I've heard HH the Dalai Lama say that there are so many religions because there are so many different types of people. There are also many different types of Buddhism that, as a Buddhist, I believe are authentic, so it only makes sense that there are non-Buddhist systems leading to genuine realisation. Your example of Thomas Merton being a prime one. Any system that combines some reasoning and contemplative practices is worth a look, in my opinion.
Very concise overview Cort, thank you. I was always interested in finding the ultimate bridge between traditions. I was raised as a Christian, then very interested in other traditions and philosophies, including Tibetan budhism and Zen, Advaita vedanta, Stoics, Confucionism, Taoism etc. At this moment i have an instinctual feeling that regardless of the tradition and local culture, wether theist on non theist the expanse of conciousness we connect to could be the same when we remove all concepts.
For me it is a wonderful uplifting thought, that there are many different mountains with its own path, which all have enough space in this wide and open world of awareness. Like different layers which overlap without hindering each other in this wide and open space. They arise, merge and at least disapear in the same spacelike mental ground, like the metaphor of writing with ink on waves. Thank you Cort for this inspiering thoughts/mindgames.
An extremely clear and useful overview. Thank you, Cortland. I'm about to cross-post it. Maybe there are many paths up thee mountain that lead to different but similar peaks.
What resonates most is that there are many paths. After nearly 10 years of mediation, I am still excited that there is so much to experience and learn.
First I have to admit that I'm prejudiced in favor of the one-mountain view. I want there to be commonality among us. Further, though, can't the disparate experiences you cite be way stations along the same path? The expansive feeling of near-total absorption might boil down to the (temporary) undoing of the subject/object dualism, and the disintegration of temporal experience here described might amount to flashes of awareness of the illusory nature of continuity. I can testify to the former, though I still await the latter. Neither is an end in itself.
My question is can the state of stability ( calm abiding) then lead to pure awareness? I have always hoped so. For beginners it seems easier to understand. Thank you for all you offer through Dharma Lab
Thank you for this article. It helps me understand why others I have met have different and varied practices and goals for their meditation. I have been drawn to the Tibetan approach with Mingyur Rinpoche as my teacher, because I’m interested in what I can do in this lifetime, which from my point of view is probably my only life existence, and to see what I can do with my mind and being using meditative practices.
Great article Thank you. I think there are many paths but they all start with with being able to shut off sensory input so that we can tap into our non local consciousness. Once we can do that we can access the other 98% of reality. As Nikola Tesla said: "The day science begins to study the non-physical phenomena , it will make progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."
I don't agree, from what i hear great yogis can very well tap into their non local consciousness without shutting off sensory input, since both are but the natural expression of awareness. See Longchenpas Treasury of the Dharmadhatu and as explained by Mingyur Rinpoche.
Thank you for this fascinating article. I appreciated the way you highlighted the diversity of contemplative traditions rather than assuming they all point to the same realization.
I found myself reflecting on your description of cessation as "a complete gap." I wonder whether that language could be misunderstood as implying a simple absence of experience. From my own contemplation, I've sometimes glimpsed that what ceases is not necessarily experience itself, but the habitual way experience is constructed and grasped conceptually.
Could it be that thoughts, perceptions, and emotions may still arise, yet we relate to them differently? Perhaps what ceases is not appearances themselves, but our tendency to grasp and take them to be what we habitually imagine them to be.
I also found myself wondering whether the framing of Pure Awareness and Cessation as contrasting endpoints may obscure a deeper perspective hinted at in the Heart Sutra: that emptiness is not mere absence, and appearances are not separate from emptiness.
Just some reflections your article sparked in me. Thank you again for sharing it.
"True enlightenment is no enlightenment. Real emptiness is not empty." ~ Master Niutou Farong
Excellent post! This idea of zooming in vs zooming out is something I have been exploring recently. My background leans more toward the yogic/Vedantic side of things, and I've found aspects of both zooming in and zooming out within that tradition.
There is a yogic practice of focusing on the Ajna Chakra, which reveals a subtle channel called the Brahmanadi. During the practice, you get this sense of directionality, like a pipe is extending from your forehead. You then "zoom in" to travel down the pipe, so to speak.
There is also this section in the Brahma Sutras (3.3): "All the attributes of the Lord, both the excellences and absences of defects, declared by all the Vedas, not leaving out any of them, should be comprehended simultaneously in a single act of intellection. Comprehending all of them in that manner, Brahman, should be meditated upon..." I interpret that as a practice of "zooming out", where you move towards that more expansive awareness.
On the topic of research into jhana practices, I was just reading a preprint of an article by Matthew Sacchet's group that used fMRI and ML to classify jhana states. They achieved around 67% accuracy in predicting J1-J6. I'm so excited to see this kind of research being done! Though I'm sure it's extremely difficult, given the rarity of people who are able to access these states consistently. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.13008
Thank you so much for this article. I was captivated by every word because these are exactly the questions that have been accompanying me on my own journey.
