Zen master Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi was born in Brooklyn,
New York, in 1944.
In 1972, after spending a year in the mountains of California in solitary retreat, Genpo Roshi started formal Zen training at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, under Maezumi Roshi.
In 1980, Genpo Roshi received Shiho (Dharma Transmission) from Maezumi Roshi, followed by Zuisse (Empowerment Ceremony required to become an abbot) in Japan in 1981.
The Myth of Enlightenment is a question and answer session with Genpo (then still "Sensei") that took place in 1988. It is the best Zen teaching I have ever seen.
Aziz Kristof was born in Poland in 1962. From his late twenties to
his mid-thirties he followed the path of Self-realization according to the Buddhist as well as the Hindu traditions,
practicing for years in Korea, Japan, Thailand and India.
The teachings of Aziz Kristof form a comprehensive and all-explaining view of Enlightenment. A view in which the various insights of the different schools of Enlightenment are seen in a complete and uniting context. After studying his teachings carefully, I made a summary of his teachings.
Aziz Kristof nowadays goes by the name of "Anadi." www.anaditeaching.com
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
(1939-1987) was the 11th descendent in the line of Trungpa tulkus, teachers of the Kagyu lineage,
one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
Trungpa was a controversial teacher because of a number of scandals regarding his behavior as a teacher. Still he had an uncanny ability to make razor-sharp analyses of the subtle ways in which ego can keep deceiving us on the spiritual path.
This ability is demonstrated in his book "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism."
Read the Intro and Chapter 1 of Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism...
Tony Parsons (1933) communicates a message of uncompromising
non-duality, dating back to the 1950’s when, at the age of 21, he had his first Awakening.
Many spiritual traditions hold the view that Enlightenment can be attained by making a personal effort. Tony Parsons renounces this view because this view is not in accordance with a realization that seems to be inherent in Enlightenment: That there is no self.
If there is no self, there is no personal doership and so one cannot do anything "oneself" to assist the arrival of Awakening.
The following talk by Tony Parsons is a clear statement about his view of Awakening.
Rani was born in The Netherlands in 1951.
After having been a disciple of Osho for 16 years, she attained Enlightenment and subsequently became a spiritual
teacher herself, holding satsangs and retreats all over the world.
While being a teacher, the death of a close friend threw her back into the world of form (through experiencing a lot of pain and heartbreak). This caused the disappearance of ‘the bliss and joy of the Enlightenment high’ and made her identify with the mind again. This came as a shock to her. She had not thought that it would be possible to be ‘thrown out of paradise.’
Because, in my view, the realization of Enlightenment is in itself a phenomenon which ‘comes into being,’ it is therefore impermanent by nature. In her story "Enlightenment, before, during and after," Rani speaks about experiencing this, and her understanding afterwards.
Ramesh S. Balsekar (1917), a commerce graduate from the
University of London, started his working career as a clerk in the Bank of India in 1940. He rose through
the ranks until his retirement in 1977 as President of that bank.
Shortly after his mandatory retirement at age sixty, Ramesh read an article about a guru named Nisargadatta Maharaj who was teaching about non-duality. He went to hear him, knew that this was his guru and he began translating for Maharaj at his daily morning talks. Not long after, Ramesh experienced his Awakening.
The text "Creating Order Out of Disorder: The Theory of Probability — The Law of Large Numbers" is a paper by Ramesh. The paper gives a theoretical framework for the impossibility of an individual autonomous free will. His argument is based on the statistical law of large numbers which, according to Ramesh, in fact determines how our lifes turn out.