The same room

Six traditions, one report. Start with the frame, then take the doors in any order.

Different centuries, different languages, and an unnervingly similar account of what is left when the person is looked at closely. The first chapter makes the case that the mystics were describing one room. The next five walk through separate doors into it: Advaita Vedanta, the Buddhist teaching of no-self, the Taoist idea of not pushing, Meister Eckhart preaching in German, and a Sufi poem about a cut reed. Short pieces, a few minutes each.

6 chapters, read in order.

1. The mystics were describing the same room Different centuries, different languages, and an unnervingly similar report.
2. The swamis who argue you out of yourself Advaita Vedanta does not ask you to believe anything. It asks you to keep looking and report back.
3. Anatta, or the self that never arrived Buddhism takes the person apart and does not put anyone back together.
4. Wu wei is not doing nothing The Taoist term gets read as passivity, which is almost the opposite of what the stories describe.
5. Eckhart asks God to rid him of God A medieval Dominican, preaching in German to ordinary people, tried for heresy, and still the strangest thing I have read.
6. Rumi and the reed The Masnavi opens with a cut reed complaining, and does not resolve it.