Experiences with Mahamudra: A Story (BK-34)

This book might have been called something like “Zen and the Art of Nature Photography,” but I don’t happen to be a Zen practitioner. However, after many years of working with a brilliant Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Rinpoche, I did manage (with the aid of photography and nature) to get a glimpse of recognition (not realization, mind you) as to the true nature of the mind, and it was nothing like I had led myself to expect all those years. That is why I am writing this.

There may be some of you, like me, whose expectations and imaginations are more of an obstacle to spiritual realization than a help. In fact, our expectations can make it almost impossible to have any realization. We think we know what we are supposed to be finding when it comes to spiritual experience and (by definition) that is exactly what we don’t know, and are trying to find out. For those folks, hearing my story might be useful.