UnbornMind Zen

Hungry Moon, Empty Mind

Posted on November 1, 2025 by Vajragoni

Book Review: Hungry Moon, Empty Mind — The Zen Way Beyond the Archonic Net

Reviewed for UnbornMind.com read more

Posted in Books, Spirituality, Uncategorized | Tagged Buddhism, Empty Mind, esoteric philosophy, Food for the moon, Gnosticism, Gurdjieff, Hungry Moon | 2 Comments

Final Integration; The Great Return

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Vajragoni

The Culmination of the Path

There is a moment in every spiritual undertaking when words grow thin, and concepts lose their persuasive grip. The long road of teachings, comparisons, distinctions, practices, and debates gradually exhausts itself, until the very act of seeking is revealed to have been occurring within what was never lost. This chapter begins in that exhausted hush—an echoing silence in which the Great Return announces itself, not as an attainment, but as the recognition that nothing needed to be attained. read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged Black Dragon Eye Mandala, Brahman as the sole reality, Great Return, jīvanmukti, Paradox of No Journey, The Unborn Principle | Leave a comment

Phenomenology of Awakening

Posted on October 21, 2025 by Vajragoni

Introduction: Awakening as Phenomenological Event

To speak of awakening is to touch the most intimate and mysterious dimension of spiritual life. It is not merely a doctrinal assertion, nor only the culmination of metaphysical reasoning, but a transformation in the very structure of human consciousness. Both Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta insist that awakening is not about acquiring something new, nor about achieving an external state—it is instead a recognition of what was always already present, though veiled by ignorance, habit-energy, or mistaken identity. read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged awakening, ontological inversion, phenomenology, Unborn Principle | Leave a comment

The Function of Practice

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Vajragoni

The Paradox of Practice in Non-Dual Traditions

The problem of practice is one of the most enduring paradoxes in non-dual spirituality. If the Absolute is already here—if Brahman is one’s very Self, if the Unborn Mind is the ever-present reality—then why should practice be necessary at all? Any effort to “reach” the goal seems already to betray ignorance, for it implies that the seeker is separate from the sought. Yet traditions across the world insist on the indispensability of practice: discipline, meditation, inquiry, devotion, or mindfulness. How can this contradiction be reconciled? read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged Black Dragon Eye Mandala, effortless practice, jīvanmukti, Manana, nididhyāsana, Practice, Practice After Realization, śravaṇa | Leave a comment

The Role of Language and Silence

Posted on October 19, 2025 by Vajragoni

The problem of language is as old as philosophy itself, and nowhere is this problem more acute than in the spiritual traditions of India and East Asia. To speak of the Absolute is already to betray it, for the very act of naming establishes boundaries, predicates, and relations that the Absolute does not admit. Yet, to remain wholly silent is equally impossible, for silence alone does not guide, does not liberate, and cannot awaken one who is still lost in the dream of ignorance. Thus the masters of both Advaita Vedānta and Unborn Mind Zen confront an enduring paradox: words must be used, but used only in such a way that they reveal their own insufficiency. read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged language, Language of Negation, Śaṅkara, Silence as Revelation | Leave a comment

The Ethics of the Unborn and Brahman

Posted on October 18, 2025 by Vajragoni

Introduction — Why Ethics After Metaphysics?

The philosophical pursuit of ultimate reality—whether expressed as the Unborn Mind in Zen or as Brahman in Advaita Vedānta—inevitably raises a fundamental question: once realization has occurred, what follows? Is the path complete when the metaphysical ground has been uncovered, or does realization carry implications for how one lives, acts, and relates to others in the world? read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged Ethics, jīvanmukti, Mirror Metaphor, Obligation, universal identity | Leave a comment

Liberation (Mokṣa vs. Unborn Realization)

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Vajragoni

Introduction: The Soteriological Question

Every philosophy, every spiritual path, carries within it the implicit question: What is all of this for? Why inquire into the deepest recesses of mind? Why wrestle with metaphysics, with paradox, with negations that strip away the scaffolding of self and world? Why meditate, why practice, why endure the relentless peeling back of everything that once seemed secure? read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged apratiṣṭhita, Ethical Orientation, liberation, moksa, Realization of Brahman | Leave a comment

The Dialectic of Presence and Absence

Posted on October 16, 2025 by Vajragoni

Presence and Absence as the Twin Gates

In every great spiritual tradition, reality resists capture by categories. Language attempts to fix what forever slips through its net, and the mind, which depends on conceptual divisions, cannot help but organize experience into opposites: light and dark, fullness and emptiness, presence and absence. Yet when seekers approach the Absolute, they find themselves confronted with the inadequacy of such pairs. Still, paradoxically, these very categories—presence and absence—become indispensable markers, twin gates through which thought and practice must pass before they are transcended. read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged Dialectic, Dynamic of Withdrawal, Luminous Immediacy, ontological selfhood, Presence and Absence, tat tvam asi | Leave a comment

Affirmations of the Absolute

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Vajragoni

Introduction: From Negation to Affirmation

Every path of negation eventually faces a threshold: once all illusions are stripped away, what remains? To stop at emptiness would risk nihilism, but both Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta insist that the stripping away only clears the ground for what cannot be denied—the luminous Absolute. read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged affirmation, Fullness in Emptiness, luminous Selfhood, mahāvākya, mithyā, nididhyāsana, Nirvanic-Mind, sahaja samādhi | Leave a comment

The Practice of Negation

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Vajragoni

Introduction: The Method of Negation

Every authentic encounter with the Absolute begins not with affirmation, but with a stripping away. The ultimate reality—whether named as the Unborn, Brahman, or Absolute Nothingness—cannot be approached by concepts, images, or affirmations. To affirm is already to fall into limitation, for affirmation binds Being to a predicate, and predicates belong to the world of phenomena. Affirmation assumes distinction: this is true, that is false; this is real, that is not. But the Absolute stands prior to all distinctions, prior to the very duality of “is” and “is not.” read more

Posted in The Unborn and the Absolute: Unborn Mind Zen and Advaita Vedānta in Dialogue | Tagged Dogen, Ethics of Negation, Fullness in Emptiness, jivanmukta, Living Negation in the World, negation, neti-neti, prior-to | Leave a comment