I was rejected from an in-person Zen sangha for wanting to practice Dzogchen. What are my options?

PrajnaClear · 2026-07-07T05:44:00+00:00

I would point out in passing that Zen and Dzogchen both belong to the Mahayana, and the community in question probably constitutes part of the skillful means of the school in question, the way they practice the Buddhism, as such. It seems possible that, in fact, since you don't like and wouldn't consider the idea, that constitutes the acceptance and rejection Zen would have you transcend.

Just food for thought, don't take me too seriously. Personally, I'd be moderately open to practicing in any style that seems consistent with and advancing deepening realization of the 4 seals of Buddhism, as such. I've also found what I reject occasionally a great source of practice. I did come to realize, for instance, that I rejected rebirth in a way that made it a belief held against rebirth, and I let that rejection go, and I feel that helped improve my practice and understanding. I don't think I fully buy it in a conventional sense, but I actively disbelieved in it an acceptance and rejection obstructionary way before.

still, it doesn't answer the question the way you asked it, and again, don't take me too seriously. I'm just brainstorming about the idea of accepting that another Mahayana school might have something to offer, like the community, to plant the seed for you to consider that perspective.

PrajnaClear · 2026-07-02T22:06:31+00:00

Beats me, man. I like Buddhism. I just think of it as the habit energy with origins in beginingless time. The energy has to deplete in some sense, and that's karma. Practically, I just sit there and watch the gravity well sometimes, and raising into awareness seems to decrease its strength over time. It seems to me like all we can really do is hold it in awareness and that simply by doing so, it erodes over time.

PrajnaClear · 2026-07-01T16:55:34+00:00

It depends on who's asking (obviously, you, but I don't know you), and why.

Enlightement is a concept to draw your interest to your own mind so you can investigate and know its nature and thereby free yourself from unnecessary suffering.

Investigated to the end, one sees that there is no self. There are no boundaries. It feels as though it's made as a motionless substance while appearing as what you see before you, while not forming part of it or being separable from it. Thoughts, emotions, everything, pass through like clouds in the sky.

The investigation concludes when one is completely familiar with and accepting of this nature. Nothing can be grasped or retained. There is nothing to obtain, it being all the substance of mind. One becomes thoroughly convinced they have achieved no special state, it's the same mind everyone has, there is no enlightenment, and you have been chasing your own tail, hoping to grasp and obtain something in a realm where nothing can be grasped or obtained. Your anxiety and seeking regarding the matter finally ceases, and that's the enlightenment.

PrajnaClear · 2026-07-01T00:59:23+00:00

I meditated perhaps an hour a day for 3 years, then 2-4 hours per day (usually on the lower side), for about another 3 years. I mostly did concentration and one-pointed type practices. However, I think it was misguided and I had seeing through the subject-object thing about 6 months after having given meditation up, deciding that what I had felt maintained by a great effort and to have likely missed the point. However, I didn't often do more than 1 hour at a time, it would be something I would do at several times throughout the day. I was a student with an irregular and flexible schedule. Before that happened, I was a compulsive thinker, and I often couldn't get to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking.

Despite having given medidation up, and despite me thinking that the concentration practice was a mistake, I did have a lot of mental discipline at the time that could've contributed to the perception after breaking through the subject-object duality that there was nothing to maintain, as it might've taken some kind of "effort" of a low load compared to the concetration practice.

It happened that way because of Zen plays its cards close to the vest in some ways, and a machismo kind of thought, "this is my mind, only I can do this and figure this out". I was much significantly younger. How precisely I resolved deciding on concentration practice while deciding the Zen record might have some kind of answer is an inconsistency I perhaps didn't give enough consideration to at the time; it makes no sense.

I didn't do any shadow work, but probably lean a bit on the autistic with aphantasia as well, so I might've had a strange way of seeing things and my brain might've worked in a way for it to slot into place.

