Advice On Presence And Awareness

By Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche


Born in Eastern Tibet in 1938, Namkhai Norbu is a recognized Dzogchen master and lineage holder who began teaching in the West in 1976. Dzogchen, or 'Great Perfection' is the central teaching of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and is considered by them to be the highest and most definitive path to enlightenment. This essay is included here as a precise and detailed instruction on the most essential aspect of Dzogchen practice, and is an excellent reference for anyone interested in meditation practice or spiritual discipline of any kind.

A practitioner of Dzogchen must have precise presence and awareness. Until one really and truly knows one's own mind and can govern it with awareness, even if very many explanations of reality are given, they remain nothing more than ink on paper or matters for debate among intellectuals, without the possibility of the birth of any understanding of the real meaning. In the Kun-byed rgyal-po, a tantra of Dzogchen, it is said that: "The Mind is that which creates both Samsara and Nirvana, so one needs to know this King which creates everything!" We say we transmigrate in the impure and illusory vision of Samsara, but in reality, it's just our mind that is transmigrating. And then again, as far as pure Enlightenment is concerned, it's only our own mind, purified, that realizes it.

Our mind is the basis of everything, and from our mind everything arises, Samsara and Nirvana, ordinary sentient beings and Enlightened Ones. Consider the way beings transmigrate in the impure vision of Samsara: even though the Essence of the Mind, the true nature of our mind, is totally pure right from the beginning, nevertheless, because pure mind is temporarily obscured by the impurity of ignorance, there is no self-recognition of our own State. Through this lack of self-recognition arise illusory thoughts and actions created by the passions. Thus various negative karmic causes are accumulated and since their maturation as effects is inevitable, one suffers bitterly, transmigrating in the six states of existence. Thus, not recognizing one's own State is the cause of transmigration, and through this cause one becomes the slave of illusions and distractions.

Conditioned by the mind, one becomes strongly habituated to illusory actions. And then it's the same as far as pure Enlightenment is concerned; beyond one's own mind there is no dazzling light to come shining in from outside to wake one up. If one recognizes one's own intrinsic State as pure from the beginning and only temporarily obscured by impurities, and if one maintains the presence of this recognition without becoming distracted, then all the impurities dissolve. This is the essence of the Path. Then the inherent quality of the great original purity of the Primordial State manifests, and one recognizes it and becomes the master of it as a lived experience. This experience of the real knowledge of the authentic original condition, or the true awareness of the State, is what is called Nirvana. So Enlightenment is nothing other than one's own mind in its purified condition. For this reason Padma Sambhava said: "the mind is the creator of Samsara and of Nirvana. Outside the mind there exists neither Samsara nor Nirvana." Having thus established that the basis of Samsara and Nirvana is the mind, it follows that all that seems concrete in the world, and all the seeming solidity of beings themselves, is nothing but an illusory vision of one's own mind.

Just as a person who has a 'bile' disease sees a shell as being yellow even if one can see objectively that that is not its true color, so in just the same way, as a result of the particular karmic causes of sentient beings, the various illusory visions manifest. Thus, if one were to meet a being of each of the six states of existence on the bank of the same river, they would not see that river in the same way, since they each would have different karmic causes. The beings of the hot hells would see the river as fire; those of the cold hells would see it as ice; beings of the hungry ghost realm would see the river as blood and pus; aquatic animals would see it as an environment to live in; human beings would see the river as water to drink; while the demi-gods would see it as weapons, and the gods as nectar. This shows that in reality nothing exists as concrete and objective. Therefore, understanding that the root of Samsara is truly the mind, one should set out to pull up the root. Recognizing that the mind itself is the essence of Enlightenment one attains liberation. Thus, being aware that the basis of Samsara and Nirvana is only the mind, one takes the decision to practice.

At this point, with mindfulness and determination, it is necessary to maintain a continuous present awareness without becoming distracted. If, for example, one wants to stop a river from flowing, one must block it at its source, in such a way that its flow is definitively interrupted; whatever other point you may choose to block it at, you will not obtain the same result. Similarly, if we want to cut the root of Samsara, we must cut the root of the mind that has created it; otherwise there would be no way of becoming free of Samsara. If we want all the suffering and hindrances arising from our negative actions to dissolve, we must cut the root of the mind, which produced them. If we don't do this, even if we carry out virtuous actions with our body and voice, there will be no result beyond a momentary fleeting benefit. Besides, never having cut the root of negative actions, they can once again be newly accumulated, in just the same way that if one only lops off a few leaves and branches from a tree instead of cutting its main root, far from the tree shriveling up, it will without doubt grow once again. If the mind, the King that creates everything, is not left in its natural condition, even if one practices the tantric methods of the 'Developing' and 'Perfecting' stages, and recites many mantras, one is not on the path to total liberation.

If one wants to conquer a country, one must subjugate the King or the Lord of that country; just to subjugate a part of the population or some functionary won't bring about the fulfillment of one's aim. If one does not maintain a continuous presence, and lets oneself be dominated by distractions, one will never liberate oneself from endless Samsara. On the other hand, if one doesn't allow oneself to be dominated by neglectfulness and illusions, but has self-control, knowing how to continue in the true State with present awareness, then one unites in oneself the essence of all the Teachings, the root of all the Paths.

Because all the various factors of dualistic vision, such as Samsara and Nirvana, happiness and suffering, good and bad etc., arise from the mind we can conclude that the mind is their fundamental basis. This is why non-distraction is the root of the Paths and the fundamental principle of the practice. It was by following this supreme path of continuous presence that all the Buddhas of the past became enlightened, by following this same path the Buddhas of the future will become enlightened, and the Buddhas of the present, following this right path, are enlightened. Without following this Path, it is not possible to attain enlightenment.

Therefore, because the continuation in the presence of the true State is the essence of all the Paths, the root of all meditations, the conclusion of all spiritual practices, the juice of all esoteric methods, the heart of all ultimate teachings, it is necessary to seek to maintain a continuous presence without becoming distracted. What this means is: don't follow the past, don't anticipate the future, and don't follow illusory thoughts that arise in the present; but turning within oneself, one should observe one's own true condition and maintain the awareness of it just as it is, beyond conceptual limitations of the 'three times'. One must remain in the uncorrected condition of one's own natural state, free from the impurity of judgments between 'being and non-being', 'having and not-having', 'good and bad', and so on.

