Comments on “Two new podcasts: tantra and ritual creation”

“Empty ritual”: Of course we don’t like our rituals to be empty. We’d much prefer them to be chock full of exciting and hopefully fashionable meaning. Of course that motivation would attempt to separate meaning from meaninglessness, and ultimately form from emptiness. Perhaps, for buddhist methods (‘rituals’) a view that didn’t try to separate form from emptiness would be a better place to start than reinventing a new ritual that has all the meaning we’d prefer it to have. In the example of tantric ngöndro, the principle and function of the practice is to realize emptiness, emptiness which is the ground of tantric realization. So at first, like a good CrossFit trainer, you pick yourself and up and you throw yourself down, and maybe you take some solace in that you are becoming more fit with each of these burpees (prostrations), but as the count goes on and on and on, beyond all reason, purpose or meaning, maybe being a ‘zombie’ practitioner is actually the place the practice is designed to take you, a space in which you can die (exactly what you don’t want of course) so that from that experiential death of the addiction to the need for meaning, you can discover whatever it is there is to discover there (and spoiling that would NOT be a substitute for getting there and experiencing it viscerally - like a zombie).

Your pal Brad Warner, on the same wavelength http://hardcorezen.info/that-dirty-word-buddhism/2667

Oh checking with this links
http://chanhtuduy.com/letter-no-137-to-disciples-how-to-verify-the-authenticity-of-buddhist-sutras-dear-disciples/