Consilience

This is not correct. Neo Advaita and the legitimate Buddhist contemplative path are incomparable. Infinite consciousness and God is discussed ad nauseam in Mahayana Buddhism. Look into the 10 stages of a Bodhisattva in the Avatamsaka Sutra. God realization is still not Awakening, real Awakening is so far beyond what this forum talks about it’s both hilarious and depressing to read. Real Awakening demands lifetimes, lifetimes, of practice and purification, both of which cannot be substituted with using psychedelics. At the moment of death, all of the past God realized states will be worth less than dust compared to the consequences of karma.

It‘s true, and yet actions, behaviors, and even thoughts of others do have consequences. When all beings are seen as one, one sees the gift of realization for another.

The point of awakening is true happiness, peace, love independent of phenomenological condition. This is not only the most precious gift you can give yourself, but it is the most precious gift you can give all beings.

@Breakingthewall And again, reference any enlightened master that didn’t have teachers.

That’s not how the successful teacher student relationship works. As you yourself mentioned, there is no other. So the teacher is merely lighting the latent possibility within yourself, reflecting back what is possible as both you and as no one at all. The teacher is a pure emptiness embodied, which is why they are trust worthy enough to teach. When there is no one behind the eyes of the guru, there is literally no one to give your authority over to, which is precisely why you can trust them! Finding the right teacher is difficult, often only appearing until the student is actually ready to wake up. You are not trustworthy unless you have complete integrity in the relative domain. Don’t confuse absolute trust with relative trust. Relative trust is the metric you can use to measure whether you’ve actually realized absolute trust. To truly trust, you must be completely fearless. To be completely fearless, you’d need to know what you are. To know what you are would mean you are awakened. Are you awake? Are you actually trustworthy, or are you just bullshitting yourself by conflating absolute and relative truths?

Finding the right teacher is almost a requirement to actually make it. Find any enlightened teacher that made it all alone. It’s true only YOU can become enlightened, but the support of a teacher or community is extremely powerful, especially given most minds are utterly untrustworthy, even minds that have the drive for awakening.

This is complete hubris This is complete bs

100%. There’s a video where he talks about a 2 month Mahasi retreat where there was a 4 hour strong determination sit everyday. Imagine 60 days, 4 hours of SDS. Unimaginable. Actually quite dangerous to the body, but still. The mind that comes out of those 2 months will be on a completely different level. Glorifying pain is not the objective, Buddha intentionally taught the middle way. But considering how much aversion the modern mind has towards pain, the modern mind that’s addicted to a myriad of endless pleasures, comforts, and distractions, working directly with pain is enormously powerful. No other teacher talks about how to work with pain strategically/effectively. The only other teachers I know who’s worked with pain like Shinzen are Soryu while he trained in Rinzai or Ralston through his martial study. The goal is not pain for the sake of pain, but learning the ultimately reality/nature of pain, which is done by paying attention to it, deeply, ie mindfulness.

Shinzen once told a story of a Zen master who was on a Japanese talk show. The interviewer asked the roshi, what is Enlightenment? The roshi responded with something along the lines “I guess you could say enlightenment is the passing away of the distinction between enlightenment and non enlightenment.” There is a stage of enlightenment beyond the need for enlightenment to be any particular state, because it‘s recognized that what is true, is true no matter what state, and has been true even before one began meditating. Also don’t let Shinzen fool you, even his “normal” or “non-enlightened” states are way beyond 99.9% of the population. When a being lowers suffering to that degree and has that much clarity, even if one is not in a deep state there’s a dramatic difference.

I disagree. It’s true Zen isn’t about manipulating energies in the same way Kriya is, but Zen emphasizes movement, riding the ox, letting the life energy move you heavily. There’s a quote by one of the great Zen masters Hakuin, “Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness.” Have you meet a living Zen master who openly transmits? Enormous, ENORMOUS, amounts of energy. And no, not all paths emphasize this energy element by this logic. Theravada Buddhism or Christina Mysticism do not, for example.

Well they say it takes one to know one. Takes someone who‘s enlightened to know another enlightened being. If you can’t see the unimaginable wokeness of Shinzen, well… no amount of internet conversation will do it. Only practice and being woke would Also Renzai Zen is an energetic path. Shinzen talks about the whole “Zen bounce” for a reason. Zen teaches people how to unlock enormous reservoirs of energy so anyone thinking Zen is dry, tame, boring, stale, hasn’t trained in Zen, or hasn’t trained with an authentic Zen lineage holder.

That’s a bad argument man. It assumes If someone stops trying to go deeper they’ve made it. It also assumes Shinzen is still trying to go deeper which Im not even sure where that idea comes from.

It’s clear you’ve drinken the actualized koolaid regarding Buddhist awakening. You should check out the Flower Garland Sutra if you want to see just how far the Buddhist path really goes. The sutra talks about omniscience, God, infinity, and the unfathomable depths of Awakening. Actualized.org as a whole has absolutely no clue what it’s talking about regarding Buddhism. Secondly, Shinzen’s not even a Buddhist. I think your bias is that you’re speaking from belief and ignorance regarding what you project to be the final goal of awakening. I mean same here, it’s good to acknowledge our biases. From what Ive studied, Shinzen teaches way more no bullshit, straight to the heart of the matter teachings than Sadhguru. There’s a reason Sadhguru appeals to the masses. The masses aren’t interested in true liberation, it’s not something that sells well at all.