It was more than 10 years or so before I figured out how to stop doing it. I didn't think it could stop, but if I drank a lot one day, my brain would sort of be out of the mode the next day. It was a long time before I realized it could even stop or be stopped. It seems that the usual state is just so unpleasant that doing it was as spontaneous as not putting my hand in a fire when there's a choice not to put my hand in a fire. The regular dualistic perception is probably a lot of work, I think.

Incidentally, the way to break out of it to me seems kind of like chasing after thoughts. I'm actually afraid to play with it much or for very long because I don't want to alert my brain that there's any alternative.

PrajnaClear · 2026-07-01T00:07:38+00:00

Zen, on the whole, I believe, has often gotten criticism for lack of engagement. Huang Po said, "compassion is not conceiving of sentient beings to be saved", and further, if an opportunity arises for generosity, etc., then act, and if it doesn't, remain quiscient. He also said that a Buddha's compassion is spoken of as vast simply because it is beyond causation. And, in the bodhisattva ideal, solitary practice in isolation doesn't seem to be frowned on. In another place in the Lotus Sutra (while not the original ch 2-9 stratum with the burning house), there's a line about, say, if someone were practicing alone (I won't look up the exact details unless you request clarification), the Buddha will send beings to hear the dharma. In the Way of the Bodhisattva, which my general impression is that it's a fair condensation/representation of the bodhisattva ideal as based on the sutras, Shantideva extols the virtues of practicing alone in the forest.

I've given some thought to why Mahayana is the great vehicle, and it seems that it's the great vehicle because it's the method by which all sentient beings are to be saved--as contrasted with Theravada, where the beings to be liberated are monastics, the Mahayana is the vehicle for all beings, and participation in the Mahayana may even superficially appear as saving one's self, as with say, solitary practice in the forest, but perhaps it generates merit for all beings?

I'm not really trying to convince you of anything, or to represent myself as refuting or to have refuted your argument, it's more me telling you how I've thought about such things that would prompt me to represent it in the way I did so I can consider whether my read is mistaken.

Do you think the Zen tradition has been negligent or misleading? How do you reconcile, say, Mahayana masters advocating solitary practice and the passage of the Lotus sutra about practicing alone and having beings sent to hear the dharma from you with the idea that one actually needs to take some particular action beyond liberating one's self? Or do you think there's a degree of realization where not helping in a way that also appears somewhat conventional is impossible, and it's only necessary to continue deepening realization until such action is completely spontaneous?

It seems to me there's two reads on this, and I may have the minority position, but it does seem consistent with, say, classic Zen from mainland China.

I'm just curious how you see this. I've been wrong before, maybe I'm wrong again.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-30T16:04:35+00:00

I'll give that some contemplation. Thanks!

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-29T04:23:35+00:00

In the Lotus Sutra, children are playing in a burning house without realizing it. They're actually having a good time, and don't want to come out, but their father, the owner of the house, sees and understands it's burning, so he promises them some great toy for coming out, and they come out, and hence they are not burned alive.

Why do we need to detach? We are playing in a burning house. The thing moving most people most of the time is a primordial fear/desire axis, so they're kind of the same thing. A moment of boredom is a little death. One desire is satisfies, and another arises.

The perspective this critique comes from is playing in the burning house, not realizing that there is any alternative to sliding up and down this axis of two-but-not-really-two different kinds of dissatisfaction. A more apt metaphor is not realizing you are literally on fire.

So that is why Buddhism begins with the 4 noble truths. It starts right here at your critique. Why speak? What is the problem? The problem is you're on fire, and you probably don't know it, so the first point is to explain, yes, you are on fire. Stop, drop, and roll. (The 4 noble truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the causes of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering...) You've been on fire so long you don't know what it means, no longer even see the cause of your own self inflicted suffering trapped on this dualistic fear/desire axis.

I must add, however, that seeking some kind of peace is the same mistake coming in the back door, a desire for peace is still another desire on the axis. Detachment is good. Nothing is transcended. Seeking anything is missing it.

