In mysticism, there's more of a sense of adventure, of camaraderie.

The emphasis is on meditation in Tantric Zen. The experience of meditation in formal practice, zazen, where you're sitting down and meditating and concentrating.

Our very awareness is the window upon which reality presents itself.

Samsara is the world appearance, the cycle of rebirth, the physically manifest universes and states of mind that you perceive through the medium of ego.

The perceptual body that you are at the time of death ceases to be. It is not structured quite so tightly.

You exist forever. You've always existed and you'll always exist. You move in and out of bodies like some people in Los Angeles move in and out of houses, every other week, every other lifetime.

Ashrams often become places where there is a hierarchy and a pecking order and not much enlightenment. That is what some people are drawn to. But that has nothing to do with enlightenment.