Sublime

I especially enjoyed the work of Sir John Woodroffe (1865–1936), a.k.a. “Arthur Avalon,” who—while prominently serving as Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court in British India—spent his private hours explaining, defending and ultimately practicing in the then widely reviled Hindu religious schools of Shaiva and Shakta Tantrism.

As Foucault tried to tell us, any dissemination of information—which the dharma is—is inherently an exercise of power. As such, any claim that “I’ve got the answer” is also a claim of authority, of “listen to me.” Yet for all the venerable guru traditions in Buddhism, I am struck by how different the Buddha himself was when it came to questions of

I had many teachers, but the most central were two of the wisest Theravada teachers of the past century: one in Thailand, Ajahn Chah, and one in Burma, Mahasi Sayadaw.

love to meditate either informally or in the way of Zen, or of Tibetan zog-chen, or in the manner of mantra yoga, which employs the contemplation of sound, produced by the voice or by such instruments as gongs.

Mahamudra is like a mind that clings to nought. Thus practicing, in time you will reach buddhahood.