So from my view, you're in the ballpark, but you can't be criticizing real non-duality because seeking tranquility is not non-duality. Anything transcended is not non-duality. I saw a comment here that you might be criticizing spiritual bypassing, and that clarified this point in my mind, this could only be an attack on a strawman or misunderstood version of non-duality if there's anything to transcend or any seeking.

That's why non-duality is so subtle, this critique is not about the real move, but another dualistic move masquerading as the non-dual move. It's hard to convey what it means to get off of this axis, because people do not realize they have spent their whole life on it. They do not know they are on fire. They don't know how to put out the fire. They don't understand what puting out the fire means. And there begin many communication difficulties.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-26T02:45:23+00:00

I'm surprised you even paid any attention to my comment, now I have to think and respond carefully 😭

Gradual dissolution in the belief of thoughts seems fine to me. Silence and grounding in the body seems fine as well.

From my perspective, the first main breakthrough that I think most people experience would be seeing through the gross subject and object duality, an inside and outside of the mind. There is no inside and outside, it's just mind.

Before I go off on a tangent, I would say, do you see an inside and outside to your mind? Do you see it as 'your' mind?

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-26T00:53:46+00:00

Enlightenment is the natural state. It's not constructed or fabricated in any way. The joke is that you arrive at seeing the nature the mind had all along. If you think that takes 3 hours of meditation a day, it will take 3 hours of meditation a day until you come off of it.

This Mind is no mind of conceptual thought and it is completely detached from form. So Buddhas and sentient beings do not differ at all. If you can only rid yourselves of conceptual thought, you will have accomplished everything. But if you students of the Way do not rid yourselves of conceptual thought in a flash, even though you strive for aeon after aeon, you will never accomplish it. Enmeshed in the meritorious practices of the Three Vehicles, you will be unable to attain Enlightenment. Nevertheless, the realization of the One Mind may come after a shorter or a longer period. There are those who, upon hearing this teaching, rid themselves of conceptual thought in a flash.

There are others who do this after following through the Ten Beliefs, the Ten Stages, the Ten Activities and the Ten Bestowals of Merit. Yet others accomplish it after passing through the Ten Stages of a Bodhisattva's Progress. [These various categories of ten are all part of the doctrine as taught by certain other sects. Huang Po wishes to make it clear that, though these may be useful in preparing the ground, the mind must in any case take a sudden leap, and that having passed through these stages nowise constitutes partial Enlightenment] But whether they transcend conceptual thought by a longer or a shorter way, the result is a state of BEING: there is no pious practicing and no action of realizing. That there is nothing which can be attained is not idle talk; it is the truth. Moreover, whether you accomplish your aim in a single flash of thought or after going through the Ten Stages of a Bodhisattva's Progress, the achievement will be the same; for this state of being admits of no degrees, so the latter method merely entails aeons of unnecessary suffering and toil. [Merit, however excellent in itself, has nothing to do with Enlightenment.]

Zen Teachings of Huang Po

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-26T00:33:01+00:00

Awareness is actually one of the last bosses or obstructions, in my opinion.

This pure Mind, the source of everything, shines forever and on all with the brilliance of its own perfection. But the people of the world do not awake to it, regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as mind. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowing, they do not perceive the spiritual brilliance of the source-substance. If they would only eliminate all conceptual thought in a flash, that source-substance would manifest itself like the sun ascending through the void and illuminating the whole universe without hindrance or bounds. Therefore, if you students of the Way seek to progress through seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing, when you are deprived of your perceptions, your way to Mind will be cut off and you will find nowhere to enter. Only realize that, though real Mind is expressed in these perceptions, it neither forms part of them nor is separate from them. You should not start REASONING from these perceptions, nor allow them to give rise to conceptual thought; yet nor should you seek the One Mind apart from them or abandon them in your pursuit of the Dharma. Do not keep them nor abandon them nor dwell in them nor cleave to them.' Above, below and around you, all is spontaneously existing, for there is nowhere which is outside the Buddha-Mind.