The original condition of the Great Perfection is truly beyond the limited conceptions of the 'three times'; but those who are just beginning the practice, at any rate, do not yet have this awareness and find it difficult to experience the recognition of their own State; it is therefore very important not to allow oneself to be distracted by the thoughts of the 'three times'. If, in order not to become distracted, one tries to eliminate all one's thoughts, becoming fixated on the search for a state of calm or a sensation of pleasure, it is necessary to remember that this is an error, in that the very 'fixation' one is engaged in is, in itself, nothing but another thought.

One should relax the mind, maintaining only the awakened presence of one's own State, without allowing oneself to be dominated by any thought whatsoever. When one is truly relaxed, the mind finds itself in its natural condition. If out of this natural condition thoughts arise, whether good or bad, rather than trying to judge whether one is in the calm state or in the wave of thoughts, one should just acknowledge all thoughts with the awakened presence of the State itself. When thoughts are given just this bare attention of simple acknowledgment, they relax into their own true condition, and as long as this awareness of their relaxedness lasts one should not forget to keep the mind present. If one becomes distracted and does not simply acknowledge the thoughts, then it is necessary to give more attention to making one's awareness truly present. If one finds that thoughts arise about finding oneself in a state of calm, without abandoning simple presence of mind, one should continue by observing the state of movement of the thought itself. In the same way, if no thoughts arise, one should continue with the presence of the simple acknowledgment that just gives bare attention to the state of calm. This means maintaining the presence of this natural state, without attempting to fix it within any conceptual framework or hoping for it to manifest in any particular form, color, or light, but just relaxing into it, in a condition undisturbed by the characteristics of the ramifications of thought.

Even if those who begin to practice this find it difficult to continue in this state for more than an instant, there is no need to worry about it. Without wishing for the state to continue for a long time and without fearing the lack of it altogether, all that is necessary is to maintain pure presence of mind, without falling into the dualistic situation of there being an observing subject perceiving an observed object. If the mind, even though one maintains simple presence, does not remain in this calm state, but always tends to follow waves of thoughts about the past or future, or becomes distracted by the aggregates of the senses such as sight, hearing, etc., then one should try to understand that the wave of thought itself is as insubstantial as the wind. If one tries to catch the wind, one does not succeed; similarly if one tries to block the wave of thought, it cannot be cut off. So for this reason one should not try to block thought, much less try to renounce it as something considered negative. In reality, the calm state is the essential condition of mind, while the wave of thought is the mind's natural clarity in function; just as there is no distinction whatever between the sun and its rays, or a stream and its ripples, so there is no distinction between the mind and thought. If one considers the calm state as something positive to be attained, and the wave of thought as something negative to be abandoned, and one remains thus caught up in the duality of accepting and rejecting, there is no way of overcoming the ordinary state of mind.

Therefore the essential principle is to acknowledge with bare attention, without letting oneself become distracted, whatever thought arises, be it good or bad, important or less important, and to continue to maintain presence in the state of the moving wave of thought itself. When a thought arises and one does not succeed in remaining calm with this presence, since other such thoughts may follow, it is necessary to be skilful in acknowledging it with non-distraction. 'Acknowledging' does not mean seeing it with one's eyes, or forming a concept about it. Rather it means giving bare attention, without distraction to whatever thought of the 'three times', or whatever perception of the senses may arise, and thus being fully conscious of this 'wave' while continuing in the presence of the pure awareness.

It absolutely does not mean modifying the mind in some way, such as by trying to imprison thought or to block its flow. It is difficult for this acknowledgment with bare attention, without distraction, to last for a long time for someone who is beginning this practice, as a result of strong mental habits of distraction acquired through transmigration in the course of unlimited time. If we only take into consideration this present lifetime, from the moment of our birth right up until the present we have done nothing other than live distractedly, and there has never been an opportunity to train in the presence of awareness and non-distraction. For this reason, until we become no longer capable of entering into distraction, if, through lack of attention, we find ourselves becoming dominated by neglectfulness and forgetfulness, we must try by every means to become aware of what is happening through relying on the presence of mind. There is no 'meditation' that you can find beyond this continuing in one's own true condition with the presence of the calm state, or with the moving wave of thought. Beyond recognition with bare attention and continuing in one's own State, there is nothing to seek that is either very good or very dear.

If one hopes that something will manifest from outside oneself, instead of continuing in the presence of one's own State, this is like the saying that tells about an evil spirit coming to the Eastern gate, and the ransom to buy him off being sent to the Western gate. In such a case, even if one believes one is meditating perfectly, in reality, it's just a way of tiring oneself out for nothing. So continuing in the State which one finds within oneself is really the most important thing. If one neglects that which one has within oneself and instead seeks something else, one becomes like the beggar who had a precious stone for a pillow, but not knowing it for what it was, had to go to such great pains to beg for alms for a living.

Therefore, maintaining the presence of one's own State and observing the wave of thought, without judging whether this presence is more or less clear, and without thinking of the calm state and the wave of thought in terms of the acceptance of the one and the rejection of the other, absolutely not conditioned by wanting to change anything whatsoever, one continues without becoming distracted, and without forgetting to keep one’s awareness present; governing oneself in this way one gathers the essence of the practice.

Some people are disturbed when they hear noises made by other people walking, talking and so on, and they become irritated by this, or else becoming distracted by things external to themselves, they give birth to many illusions. This is the mistaken path known as 'the dangerous passageway in which external vision appears to one as an enemy'. What this means is that, even though one knows how to continue in the knowledge of the condition of both the state of calm and the wave of thought, one has not yet succeeded in integrating this state with one's external vision. If this should be the case, while still always maintaining present awareness, if one sees something, one should not be distracted, but, without judging what one sees as pleasant, one should relax and continue in the presence. If a thought arises judging experience as pleasant and unpleasant, one should just acknowledge it with bare attention and continue in present awareness without forgetting it. If one finds oneself in an annoying circumstance, such as surrounded by a terrible row, one should just acknowledge this disagreeable circumstance and continue in present awareness, without forgetting it.

