A Vajrayana path
An outline of the stages, and why it could (should?) be for you
There are many different Buddhist spiritual paths one can explore with different landmarks and destinations. Most popular in the West is the Theravadan path of insight - to the extent that there even is a staged path leading somewhere1 in most Buddhist sanghas - this would include “pragmatic dharma” as well as what you’ll find at places like Spirit Rock or Insight Meditation Society. Those are perfectly fine paths to pursue - I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum. However, I do believe that these paths are the scenic route through the spiritual territory. If you want to spend a lot of time parsing fine details of your moment to moment lived experience, reveling in special states etc, then by all means go for it! But I’m a householder (i.e. not a monastic) - the world desperately needs help right now and there is a great deal of urgency. We need all the emotionally mature, integrated, loving adults we can get. So my one proselytizing plea is not to get lost in the lights of Las Vegas (a favorite phrase of my teacher) and instead consider a more direct path toward wholeness.
The path that I outline below is Indo-Tibetan and Tantric. It is Mahamudra and Dzogchen (and somewhat Kashmiri Shaivist too) 2. It is a tradition that’s alive and relevant - there are tens of thousands of people and hundreds of skilled teachers that practice in this tradition. It has been adapted to the West by a variety of Tibetans and Westerners alike. It is no longer the domain of just a select group of elites. It is available to anyone who wants to practice sincerely. If you practice sincerely with devotion it will work3, and quickly4.
The path has three stages, maybe a fourth if you include the preliminaries.
Preliminaries
Traditionally preliminaries can be quite extensive, e.g. 100,000 prostrations. Ken McLeod’s fabulous book Wake Up To Your Life is an entire book of different preliminary practices. They are good to do - they can create a seriousness of spiritual purpose, turn the mind towards death and impermanence, and foster devotion. I would also include Western psychological work potentially in this bucket. Going to therapy, doing various forms of relational work, or taking psychedelics intentionally are all good preparatory practices.
Your entire life can be seen as a preliminary as well. For many of us our preliminaries are also the mistakes we made, our traumas, the suffering we caused ourselves and others, our burnout and lack of meaning we felt as we achieve our goals and found they didn’t satisfy. All of this turns the mind to practice. We say — no more! Enough! We can’t bear it any longer! There are people I know whose lives are so wonderful that they don’t have enough grist for the mill - spiritual practice is merely another feather in their cap, a way to remove the last thorn in their side. For such people I say — wait a little longer. Life will find you and create the need for practice.
I would also caution that preliminaries can become a kind of trap, a set of limiting beliefs that lead to the belief that you aren’t really ready. For some people, engaging in preliminary practices can actually happen in parallel with the other stages as well. You might find yourself called to some of these later on in the path. That’s ok too. Many forms of trauma healing, for example, go better as one makes progress. That’s because progress creates a capacity to feel difficult feelings and allow difficult thoughts to arise. That capacity can be utilized to bring the hard stuff into awareness and you might find faster healing as a result. The goal here is to do just enough to have the requisite followthrough5 - once you have some of that, you’re ready to go.
Ground
The goal of the first stage is to get a glimpse of the Ground of Being, the nature of mind, dharmakaya, rigpa, the natural state, pure consciousness, whatever you want to call it (not a thing!). This awakened awareness, Buddha-nature, is already something inside you; it doesn’t need to be manufactured. It is obscured by the clouds of conditioning and ego, so the first thing we have to do is clear away the clouds just enough so you can see clearly6. This is done by, first, achieving some degree of concentrative stability. By that I mean, when you meditate on an object like the breath, you stay on the object mostly continuously without distraction. Full jhanic absorption is not required.
Stability sets the stage. Once you have stability, then you can start to do “view-based meditations.” A View is a perspective on experience — awakening can be thought of more as successfully taking a perspective on experience rather than as any particular experience itself. You can think of it as a top-down directed activity of the mind. You set an intention to view reality as a construction of mind (empty) after having been persuaded conceptually or philosophically. And by setting that intention over and over again in meditation, eventually the bottoms up experience emerges in coherence with the top-down intention.
A variety of practices can scaffold this way of seeing. They include meaningful rituals and empowerments, tantric practices like deity yoga, or receiving pointing out instructions from a skilled teacher. Creating a sacred space definitely helps set the stage for the right type of experience. Transmission of this kind can be viewed from an ordinary perspective or a supernatural one. Either way, once the way of seeing is successfully adopted, a glimpse of awakening happens.
