The Pioneer is the Guy with the Arrows in His Back
I have been reading some in Shoes Outside the Door today, and am reminded of the confusion that can come out of (a) believing in (weird) ideas and (b) awakening to the absolute or Big Mind.
It also reminds me of how much we seem to have collectively learned in just a few decades, since Buddhism was first introduced to the west, through the hard lessons of many of the pioneers. Reading the book, it is easy to be surprised by the naive views of the Zen students at the time, but also easy to understand - it was all very new and foreign, and still mostly only accessible through the traditional terminology, formed by and meant for people living in a very different culture.
This exotic terminology, the non/transdual language, and the often indirect pointers in traditional Zen, all combined to confuse those who did not yet have a comfort and familiarity with the views the words came from and pointed to. It just created a confusion of ideas, rather than help people into the view of Big Mind.
And even for those who did awaken to/as Big Mind, to various degrees, it was difficult - because there were not many others who had, and there were not many live and local role models for how to live from this view, in Western society, and in a way that was ordinary, grounded, simple, mature and ordinarily healthy.
Today, it is different - largely because of all these pioneers. Today, when we awaken to Big Mind, we have access to ways that helps us live from this, as ordinary human beings, simply, ordinarily healthy, appearing in society as nothing/no-one special. Just ordinarily sane.
It seems so obvious and simple, and will probably seem even more so in the future. What is all the fuzz? Why not just make it simple?