If one does not know how to integrate the presence of awareness with all one's daily actions, such as eating, walking, sleeping, sitting, and so on, then it is not possible to make the state of contemplation last beyond the limited duration of a session of sitting meditation.

If this is so, not having been able to establish true present awareness, one creates a separation between one's sessions of sitting practice and one's daily life. So it is very important to continue in present awareness without distraction, integrating it with all the actions of one's daily life. The Buddha, in the Prajñápáramitá Sutra (commonly called 'The Heart Sutra') said: "Subhuti, in what way does a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, being aware that he has a body, practice perfect conduct? Subhuti, a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, when walking, is fully mindful that he is walking; when he stands up is fully mindful of standing up; when sitting is fully mindful of sitting; when sleeping is fully mindful of sleeping; and if his body is well or ill, he is fully mindful of either condition!" That's just how it is!

To understand how one can integrate present awareness with all the activities of one's daily life, let's take the example of walking. There's no need to jump up immediately and walk in a distracted and agitated way, marching up and down and breaking everything one finds in front of one, as soon as the idea of walking arises. Rather, as one gets up, one can do so remembering 'now I am getting up, and while walking I do not want to become distracted'. In this way, without becoming distracted, step-by-step, one should govern oneself with the presence of awareness. In the same way, if one remains seated, one should not forget this awareness, and whether one is eating a tasty morsel, or having a drop to drink, or saying a couple of words, whatever action one undertakes, whether it is of greater or lesser importance, one should continue with present awareness of everything without becoming distracted.

Since we are so strongly habituated to distraction it is difficult to give birth to this presence of awareness, and this is especially true for those who are just beginning to practice. But whenever there's any new kind of work to be done, the first thing one has to do is to learn it. And even if at the first few attempts one is not very practiced, with experience, little by little the work becomes easy. In the same way, in learning contemplation, at the beginning one needs commitment and a definite concern not to become distracted, following that one must maintain present awareness as much as possible, and finally, if one becomes distracted, one must notice it. If one perseveres in one's commitment to maintaining present awareness, it is possible to arrive at a point where one no longer ever becomes distracted.

In general, in Dzogchen, the Teaching of spontaneous self-perfection, one speaks of the self-liberation of the way of seeing, of the way of meditating, of the way of behaving, and of the fruit, but this self-liberation must arise through the presence of awareness. In particular, the self-liberation of the way of behaving absolutely cannot arise if it is not based on the presence of awareness. So, if one does not succeed in making the self-liberation of one's way of behaving precise, one cannot overcome the distinction between sessions of sitting meditation and one's daily life.

When we speak of the self-liberation of one's way of behaving as the fundamental principle of all the tantra, the agama, and the upadesa of Dzogchen, this pleases the young people of today a great deal. But some of them do not know that the real basis of self-liberation is the presence of awareness, and many of them, even if they understand this a little in theory, and know how to speak of it, nevertheless, just the same have the defect of not applying it. If a sick person knows perfectly well the properties and functions of a medicine and is also expert in giving explanations about it, but doesn't ever take the medicine, he or she can never get well. In the same way, throughout limitless time we have been suffering from the serious illness of being subject to the dualistic condition, and the only remedy for this illness is real knowledge of the state of self-liberation without falling into limitations.

When one is in contemplation, in the continuation of the awareness of the true State, then it is not necessary to consider one's way of behaving as important, but, on the other hand, for someone who is beginning to practice, there is no way of entering into practice other than by alternating sessions of sitting meditation with one's daily life. This is because we have such strong attachment, based on logical thinking, on regarding the objects of our senses as being concrete, and, even more so, based on our material body made of flesh and blood. When we meditate on the 'absence of self-nature', examining mentally our head and the limbs of our body, eliminating them one by one as 'without self', we can finally arrive at establishing that there is no 'self' or 'I'. But this 'absence of self-nature' remains nothing but a piece of knowledge arrived at through intellectual analysis, and there is as yet no real knowledge of this 'absence of self-nature'. Because, while we are cozily talking about this 'absence of self-nature', if it should happen that we get a thorn in our foot, there's no doubt that we'll right away be yelping "ow! ow! ow!" This shows that we are still subject to the dualistic condition and that the 'absence of self-nature' so loudly proclaimed with our mouth has not become a real lived state for us.

For this reason it is indispensable to regard as extremely important the presence of awareness, which is the basis of self-liberation in one's daily conduct. Since there have been different ways of regarding conduct as important, there have arisen various forms of rules established according to the external conditions prevailing at the time, such as religious rules and judicial laws. There is, however, a great deal of difference between observing rules through compulsion and observing them through awareness. Since, in general, everyone is conditioned by karma, by the passions, and by dualism, there are very few people who observe rules and laws through awareness. For this reason, even if they don't want to do so, human beings have had obligatorily to remain subject to the power of various kinds of rules and laws.

We are already conditioned by karma, by the passions, and by dualism. If one then adds limitations derived from having compulsorily to follow rules and laws, our burden becomes even heavier, and without doubt we get even further from the correct 'way of seeing' and from the right 'way of behaving'. If one understands the term 'self-liberating' as meaning that one can just do whatever one wants, this is not correct; this is absolutely not what the principle of self-liberation means, and to believe such a mistaken view would show that one has not truly understood what awareness means. But then again we should not consider the principle of laws and rules as being just the same as the principle of awareness. Laws and rules are in fact established on the basis of circumstances of time and place, and work by conditioning the individual with factors outside him or herself.

Awareness, on the other hand, arises from a state of knowledge which the individual him or herself possesses. Because of this, laws and rules sometimes correspond to the inherent awareness of the individual, and sometimes do not. However, if one has awareness, it is possible to overcome the situation of being bound by compulsion to follow rules and laws. Not only is this so, but an individual who has awareness and keeps it stably present is also capable of living in peace under all the rules and laws there are in the world, without being in any way conditioned by them. Many Masters have said: "Urge on the horse of awareness with the whip of presence!" And, in fact, if awareness is not quickened by presence it cannot function.

