Your self is not a spiritual obstacle | Vividness

Now, this answer is not going to be intellectual. If you say something about light to a blind man, this is intellectual. If the blind man himself becomes capable of seeing, this is existential. This is what I mean when I say that Tantra is existential.

We’re not here to fix or improve ourselves—I like to say practice actually puts an end to self-improvement. But it’s very hard to stay with that sense of not needing to do anything, not to turn the zendo into a spiritual gymnasium where we get ourselves mentally in shape. It’s hard to really do nothing at all.

Practice, then, is simply to do what you truly are. In any moment of effective practice, the need for practice is alleviated. You realize that you are what you were trying to achieve or create. You are openness, alive as love.

What is spiritual realization? The belief that you are spirit? No, that’s a thought. A little closer to the truth than the thought that believes you are who your birth certificate says you are, but still a thought. Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find