Path
Post glimpse this next stage is all about stabilization. Can you find your way back in all times and all situations? Traditionally this includes during sleep and dream as well7. You practice the view on the cushion, getting intimately familiar with it and then take the perspective into everyday life. Certain adornments (not to be confused with awakening) can arise: bliss, clarity and non-thought. There are a variety of practices that foster stabilization that can function as a kind of cue learning. You set up certain cues that remind you, causing the View to automatically arise. The process shifts from one where you have to deliberately do something to a process that does itself. Meditation is no longer about running a mental algorithm and more like a deliberate breaking down of the artificiality of meditation as a construct. Meditation becomes non-meditation8.
During this period one works to integrate the insights into daily life as well. Conduct improves, relationships shift. One can get pretty preachy at this stage too, but it eventually subsides. A sense of deep compassion for others emerges. Part of this integration process often includes “dharmadhatu exhaustion”, sometimes called “self-arising / self-liberating”. It’s sort of like memory reconsolidation therapy with awakening. Memories, aspects of your conditioning, arise and are viewed from the perspective of awakening. Once seen in this way, they are drained of their causal powers. In the course of this practice, the natural compassion of the Ground of Being shines through and begins to spontaneously direct your activities in the world.
Fruition
When the perspective of awakening stabilizes, the mountain becomes a mountain again; in a way you just end up where you started, a normal person. In another sense a radical shift has taken place. Instead of having a fixed way of showing up, the self shows up as a display for the benefit of those around you. Actions flow effortlessly. Affordances for beneficial action are present as you abide in a sacred world9. My teacher would say that “there’s an end to the path” (i.e. Buddha-hood) — this is not something generally agreed upon. Regardless, what continues on is the deepening of wisdom. As one orients toward the benefit of others, you develop wisdom and skill in helping others. The development of that skillfulness is a never ending process. Positive qualities of mind and body blossom. The question of whether one is in or out of the View is no longer relevant. Everything is subsumed within the View. Nirvana and samsara are one single sphere.
Summary
That’s the path. In short:
Get serious10.
Get concentrated.
Contact the Ground.
Stay with the Ground.
Do some Buddha-ing.
For some practice communities there is no progress anywhere and talk of awakening or enlightenment is taboo. An excess of goal orientation can be problematic, of course. The only thing worse is total aimlessness. Of course if your goal is just to feel a little better and reduce stress that’s fine too.
Any mistakes in describing the stages are mine, however.
In fact, you don’t even have to be Buddhist — the most essential philosophical outlook of this path is “emptiness”. The spiritual experiences that one encounters on the path are both insubstantial and vividly appearing. Their ontological status is secondary. The fruits are one of both a seeming sacredness and also a thoroughly skeptical humility. And for that reason I believe that this core of emptiness and the essentials of this path could be (and sometimes is) adapted to any other religious faith. You can find it in Sufism, for example, or in certain Christian mystics, and within non-dual strands of Judaism as well.
Not decades, years.
In Yiddish there is a term “sitzfleisch” — meaning your ass in the seat. In Tibetan Buddhism there is a famous story of the great teacher Milarepa showing his student Gampopa his hard calloused butt as his final lesson in enthusiastic perserverance.
Unlike in the Theravadan path, the notion of “no self” is not essential. There’s no need to get rid of the self. It’s a useful construct; it just need to be appropriately utilized. This is one reason I think this path may be safer than the Theravadan approach - i.e. less likely to lead to psychotic breaks or dark nights of the soul. Of course, there’s risk in any path that promises to transform.
People do “Dream Yoga” as part of this.
Non-meditation consists in just setting up the view (with intention) and then resting in that. There’s no more doing, no interfering with the process of the mind. No need to make thoughts go away or maintain concentration any longer, the practitioner simply rests the mind, allowing things to arise and pass away as they are. Non-meditation can also be practiced as part of the Ground stage. These boundaries are a little fuzzy, of course.
There are advanced practices that one can do to transform perception so that the world and one’s somatosensory experience more broadly appear as sacred. For example tummo, or “inner fire” practice can be used in this way.
But not too serious! A nice does of light-heartedness is helpful if the practice gets a little too heavy.