Let's examine an example of awareness: suppose that in front of a person in a normal condition there is a cup full of poison, and that person is aware of what it is. Adult and balanced persons, knowing the poison for what it is and aware of the consequences of taking it, do not need much clarification about it. But they have to warn those who don't know about the poison being there, by saying something like: "In this cup there is some poison, and it's deadly if swallowed!" Thus, by creating awareness in others, the danger can be avoided. This is what we mean by awareness. But there are cases of persons who, although they know the danger of the poison, don't give any importance to it, or still have doubts as to whether it really is a dangerous poison, or who really lack all awareness, and with these people it is simply not sufficient to just say: "This is poison". For them one has to say: "It is forbidden to drink this substance, on pain of punishment by the law". And through this kind of threat the law protects the lives of these individuals. This is the principle on which laws are based, and even if it is very different from the principle of awareness, it is nevertheless indispensable as a means to save the lives of those who are unconscious and without awareness.

Now we can continue the metaphor of the poison to show what we mean by presence. If the person who has a cup of poison in front of them, even though they are aware and know very well what the consequences of taking the poison would be, does not have a continuous presence of attention to the fact that the cup contains poison, it may happen that they become distracted and swallow some of it. So if awareness is not continually accompanied by presence it is difficult for there to be the right results. This is what we mean by presence.

In the Mahayana, the principle to which maximum importance is given, and the essence itself of the Mahayana doctrine, is the union of void-ness and compassion. But, in truth, if one does not have awareness inseparably linked to presence, there absolutely cannot arise a really genuine compassion. As long as one does not have the real experience of being moved by compassion for others, it is useless to pretend that one is so very full of compassion. There is a Tibetan proverb about this, which says: "Even if you've got eyes to see other people, you need a mirror to see yourself!" As this proverb implies, if one really wants a genuine compassion for others to arise in oneself, it is necessary to observe one's own defects, be aware of them, and mentally put yourself in other people's places to really discover what those persons' actual conditions might be. The only way to succeed in this is to have the presence of awareness. Otherwise, even if one pretends to have great compassion, a situation will sooner or later arise which shows that compassion has never really been born in us at all.

Until a pure compassion does arise, there is no way to overcome one's limits and barriers. And it happens that many practitioners, as they progress in the practice, just end up thinking of themselves as being a 'divinity' and thinking of everyone else as being 'evil spirits'. Thus they are doing nothing other than increasing their own limits, developing attachment towards themselves, and hatred towards others. Or, even if they talk a great deal about Mahamudra and Dzogchen, all they are really doing is becoming more expert and refined in the ways of behaving of the eight worldly dharmas. This is a sure sign that a true compassion has not arisen in us, and the root of the matter is that there has never really arisen the presence of awareness. So, without chattering about it, or getting caught up in trying to hide behind an elegant facade, one should try really and truly to cause the presence of awareness actually to arise in oneself, and then carry it into practice. This is the most important point of the practice of Dzogchen.

This paper is dedicated by the practitioner of Dzogchen, Namkhai Norbu, to his disciples of the Dzogchen Community. Into the lion's mouth!

This short text by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche was originally written in Tibetan in 1977. It was then translated into Italian by Adriano Clemente and into English by John Shane, and was published as a small pamphlet on the occasion of the first International Conference on Tibetan Medicine, held in Venice and Arcidosso, Italy, 1983. It has since been published (in different translation) as a booklet by Barrytown Limited, and was included in several additions of the book The Crystal and the Way of Light, an excellent collection of Norbu Rinpoche's teachings. You can find a plain text version HERE.

For more on Namkhai Norbu and the Dzogchen Community of North America: tsegyalgar.org

My friend Longchen/Simpo has made the unfortunate decision to take down his well written articles from his website Dreamdatum. He is also creating a new website focusing only on dream interpretation. It is at http://www.dreamlense.com/.

Thusness/Passerby have said: "Simpo (Longchen) is a very insightful and sincere practitioner, there are some very good quality articles written by him regarding non-duality in his website Dreamdatum."

I have uploaded an archive of all his articles on spiritual growth and his personal spiritual insights from Dreamdatum (which was written in the period between year 2004 to 2008), available for download at: http://www.box.net/shared/vx0baz7mi7

Note: If you do not have Microsoft Word 2007, you will need to download Word Viewer.

The table of content is as follows (please note that all links in the table of content are now broken links):

self growth, healing, enlightenment, meditation______________________________

These are articles dealing with self-growth, healing and discovery systems or paths

General Information on self-discovery

Why is spiritual truth so elusive?
Why is spiritual truth so elusive?... This article attempts to find the causes.

A system of self-discovery
The path that I am walking upon... This article describes a system for self growth and discovery.

What is the Higher Self
Who and what is the higher self? Is there a way to contact it?

Enlightenment is a gradual process
Many people has the notion that enlightenment is one state. Many also believe that when it is attained, a person is forever in that state. My opinion is that enlightenment is not just one state but is a gradual and progressive establishing of states of consciousness..

Can the Source of existence be an Object?
Can the Source of existence be a thing? Can IT be an tangible object? Can we even can IT it? ...

Paradox
Paradox of perception...

Ripples on the surface of the Source
The impression of there being a 'me/self' interacting with the environment and others can be compared to the ripples on the surface of Being. The ripples can be liken to individuals/selves. The ripples are the perceptions of sensorial and thought experiences. Different beings/individuals will have different experiences that are dependent on their sense characteristics. Being/Absolute can be liken to the entirety which is the vast ocean. ...

The limitation of Science in dealing with Reality
This article describes why science may not be the right tool for dealing with Reality. ...

Is there really an Eternal Witness?
This articles explains why no Eternal Witness exist...

How does Non-duality feels like?
A description of how non-duality feels like from my experience...

Clearing of karmic patterns and habits
Beside having insights and realisations, karmic pattern clearing is equally important for effective transformation to occur.....

Are we supposed to get rid of unwholesome thoughts?
Many spiritual teaching say that one must get rid of unwholesome stuffs in one's life. So does that include getting rid of unwholesome thoughts that one is having? This article is related to karmic pattern clearing ....

Misconceptions surrounding the term Non-duality
An essay about the misconceptions surrounding the term Non-duality...

The non-solidity of existence
An essay about the non-solidity of existence...