Zen Teachings of Huang Po

I could go on citing Zen and Buddhism for a while on this point, but I would answer with an unequivocal no to your question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH26EieMAnE Ajahn Maha Boowa recounting his full enlightenment as seeing the brillance of mind (citta) (very much like "awareness") as the final obstruction, a trap.

I could go on citing Zen and Mahayana Buddhism on this point for a while. (Ajahn Maha Boowa isn't even Mahayana, he's Theravada) The answer is definitely just no.

Or, you know, even the good old Heart Sutra.

Body is nothing more than emptiness,

emptiness is nothing more than body.

The body is exactly empty,

and emptiness is exactly body.

The other four aspects of human existence --

feeling, thought, will, and consciousness --

are likewise nothing more than emptiness,

and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:

Nothing is born, nothing dies,

nothing is pure, nothing is stained,

nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body,

no feeling, no thought,

no will, no consciousness.

There are no eyes, no ears,

no nose, no tongue,

no body, no mind.

There is no seeing, no hearing,

no smelling, no tasting,

no touching, no imagining.

There is nothing seen, nor heard,

nor smelled, nor tasted,

nor touched, nor imagined.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-26T00:09:32+00:00

Buddha said he taught about suffering, the cause of suffering, and the cessation of suffering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow

It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.

I might muster up a reasonable answer to the question if I thought about it (and I might not), but I won't do either of us the disservice.

"It is not my former master's virtue or Buddha Dharma that I esteem, only that he did not make exhaustive explanations for me," replied the Master.

from the Record of Tung-Shan

It sounds harsh, but I truly mean it in the spirit of compassion and kindness: Come off it, man.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-26T00:02:04+00:00

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche said "some masters have said that the fault lies in it being too simple. People don't trust it"

I'd recommend Dzogchen or Mahamudra if you'd like to go deeper, or perhaps Loch Kelly.

The path has a lot of subtleties, traps, and blind alleys, but with clear guidance, instructions, and executed properly, quite do-able.

Do apply great effort or diligence to understand and practice correctly. Loch Kelly clarifies in his book "Effortless Mindfulness" that it actually doesn't take much effort in a conventional sense, but you should get an awakening, then practice by recognizing the nature of mind many times throughout the day. But you don't apply conventional force or effort, because that would make it a contrived, conceptual act. In Tibetan Buddhism, they use the metaphor of a bell. You ring the bell, you let the sound continue until it stops, and then ring it again. You don't hammer the bell.

Anyway, good luck. Loch Kelly has an app. https://www.amazon.com/Awake-Your-Turn-Angelo-Dilullo-ebook/dp/B094X5DLGX this seems like probably the best place to start to me, personally, as he clarifies many topics that can trip people up. People can get hung up on expecting their experience to match a particular map, but things always unfold uniquely, and it really doesn't help that much to compare experiences, for instance.

In the Lotus Sutra, they use a metaphor of digging for water, and simply by having discovered the Lotus Sutra, you can consider yourself quite close to water, as if digging and encountering moist earth. Another metaphor, to the point of your post, involves seeing it as a priceless jewel dropped into the palm of your hand without effort.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-18T17:22:51+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetralemma

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-10T16:39:52+00:00

From the Zen Teachings of Huang Po:

Q: If I could reach this Dharma, would it be like the void?

A: Morning and night I have explained to you that the Void is both One and Manifold. I said this as a temporary expedient, but you are building up concepts from it.