I have been studying Kabbalah for nearly nineteen years, and about a year ago a deep question emerged within my path. That question led me to begin a meditation practice as a way to deepen my exploration, especially around opening the heart and seeing more clearly.
In Kabbalah, it is said that there are many paths leading to one truth, and that each person can remain with their own religion and customs. I think that as long as we remain honest with ourselves, and committed to inquiry, (and maybe to a true teacher) we are moving in the right direction.
Humbly, it depends. Every experience is relative, be it arising or ceasing or transitional. Due to its dependent nature, no experience appears by itself.
I so very much appreciate your posing this question and offering such a clear synopsis of the key considerations in trying to answer it. To answer your question of us, I personally practice both modes of meditation, although in the hatha yoga tradition of naada yoga (deep listening.)
In naada yoga practice one can employ a broad inclusive attention that spans outward, or engage internal attention that follows increasingly subtle objects of attention — the breath, the heartbeat, the circulation, the sound of Pranic vibration itself...which produce an experience of awareness with a different flavor, though not altogether distinct from the other.
I like to think of these different modes of meditation as looking at the same reality through different lenses, quantum vs cosmic, eventually they begin to resemble one another.
Thank you, Cort, for raising these questions and providing this clear overview.
I read some Merton, back in the day; also Dan Millman, Sheldon Kopp, and especially Thích Nhất Hạnh. But most of what I know about Tibetan Buddhism I’ve learned from your team at Humin: the Healthy Minds App, which I started using two years ago; your book A Meditator’s Guide to Buddhism; and the many posts and podcasts you share on @Dharma Lab.
So my question is – no matter how many mountains or what else distinguishes those mountains, do all Buddhist meditation paths lead to compassion? To the intention of being of benefit not only to self, but to others?
That focus is probably the most important thing of value I’ve drawn from the past two years: I love what the practice does for me, the many ways my daily life feels different and better than when I first took it up, but far more compelling and central is to pull myself back, again and again, to basic compassion, to the intention to be of benefit to others. The more I am able to access that, to let it break through my habitual responses, the better I feel (and I thank your team for the neuroscience behind that), and the more able I am to concretely manifest that intention.
Dr Shamil Chandaria together with Reuben Laukonnen wrote a paper with a framework that attempts to synthesis all these paths, leaning on the predictive processing lens. It's called A Beautiful Loop and is worth googling
I've heard HH the Dalai Lama say that there are so many religions because there are so many different types of people. There are also many different types of Buddhism that, as a Buddhist, I believe are authentic, so it only makes sense that there are non-Buddhist systems leading to genuine realisation. Your example of Thomas Merton being a prime one. Any system that combines some reasoning and contemplative practices is worth a look, in my opinion.
Very concise overview Cort, thank you. I was always interested in finding the ultimate bridge between traditions. I was raised as a Christian, then very interested in other traditions and philosophies, including Tibetan budhism and Zen, Advaita vedanta, Stoics, Confucionism, Taoism etc. At this moment i have an instinctual feeling that regardless of the tradition and local culture, wether theist on non theist the expanse of conciousness we connect to could be the same when we remove all concepts.
For me it is a wonderful uplifting thought, that there are many different mountains with its own path, which all have enough space in this wide and open world of awareness. Like different layers which overlap without hindering each other in this wide and open space. They arise, merge and at least disapear in the same spacelike mental ground, like the metaphor of writing with ink on waves. Thank you Cort for this inspiering thoughts/mindgames.
An extremely clear and useful overview. Thank you, Cortland. I'm about to cross-post it. Maybe there are many paths up thee mountain that lead to different but similar peaks.
What resonates most is that there are many paths. After nearly 10 years of mediation, I am still excited that there is so much to experience and learn.
First I have to admit that I'm prejudiced in favor of the one-mountain view. I want there to be commonality among us. Further, though, can't the disparate experiences you cite be way stations along the same path? The expansive feeling of near-total absorption might boil down to the (temporary) undoing of the subject/object dualism, and the disintegration of temporal experience here described might amount to flashes of awareness of the illusory nature of continuity. I can testify to the former, though I still await the latter. Neither is an end in itself.
My question is can the state of stability ( calm abiding) then lead to pure awareness? I have always hoped so. For beginners it seems easier to understand. Thank you for all you offer through Dharma Lab
Thank you for this article. It helps me understand why others I have met have different and varied practices and goals for their meditation. I have been drawn to the Tibetan approach with Mingyur Rinpoche as my teacher, because I’m interested in what I can do in this lifetime, which from my point of view is probably my only life existence, and to see what I can do with my mind and being using meditative practices.
Great article Thank you. I think there are many paths but they all start with with being able to shut off sensory input so that we can tap into our non local consciousness. Once we can do that we can access the other 98% of reality. As Nikola Tesla said: "The day science begins to study the non-physical phenomena , it will make progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."
