Multidharma:
A New Map of Awakening for 21st Century Spiritual Explorers
By Pierce Salguero
IS THERE A GOAL?
We have already stressed a few times that Multidharma is not intended to be a replacement for established spiritual traditions. Instead, it is an invitation to understand individual traditions in a more complementary and symbiotic light. This kind of reframing is going to be useful not only in guiding our practice, as we have discussed in the previous chapter, but also when thinking about the very goals of this whole endeavor. As I’m sure you have come to expect, Multidharma is going to push back against the notion that there’s only one true goal of spiritual development and it is the way that this or that particular tradition has described it. By this point, you well know that Multidharma is based on the premise that the forms the awakening process might take are as varied as the human beings on the planet — and that’s all perfectly okay.
The four threads of awakening outlined in this book are four general areas, neighborhoods, or ecological niches within the rich and abundant awakening territory. When it comes to natural ecosystems, we tend to appreciate how diverse creatures fill unique evolutionary niches in the environment, each having their own role to play. Likewise, in sports, there are different athletic niches in which to excel, different possible ways of thriving. In the arts, we also celebrate how humans have all diverse capacities and outlets for our creativity. Nobody argues that zebras are better at being animals than giraffes, that gymnasts are inherently superior to pole vaulters, or that Picasso should have been a dancer because ballet is the only legitimate form of art.
In so many areas of life, we readily see the value and natural wisdom of diverse and varied ways of being. Yet, somehow, when it comes to spirituality, we humans tend to lock ourselves into rigid hierarchical thinking. We hold up dogmas that everyone should believe the same things and should be having the same experiences in the same way — and if they don’t, we say they’re stuck, ignorant, wrong, deluded, or sinful. These unskillful attitudes lock us into unhealthy and sometimes even cultish viewpoints. Whether drawn from restrictive models of spirituality that are millennia old or from contemporary teachings, I personally would call these kinds of prejudices what they are: fundamentalism.
The point of Multidharma is to offer a more capacious model. Because this model is not based on steps and stages, there is no prescribed reason that one needs to arrive at any particular goal or endpoint in any predetermined way. While it is true that I have described a process that takes place over time involving the five movements of opening, deepening, braiding, integrating, and releasing, these processes all bleed over into one another and overlap. You can be braiding some threads while you are still opening others. You can be integrating certain threads while others are still deepening. Anything goes. Each person’s dharma is different, each person’s path and destination are their own, and none of the five processes of the model are inherently superior to any others. People who open, or traverse, or integrate, or release certain threads are no better than people who don’t — and they’re no better than people who never have had an awakening in the first place.
Once again, the Multidharma model can help us to make sense of competing claims being made on this topic. When various spiritual traditions hold up different exemplars of enlightenment, we can see that these are the idealizations of whatever thread(s) that tradition most values. For example, the mythic hero at the end of the Theravada Buddhist path is the quintessence of the emptiness thread: in this tradition, the Buddha is represented as being totally equanimous, completely withdrawn from the world, unattached to anything, impervious to all suffering. On the other hand, the mythic hero of a oneness thread tradition — perhaps think of Jesus as an example — is depicted as embodying unity with God, exuding love out of his every pore, and taking on the suffering of the world in order to absolve everyone else. The heroes of the energy thread traditions include, for example, past and present Tibetan masters who when they pass away are said to dissolve into light leaving a rainbow shining across the mountains, or the Daoist immortals who transcend the body and go up into the heavens in a wispy cloud of qi. A paragon of the psyche thread, depending on which tradition we’re talking about, may perhaps be represented as an ethereal being who walks among the spirits, a powerful lord of the underworld, a great soul who embodies the entire cosmos, or a living embodiment of the Earth goddess.
Aside from these single-thread examples, many traditions have heroes who represent the pinnacle of the braiding or integration of different threads. Mahayana Buddhism, which always gives equal weight to emptiness and oneness, holds up as its ideal the Bodhisattva who embodies the perfection of wisdom and compassion at the same time. Similarly, in certain yogic traditions, the Jivanmukta is the one who achieves the highest forms of energetic cultivation while also residing in total union with the divine. On the other hand, if you are looking for heroes who have released the threads, I’d point you toward stories from Zen and some schools of Daoism about the wisest and most respected master going about the business of daily life without any fanfare. Those around him take him to be a fool or just an ordinary schmo. Living an uncontrived, authentic, and utterly normal life, he has no interest in spiritual practice, claims no attainments, and is nothing special.
All of these figures can all be inspirational in that they can motivate us and steer us toward a particular direction in our practice. However, the idealization of such figures also tends to set up impossibly exalted criteria. Thinking that through spiritual practice we will become as perfect as the Buddha, or Jesus, or any of these other mythological exemplars is putting unrealistic expectations on ourselves and others. This often leads to a feeling of hopelessness and a spiritual culture of competitiveness, egotism, and striving. (Incidentally, this is why I use mundane phrases such as “conditioning running on autopilot” as opposed to more superlative language like “liberation from all suffering” or whatnot. I make these choices strategically to bring our expectations out of the stratosphere and back down to earth.)
