r/Perennialism

Hey everyone. I've always been fascinated by a possible danger within synoptic philosophies. The more successfully a system integrates, the easier it becomes to mistake its comprehensiveness for closure. Neoplatonic ascent should transform the knower rather than give the discursive mind a final diagram of reality, yet the tradition’s scale can still tempt later readers into treating it as an all-containing structure. I wonder whether a practice that repeatedly breaks attachment to frames could protect procession and return from becoming an intellectual possession, or whether that worry misunderstands what Plotinian non-discursive unity already accomplishes.

I just had a podcast conversation with John Vervaeke, where he argued that Zen and Neoplatonism correct one another in precisely this respect. At around 52:55, he describes Neoplatonism as opening him so that nothing is excluded and Zen as emptying him so that nothing is enclosed. The proposal is not that both traditions teach one hidden doctrine. It is that their practices pull against complementary distortions: fragmentation on one side, enclosure by synthesis on the other.

This would imply that Zen contributes something Neoplatonism cannot simply generate from its own resources. Is that true, or do apophasis, henosis and the transcendence of Intellect already perform the needed emptying? Does the comparison clarify Neoplatonic practice, or translate it into contemporary non-dual language? What would count as genuine synergy here rather than a syncretic overlay?