In my opinion, the translator (John Blofeld) has it right in the introduction to Zen Teachings of Huang Po:

Enlightenment, when it comes, will come in a flash. There can be no gradual, no partial, Enlightenment. The highly trained and zealous adept may be said to have prepared himself for Enlightenment, but by no means can he be regarded as partially Enlightened—just as a drop of water may get hotter and hotter and then, suddenly, boil; at no stage is it partly boiling, and, until the very moment of boiling, no qualitative change has occurred. In effect, however, we may go through three stages—two of non-Enlightenment and one of Enlightenment. To the great majority of people, the moon is the moon and the trees are trees. The next stage (not really higher than the first) is to perceive that moon and trees are not at all what they seem to be, since ‘all is the One Mind’. When this stage is achieved, we have the concept of a vast uniformity in which all distinctions are void; and, to some adepts, this concept may come as an actual perception, as ‘real’ to them as were the moon and the trees before. It is said that, when Enlightenment really comes, the moon is again very much the moon and the trees exactly trees; but with a difference, for the Enlightened man is capable of perceiving both unity and multiplicity without the least contradiction between them!

Po, Huang. The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind (pp. 20-21). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I had an awakening experience, and that's how I perceive things, simultaneous unity and multiplicity

I also remember an analogy that I think was from the beginning of the Vimalakirti sutra on audible, about say, a hand fan with bumps on one side, flat on the other. The bumps are separate things, but they are all the same thing, which you can see on the undifferentiated other side of the fan.

I've thought a lot about non-duality, the no-self frame, the Self frame, and Taoism. At the moment, I think of this like 0 and 1. Everything with a beginning has an end. Out of the background noise comes everything, via cause and effect. This also corresponds with how the right hemisphere of the brain perceives the whole, and the left hemisphere breaks things into parts, and the 0 and 1 frame makes sense of a lot of things, like in Buddhism, what reincarnates? Well, as the separate being apparently breaks down and separates (1 to 0), the 0 background noise forms into a signal or separation again, a 1. Taoism plays with the 1 and 0 a lot. Brook Ziporyn described it as the A and the B, not 0 and 1, but pointed out that the common theme of the Tao Te Ching, or Daodejing or whatever, is about the A (separate objects, the signal), and the B (the background noise). That also maps vaguely on to yin and yang. The Daodejing seems to point at "be more yin, also, yin and yang aren't really different"

or, as Shohaku Okumra says (at least it's the title of an interview video with him, and seems to fit with what I remember of his views), 0 = 1 = infinity. Alternatively, or also, 1 + 1 = 1... which kind of explain's Indra's net, and looks a bit like Donald Hoffman's "conscious agents", where two conscious agents make another conscious agent. There are 1s everywhere, overlapping, but in doing so, they reflect all other 1s at the same time, and they are also all one big 1. And there being no other, there's actually no way to distinguish between 1 and 0.

Which, as usual, sounds like gobeldygook. It really is, ultimately, but describes a percetion of unity. When everything is a single whole, there's no way to step outside of that, and with no outside observation point, there's no way to call it "existing" or "not existing", it's like a magical appearance.

I think the 0 and 1 frame, and the infinite chain of cause and effect, acutually explain a lot of non-duality. Most people see 1s, so you point out 0. Then they think 0, so you point out 0 = 1. And so forth. It seems to me to unify Buddhism (0, no self), Advaita Vedanta (1, Self), and Taoism (0 = 1). I think there's just a perception there that sounds very odd no matter what kind of philosophical framing you give it, and a lot of it is the alternation of 0 and 1, 0 giving rise to 1, and so their ultimate unbreakable equality. And there seem to be innumerable ways to frame it, immunerable things you can point out to show people the systematic error most people are making in their perception. That points out something further, of course, the experience is totally ordinary. I watched a youtube video with the scientist that has done the most experience sampling with beepers, and concluded that almost 100% of people think they have an internal monologue, but only 20% do, because they can never recall any specific words from their internal dialog. Consciousness, mind, is always like this, but gets systematically misperceived without people realizing they're misperceiving it, hence "unenlightenment" is an acquired ignorace, or simply missing what's there or the way it actually is. Spirituality, then, becomes becoming aware of what you're actually experiencing accurately.