Series of realisations and self-discoveries

Below is a list of realisations that I had. They are arranged sequentially with the earliest realisation on the top. What was being discovered is that a latter realisation can over-ride or modify upon an earlier one. This listing is not a definitive guide, but a documentation of the process based on my own personal experience.

The description of the self-discovery path that I use can be found here.

Who are we?
Are we just the personality?

Self-arised impressions?
When we interact with the world and others, are we really engaging the external environment
or are we really just interacting with our thoughts and ourselves?

Can a face see itself without a mirror?
Likewise, can the Absolute Source percieve itself without a mirror?

Doer and the being done
Who is the doer of action? ...

Symbolism and Presence
Our world seems 'solid' when we externalise experiences...

Entering Present Moment
Entering Present Moment cannot be a contrive activity. It happens when it wants to and is without any active intention on the part of the mind. ...

The impression of self and others
When the hypnotic impression of there being an observer (self) and the being observed(others and environment) is being discovered and recognised, the world suddenly appears illusionary....

Knowingness and Self
Knowingness is in-built into consciousness. But this knowingness is being mistaken for a doer or a self.....

All is the Universal Mind
Click to find out... Please understand that there is a difference between a conceptual understanding and an experiential realisation...

When meditation can be a hinderance
Meditation is a useful practice for one on a spiritual path. However, at a certain stage it can actually be a hinderance. This article is an essay on when meditation becomes a hinderance to experiencing Oneness Presence.....

Non-dual conversation
Is it possible to maintain non-duality when talking to someone? Yes it is possible ...

A new phase
Description of a new phase ...

Below is a list of spiritual transmission example.

These are some psychic transmissions that I had some years ago. They represented an intermediate stage of my spiritual development.

Transmission example 1
A query on reincarnation...

Transmission example 2
An explanation on consciousness...


Here are some conversations between Longchen and Thusness on the articles: http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/291772

http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/317860


Also, there is a very old e-book written by Longchen/Simpo during/before year 2004, which may also be of interest. However it is spoken from the understanding/experience of the I AM or Eternal Witness, and his understandings and experience have since changed:


Click to download in chapters.

Preface
How to use the articles (86kb)

Who are we? (113kb)
Article about our true identity and it's relation with the cosmos.

Are we just a body?
(260kb)
Articles about the human energy system.

Miscellaneous Articles(171kb)
Miscellaneous articles written from various perspectives and experiences.
(Also see On Anatta (No-Self), Emptiness, Maha and Ordinariness, and Spontaneous Perfection)

The following article 'Anatta and Meditation' is an article that Thusness recommended me as being quite a good article on anatta. However, the author still sees Anatta as a stage of experience rather than a dharma seal/ever-present characteristic of reality. Nevertheless, the experience is there, which means the experience is non-dual... and for a beginner it is a good understanding and description. Until one realizes that it is a seal. For that to happen, insight must arise. What is the difference between seeing Anatta as a stage and as a seal?


When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self.

Anyway here is the article:

Anatta and Meditation

Chris Kang

BOccThy (Hons)
The University of Queensland

§

Introduction

This article aims to describe how the central Buddhist doctrine of anatta or ‘egolessness’ relates to meditative practice and experience, through a survey of meditative teachings by medieval and contemporary meditation masters across various Buddhist traditions – Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism. A personal account of how anatta and meditation are related in the experience of the author follows. The twin approach of contemporary textual study and personal phenomenological investigation may prove to be a helpful methodology in the elucidation of this most enigmatic, and perhaps, most controversial teaching of the historical Buddha.

Meditation Teachers on Anatta

Anatta often translated in English as ‘non-self’ or ‘egolessness’, is regarded by both Buddhist practitioners and scholars alike as being the essential kernel of the vast edifice of Buddhist thought and practice. The title of Anatta-vadi conferred upon the Buddha by Theravada Buddhists, the elevated status accorded to the huge collection of prajnaparamita or ‘perfection of wisdom’ texts, which focusses emphatically on the idea of sunyata or ‘emptiness’, and the testimonies of meditation teachers across the various Buddhist traditions, all bear witness to the centrality of the doctrine of anatta. In particular, Buddhist meditators have often described anatta as the single most profound discovery of the Buddha, and that an insight into anatta is crucial for attaining that utter liberation of the mind which is the summum bonum of Buddhist praxis.

In the Theravada or ‘Way of the Elders’ tradition, a very important doctrine is that of the Three Characteristics of Existence, namely anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), and anatta (non-self). Both in theory and practice, insight into the Three Characteristics is considered of paramount importance in the realization of nibbana, the ultimate state of freedom from all suffering. Nyanaponika describes the heart of Buddhist meditation as the simple but effective method of bare attention, which he defines as ‘the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception’. Bare attention consists in the bare and exact registering of the object of perception through the six senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind) before associative and abstract thinking takes place. Sustained and diligent application of bare attention to the four domains of mindfulness, namely the body, feelings, mind, and mental objects, is thought to lead the meditator to the realization that nowhere behind or within the psychophysical continuum can any individual agent or abiding entity called the ‘self’ be detected. Nyanaponika also emphasizes the usefulness of anapanasati or mindfulness of breathing in enabling the meditator to see the conditioned nature of the body, by virtue of the very fact that the breathing process is dynamic, essentially linked to existence, and dependent on the efficient functioning of certain organs. The nature of the body as activated by impersonal processess, and thus without any substance, thus becomes evident.

Dhiravamsa, another contemporary meditation teacher in the Theravada tradition, advocates the practice of non-attached awareness, which consists in the dynamic and alert observation of all sensations, emotions, and thoughts. He emphasizes the need to spontaneously observe and investigate one’s experience free from the grip of authority – be they some teacher’s words or one’s preconceived ideas. According to him, meditation can be found by looking, listening, touching, tasting, talking, walking, standing, in all movements and in all activities. For example, when one is able to look or listen with great attentiveness, clarity, and without a single thought, one can then experience the flow of awareness that is without any reactivity, reasoning, and sense of self. In talking about hearing with awareness, he says:

If there were myself acting as the hearer apart from the hearing, then "I am" would be separated from "myself" which has no corresponding reality. For "I am" and "myself" is one and the same thing. Hence I am hearing.

