How I know I'm not enlightened

I make gaffs and say things that upset people. I still have the desire to get attention through provocative actions because I need attention, and I say outlandish things sometimes.

In relationships with people who are family, they are often quite frustrated with my limitations and oversights, blind spots, and mistakes. My daughter teaches me how unenlightened I am. My exes teach me how unenlightened I am. My parents teach me how unenlightened I am. My aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings teach me how unenlightened I am. I think about how the first person the Buddha saw after getting enlightened said, "maybe so," as he walked away. Would you really notice if someone was enlightened. I think most of the awe you feel around a more developed person is mostly projection, but I do think you can feel when someone has something awesome too. 

Sometimes I play chess after I meditate, and I often lose. I wouldn't imagine a Buddha would automatically be good at chess, but what makes me know I'm not enlightened is that I get upset when I lose, and I feel really elated when I win. My reaction to winning or losing tells me I'm not enlightened. My desire to play chess itself is perhaps another signal. Infact my daily activity pretty much proves I'm not enlightened. I read and write, tend to my daughter, play chess, watch TV. I'm not always meditating, building sangha, studying the Dharma, chanting and puja, doing good for others, working on myself.

I haven't put in the work to become enlightened. When the Buddha got enlightened he meditated for a week to consolidate and enjoy it. I've never meditated for a week, I have a hard time breaking an hour. I have felt some pretty intense experiences of feeling pretty lofty in my meditation, but mostly I'm riddled with hindrances. I have some level of concentration, but I don't think I can concentrate and develop enough lasting insight. 

My ethics is pretty bad throughout my life. I've put particular emphasis on it, but honestly I still have a long way to go on tightening up my ethical conduct. I'm not going to go into confession right now, but lets just take me at my word, that I'm not ethically evolved enough to be enlightened, and in my life I've done some real whoppers that sort of really emphasize my lack of enlightenment. I'm not saying I don't make an effort to be ethical or that I'm never successful. The other day I paid a woman's tab at the ice cream truck because her card didn't work. I'm pretty poor and couldn't really afford that, but I did that anyway because I just want to be nice sometimes. Generosity isn't just an abstract ideal, I actually have to do it. 

It's not a slight on me that I'm not enlightened. There are times where I've felt superior, and I've read that sometimes spiritual practice can make people feel superior, so I think about how I need to be other focused and not get obsessed with my own spiritual progress, another form of spiritual bypassing I engage in. Spiritual bypassing is the hope that if you can nail down the spiritual life, everything else will be easy. That might be true in some respects, but I don't think you can skip some steps in life, and you need to do psychological work, do all sorts of work that is unrelated to the spiritual life to in fact lay the groundwork to advance in the spiritual life.

If I was enlightened it wouldn't be so hard for me to get out of bed and meditate in the morning. I would just slip into dhyana and bliss out. Instead what I get is the rag and bone shop of thoughts. I have not purified my mind enough through the hard work. 

I'm not sure even what enlightenment is. I've read it's mostly defined negatively. It's not this or that. I'm not sure if it's nothing special like some Zen people say or if it really is a radical kind of opening up, opening out, and self liberation. I'm not even sure if I'm really on the path laid out by the Buddha 2500 years ago, I keep reading things I've never heard before. Seems like I should know these things.

So in the department of slow news day, I'm announcing my lack of enlightenment.