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One of the lamas I studied with once joked, in an unguarded moment, "Monks have a lot of time on their hands. They like to make things complicated." I share your desire to cut through all the complexity to the heart of the matter (which is the title of a very short book you might like).

But you know that you can't just pick it up from a book, right? Traditionally in Tibet you wouldn't even try to read a book until you had been given the reading transmission ("lung") by a lama. (Not to mention the "wang" - empowerment for the practice - and "tri" - verbal instruction - for practices)

The late great Lama Tharchin once said lineage is like electrical wires. Our devotion upwards to an enlightened being is like one wire we pick up. Our compassion downwards towards suffering sentient beings is the other wire. When we pick up both these wires we complete the circuit and the compassion of all the enlightened beings flows through us to suffering beings and lights up our practice.

All Vajrayana practices - every single one - begins with devotion (refuge) and compassion (bodhichitta) because of this. There's a great short piece by Tulku Urgyen you should read. It's not some cold calculating meditation technique. It's powered by love, which is what stops the mind. "Once we have a heavy investment in taking refuge and generating bodhichitta, we have the capital to be able to do the business of the higher practices and gain the profit of the development stage, the completion stage, and the three great practices - Mahamudra, Dzogchen, and Madhyamika. Without the capital, we won't be able to do any business at all. Devotion and compassion are the basic capital for Buddhist practice."

So are we clear that you need to find a flesh-and-blood lama to study with, and that devotion and compassion come first? Then I'll suggest some other stuff you might find interesting...

Dudjom Rinpoche on Dzogchen:
http://www.keithdowman.net/dzogchen/dudjom_counsel.htm
Lama Tharchin improved the translation of one bit - "Don't claim to be a great Dzogchen yogi when your heart smells like farts and your crotch stinks of sex and booze"

Dudjom Rinpoche's mountain retreat manual:
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Authors/Dudjom%20Rinpoche/Mountain%20Retreat%20Instructions/mountain_retreat.pdf

I haven't read it, but you might find Dzongsar Khyentse R's Not for Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices easier to read. Yeah, actually, just read the "look inside" on amazon to see if it might be a good fit for you.

There's a great old Dzongsar Khyentse piece which compares the three "yanas" or vehicles (hinayana, mahayana, vajrayana) to being in a movie theater. Very short. Very helpful in explaining vajrayana. Here

Gosh, I wish I liked to practice as much as I liked buying and reading books. Is any of this helpful?

Edit: I decided the following would be too much for you and moved it to the bottom, below. Maybe for later.

Jamgon Kongtrul's Creation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation might interest you, but it's got a lot of jargon. You might need a glossary of enumerations like from The Life of Shabkar... It might be a little much for you at first. I think I read it after my first ngondro retreat.

I would highly recommend Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's book Turning Confusion Into Clarity - written by the very same man who runs the Tergar community mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Most of his books have a very secular slant, aiming to explicate the benefits of mindfulness practice to people who are skittish towards religion, but this one is explicitly a crash-course in the preliminary Vajrayana practices.

I was a little apprehensive at first that I was biting off more than I could chew with it, but he explains the practices very clearly and moves through each one very deliberately.

I've added a few techniques to my everyday practice - namely beginning each sitting session with a call for bodhicitta, and ending with a dedication of merit - which have self-evidently improved the quality of my meditation. What's more, a technique I first tried just the other night resulted in one of the most singular meditative experiences of my life. You will be able to read about that in more detail later tonight or tomorrow on this sub.

I don't know what your sitting practice looks like now. If you're fairly new to the practice, you may want to hold off on the later techniques in the book until you've stabilized into everyday practice. These techniques can take over an hour to do properly, and they are meant to be savored - its not the point to just think the thoughts and say the mantras so many times just to get through them.

In any case, I've found the teachings in that book incredibly beneficial to my practice, and can't recommend it highly enough for anyone yearning to dip their toes in Vajrayana, but lack access to a proper teacher.

EDIT - Because links are hard.

I have to agree with Growupandleave and suggest The Essence of Other-Emptiness by Jetsun Taranatha. This book presents Shentong in the context of a tenets book on the various tenet systems and is a very readable book on the subject.

Just as an aside, Taranatha was an important systamatizer of Shentong, but wasn't the progenitor of it. It was brought to Tibet by the early founders of the Jonang school and popularized by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen. Dolpopa's magnum opus Mountain Doctrine has been translated, and lays out in detail how Dolpopa interprets all the Indian treatises, sutras, and tantras to fit his view.

Besides these Jonang sources there is a strong tradition within the Kagyu school of Shentong although it is not quite the same as Jonang Shentong. Karmazopa already mentioned Jamgong Kongtrul's Commentary on the Uttaratantra which is the standard commentary on that text in the Karma Kagyu school.

