If I have a sense of the goal, then everything else that I do – SÄ«la, SamÄdhi, and Pañña – should fit in.  If I don’t have a sense of what I think the Buddha might have realized, and I do practices that don’t have that aim in mind, and aren’t informed by that aim, I can do things which are pleasing, but they can be hit and miss, and they aren’t understood fully, and then my practice can be very “hit and miss”: sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t work.  So when people say to me “I don’t want to get enlightened, I just want to get a bit happier”, I don’t think that’s a good idea.  I do think it’s a good idea to be happier.  But to not try to pick up at least what the Buddha might have realized, to not have a sense of that, then I think one can’t understand why he taught what he taught.  And he taught what he taught, because of his enlightenment, right?  He didn’t teach an abstract philosophical theory.… Read the rest