Much investigation has therefore been done in finding out what in matter of fact Buddha says when he says "Be a lamp unto yourself" (old rendering), or "Be an island unto yourself" (new rendering).

We find this exhortation in a number of texts throughout the Small Vehicle canons of the Theravādin (the Pali canon), the Chinese (the Āgama), and the Tibetan (the Kanyur).

The best known instance is that of the Dhammapāda (238) of the Pali canon where it says: Be an island unto yourself!

... We find a slightly different rendering in the Pali Mahāparinibbāna Sutta where it says: "Therefore, Ānanda, be islands unto yourselves,

In years gone by the Pali word dīpa used to be rendered as "lamp" following such passages as "extinguish the lamp of disease (ignorance)!" (telappadīpo āropito.) which we equallly find in the above Pali Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. Walpola Rahula, in his 'What the Buddha taught' points to this discussion.

You also have Nietzsche aphorism, translated as:

The hypocrite who always plays one and the same part ceases at last to be a hypocrite.

Human All Too Human, 51.

So that's a dilemma: how can we be a lamp unto ourselves -- if our self deception can transmute into "fact".

Wittgenstein asks at the beginning of his Tractatus:

This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have them- selves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it—or similar thoughts

Perhaps (all) this amounts to (is) the idea that to know the Truth is to conform to someone else's expression of it. e.g. the Buddhist text, The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana, which is an early expression of "original enlightenment" begins with the dedication:

May all sentient beings be made to discard their doubts, to cast aside their evil attachments, and to give rise to the correct faith in the Mahayana, that the lineage of the Buddhas may not be broken off.

I'd conclude that Truth is best reached by doubting what we believe and then finding out who else agrees with what's then left. Nothing is fool proof, and you could always try the opposite, but I reckon it's a good way to understand or learn any philosophy. Afterall, original thinking does tend to depend on prior knowledge.

As to "hard practices", I think these have some use, or they would've died out. Even if that use is just intersubejctive

Much investigation has therefore been done in finding out what in matter of fact Buddha says when he says "Be a lamp unto yourself" (old rendering), or "Be an island unto yourself" (new rendering).

We find this exhortation in a number of texts throughout the Small Vehicle canons of the Theravādin (the Pali canon), the Chinese (the Āgama), and the Tibetan (the Kanyur).

The best known instance is that of the Dhammapāda (238) of the Pali canon where it says: Be an island unto yourself!

... We find a slightly different rendering in the Pali Mahāparinibbāna Sutta where it says: "Therefore, Ānanda, be islands unto yourselves,

... In years gone by the Pali word dīpa used to be rendered as "lamp" following such passages as "extinguish the lamp of disease (ignorance)!" (telappadīpo āropito.) which we equallly find in the above Pali Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. Walpola Rahula, in his 'What the Buddha taught' points to this discussion.

You also have Nietzsche's aphorism, translated as:

The hypocrite who always plays one and the same part ceases at last to be a hypocrite.

Human All Too Human, 51.

So that's a dilemma: how can we be a lamp unto ourselves -- if our self deception can transmute into "fact".

Wittgenstein asks at the beginning of his Tractatus:

This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have them- selves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it—or similar thoughts

Perhaps (all) this amounts to (is) the idea that to know the Truth is to conform to someone else's expression of it. e.g. the Buddhist text, The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana, which is an early expression of "original enlightenment" begins with the dedication:

May all sentient beings be made to discard their doubts, to cast aside their evil attachments, and to give rise to the correct faith in the Mahayana, that the lineage of the Buddhas may not be broken off.

I'd conclude that Truth is best reached by doubting what we believe and then finding out who else agrees with what's then left. Nothing is fool proof, and you could always try the opposite, but I reckon it's a good way to understand or learn any philosophy. Afterall, original thinking does tend to depend on prior knowledge.

As to "hard practices", I think these have some use, or they would've died out. Even if that use is just intersubejctive