The Awakening Fund
Hello! My name is Dor and for the past 15 years I’ve been on a quest to express the essence of the dharma in every aspect of our human lives. One part of this, which is how you may have discovered this page, is my book The Heart Illuminated. The other is that I’ve been investing in interventions that facilitate the process of awakening.
The time has come to scale up my operation. More money, bigger community, louder message, wider scope of industry. I want to make this a thing-in-the-world, a niche in the market that is investible and full of companies that are profitable at scale.
Ultimately, I don’t want people
to have to meditate anymore.
I want everyone to have access to a
“Waze for Awakening”
Remember how we used to have to look at a map before going on a trip? You’d figure out the best path, perhaps even memorize the roads, what landmarks imply taking a left or a right.
Meditation is sort of like that; preparing in advance for the trip, for actual life. But what if you had a suite of tools, interfacing with your body and mind in real time, all subtly nudging you to stay on track?
What if we could live an increasingly-more-awake life without spending a minute on the cushion?
What sort of society might we craft if we’re able to connect to one another at an immediate and deep level, recognizing the shared ground of reality we all inhabit, without having to rely on the human equivalent of dogs sniffing each others’ butts in making sure the other person has our preferred set of ideologies?
A little non-intrusive tickle to the brain, calming your amygdala just enough to take a real deep breath.
A tiny EEG electrode bundled into your earphone, connected to an AI whispering in your ear and occasionally directing your attention to a more expanded awareness.
Gentle haptic feedback reflecting to you how your posture has changed in the current social situation,
coupled with optional guidance on your smart device for how to feel the underlying suppressed emotion rather than escaping it.
Even before we have a “Waze”,
What if you could tune down your prefrontal cingulate cortex just enough to start your meditation retreat from a place of deep equanimity?
Sanmai
A safe, non-intrusive, deep brain stimulation and imaging system powered by focused ultrasound. It’s capable of safely and subtly tuning deep brain structures. The results are picked up by the device itself, allowing for immediate and ongoing readjustments. Each of the targets I’ve tried were useful in the context of meditation and the path; particularly the PCC, which is greatly responsible for tying the whole of the “small self” together.
I’ve been following Jay’s work since 2016, when we met at the TransTech conference. He’s been working with Shinzen, a famous western meditation teacher, who had conceived of some of the stimulation targets Jay has been working on the year Jay and I were born. :)
Getting zapped in the top pic; with Shinzen and Dr. Jay in the bottom left one. We had previously aimed the device “blind”, but here in 2019 were finally assisted by imaging.
We’re now planning a first ultrasound-enhanced meditation cohort to begin over the next month in Berkeley, CA. Join the Telegram community channel if you’re interested! Jay and Shinzen are gearing up to run two meditation retreats with the technology as well.
Your company here :)
How can you leverage modern tech, fished out of the depths of the most advanced labs all over the world, into helping us all sustain more and more expanded, caring, and inclusive states of mind?
To create brains, and connected networks of humans, capable of handling greater complexity, utilizing more of the energy flows of our environments to our benefit while taking into account the externalities of their use?
We’re particularly looking for companies that have a product that can still be viable on the default market, with established use-cases that can allow it to scale up beyond only relying on being a tool for awakening. We ask that companies have a clear direction towards their product or intervention being used for awakening and that they mention it on their public-facing resources.
It’s great if teams we invest in create products that help smooth out the lives of people in default culture, with its nested loops of samsaric stories; compassion is meeting people where they are. Our ultimate goal is to create the conditions allowing individuals, and our society as a whole, to experience reality from before all of the stories that we take for being the foundation of reality, and to use the freedom inherent in that perspective to create the types of lives we fundamentally desire for us all.
For my definition of awakening – completely in line with that of Buddhism – you can read the first chapters of my book. (I will have a succinct description of it here instead at some point.)
More than a fund?
My preferred model for this endeavor would look something like a partially-decentralized and autonomous organization (DAO): multiple, varied stakeholders all enjoying the increase of value of the entire venture as they each contribute according to their capabilities and get rewarded based on pre-established criteria as well as ad-hoc, community-based decisions. Unfortunately, living in the US, and catering to many US participants, this is between illegal and impossible: Participants in this forming organization cannot be given a finder’s fee for bringing in teams we end up investing in; US investors have to be “accredited”, closing the pathway to small investors, which I would have wanted to join us as champions of this undertaking, also receiving exclusive invites to augmented retreats and priority opportunities to use novel awakening tech; and so on.
Instead, I am contemplating creating multiple entities:
A Small Fund
into which I can transfer my existing investments, more of my own money, and collect other aligned investor funds into. This would allow me to approach potential investments from a place of their knowing I can lead their funding rounds.
I am in a unique position to do deep due diligence on such companies, having a good grasp of the science, tech, business and dharma involved. It is my hope that upon giving my stamp of approval, in collaboration with our science and tech advisors and under the watch of a wisdom committee, we can then pull in other funds in related fields (brain health, cognitive enhancement, mental healthcare) into the deal.
Media Production
Create content that moves this from the realm of nerdy techno-hippies and into being “hip” and “cool”. Educate the public on what this is all good for.
Venture Studio
Incubate our own teams and products, leveraging the forming network of talent, IP, and emerging tech. Invest in them from the fund.
Events
Host augmented retreats, conferences focusing on awakening tech, and run festivals where our community can dance together after trying out the interventions and experiences on offer.
It’s not all going to happen right away, of course; I intend to start with the fund and move from there as more people join, more resources are collected, and more opportunities are generated.
Want to take part or support this in any way?
We’re congregating in this Telegram channel, where we’re starting to build a community around this adventure. Come ask questions, share updates about relevant developments in the space, and talk to us about interesting opportunities.
More about Dor
I spent most of my 20s in the academy doing interdisciplinary brain research and most of my 30s being an entrepreneur and CEO in the decentralization space, leveraging my knowledge of neuroscience to inform my views and vision for collaborative human networks.
When I read “The Mind Illuminated” in 2016, I realized Culadasa had written the book I had wanted to. I quickly connected with him, retreated for months under his guidance, and became certified as a teacher. Around the same time, I moved to the SF Bay Area to find friends on the Enlightenment Engineering path and began consulting and investing in companies in that space, aiming to scale up access to awakening using modern means.
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I currently also serve on the board of Emergence Benefactors, a non-profit org which supports healthy outcomes for individuals undergoing the process of awakening. The org funds and supports rigorous, objective scientific research into the study of awakening practices and their effects across all modalities, including meditation, psychedelics, and neurotech.
This is part of my attempt at driving consciously self-directed evolution at societal scale.
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Dedicated to John Yates, Ph.D., AKA Culadasa, my teacher and guide
Who, with enthusiasm matching my own, encouraged my explorations into this space, both intellectually and experientially. He would be the first to sign up to participate in any experiment to get his brain zapped or imaged, always offering reports of experiential, scientific, and dharmic significance.
Thank you for inspiring me on this path. <3
