Mutually Assured Distortion

The spiritual-industrial complex and the theater of internet authority

A note: The Field has a new brand and website, made in collaboration with designer and writer Frank Chimero. We kept asking whether online Buddhist design could carry strong typography and practical clarity instead of the usual incense-and-gold aesthetic. Check out what we made. Enrollment is also open for Everyday Awakening, a small, renewing Dzogchen-focused cohort for people who have practiced for years and still feel the distance between understanding and embodied experience.

I see some wack shit on the internet. When it comes to political and plutocratic agendas, I’ve been sanded smooth, and tend to tune it out. But when I’m exposed to self-styled experts expounding their authority on the right way to engage with spiritual practice—which I consider to be simple, conscious participation in the endless stream of experience—I bristle.

The writer is often someone who has sat retreats, romped with machine elves, and received a few transmissions. These credentials don’t relieve them of …