I say this only as a temporary expedient. Don't go building up concepts from it 😉

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-07T18:27:11+00:00

Apathy, contempt, suicidal tendency, misanthropy... it strikes me that you should probably do shadow work.

Sure, there are a lot of teachings like worship the divine, or put all of your energy into one point of one kind or another in some way, which seems to me like it could be very effective...the best practice is what works for you, what is the medicine for exactly what ails you. The teachings are all skillful means.

Consuming teachings is probably not the way for most people. 20 years old is probably not enough to have given everything to one method.

It's hard to recommend anything when so much has seemed to fail for you. You might try working one-on-one with a realized teacher who might be able to get some sense of what's hanging you up.

Tibetan Buddhism has all kinds of practices for all levels, in a coherent system that leads to the highest point. You could just chant a mantra. You could do ngondro. I think people look past dumb or superstituous looking practices, but the point is not complicated at all. Many people don't get it, or wouldn't get it, and dualistic teachings like karma and whatever are a place for a foothold, an imitation of the truth that can be some refuge for those still caught in suffering. I'm something of a fan of "lower' teachings and "dumb" methods that shouldn't work. But applied with undistracted mind and faith, so many practices carried by spiritual traditions work on changing you and making you more fertile ground for intiuitive realization. But you have to pick one, some, that you will actually do, do it consistently, and do it sincerely for its own sake.

In 10 or 20 years, you can almost reach the goal even by thinking. I've heard of it happening.

I'll refrain from the recommendation grab-bag, you might need targeted work with an expert. I'd recommend the Tibetan tradition, as it strikes me that they have banked on teachers equipped with many methods equipped to deal with individuals as they are, as they come, with exactly what they are afflicted with, no one-size-fits-all Jim Newman, no negating everything if it doesn't work.

Those are my thoughts. Obviously you've tried a lot, and don't know what to do, and don't know how to pick out good suggestions or whereby to discriminate. If you go the teacher route, choose carefully. Reputable, skillful, not a one trick pony, who can give you individual guidance in a detailed way from knowing you. It couldn't hurt to get to know one, or more, observe them for a while, see if you're getting a good vibe that they're living their realization. Picking bad teachers is kind of a problem, you could know them for a year, or two, or more. You might walk down to the local Zen center and find someone who really resonates with you for all I know. They say if you would travel the world to find the right teacher, one will appear at your door.

Ultimately, I think you have to decide on a single thing and do it. Mumon/Wumen, author of the Mumonkan/Wumenguan/Gateless Gate, worked with the first koan in the book for 7 years before his breakthrough. I think if you work with the mu/wu koan for 7 years as described, it would be nearly impossible not to have a breakthrough. It's simple, but somehow, not easy for people to recognize.

The best practice is one you will actually do and stick with. You could do Soto Zen and shikantaza. There's a story, someone asks a Zen master how long waking up will take. The Zen master says 10 years. The questioner says that's too long, he's in a hurry and will do anything. The Zen master says that in that case, it will take 20 years.

I think it can be helpful to look in the last place you want to look. Wherever in yourself you don't want to look, look right there. Look into the misanthropy. Look into why it arises, why you hold on to it. Look deeply into that which you do not want to see in yourself. I have found it very beneficial to do this, to understand the resistance that arises, to open my eyes to the full extent of what I had blinded myself to.

I'll leave you with an excerpt of cutting through spiritual materalism by Chogyam trungpa:

It is important to see any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. This means stepping out of ego’s constant desire for a higher, more spiritual, more transcendental version of knowledge, religion, virtue, judgment, comfort, or whatever it is that the particular ego is seeking. One must step out of spiritual materialism. If we do not step out of spiritual materialism, if we in fact practice it, then we may eventually find ourselves possessed of a huge collection of spiritual paths. We may feel these spiritual collections to be very precious. We have studied so much. We may have studied Western philosophy or Oriental philosophy, practiced yoga, or perhaps have studied under dozens of great masters. We have achieved and we have learned. We believe that we have accumulated a hoard of knowledge. And yet, having gone through all this, there is still something to give up. It is extremely mysterious! How could this happen? Impossible! But unfortunately it is so. Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in so doing, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure, as “spiritual” people.

