Anyone who has taken a serious study and practice of meditation inevitably encounters a lot of paradoxes along the way, especially when it comes to the concept of enlightenment. Different schools of spirituality put different emphasis on how to view enlightenment. Some schools (e.g. nondual traditions, like Mahayana, Advaita Vedanta, Dzogchen) view enlightenment as an abstraction — a non-goal in which the emphasis is on the non-doing. While some schools (e.g. Theravada) view enlightenment as a path — complete with stages and models of development with emphasis on different strategies and techniques on how to get “there.”

Early on I was confused by these two seemingly paradoxical approaches to enlightenment. But over the years I’ve grown comfortable to embrace the two contradictory views. In short, I’ve gotten used to the paradox. I no longer agonize over it. It’s still a paradox to me. But I prefer to view it as enlightenment by serendipity.

So whenever I say that the ultimate “goal” of my Open Practice is enlightenment, I’m very well aware of the contradictory