In this experience of the non-duality of subject and object, there is a realization of the absence of any permanent and independently existing ‘experiencer’ apart from the experience. This state is characterized by tremendous joy and bliss, a great clarity of understanding and complete freedom.

Ajahn Sumedho, a foremost Western disciple of the famous Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, speaks about the silent observation of all that arises and passes away in one’s body and mind in an open spirit of ‘letting go’. The gentle calming and silencing of the mind is encouraged so as to create a space in which to observe the conditions of the body and mind. In particular, meditation on the body is done with a sweeping awareness of all the various sensations that arise throughout the body, for example the pressure of one’s clothes on the body or the subtle vibrations on the hands and feet. This awareness can also be concentrated in a gentle and peaceful way on any particular area of the body for further investigation. The mind, consisting of perceptions (sanna), sensations (vedana), mental formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vinnana), is also observed with a silent awareness. As Ajahn Sumedho says:

Investigate these until you fully understand that all that rises passes away and is not self. Then there’s no grasping of anything as being oneself, and you are free from that desire to know yourself as a quality or a substance. This is liberation from birth and death.

Another technique advocated by Sumedho is that of listening to one’s thoughts. The meditator is asked to allow mental verbalizations and thoughts to arise in the mind without suppressing or grasping after them. In this way, what is normally held below the threshold of consciousness is made fully conscious. Verbalizations associated with pride, jealousy, meanness, or whatever emotions are seen for what they are – impermanent, selfless conditions arising and passing away. The thought "Who am I?" is purposefully generated to observe its arising from and dissolving into the empty space of the mind. By doing this, one realizes the lack of a substantial and existing self within the processes of one’s thought.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who represents a confluence of both the Theravada and Mahayana (literally ‘Great Vehicle’) Zen tradition, is a well-known peace activist as well as respected meditation teacher who leads retreats worldwide on the ‘art of mindful living’. In his teachings, Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes the twin practices of ‘stopping’ or concentration, and ‘observing’ or insight. In ‘stopping’, one practises conscious breathing in order to come back to oneself and to regain composure of body and mind. In ‘observing’, one illumines one’s body and mind with the light of mindful awareness in order to see deeply their true nature. Through the simple practice of consciously following one’s breath and attending to one’s body in the process of breathing, there comes a time when the breath, body, and mind very naturally becomes unified. One is then ready to clearly observe and look deeply into the feelings (vedana), internal formations (sankhara), and mental objects (dharmas) that arise in the field of awareness. In this process of looking, Thich Nhat Hanh says that to observe is to be one with the object of observation. The subject of observation is not one’s self, but the faculty of mindfulness which has the function of illuminating and transforming. As Thich Nhat Hanh says:

Mindfulness is the observing mind, but it does not stand outside of the object of observation. It goes right into the object and becomes one with it. Because the nature of the observing mind is mindfulness, the observing mind does not lose itself in the object but transforms it by illuminating it, just as the penetrating light of the sun transforms trees and plants.

This method of penetrative observation leads one to realize deeply that the awakened mind is not separate from the deluded mind, and that behind the illumination, there is neither one who illumines nor one who is illumined. In short, the observer is the observed:

If we continue in our mindful observation there will no longer be a duality between observer and observed.

In this respect, Thich Nhat Hanh is articulating an insight essentially similar to that of Dhiravamsa. But Thich Nhat Hanh goes further than that. He says that there comes a point in time at which, when one’s observation of this body and mind becomes sufficiently deep, one realizes directly the essential interdependence of oneself with all beings and indeed, with all things. In this experience of insight, which he calls ‘interbeing’, there is no longer any separation between an independently-existing self and all that is external to it – in fact, one is the world. To experientially understand this profound truth is to have penetrated into the core of anatta.

Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971), a direct spiritual descendant of the great thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen, came to America from Japan in 1958. His teachings, simple and direct, are focussed around the practice of the ‘beginner’s mind’ – that innocence of first inquiry characterized by the attitude which includes both doubt and possibility, and the ability to perceive things always as fresh and new. Commenting on the practice of breathing in zazen or sitting meditation, he says:

The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, "I breathe", the "I" is extra. There is no you to say "I". What we call "I" is just a swinging door, which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no "I", no world, no mind nor body.

Like Thich Nhat Hanh, Suzuki emphasizes the correct practice of mindful breathing in which there is no independent observer apart from the observed – in other words, the experience of anatta. He goes on to say that when one is fully concentrated on the breathing, there arises the realization of the ‘completely dependent’ yet ‘independent’ nature of existence, of which he says:

When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything… So when you practise zazen, your mind should be concentrated on your breathing… Without this experience, this practice, it is impossible to attain absolute freedom.

Suzuki also advocates an attentive and focussed mind in everything that one does, without being ‘shadowed by some preconceived idea’ or giving rise to ‘other notions about other activities and things’. In the total engagement of an activity with one’s whole body and mind, there is no room for a sense of "I" or "other" – an experience of anatta. He describes this kind of action rather poetically:

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Yet another way of practice which he teaches is what he calls a ‘smooth, free-thinking way of observation’ wherein the mind remains soft, open and observant of everything that arises in one’s experience. Whether an object arises in the field of consciousness or not, the mind should remain stable and undivided in its attention. In this way, there is no fragmentation of experience and no clinging to one thing while rejecting the other – an experience of ‘no mind’ or emptiness, in which the ‘self’ no longer exists as separate from the whole of experience, emerges.

Various methods for the realization of anatta or sunyata (literally ‘emptiness’ or ‘voidness’) , as articulated in Mahayana Buddhism, can be found in the different schools of Tibetan Buddhism. An intellectually-oriented, analytical method is advocated by the Gelug school whereas a direct, spontaneous awareness approach is taught and emphasized by the Mahamudra and Dzog-chen traditions of the Karma-Kagyu and Nying-ma schools respectively. It is the opinion of the author that while a discursive, intellectual analysis of the mind-body complex and of the world, even when accompanied by strong concentration, might result in a deep and refined understanding of the concept of sunyata, it nevertheless is a realization quite separate from a direct insight into anatta, which involves a non-conceptual seeing of what is. As such, the Mahamudra and Dzog-chen approaches, rather than that of the Gelug, will be discussed here.

