The Option Attitude as Kadag and Lhundrup

Basic OKness effloresces into Spontaneously Activity

Ari Nielsen, Andrew Shade Blevins, and Max Soweski

Mar 04, 2026

In the following video, some friends discuss the Option Method as a method to familiarize oneself with Kadag and Lhundrup. Option is a view with roots in the traditions of American philosophical pragmatism and mystic Christianity. Kadag and Lhundrup are Tibetan terms from the Vajrayana school of Buddhism, where they comprise the two inseparable aspects of Rigpa, which is being without trying to artificially stabilize state. Here, these two traditions will clarify each other.

Following the video is further exploration of the Option Attitude as Kadag and Lhundrup.

Kadag (Basic OKness) is that there is no existential problem with caring exactly the way you care about everything you care about (whether liking, disliking, or not caring). A sense of existential dilemma can arise from not recognizing this, which at root could be described as “there is something wrong with my caring”. As you already have complete existential freedom to care exactly as you care about everything, basic OKness is always-already the case. This freedom can be unrecognized, but even this lack of recognition is in itself a form of basic OKness, an expression of freedom of caring.

Lhundrup (Spontaneous Activity) is the natural movement of Basic OKness into interaction. Your fields of care effloresce into emotions and desires. Habit patterns may cause the manifest display of the flow of emotion and desire to be weak, to be frozen, or to “shoot off” at odd angles. Nonetheless, the source of emotional flow and desires is that you care as you care; the distortions of display are always-already manifestations of spontaneous activity. When such is recognized, emotions and desires become non-compulsive potentialities of interaction; however, emotions and desires are manifestations of spontaneous activity whether recognized as such or not.

Some key considerations touched on in the video:

“Be happy, and do what you want”: what is it to move from always-already basic OKness, instead of trying to move towards basic OKness as an attainment?
“Simple Desiring Machine”: what is it to get in touch with our wanting, without distorting it into complicated shapes?
“The Complete Package”: what is revealed when we feel the field of care associated with the entirety of implications of possible action?

Note: in the video, “EG” is an acronym for the organization “Evolving Ground”.

On The Option Method

The Option Attitude as Kadag and Lhudrup

Below, Kadag is translated as basic OKness, Lhundrup as spontaneous action.

I. Basic OKness

Basic OKness is recognition of the unconditional freedom to care as you care
Emotions and desires arise from these fields of care and effloresce as spontaneous activity.
Basic OKness is always-already the case
You already have the unconditional freedom to care as you care. There is no ultimate force or system that existentially constrains your care. Unhappiness is the misapprehension that you are not already completely free to care as you care.
Emotions and desires are the efflorescence of basic OKness.
Emotions and desires are energies that arise out of fields of care and move into spontaneous activity. When basic OKness is recognized, manipulation of emotions relaxes, and the energetic patterns self‑liberate (move freely as appropriate) into non-compulsive potentials for action.
You can always be in touch with basic OKness
Root unhappiness (existential dilemma) is merely loss of recognition of basic OKness. Unhappiness moves one to create apparent conditions for regaining basic OKness. As basic OKness is still actually present, this is unnecessary.
“Should/must/have to” are misapprehensions that you are not free to care as you do.
They mistakenly posit conditions on basic OKness. These misapprehensions may spontaneously appear. One possibility is to recognize there is no need to eliminate these misapprehensions once and for all (or at all). These misapprehensions can be left as is. They naturally vanish when recognized as misapprehensions.

II. Spontaneous Activity

Unhappiness is itself an expression of basic OKness
It is an unnecessary reminder of your care. Unhappiness is when the emotions that arises from the fields of care of basic OKness are misapprehended as compulsory to follow in order to attain basic OKness.
You are always doing what you want
There is no existential coercion. You are already free. You are already moving from your field of care. However, there may be misapprehension that you are not.
Spontaneous activity has no reasons beyond the felt-sense of care.
Spontaneous Activity is the natural movement from the field of all that you care about into interaction.
The field of care effloresces as emotions and desire, which becomes spontaneous activity.
Emotions and desires are your field of care coalescing toward action potential.

You can be a simple desiring machine
When you are present to the entirety of all your (not necessarily cohering) fields of care, you will be moved to spontaneous action without existential dilemma.

III. Myths of unhappiness

“It isn’t possible.”
You already have the unconditional freedom to care as you care. You can also recognize this freedom.
“It isn’t safe.”
Your unhappiness is to remind you of what you care about. Without it, you still care about the same things!
“If I was happy, I wouldn’t care/try.”
Basic OKness is exactly recognizing that you already have the unconditional freedom to care as you care. Care is intrinsic to Basic OKness.
There is a right way to be
The universe permits all forms, shapes, and textures of care, including being tangled and unhappy. No one needs to be happy. Your freedom includes aligning or not with others’ cares.
There is no “should be happy”.
If you are unhappy, you can start with recognizing the basic OKness intrinsic in unhappiness. You are unhappy because it is, right now, as far as you know, the best way for you to be. You are unhappy as a way of reminding yourself what you care about. That unhappiness is unnecessary doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Recognizing that unhappiness, too, is a manifestation of basic OKness is a wonderful exploration.

IV. Happiness without reason

No reasons are needed.
Basic OKness doesn’t require reasons; reasons, however, can appear as spontaneous activity when useful.
No need to understand yourself.
Self‑analysis is not a prerequisite for recognizing basic OKness.

Everything is already OK
However things are does not impinge on basic OKness. However things are can also always be conditionally better, a possibility which spontaneous activity generally non-compulsively moves us toward.
Forms of display: Peace and Joy
Two basic modes of display of care are nonintervention (peacefully leaving conditions as they are at present) and intervention (taking action to transform conditions, which may be done in many different ways, from slowly and gently to swiftly and forcefully).
Watch, wait, enjoy
As you relax into being presence to your fields of care (“watch”), care effloresces into emotion and desire, and then into action. You can simply enjoy what is happening as you, peacefully (“wait”) when not moved into action, and joyfully (“enjoy” in the sense of “to have for one’s use or benefit”), when moved to action.

V. Conclusion

Be happy, and do what you want
Recognize basic OKness and allow it to move you as spontaneous activity.
Your ultimate to desire is to simply care as you do care about everything you care about (basic OKness) and be non-compulsively moved by this care or not as you are (spontaneous activity).