David Eagleman for Buddha

I think that "Advaita Shuffle" approach is really sad, because it gives nondual teaching such a weird reputation.

It's like reducing all of Zen practice to one koan. The koans are only relevant and applicable to each student at a certain point in practice, and the specific koan that is applicable is different for each student. Imagine sitting in a room full of beginners and aggressively pounding them with koans? It would be bizarre and not particularly useful.

I am not a non dualist, but I guess that for those who are that non dualism might be a little like anatta is in my tradition; it is a very useful and essential tool for practice, which at the same time can be a total block if reified and taken as a self-standing doctrine. Like most things, the kalama sutta points the way here—does it lead to the reduction of suffering? How can we use this as a useful tool in our practice, and avoid taking it as a truth to be assigned value outside of our own experience of it?

In Thai forest Buddhism most teachers HATE talking about anatta because the fact is that most people need to do a lot of work on their self before they realize that they don't have one. But if you are skillful about it and you use it where it's effective and constructive (and ignore it when it comes to, say, cultivating the parami), then it's beautiful and liberating.

Having just now found out what mushroom culture is, I guess the above approach is kind of mushroomy? To be honest I don't have a problem with that. I find discussion of the nature of enlightenment and the jhanas (as opposed to advice on how to get to them yourself) to be almost without fail unilluminating and beside the point.