A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Awakening”

December 16, 2025

A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Awakening”

A.H. Almaas & Henry Shukman — December 16, 2025

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What if awakening isn’t a single destination but an endless unfolding of reality’s many faces? This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon facilitates a groundbreaking conversation between two of the most profound spiritual teachers of our time: A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), founder of the Diamond Approach, and Zen teacher Henry Shukman.

In this rare dialogue, these teachers—meeting for the first time—explore how different wisdom traditions point to distinct dimensions of awakened experience. Rather than claiming all paths lead to the same mountaintop, they celebrate the unique territory each tradition reveals: from the “blazing forth” of creative emptiness to experiences where consciousness itself dissolves, from the recognition that each point contains the entire universe to the discovery that everything is made of love.

Join Tami, Hameed, and Henry to discover:

Why awakening is an endless process rather than a final arrival
The profound difference between thinking and heart-knowing
How to navigate the fear that arises at the threshold of ego dissolution
The role of trust, compassion, and basic trust in profound transformation
What happens when individual consciousness completely ceases
Why nothingness and being are inseparable faces of reality
How grief and catastrophic loss can become doorways to awakening
The Zen teaching of uni-locality—experiencing that one point is everything
Why love may be the most fundamental nature of reality itself

This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.

A.H. Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali who has written more than 14 books including his most recent The Unfolding Now. In 1976, he founded the Ridhwan School, an organization with members in North America, Europe, and Australia that is dedicated to promoting the Diamond Approach®. Almaas resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

Author photo © Hameed Qabazard

Henry Shukman is an authenticated Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage, Spiritual Director Emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center, and co-founder of The Way meditation app. He is also an award-winning author and poet. Henry’s traumatic experiences as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at 19, paved the way for his development of a well-rounded approach to spirituality and meditation – one that includes love for self and the world as its foundation. For more, see henryshukman.com and thewayapp.com.

Posted December 16, 2025

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Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

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A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Aw...

A.H. Almaas
Henry Shukman — December 16, 2025

Join Tami, Hameed, and Henry to discover:

Why awakening is an endless process rather than a final arrival
The profound difference between thinking and heart-knowing
How to navigate the fear that arises at the threshold of ego dissolution
The role of trust, compassion, and basic trust in profound transformation
What happens when individual consciousness completely ceases
Why nothingness and being are inseparable faces of reality
How grief and catastrophic loss can become doorways to awakening
The Zen teaching of uni-locality—experiencing that one point is everything
Why love may be the most fundamental nature of reality itself

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Post Views: 11,176

A.H. Almaas: Love in Its Boundless Dimension

A.H. Almaas — July 25, 2023

We come into this world with a basic trust in the goodness of life. And our trials, tribulations, and traumas cover up that trust, or shatter it completely. In this discussion of his new book, Nondual Love, Tami Simon speaks with author and teacher A.H. Almaas about spiritual self-inquiry and the path toward reclaiming our sense of the boundless benevolence of the universe.

Take a deep, relaxing breath in a quiet, comfortable place and dive in to this inspiring, expansive conversation exploring: the Diamond Approach to spiritual realization; inner work as the quest to understand the content of consciousness; how truth is a continuum; the nature of experience and knowing; satchitananda; the Buddhist concept of selflessness; universal love and Sufism’s “ocean with no shores”; permanent realization; the ego and the inner Jabba the Hutt; “living daylight” and the overcoming of fear; how full embodiment frees us from our “diamond issues”; relaxation as the first step in experiencing nondual reality; asking yourself, “what’s in the way?”; and more.

To learn more about the Diamond Approach, visit https://www.diamondapproach.org/

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

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A.H. Almaas: Presence: The Elixir of Enlightenment

A.H. Almaas — March 26, 2019

A.H. Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali, a veteran spiritual teacher who founded The Ridhwan School in 1976 to spread The Diamond Approach®, his particular path of spiritual inquiry. He has written many books, including The Pearl Beyond Price, The Unfolding Now, and The Alchemy of Freedom. With Sounds True, he will soon be launching Presence—an eight-week online course devoted to exploring the always-available consciousness underlying all of reality. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Almaas about approaching Presence as “the elixir of enlightenment”—the central key to understanding our spiritual nature. Almaas explains the experiential feeling of touching Presence and provides examples of other teachers who have attempted to explain it. Tami and Almaas discuss the possible meaning of enlightenment and why body-based practices are essential to discovering Presence. Finally, they consider why the spiritual path is essentially endless and what it means to be a “complete human being.” (64 minutes)

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Join Tami and Darnell as they explore:

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Kristen Neff — February 24, 2026

Can the simple act of being kind to yourself actually be a doorway to awakening?

In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon brings together two remarkable teachers whose friendship has sparked a revolutionary approach to inner transformation. Kristin Neff—the researcher who first measured self-compassion and author of Fierce Self-Compassion—joins Caverly Morgan, a meditation teacher and former Zen monk, to explore how self-compassion practices can become what they call “a lifeboat” to our deepest nature.

Together, they reveal why self-compassion isn’t just a psychological tool for feeling better—it’s a direct path to recognizing who we really are beyond our limited sense of self.

In this interview, Tami, Kristin, and Caverly explore:

Why every moment of self-compassion is a moment of “letting go of identification with the small, separate, limited self”
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If you’ve practiced self-compassion but sensed there’s something deeper available, or if awakening teachings have felt too abstract or disembodied, this conversation offers a bridge between heart and awareness that could transform your practice.

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Mark Nepo: Age Like a Meteor

Mark Nepo — February 17, 2026

What if aging isn’t about decline, but about becoming brighter—like a meteor that grows more luminous even as it falls through the atmosphere?

Tami Simon speaks with beloved poet-philosopher Mark Nepo about his deeply moving new book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life. Drawing from Chinese wisdom traditions and his own journey through chronic pain and back surgery, Mark illuminates aging as the “heavenly pivot” (love that phrase) which is the transformative shift from living outwardly to inhabiting life from the inside out.

Join Mark and Tami for this episode to explore:

The meteor metaphor: how we grow brighter as our outer casing flakes away • “Entering time” versus moving through it—and why slowing down opens the eternal moment • The paradox of limitation: how loss simultaneously deepens and expands us • Breaking through to joy as the depth of being that holds all the waves • Why the heart, not the mind, must lead in the second half of life • Living with chronic pain and learning to let beauty in while suffering • The difference between being victims of life versus initiates into life • How grief changes everything and why we don’t get over it, we get under it • Being swift of heart—living without hesitation from the inside out

Mark’s wisdom arises from decades of spiritual practice, surviving cancer, and facing the inevitable losses that come with a long life—essential listening for anyone navigating aging, chronic pain, loss, or simply seeking to live more fully present to the life they have.

Listen now to discover how the second half of life can be your most luminous yet.

A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Awakening”

A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Awakening”

A.H. Almaas & Henry Shukman — December 16, 2025

600 Podcasts and Counting…

Meet Your Host: Tami Simon

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A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Aw...

A.H. Almaas: Love in Its Boundless Dimension

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