IMHO, pleasure in order of fulfillment:  The lowest tier is physical/materialistic, next up is mastering cravings through discipline/creativity, and most fulfilling of all? The pleasure that comes when you stop seeking pleasure.  

IMHO, One of the harder truths to acknowledge is that while most of us aren’t selfish, most of us are self-centered, and tend to use our anecdotal lives to judge the rest of existence.   It’s not a good or bad thing, but something to be recognized and dealt with so we can push our…

IMHO, there is usually not an immediate need to be skillful, but there is always a need to understand HOW TO BECOME skillful.  That requires a willingness to ditch old identities, and be as brutally objective and self-honest as possible.

What’s the goal of [meditation/ritual/contemplation]?  IMHO, it’s not to perpetuate the need for such things; actually, the goal is to operate at your peak and see that everything’s okay, whether you do those things or not.  (But yes, those things make it easier to get to that point)

I suspect that there is more to life than the next hit of joy or the next immersion in agony.  I suspect that wise words and ancient rituals fall far short of what they are meant to point me towards.  I suspect that the exploration of existence will reveal that every answer is right in front…

The training wheels can come off voluntarily, where we throw them aside and soar forward in a joyous blur, or they can be stripped away from our greedy clutches while we wail in agony and bemoan our fates.