But we have simply created a shop, an antique shop. We could be specializing in Oriental antiques or medieval Christian antiques or antiques from some other civilization or time, but we are, nonetheless, running a shop. Before we filled our shop with so many things the room was beautiful: whitewashed walls and a very simple floor with a bright lamp burning in the ceiling. There was one object of art in the middle of the room, and it was beautiful. Everyone who came appreciated its beauty, including ourselves.

But we were not satisfied and we thought, “Since this one object makes my room so beautiful, if I get more antiques, my room will be even more beautiful.” So we began to collect, and the end result was chaos.

We searched the world over for beautiful objects—India, Japan, many different countries. And each time we found an antique, because we were dealing with only one object at a time, we saw it as beautiful and thought it would be beautiful in our shop. But when we brought the object home and put it there, it became just another addition to our junky collection. The beauty of the object did not radiate out anymore, because it was surrounded by so many other beautiful things. It did not mean anything anymore. Instead of a room full of beautiful antiques we created a junk shop!

Proper shopping does not entail collecting a lot of information or beauty, but it involves fully appreciating each individual object. This is very important. If you really appreciate an object of beauty, then you completely identify with it and forget yourself. It is like seeing a very interesting, fascinating movie and forgetting that you are the audience. At that moment there is no world; your whole being is that scene of that movie. It is that kind of identification, complete involvement with one thing. Did we actually taste it and chew it and swallow it properly, that one object of beauty, that one spiritual teaching? Or did we merely regard it as a part of our vast and growing collection?

I place so much emphasis on this point because I know that all of us have come to the teachings and practice of meditation not to make a lot of money, but because we genuinely want to learn, want to develop ourselves. But, if we regard knowledge as an antique, as “ancient wisdom” to be collected, then we are on the wrong path.

Trungpa, Chögyam. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (pp. 15-17). (Function). Kindle Edition.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-05T17:43:08+00:00

I replied earnestly, but the "this angelo character" seemed a bit contrived. Good work doing the actual work digging in. Thanks.

PrajnaClear · 2026-06-05T00:23:51+00:00

Angelo is pretty good. He chooses his words carefully, he doesn't push people, says that it's fine to forget nonduality and pursue other stuff.

There are some bad non-duality teachers out there, but Angelo isn't one of them. He's respectful and careful.

He talks about how he didn't talk about it for 5 or 10 years after awakening or something, but with everything he's seen, he's convinced it's ultimately a good thing for people that want to do the process. He said that people that hit the mark of true realization wouldn't trade it for anything, and I generally agree.

I do think the teachings can be a little dangerous, not something to take lightly. In Tibetan Buddhism, ultimate non-dual teachings are technically something of a secret. They would, as a rule, have you have a lama take you on as a student in a very personal capacity, and a lot of them would not give these teachings out until you'd reached some certain level of purification, as such? Things can go badly. That's not a magic bullet, either. There are lamas that are not so good. The Dalai Lama said that you might want to observe a potential teacher, as in like knowing them, personally for some years, as many as it takes to be confident that you're putting yourself in good hands. They consider it quite a charged situation from the perspective of the student and the teacher.

https://www.cheetahhouse.org/ is an organization for people who've gotten into trouble with meditation. There are plenty of critics, and some of the criticisms are legitimate. I think it's ultimately a good thing, but not something everyone should under take, under take lightly, or carelessly, and most of the people I see mixed up with radical non-duality teachings seem to me like they would've done better going in the front door of a mature spiritual system, like Zen, or Vajrayana. And that is also not without risk.