I think there's definitely uses. Soryu Forall uses transmission and it's had a significant effect on my spiritual growth. I was just meaning it's hard to base a teacher's level of Awakening on whether they're using transmission or not. Very interesting. Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if certain beings benefit more from transmission than others. I also am inclined to agree that yes some may no more than useless highs while others are highly intelligent, energetic forms of communication/reconfiguration/transformation. This is based on my own experience plus yes hearing reports from others. BUT! I also see how this could lead someone into the trap of relying on a guru figure, or a guru figure abusing power.

The same reason Peter Ralston does. Because they don't want people to turn the work into being about the teacher. I've heard Ralston say he could get people stoned, but stopped because too many people were not taking the work seriously enough and getting distracted/mistaken with what it was really about.

I'm not sure. In the Advaita Vedanta school, truth IS bliss. I've had experiences of pure emptiness being blissful, but this bliss is very different than the types of bliss from kundalini, feelings of love/energy. The bliss of truth is always present. But kundalini, feelings of love, energy and bliss, for sure can be side effects from this work.

Well maybe it's because I've done a few retreats with him now, but to me he seems very quirky, light hearted, and joyous, but also as you mentioned, extremely ordinary. So yes I can see how some would view that demeanor as flat. As you also mentioned though, once you know what to look for it becomes obvious how far Shinzen has really gone. Different paths do lead to different results yes, but the ultimate aim of the path, Enlightenment, the Truth, is synonymous, which is what is most important. At least to me.

Agreed. But as I said, I've had private conversations which give me the impression Shinzen is beyond Sahdguru. At the bear minimum, Shinzen is older and therefore has more training hours under his belt. The only reason I'm defending him here is that some noobie reading this thread could misinterpret Shinzen as not being a good source of information based on some of these comments when in reality, he's an enormously powerful source of information and inspiration. And again, unlike Sadhguru, all of Shinzen's main teachings are free in video and written format. His main teachings also cut to the heart of Enlightenment in unusually precise language, and provide a very basic framework of how to bridge practice with living life. I haven't studied with Sadhguru one on one, but from what is publicly available and popular, he is very vague, flashy, and seems to make it about him more than Shinzen, who makes it about the practice, the work. But again, I recognize both are doing good work in terms of raising awareness and that's an important acknowledgment.

He really is dude. He really is. Of course he has no reason to flaunt about it or compare himself to others. Way beyond all of that.

Shinzen is overflowing with joy, not sure what you guys are talking about. Shinzen is definitely comparable to Sadhguru. Not only that, but the precision from which he speaks is radically more advanced than anything Sadhguru has to offer, and it’s all free and on YouTube or in manuals. Shinzen’s UM system is a path to God for those who understand what he’s pointing to. Shinzen is intentionally meek, doesn’t seek to accumulate endless followers, or wealth. He intentionally limits how much he “transmits” and to the masses, this will be mistaken as “not as enlightened,” or “Zen kills the heart.” Which is particularly funny given that the Zen Master’s ultimate goal is to walk the path of the Bodhisattva, which is the most intense, heart wrenchingly compassionate heart centered path any being can walk. You’re literally vowing to continue being reincarnated until all beings are Awakened which is an impossible goal, yet they strive, endlessly and eternally. Should be noted though Shinzen isn’t a Zen teacher. At the end of the day, Shinzen wont resonate with everyone, but from my own biased experience, I would put Shinzen as being well beyond Sadhguru in level of Awakening. But Ive heard stories about and had one on one conversations with Shinzen that give me that impression. Dude is actually insanely woke, way more than you’d ever expect watching his YouTube videos.

You should check out the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth. The head teacher Soryu Forall trained in Rinzai Zen for a decade and has studied in other traditions as well. Doesn’t teach Zen, but very Zen inspired training environment.

Yes for sure, in the same way our true nature is excruciating pain and torment. “fundamentally it seems to me that all those feelings are appearances in and as true nature.” Yes exactly. And noticing their nature is crucial to breaking through into that which never changes yet could only be described as truly infinite.

@Razard86 Maybe I misinterpreted what you were describing but if the bliss is gone now, or if the bliss was a qualitative experience in any way shape or form, it’s not your true nature. And your true nature was what you were talking about.

If the bliss you discovered is transitory, it is not the bliss Rupert is talking about when he describes our true nature as bliss. Any blissful feelings, mind states, or anything related to perception/experience/qualia is not our true nature. Yet what you’re describing is certainly possible as a default *state* through rigorous practice, but don’t confuse this with your true nature.

@kieranperez It was a pleasure. I wish you a fruitful and auspicious journey in the monastery! We met up in Portland Oregon. Really nice timing too as it was right after I got back from training at MAPLE.