Wang-ch’ug Dorje (1556-1603), the ninth Karmapa or spiritual head of the Karma-Kagyu school, describes Mahamudra meditation as consisting of mental quiescence (samatha) and penetrative insight (vipasyana) practices. The two techniques advocated for settling the mind in mental quiescence are the focussing of attention on an external object and on one’s breath. A mastery of the above practices results in a state of bliss, clarity, and bare non-conceptuality, which is then utilized to investigate the mind. In penetrative insight practice, the settled mind itself is scrupulously and silently examined to realize its true nature. Following this, the meditator is asked to examine thoroughly the moving mind or train of thought, and to recognize it for what it is. If a fleeting thought does not arise, one is then asked to deliberately emanate a thought for mindful investigation. Wang-ch’ug Dorje further instructs:

When you see that the nature of thought is a bright, clear awareness, then look to see whether there is any difference between the bright, clear awareness you saw previously with respect to the settled mind and the bright, clear awareness you see now with respect to a thought.

Such an investigation leads the meditator to realize the essential non-differentiation of the settled mind, moving mind, and clear awareness, in which no inherently existing self can be found. This allows full realization to be attained, when thought-moments are consistently seen as ‘suchness’ and ‘emptiness’in the course of one’s experience, thereby transcending their delusion-making quality. The sense of an inherently existing ‘self’ dissolves with this clear penetrating insight into the nature of both thoughts and the quiet mind – the experience of anatta.

Another Tibetan master, Sogyal Rinpoche, comes from the Nying-ma school which had its origins in the great Tibetan saint Padmasambhava. In the Nying-ma tradition, the highest and quintessential practice is known as Dzog-chen, a term which denotes both the simple yet profound practice for realizing the intrinsic nature of the mind, as well as the state of primordial awakening itself – the summit of one’s spiritual evolution. Sogyal Rinpoche explains that the essential nature of the mind is a space-like, radiant, pristine awareness, traditionally described as the state of Rigpa. The whole point of Dzog-chen is ‘to strengthen and stabilize Rigpa, and allow it to grow to full maturity’. The essence of meditation practice in Dzog-chen is described as follows: one mindfully and repeatedly attends to the space between the arising of two thoughts, which eventually results in a luminous, naked awareness that is free of conceptualizations and firmly rooted in the present – that is the state of Rigpa. Following this, another thought might arise out of that space, which is then immediately recognized for what it really is without lapsing into further chains of thought. In this way, ‘whatever thoughts that arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated’. The same spacelike awareness is cultivated with respect to emotions, events in everyday life, and whatever activities one is engaged in. Through a sustained and gradually deepening practice of Dzog-chen meditation, the state of Rigpa eventually becomes a continual flow, ‘like a river constantly moving day and night without any interruption’. In the state of Rigpa, be it continuous or momentary, all that arises in the mind is seen to be the manifestation of its very energy. In other words, the awareness and the object of awareness are no longer separate and no subject called the ‘self’ can be found anywhere – this is essentially an insight into anatta, perhaps in its most subtle and mature form.

Personal Glimpses into Reality

In my personal practice, the meditative technique that I have found to be most direct and profound is what might be described as choiceless awareness. In essence, it is no different from many of the aforementioned meditative practices, especially those of Mahamudra and Dzog-chen. It involves a whole way of living in which meditation, life, and activity are meant to blend into one harmonious integrality. I do not claim to have fully actualized this state but see myself as an earnest and committed practitioner of this integral path.

I have found, over the course of my practice, the immense value of formal sitting- meditation in initiating the momentum of stillness and observation, which can then be made to continue throughout the day. Both during formal sitting and in my daily rounds, I have found the practice of awareness of thoughts to be greatly significant in yielding deep insights into the nature of the self and experience. I compare this state of awareness to an elusive guest that comes of its own accord and leaves just as mysteriously, and that again emerges just as quietly as it has left. Be that as it may, the presence of awareness is felt as an ‘inner light’ which allows a diverse range of mental processes to be ‘seen’ with clarity and openness. Thoughts are witnessed in a subtle and undistracted manner to reveal their associative nature and at times, their isolated randomness. At times, thoughts have been observed to arise one after another in a continuous ‘stream’, each image associated with the next, centred around a specific theme or moving along in a specific direction. At other times, thoughts seem to branch off in multiple directions through lateral connections between seemingly unrelated images. And again, thoughts may arise in a slow and discontinuous manner, with each image ceasing almost immediately after it has arisen, to be followed after a pause by another related or non-related image. Along with mental images is an almost ubiquitous accompaniment of a running ‘commentary’ or ‘inner voice’. This somewhat vague yet familiar voice appears to be ‘me’, the centre of ‘my’ being, the place from where ‘I’ relate to the world. Perhaps the most important discovery that I made in relation to this experience of meditative awareness is this: while a strong sense of solidified ‘self’ separate from the flow of experience is present in ordinary, unaware consciousness, this very ‘self’ is starkly and refreshingly absent in the light of awareness. It is as if there is only a luminosity in the midst of experience, of thoughts and inner commentary, that defies reification or solidification. Greater familiarity with this spacious state of awareness allows me to contrast it to times when I have been unaware or only partially aware. This act of contrasting and comparison resulted in the realization that while in the state of unawareness, there is strong volitional and emotional involvement in these images, in the experience of awareness, this very involvement seem to be strikingly absent. In their place is a quality of soft, relaxed equanimity. It is as if the vortical interplay of thoughts, emotions, and volition is the very source of this sense of ‘self’. In other words, the ‘thinker’ is the thought(s), the ‘experiencer’ is the experience!