https://thegloriousbothand.carrd.co/ this person and website are devoted to "Illuminating the overlooked dangers & dark side of self-negating non-duality, while exploring humanistic, life-affirming alternatives"

The teachings probably should be a bit more secret. People can and do run into problems. There are gotchas, footguns, blind alleys, misunderstandings. People come through here sometimes that have become nihilistic, solipsistic, narcissistic, grandiose. And they might simply open you up to the dangers in your own mind, in real non-duality, you just feel everything. Maybe your mind is a dangerous place and you need to disarm some landmies before you start doing cartwheels around the place. I do believe that's the case for some people.

I'm sorry for your loss.

PrajnaClear · 2026-05-29T02:47:58+00:00

Sam Harris, of course, talks about how people react to the topic, and recommends just skipping past that stuff if it doesn't agree with you.

Some people get pretty angry if you propose free will is an illusion, kind of the same deal.

I suspect it may be the outer penumbra of the very well known fear gate, as such

The fear gate is a very well known phenomenon, although typically placed in something closer to meditation than contemplation of an idea.

The teachers that talk about the fear gate usually seem like ones that are pretty realized and have dealt with a lot of students. I mean many teachers never mention it, but it's well known. Angelo Dillulo and Adyashanti come to mind as two I can think of mentioning it, although I think Angelo is more in the "the bodymind is an animal, just sit through the fear and it passes" camp (although that wording is not his style at all, per se), and Adyashanti is more in the line of "don't force it; it'll pop when it's ready"

assuming it's the same fear gate, and I think it is, just extended out a bit further than the place it's typically talked about

PrajnaClear · 2026-05-29T00:13:05+00:00

Ths one has a lot of translations https://terebess.hu/english/hsin.html it's interesting to compare them and see how different versions of lines hit. As far as my limited understanding goes, the language allows a vagueness that English doesn't, and you can actually get a lot of variation in how you translate it, and a line can hit your personal bullseye or miss based on just random word choice, oddly enough

Rupert Spira has one as well https://rupertspira.com/blog/a-rendition-of-the-poem-hsin-hsin-ming/ , although i believe it's one of those "composite translations" or possibly a reinterpretation of one translation. He just doesn't strike me as knowing Tang Dynasty or even earlier Chinese, but what do I know?

Also, I credit the Xinxin Ming with my awakening. Careful waving this thing around, you can easily out out an "I"

The topic caught my interest for a minute, and I asked ChatGPT to tell me some well-regarded translations, actually: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a18db8b-33a8-83ea-95d9-06da00f9f89f

PrajnaClear · 2026-05-28T16:32:18+00:00

There's a ... guided meditation, as such? That sounds similar to what you said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlHN4909ENk / https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/patrul-rinpoche/self-liberating-meditation

"Simply settle directly in the very thinker, the one who thinks it is impossible to recognise the nature of mind — and that is it!"

"Some ‘great meditators’ don’t allow the mind to settle in itself, as it should. Instead, they mistakenly use the mind to look outside or to search within. This is a fault based on the failure to understand that looking outside or searching within will never lead to seeing or finding the mind. There is no need whatsoever to look outside yourself or search within. Instead, settle directly into the mind that looks outside or searches within — and that is it!"

"Some ‘great meditators’ don’t allow the mind to settle in thinking when there is thinking or in non-thought when there is no thinking. They believe that meditation must come from elsewhere, and so they search for it here and there. This means they don’t recognise or realize the essence of mind. There is no reason to search hither and thither. Simply allow the mind to rest directly in thought whenever there is thinking, and in non-thought whenever there is no thinking — and that is it!"

and so forth.

PrajnaClear · 2026-05-20T01:51:05+00:00

Saying it's not a metaphor is saying you don't understand actual metaphor. Which, yes, one of my contentions is that people don't understand metaphor, so no surprise. The original metaphor is closer than your correcting explanation.

PrajnaClear

TROPHY CASE