Somehow, a sense of insignificance is important and basic to any understanding --it compensates for our ego. I remember when I lay on the grass and looked at the stars, and FELT the sun behind me, the dark earth between us, myself pushed against the side of this tiny globe (gravity felt funny!), and I saw the different distances of the stars in 3-D. A great revelatory moment --I was about 14. To feel in such a way that you could not possibly find words for the feeling --that is something!

. . Realizing our insignificance should not distance us from one another, but allow us to better see our mutual situation, environment, and connection with all existence. Finding our identity must involve seeing our place within many, much larger, schemes of things --social relations, and the scales of time and size.

You can't find the important parts of yourself from the inside . out to your edges. Look outside yourself. Look at the infinite span of space in the universe. Look at the billions of years that have passed before you, and will continue after *your brief stay. Look at the vast variety of lifeforms on the Earth, and the millions of species that ever were. Look at the differing cultures among all of them, especially of humans. Look outside yourself.
. . Then look at the nearer space, the more recent times, the visible lives of humans and others around you. You will find another shape within those patterns; one that defines your relationships... of shape, and space, and timespan, ...from the outside in. You are part of that too. See how it fits you, and how you fit into it.

. . I think the acceptance of personal death is important too --as much as... until it ain't a bad thing. You are just part of the "it" that is raining. Stuff came about, stuff happens. There's no great "purpose" proven in any of it, including ourselves. The only "reason" is in the molecule, the atom, the quark, the superstring. The properties of the atom made the universe inevitable. As my friend Walker put it, "Given the particles and the laws (of nature), all else follows." DNA is inevitable.

. . It all began to form a coherent picture for me, like a huge jigsaw puzzle that comes together till the tiny shapes of the pieces disappear and --voila-- it's one pretty picture! At least, I hope it will be. But I can see parts here and there.

. . What picture of existence do you want to see? Oops; can't "want". Like a cat, the real picture of reality won't come to your call... not till it wants to come to you. As soon as you want it too come, it goes away. If you want reality to be a certain picture --even a little, that imagined picture will blot out the real picture entirely!

. . Who are you, really? For one thing, "you" are a conglomeration of certain independent cells that came together a billion years ago --each with their unique DNA. Some cells ate others. Finally, a voracious cell called a truce when it found that incorporation as a single cooperative cell worked better. That combo-cell survived well, and just lately developed into a bigger, better variety of forms... one of which is called Human, one of which is "you" --a certain expedient modification of that original DNA arrangement.

The bacteria in your system are part of you, in that... you'd die without them, just as you would without your liver. In the same way, (eg) the ocean is part of you, in that it's part of a system that you'd die without.

. . If you can identify with everything, you cannot die. ...identify with every person, present or past, every bird, wave, and pebble. I practice at this all I can.

. . A problem in individual identity that had/has me stumped was that of consciousness. What is it, this sense of IDENTITY, this awareness of self, when we know it's all just millions of neurons firing in certain patterns?! How the heck does that all add up to a sense of identity? That's one that I've started to resolve by feeling about it, rather than thinking about it, so I can't describe it well. The thinking part is only this: most of the answer is that we ask the wrong questions. "What if I'd been born somewhere else, somewhen else, to different parents, the other gender?"

. . Wrong; that would be a different person, and makes the question nonsense. "You" are an expression of your circumstances, including the genes that --totally by chance-- happened to come together in a certain pair of gametes. Our awareness of those genes doesn't change 'em --our attitudes and reactions are largely set for life by evolutionary effects of thousands of ancestors who survived their dangers. (Those that die childless don't get to be called ancestors.)

. . "You" are limited by the length of your nerves. What you can't feel with ... ain't you. Or is it? Your illusion of separateness is merely that your nerves extend only as far as your skin. Gaia shows us that we're part of it all. "You" are just the temporary repository of a set of DNA. When I'm gone, the memories vaporize, the DNA lives on.

. . The latest revelation-moment I had was in a silly place --on my way here... a couple blocks south. I'd rather think I was lookin' at the trees and river than the traffic! Well, it's nothin' I can explain... just say that --while NOT thinkin'-- I stepped back and saw a small part of the picture as my particular jigsaw came a tiny bit more together --more beautifully insignificant. I mean that. Insignificance is beautiful. It may be the big key!

. . Specio-centric, Ethno-centric, Ego-centric.... As science progressed, it was a continual battle because each piece of evidence showed that we're NOT at the center... when we wanted to be! Our "want" obscured the real picture. The Mediterranean was NOT the center of the world (as its name claims). Earth is NOT the center of the Solar System. Sol is not the only sun, and isn't at the center of the universe --nor is our galaxy. But most of all, Man is not the measure of all things, just of our ego. None of us has the attention of all others.

. . I just searched all my quotation books --and the net. There was not a single entry about insignificance. I gotta come up with one. I wish there were a book, but I s'pose I'd hafta write it myself. (That'd be hard --"Important Things To Say About Insignificance!" Well, this speech will hafta do...)

. . There are many pictures --many experiences of-- reality around. Most or all of them are selfishly generated, and obliterate the one objective reality itself. Reality is never what you imagine. (i.e. if it's your imagination, it can't be reality. Get it?)

. . I'm putting my picture together just for myself --while ignoring the process, remember-- but I hope you like it, or find it --or my dieting method-- interesting.

. . I'd sure like to see all that mysterious jigsawed picture of existence before I die... all of it is right there for us.... . But I know: if I think it's important to see it, I won't see it!! Ya gotta sneak up on it. Shhh!

. . From the Rubiyat:

. . The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
. . Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
. . Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
. . Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

. . And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
. . Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
. . Lift not your hands to It for help --for It
. . As impotently moves as you or I.