While I feel that the points made in those chapters are important and potentially quite valid and useful, they are not absolutely necessary for understanding the chapters that follow them. The world is brimming with very nice and friendly dharma books. There are hundreds available on the shelves of any mega-bookstore. However, I believe that there is room for a book that sometimes conveys its message in a very different voice, though I respectfully give you the option to choose how much of that voice you want to hear. It is the unrestrained voice of one from a generation whose radicals wore spikes and combat boots rather than beads and sandals, listened to the Sex Pistols rather than the Moody Blues, wouldn’t know a beat poet or early ‘60s dharma bum from a hole in the ground, and thought the hippies were pretty friggin’ naïve, not that we don't owe them a lot. It is also the unrestrained voice of one whose practice has been dedicated to complete and unexcelled mastery of the traditional and hardcore stages of the path rather than some sort of vapid New Age fluff or pop psychological head-trip. If that ain’t you, consider reading something else.

vii

Foreword and Warning

As a highly regarded senior meditation teacher and scholar (who will remain anonymous) said to me after skimming through an earlier draft of this book, “Most Buddhists are just aging Boomers who want to do something to feel better about themselves as they get older and are not really interested in this sort of thing.” I wish them great success in getting those valid needs met and so I must reluctantly advise such individuals to avoid reading this book or at least the chapters marked with a star.

This is simultaneously an admission of the limitations of this work, an invitation to adopt a more empowering view of what is possible on the spiritual path, and a warning.

I have had other motivations for writing this book. A number of people have attempted to have me be their meditation teacher. I have done what I can to encourage them to practice well, go on retreats and explore, but as soon as I get the sense that they are not into really doing the work or are trying to idolize me in even small ways, I go out of my way to alienate them completely. I greatly prefer the company of fellow adventurers who wish to explore the mysteries of this life together than any other sort of relationship. Dharma friends may be at different stages in the practice and one friend may teach another something useful, but this has a very different feel from people who are formally teacher and student. Thus, writing this book allows me to hand them the better part of what I know and say, “Here, if you are really into it, there is more than enough here to allow you to plunge as deep as you care to. If not, I have wasted little of my time and can avoid being put on some strange pedestal or pillory, at least to my face.”

That said, I do have the explicit goal of facilitating others to become living masters of this material that they may go forth and help to encourage more people to do so. The more people are able to teach from a place of deeply established personal experience, the more people will be able to learn the dharma well, and the saner and happier the world will be.