But if it’s not about reaching any particular attainment or becoming an idealized enlightened person, then what’s the point of this whole spiritual journey? This question could be interpreted in myriad ways based on our worldviews or belief systems. Since it’s a phenomenological and not ontological model, Multidharma doesn’t need to take a stance on such matters in any ultimate sense. Even the most basic question of what awakening is requires us to commit to an ontological claim in order to definitively answer whether it is an evolutionary process, a divine plan, a capacity of the human psyche, something to do with brain structure, or any other concrete explanation.
I personally remain curious about what might be behind all of this, and I am now in my scholarly work turning toward formal research in order to try to explore awakening from that perspective. But, for now, I think all I can say definitively is that awakening seems to be something that many people are capable of undergoing. There seem to be certain kinds of practices that can somewhat reliably evoke and deepen it. There seems to be a trajectory or directionality to these experiences that we could identify as a process unfolding over time, and there seem to be certain general categories of experiences that people can experience along the way. It seems that many people undergo a shift in baseline of experience that can stabilize into a permanently altered sense of self and reality. It also seems that, for many, the awakening process eventually comes to an end not by the discovery of some final stable state but by the process itself falling away.
In light of this, if you pressed me to answer what the goal of spiritual cultivation should be, I could only tell you how it seems to me. My opinion is that the initial awakening experience is a pivotal moment in one’s life, and that this is worth working for diligently though a variety of different techniques. Once the awakening process has gotten underway, I think it is skillful to tend to this spark as you are led through a series of awakened states, experiences, stages, levels, attainments, insights, or realizations. However, I believe it is a waste of time to chase after specific peak experiences or states of consciousness, since no matter how real, no matter how profound, no matter how enlightened these may seem at the time, they will all eventually fall away.
Instead of pursuing any specific experience or state of consciousness as a goal, I’d advise using whatever range of techniques you are familiar with to finely investigate how your mind is constantly working to construct and maintain reality. I would recommend that you focus on retraining or reconditioning your system to maximize for kindness, generosity, and gentleness with others. I’d suggest that you fully immerse yourself in the aliveness and dynamism of every moment. I’d counsel you to honestly, patiently, and as thoroughly as possible unpack your own psychological baggage and hidden agendas. I would also emphasize acting skillfully in the world and not losing sight of your embeddedness in family, friendships, community, and society. I’d prioritize seeing all the above as interconnected, inseparable, and mutually supportive aspects of a life well lived. And I would advise against getting hung up on trying to pin down any of this (or anything else for that matter) as an ultimate truth.
In the end, when the threads release, I doubt that you will have become the Buddha, Jesus, or Ramana Maharshi. You likely will not have attained immortality, or perfection, or have become an omniscient Bodhisattva. On the contrary, I predict that your cherished fantasies of ever becoming such a figure will have faded into meaninglessness. I bet that the very notion of there being a final goal to attain will have crumbled apart. I wager that you will no longer even be able to definitively say whether or not you are awake. That even the very notion of awakening or nonawakening will have turned out to be just another overlay, an interpretation, a viewpoint, a filter, a thought.
Yet still, despite all of that, it seems to me that something happens on this journey, doesn’t it? Some kind of fundamental transformation, reconfiguration, or metamorphosis seems to take place. Many delusions seem to be seen through. Many ossified patterns seem to become freed up to move and flow. And there seems to be some kind of reconditioning process whereby the autopilot is fine-tuned to become gentler and more benign than the self-absorbed little person you were when you started out on this journey. And that, as far as I can tell, is probably as good a goal as you could ever aim for.
Happy travels!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to acknowledge and thank the people who have attended various groups I led on a regular basis from 2023 to the present to discuss advanced spiritual experiences in depth (more information at Multidharma.net). I learned a lot from these meetings about how different people experience awakening. I also got the opportunity to try out many of the ways of talking I am using here in these intimate and experimental settings. Many members of those groups also read drafts of this book and gave me valuable feedback, suggestions, and corrections. I especially want to thank Daniel Dufour, whose close reading and critical pushback was always instrumental in clarifying both the language and the ideas presented here. Chantal Belanger, Donna Meyer, and Misha BearWoman Metzler also provided proofreading and suggestions. I also want to express gratitude to Yvonne Unger and Sabina Witzel for not only participating in the editing process but also their unflagging enthusiasm in introducing Multidharma to Germany.
I also have deep gratitude to my good friend, research collaborator, and indefatigable “thinking partner,” Luciano Melo. We have discussed both the phenomenology and the modeling of awakening for so long and at such depth that it is difficult for me to clearly determine where his ideas stop and mine begin. What I present here is my own model — and I know he disagrees with it in fundamental ways — but my thinking on this topic is so indebted to our many hours-long conversations that it would seem ludicrous for me not to share the credit for what is written here with him.