The Enlightened Narcissist is the Enlightened Buddha

Like it or not, we are all narcissists. That may be a tough pill to swallow for some, but in truth, narcissism is nothing more than the experience of "Self" importance when interacting with our world—no matter what that world may be. From the mundane to the mystical, from the grocery line to a mountaintop vision quest, the sense of "I" remains present, asserting its centrality to every perception, judgment, and reaction.

To whatever degree we can admit that honestly, is to the exact degree that we are relatively enlightened. Relative enlightenment means we "knowingly know" our own addiction to self-importance. Through deep and honest contemplation, we recognize how this addiction shapes our world and our relationships. And as we begin to see this mechanism clearly, we also come to naturally perceive the same dynamic in others and in the world at large—without judgment, without effort.

The more honest we are about our addiction to self-importance, the more peaceful and comfortable our experience of life becomes. Not because the world outside has changed, but because we are no longer caught in the struggle to defend or uphold an illusory sense of separateness. In that radical honesty, we find peace. One could even say, we find something that feels quite like perfection.

All perceived worldly ills—conflict, greed, suffering, delusion—are the result of narcissism not revealed. When we don't see our own self-importance clearly, it plays out unconsciously, manipulating our choices, distorting our vision, and binding us to cycles of like and dislike, praise and blame, gain and loss.

This binding is what links us to each other. Narcissism is the great connector in the samsaric realm, tying us together through our preferences, our aversions, and the dance of our egoic stories. It is the shared delusion of a separate "Self" that arises the moment conscious awareness perceives and organizes the world around it.

But here lies the profound paradox: our Buddha nature is love itself. The self-importance of narcissism is merely misplaced Buddha nature. It is love trying to recognize itself, distorted through the lens of separation. It is divinity reflected in a funhouse mirror.

To see through the experience of self-importance—to be radically honest about its cause and effect in our own being—is meditation. It is the path. It is the realization of emptiness and fullness, of self and no-self. It is enlightenment. It is Buddha.

So let us not shun the narcissist within. Let us befriend it, study it, embrace it as the teacher it is. For in that embrace, we may just find the clarity, compassion, and freedom that has always been our true nature.

The enlightened narcissist is not a contradiction—it is the Enlightened Buddha, revealed.