I found Metta Zetty through her Awakening 
into Awareness website while grazing the web for spiritual teachers and was struck by the sincerity that shone through her writing. Here was a person who had a spiritual realization and was offering to help people at no cost. Our correspondence supported my initial impression and we eventually arranged a face-to-face meeting. Continue reading “Metta Zetty: Never quite launched as a teacher”
Category: 2 Star
This is the largest category and includes one-hit wonders, a few of the better non-duality and neo-advaita crowd, and spiritual teachers respected by someone I respect, but whose teachings I don’t find quite as deep or as useful as the Three Stars. This category features: Isaac Shapiro, Karl Renz, J. Krishnamurti, Ken Wilbur, David Deida, Sailor Bob Adamson, Nick Roach, Jed McKenna, Melvyn Wartella, Wolfgang Bernard, Metta Zetty, Hubert Benoit, John Davis II, Lama Ole Nydahl, Suzanne Segal, U.G. Krishnamurti, and Alfred Pulyan.
Hubert Benoit: Makes my head hurt, but might be good for you
Hubert Benoit’s Zen and the Psychology of Transformation: The Supreme 
Doctrine is considered a classic in Zen literature, at least among Westerners. Benoit states that, “In order to enlighten an Occidental, dissertations are, within a certain measure that is strictly limited, necessary.” The Supreme Doctrine is a convoluted, intellectual dissertation — a theoretical conceptualization which sheds more light on the author’s psychology, than upon Zen. Also of interest is the fact that Hubert Benoit’s little known last book, The Interior Realization, refutes much of The Supreme Doctrine. I credit Benoit for his honesty, for he was a lifelong seeker. Continue reading “Hubert Benoit: Makes my head hurt, but might be good for you”
John Davis II: The enlightened attorney
To hear John Davis II read his poems is like being exposed to the soul of 
the man. Shortly before his untimely death in 1984, he expressed his desire to “someday be the greatest orator in America.” He might have been, not because of verbal eloquence, but because of the passion behind his words. Amazingly, a few years before, John Davis had been declared totally and permanently disabled due to progressively deteriorating brain damage from a 1964 automobile accident. Over the years, the successes of his life slowly slipped through his fingers. By mid-1977, he was homeless; often spending nights in a Charleston, West Virginia cemetery. Continue reading “John Davis II: The enlightened attorney”
Lama Ole Nydahl: The hardest-working Lama in Lama business
One look at the travel schedule of Lama Ole Nydahl, and you know he is serious about his mission of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. I saw him speak nearly twenty years ago in Austin, TX and the poor fellow was literally falling asleep on his feet. Despite his fatigue, his sincerity was evident. Continue reading “Lama Ole Nydahl: The hardest-working Lama in Lama business”
Suzanne Segal: Bus stop enlightenmnent
Suzanne Segal is, like John Wren-Lewis, a case of enlightenment outside 
of any tradition. Several years after leaving the Transcendental Meditation movement, she was standing at a bus stop in Paris, when she was catapulted into the position of a “witness” to her mind and body. After some months, this “witness” disappeared: Continue reading “Suzanne Segal: Bus stop enlightenmnent”