A player asked us:
Dear Emily & Steve,
What is the "Subtle Path"? I don't remember coming across this term
before. Would entering the Subtle Path be equivalent to becoming a
Stream-Enterer / having an experience of non-duality i.e. the
Transcendental? Awkward question - sorry! - but could be useful in
explaining the game to others.
Emily replied:
The Subtle Path is a concept created by the game. It represents,
alongside the Spiritual Path, the differing states of a spiritual
practitioner. This is up to interpretation to a certain extent. For
example, the Spiritual Path represents the mind and activity of the
practitioner's daily life out of meditation or retreat - including the
practices of engaging with the world in a spiritual way, being kind to
others etc and the Subtle path represents retreat, or a more
introspective process - taking the merit and good feeling of daily life
further into the heart. They also could represent the time-line and
progress of a practitioner, for example; when we start to practise
dharma we 'search' for it and engage with it on a
conventional level, when we advance further it may become part of our
daily experience, to be discovered in every moment.
Hope this helps...
Emily