Unpopular truths...
-Things like desire, attachment, beliefs, are only unhealthy in their extreme, but ND isn't helping bring them into balance, but to take us to their opposite, equally unhealthy extreme
-Transcending does not mean going beyond something and then excluding it, that is destruction (or repression), not transcendence. detrbut transcending and then including it.
especially unpopular when we are running away from what we don't like in ourselves
-Self-compassion is much harder than self-abandonment
-Facing our shadows takes more courage than
-Much of what's being taught is spiritually bypassing, another highly marketable form of escape
-Denying material reality is just as soul-negating as denying the reality of spirit
-Popular non-duality, in being either/or, is an extension of humanity's black and white, binary thinking that divides the world with it's struggle to embrace paradox and mutual inclusivity
-Popular non-duality is rigidly dualistic
-Popular non-duality is not free of concepts they are based on unquestionable, absolute truth concepts
-Paradigms based on Unquestionable Absolute Truths are authoritarian and dogmatic in the very same way that religions are
-"Secular" non-dual teachings have kept the dogma got rid of moral values, but kept the dogma.
-The second half of the heart sutra - emptiness is form
-Utopian attempts to eradicate all suffering from the world have always lead to more suffering
-Effortlessness is not a "birth-right" ... the physical process of birth is agonizingly effortful
-Not all suffering comes from thinking
-People think that suffering isn't caused by external situations, but internal mind conditions, i.e. how we think about it, how we interpret it
-The Buddha and Ramana Maharshi went through periods when they could not fulfill their basic needs without the kindness of others.
-The Buddha abandoned his wife and newborn son in the middle of the night to embark his "enlightenment" path...it was at the expense of others...
-The Buddha could not find personal freedom from suffering without abandoning the wife and kids he held dear
-It’s the same ego that condemns itself for clinging to certainty, that seeks an ultimate truth it can claim with absolute certainty.
-Just because something is intangible doesn't mean it's not real
So even if we realise we are no-self — that we are nothing — we have to also realise that we are also the self. Unity and duality both exist on some level. Just because a self cannot be consciously identified as a thing — an experience localised in space and time — does not necessarily mean that it is an illusion. Remember that when we microscopically examine the reality of matter, it too slips through our fingers and making us question its reality, before stubbing our toe on a lump of it reminds us that it still has a substantial level of existence: in other words, "thingness" is not the measure of existence or reality.
-Expanded states of consciousness are double-edged swords, and not always positive
Seeing life against the backdrop of infinity can evoke joy, madness, terror, revulsion, love, gratitude, hilarity—or all of the above at once. You may delight in the world’s astonishing beauty or despair at its fragility and insignificance.