David Patton:
Thanks again for offering up your experiences.
Thank you for your candidness. I'm not speaking out of direct experience — although I have experienced the moments of perfection we are speaking about (PCEs), I have not made them into a permanent condition (called 'actual freedom'). However, this is the goal of my practice, and I am well-informed on how to bring about such a condition, both thanks to the actual freedom website and to exchanges with actually free members of this forum (e.g. Tarin, Trent, Stefanie K. Dunning).
From my understanding of the way things typically progress (and there are several possibilities), I conjecture that you are enlightened in the way enlightenment is understood currently in western mainstream buddhist/zen/etc culture. As I mentioned before, many practitioners in this forum have concluded that such a condition is not enough, to paraphrase, that their goose is still not done, and are or have (successfully) been engaged in becoming actually free.
David Patton:
Absolutely nothing. Intuition (if you can call it that) also suggests to me that the notion of enlightenment as some sort of endpoint is a mistake. I also don't suffer anymore while driving the car, simply because I can get in and out whenever I want.
The view of enlightenment as "the endless path" is, in my opinion, a fallacy fueled by the identity: who would profit from traveling an endless path more than that which fears its own extinction? If there is truly no end-point, then maybe "I" can continue to "exist" forever.
David Patton:
This line of reasoning seems to be begging its own question. Sadness no longer presents itself as a problem. 'Problem' to me would be represented by unresolved conflict. That modality seems to be gone. In retrospect it seems that sadness is now only manifesting for others, its not about 'me'. It doesn't take intention (or possibly volition?) or an ego to move in an effort to rescue a puppy from being run over by a car. That comes from the natural state. That realization is a lovely thing. True Compassion is not an emotion whereas compassion based on thought and feeling is nothing more than vanity. As far as fear or anger is concerned those would be like honking the horn or swerving out of the way. Neither create an issue for me anymore.
I'm happy to hear you have come upon a condition
of being virtually free of malice and sorrow, so that these passions are no longer a problem. If indeed malice and sorrow, though they may arise, are never potent enough influence your actions and cause problems, you are indeed doing well!

But unless you are fully interested and invested in completely eradicating these passions (and hence your identity — for "you" are "your feelings" and "your feelings" are "you"), then it will likely never happen.
The way to do it, from the vantage point of being virtually free, is to cultivate PCEs until they happen more and more often, to the point that "you" can "slip out of control," and eventually become extinct.David Patton:
The impulse to avoid death is not a delusion.
The impulse to avoid death, do you mean the fear-fueled compulsion, or the passionless, sensible decision?
Edit: I think the use of the term virtual freedom was inappropriate, and have marked it with a strikethrough.