After (finally) posting “Avoiding the Core Teachings of the Buddha” I scrolled through my blog drafts looking for something that I thought I’d started to write. Instead, I found this fragment, relevant to my last post. I’ve cleaned it up, and In just a moment it will be posted. Yay, one less draft.
Sam Harris’ experience comes from one of the lesser known branches of Buddhist practice, called Dzogchen. Researching it, I found this and this which describes several approaches to Buddhist practice.
But the best description (at least the one I like best) is this one:
Hinayana is like a bicycle. It is slow, and carries only one person, but it’s cheap, simple, and gets you there in the end. Mahayana is a bus: when you drive the vehicle, you bring many people with you. Tantrayana is a sports car: it is fast, dangerous, and not for most people. Dzogchen is a teleportation booth: it’s instantaneous. (from here)
That’s what waking up has felt like. Teleportation.
Unfortunately, it’s impermanent and unsatisfying.
And I’m working on understanding the third Characteristic of Existence.
Archived as published. This text is not edited here.