Karmazopa also mentioned Book 6 Part 3 of Kongtrul's [Treasury of Knowledge] lays out the Tenet systems, and includes a section on Shentong.

Earlier in the Kagyu school there was the Third Karmapa's Commentary on In Praise of Dharmadhatu translated by Brunnholzl.

In terms of modern books, Thrangu Rinpoche has a book that is a Commentary on the Uttaratantra that is quite readable.

I'm currently reading Sky Dancer and am enjoying it thus far. Curious about this new one, thanks!

Okay, I hope everything goes more smoothly for you soon.

I keep running into obstacles myself. Now that I'm getting over the mental obstacles, I'm old enough to be hitting the physical obstacles of growing older.

Do you think I should delete this thread? It doesn't seem to be generating any advice from anyone who knows about such an idea as "archons" in Buddhism and I'm not sure the idea has helped you any...what do you think? Did it give you a clear idea to work with or did it just make your worst fears about the situation even worse?

In my opinion, a healthy attitude toward such things is found in Aristotle's quote:
>It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

In other words, if it is useful to us and we can not prove otherwise, we can act as if we are facing obstacles from such beings in order that we can work with that idea in some positive way. One benefit I can see right away is that it frames the predicament in such a way that it motivates us to practice and we can stop feeling guilty for falling into such ruts by realizing it is not your choosing. Even if it were to turn out there are no such beings, it is clearly not your choosing to feel this way, so it is accurate enough to frame it this way.

If this seems 'crazy' to anyone, keep in mind we personify things quite a lot in daily life without even thinking about it. We personify our cars when they won't start, for example. We really give "old Bessy" a feeling of hope and faith and love on a cold winter morning when we pump the gas pedal just right and gingerly turn the key in the ignition. She starts and we cheer for old Bessy. Then, we promptly shift out of "crazy" mode and into sensible thinking again. But, when old Bessy doesn't start, we are profoundly disappointed and sad...and not just because we will be late for work and see an auto mechanic bill in the near future. When the car fails to start, before we dissolve the idea of old Bessy as a living car with feelings, we feel flashes of disappointment that she let us down, sadness that she is dying and empathy for that old car that served us well for so many years and maybe even a tinge of guilt for being angry at her for not starting.

It might be beneficial for you to check out the Feeding Your Demons book. I'm not sure. I checked it out but decided it wasn't for me.

I did read Uncle Ramsey's Little Book of Demons and found it fairly entertaining and informative. It's not a Buddhist book, but if you could relate to the idea of "old Bessy" it might interest you.

>Then what about famous lay masters who married and had children? Note that by "enlightened" I don't necessarily mean full Buddhahood.

It's possible to have an orgasm without attachment and with the view of emptiness. An enlightened being could have children because of the benefit they would bring.

Also, it's possible to not completely have perfected a view of emptiness (the difference between a Bodhisattva on the Bhumis and a Buddha). Someone could be practicing this path and make the occasional mistake which could result in children. If you read Sky Dancer: The Secret Life and Songs of Lady Yeshe Tsogyel (an absolutely fantastic book), when she is practicing with Guru Rinpoche she occasionally succumbs to bliss. Obviously she eventually gets past that as her attainment was immense.

At any rate, it's not like the path is immediately perfected. People aren't perfect until they're Buddhas.

+1

and that said, you might also find these useful. I'm not saying I agree with them 100%, yet they may be good places to start.

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Esoteric-Buddhism-Tibet/dp/8120815793/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1503516802&sr=8-3&keywords=rise+of+esoteric+buddhism

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Yoga-Tantra-Religions-Thirteenth/dp/0521695341/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503516846&sr=1-1&keywords=indic+tantra

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Tantric-Buddhism-Transgression/dp/0231162413/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EK7699K3JHGRJJYAFCVD

There is an excellent book on this topic. Goes deep into the existence of Chan in Tibet early on and how the 2 influenced each other. It uses direct documents from the time. They’re mainly from the border areas of the Tibetan and Chinese empires. It’s called “Tibetan Zen” and is a bit academic, but very interesting read. Here’s a link to it on Amazon: Tibetan Zen: Discovering a Lost Tradition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1559394463/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_UAEkDb1BD6F8W

The concept of Shentong was brought to Tibet by Taranatha, so he is probably the best source you need. There is only one such scripture of his I know: The Essence of Other-Emptiness

Mingyur Rinpoche, Turning confusion into clarity, https://www.amazon.com/Turning-Confusion-into-Clarity-Foundation-ebook/dp/B00LMJUMI8/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1504287551&sr=8-3&keywords=mingyur+rinpoche

And Book 3 of the collected works of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche which is several excellent books in one collection: Zurchungpa's Testament, A Wondrous Ocean of Advice for the Practice of Retreat in Solitude, Pure Appearance, Primordial Purity, The Lamp That Dispels Darkness, Selected Verse