I tried listening to many nonduality speakers online. You know the kind. However, only one of them stuck with me, Jim Newman.
Jim is like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. He’s always calling for beheadings.
Off with your hopes!
Off with your awareness!
Off with your constant seeking!
He’s also like those Zen Masters of yesteryear beating their sleepy disciples with wooden sticks.1
Wake up!
Form is emptiness!
In other words, Jim is very direct. Some would even say dry. But there is no point in kicking the can down the road. You have to hit it where it hurts so to speak.
Many people have been meditating for years, decades. Sitting in Zazen2, reading koans, trying to decipher the Shobogenzo3, following Dzogchen practices4. This usually leads to more seeking and, in the end, more frustration. As Jim says, all this seeking is pointless. Seeking is illusory. What you seek is already here, now.
It’s much easier to understand enlightenment through a direct glimpse. It’s like a sudden fall. The ground opens up and you plunge into nothingness. You can’t explain it with words, though. So yes, the meaning of this paragraph is also illusory.
Personally, the best way to catch sight of this glimpse is through the pointing experiment, which I call the instant ‘enlightenment’ method. Just try it. You might understand it straight away—or not. If you do, all the seeking stops immediately. There’s nothing to seek because the seeker doesn’t exist.
That’s what I like about Jim Newman. He doesn’t perpetuate illusions, even the illusion of seeking. There is no hope for you.
They were called keisaku or ‘awakening stick’. Probably a much more effective insight method than years of sitting still.
A collection of works written in Japanese by the 13th century Japanese Buddhist monk and founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen school, Eihei Dōgen.
In Tibetan Buddhism, Dzogchen consists of a series of practices that reveal a "direct, non-dual and non-conceptual knowledge" of the absolute nature—which has become veiled by dualistic conditioning.
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