I don't agree, from what i hear great yogis can very well tap into their non local consciousness without shutting off sensory input, since both are but the natural expression of awareness. See Longchenpas Treasury of the Dharmadhatu and as explained by Mingyur Rinpoche.
Hi Cort,
Thank you for this fascinating article. I appreciated the way you highlighted the diversity of contemplative traditions rather than assuming they all point to the same realization.
I found myself reflecting on your description of cessation as "a complete gap." I wonder whether that language could be misunderstood as implying a simple absence of experience. From my own contemplation, I've sometimes glimpsed that what ceases is not necessarily experience itself, but the habitual way experience is constructed and grasped conceptually.
Could it be that thoughts, perceptions, and emotions may still arise, yet we relate to them differently? Perhaps what ceases is not appearances themselves, but our tendency to grasp and take them to be what we habitually imagine them to be.
I also found myself wondering whether the framing of Pure Awareness and Cessation as contrasting endpoints may obscure a deeper perspective hinted at in the Heart Sutra: that emptiness is not mere absence, and appearances are not separate from emptiness.
Just some reflections your article sparked in me. Thank you again for sharing it.
"True enlightenment is no enlightenment. Real emptiness is not empty." ~ Master Niutou Farong
Wonderful insight! Very inspiring
Excellent post! This idea of zooming in vs zooming out is something I have been exploring recently. My background leans more toward the yogic/Vedantic side of things, and I've found aspects of both zooming in and zooming out within that tradition.
There is a yogic practice of focusing on the Ajna Chakra, which reveals a subtle channel called the Brahmanadi. During the practice, you get this sense of directionality, like a pipe is extending from your forehead. You then "zoom in" to travel down the pipe, so to speak.
There is also this section in the Brahma Sutras (3.3): "All the attributes of the Lord, both the excellences and absences of defects, declared by all the Vedas, not leaving out any of them, should be comprehended simultaneously in a single act of intellection. Comprehending all of them in that manner, Brahman, should be meditated upon..." I interpret that as a practice of "zooming out", where you move towards that more expansive awareness.
On the topic of research into jhana practices, I was just reading a preprint of an article by Matthew Sacchet's group that used fMRI and ML to classify jhana states. They achieved around 67% accuracy in predicting J1-J6. I'm so excited to see this kind of research being done! Though I'm sure it's extremely difficult, given the rarity of people who are able to access these states consistently. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.13008
Thank you so much for this article. I was captivated by every word because these are exactly the questions that have been accompanying me on my own journey.
I have been studying Kabbalah for nearly nineteen years, and about a year ago a deep question emerged within my path. That question led me to begin a meditation practice as a way to deepen my exploration, especially around opening the heart and seeing more clearly.
In Kabbalah, it is said that there are many paths leading to one truth, and that each person can remain with their own religion and customs. I think that as long as we remain honest with ourselves, and committed to inquiry, (and maybe to a true teacher) we are moving in the right direction.
For now, Shamatha and open awareness.
Humbly, it depends. Every experience is relative, be it arising or ceasing or transitional. Due to its dependent nature, no experience appears by itself.
I so very much appreciate your posing this question and offering such a clear synopsis of the key considerations in trying to answer it. To answer your question of us, I personally practice both modes of meditation, although in the hatha yoga tradition of naada yoga (deep listening.)
In naada yoga practice one can employ a broad inclusive attention that spans outward, or engage internal attention that follows increasingly subtle objects of attention — the breath, the heartbeat, the circulation, the sound of Pranic vibration itself...which produce an experience of awareness with a different flavor, though not altogether distinct from the other.
I like to think of these different modes of meditation as looking at the same reality through different lenses, quantum vs cosmic, eventually they begin to resemble one another.
Thank you, Cort, for raising these questions and providing this clear overview.
I read some Merton, back in the day; also Dan Millman, Sheldon Kopp, and especially Thích Nhất Hạnh. But most of what I know about Tibetan Buddhism I’ve learned from your team at Humin: the Healthy Minds App, which I started using two years ago; your book A Meditator’s Guide to Buddhism; and the many posts and podcasts you share on @Dharma Lab.
So my question is – no matter how many mountains or what else distinguishes those mountains, do all Buddhist meditation paths lead to compassion? To the intention of being of benefit not only to self, but to others?
That focus is probably the most important thing of value I’ve drawn from the past two years: I love what the practice does for me, the many ways my daily life feels different and better than when I first took it up, but far more compelling and central is to pull myself back, again and again, to basic compassion, to the intention to be of benefit to others. The more I am able to access that, to let it break through my habitual responses, the better I feel (and I thank your team for the neuroscience behind that), and the more able I am to concretely manifest that intention.
Dr Shamil Chandaria together with Reuben Laukonnen wrote a paper with a framework that attempts to synthesis all these paths, leaning on the predictive processing lens. It's called A Beautiful Loop and is worth googling