The other practice which I have found to be very beneficial is that of conscious breathing as described by Thich Nhat Hanh. Conscious breathing has been of great value in collecting the scattered energies of the mind prior to mindful observation. Two distinct yet somewhat similar states of consciousness that bear a relation to anatta have been experienced in the course of this practice. The first resulted from intense concentration on the sensations of moving air touching the tip of my nostrils as I was breathing. With sustained attention, coarse contactual sensations gradually gave way to subtle vibrations of rapid frequency. Persistent concentration on these vibrations seemed to increase the intensity and field of this experience; awareness of breathing seemed to have totally dissolved into the ‘sea’ of vibration. In a sudden and unexpected moment, however, the field of vibrations disappeared, leaving a pervasive sense of ‘nothingness’ wherein no boundary between the ‘self’ and the environment existed. I had lost all consciousness of bodily sensations and thoughts, and awareness, which was initially clear and present at the start of the practice, now became indistinct and blurred. It was a state in which ‘I’ was not there at all, characterized by the lack rather than presence of clear awareness. While this may be a glimpse of anatta, albeit an imperfect and distorted one, it never had the significance and clarity that the second experience had.

This experience occurred, again, during the practice of conscious breathing. Following a period of focussed attention on the breath, I started suffusing the whole body with awareness, all the while keeping the breath at the background of my mind. Awareness was light, open, and pervasive, giving rise to a deepening sense of joy and ease. Gradually and gently, it seemed as if the awareness, the breath, and the blissful sensations of the body merged into one, leaving no solid ‘self’ or ‘experiencer’ behind or within this flowing experience of clarity and non-thought. It was a profoundly invigorating ‘non-experience’ which left a deep and lasting impression on me. It made me think of its resemblance to what Thich Nhat Hanh has described as the anatta experience.

Another interesting experience that bear a relation to anatta occurred on a particular occasion when I was at the beach. On this occasion, the sea breeze was blowing with great strength and its extreme chill sent shivers down my spine and through my entire frame. I felt myself tensing up every single muscle I could find in my body. In that moment of need, awareness arose in my mind and an immediate relaxation of the muscles ensued. I decided to experiment with how far I could possibly relate to this somewhat unpleasant experience with clear awareness. Gradually I was able to let go of my resistance to the wind and to allow my body to experience the strong sensations as they are, without interference. It was as if the wind was allowed to sweep across and into my body even as I stood there open, aware, and vulnerable. As I stayed with it for some time, the separation between the wind and myself seemed to vanish, and in a brief but unforgettable moment, I was the wind. The ‘self’ had merged into the wind, as it were, and my sense of a separate ego had been forgotten.

In conclusion, the discovery of the lack of any permanent, inherent self that stands apart from one’s experience is perhaps the most fascinating and freeing insight that Buddhist meditators over the centuries have realized. This insight contains many dimensions and varying degrees of profundity and subtlety, which in a sense, can never be adequately described with language. It is an understanding that has to come from personal, existential realization. It is only when thought and all that is born of thought, which is the self, has completely ceased to dominate and to delude, that there comes the possibility of lasting, unconditioned freedom – that is the aim, that is the goal, that is the culmination.

ENDNOTES

Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (Colombo: Frewin & Co., 1972), p. 12.
Nyanaponika, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation (London: Rider, 1962), p. 30.
Dhiravamsa, V.R., The Way of Non-Attachment (England: Crucible, 1989), p. 57.
Sumedho, A., Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless (England: Amaravati, 1987), p. 51.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Transformation and Healing: Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness (California: Parallax, 1990), p. 44.
Ibid., pp. 125-126.
Ibid., p. 126.
Suzuki, S., Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (New York: Weatherhill, 1991), p. 29.
Ibid., p. 31.
Ibid., p. 62.
Ibid., p. 63.
Ibid., p. 115.
Wang-ch'ug Dorje, The Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1989), p. 68.
Ibid., p. 83.
Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (London: Rider, 1992), p. 159.
Ibid., p. 160.
Ibid., p. 160.

Here's a talk by IMS (Insight Meditation Society) teacher Rob Burbea that Thusness/PasserBy had commented as "It is truly good." , "Amazingly clear." and "Very profound."


I've typed out a transcript of the talk below on Thusness's advise. Also available for audio download.
2009-05-21 Realizing the nature of mind 65:00 Download Stream Order

Through practice we can glimpse a sense of the nature of awareness as something ever present and awesomely vast, and this sense can be cultivated as a profound resource for freedom and peace in our lives. But eventually we must see even beyond this to know the ultimate nature of the mind - empty, completely groundless, and dependently-arisen - a seeing which brings an even deeper freedom. This talk explores some of the ways this realization might be encouraged and developed in meditation.

Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge: May 2009 at IMS - Forest Refuge
Transcript:
So I’m aware that in the weeks that I’ve been here, in the talks weekly, there have been a few threads that run through the talks. And so I want to take one of those threads and fill it out a bit, quite a bit actually, explore it and expand it quite a bit. And that is the nature of mind. Or the nature of Awareness. So what does it mean to realize the true nature of Mind, the true nature of Awareness? I’m also aware that everyone here obviously has different practice background. You’ve been doing different practices in the time that you’ve been here, you’ve had exposure to different teachings in your life, etc.
So to some, what we’re talking about tonight will seem very very relevant, very very apropos. To others, it would seem less pertinent right now, less relevant. And if that’s the case, if it doesn’t seem like this is really relevant to my practice right now, I hope that you can just listen. I hope that it’s still interesting. And I hope that one can listen with a sense of possibility, so just listening to it, “ok not right now, but there’s a sense of the possibility of practice, possibility of an avenue to explore in practice.” And one can just listen and file it for later. Just stick it somewhere, I’ll come back to this later. And that’s a totally valid and wonderful way to listen to a Dharma talk.
And actually, I should really, and in another situation I would have devoted three or four or five Dharma talks just to this subject. There’s much more to this than meets the eye, there’s much more to this than meets the eye in terms of depth and enrichment. And yet I’m steaming ahead and doing what’s foolish and try to put it all in one. I hope it’s not too full, and again I hope it’s full enough for the people that have been here and followed the threads, that it can raise some questions.
But more I’m interested in is offering some possibilities – how might one practice to discover the nature of mind? How might one navigate through practice as it deepens, as it evolves, to actually come to that realization and then consolidate that realization, strengthen it.
So some words. Mind, Awareness, That Which Knows, and Consciousness. In this talk tonight, I’m using them all as synonyms. So I’m using them interchangeably, and meaning the same thing by all of them. Sometimes when we talk about mind, my mind is making such a fuss, my mind is so difficult – we actually mean all the realm of thoughts. But you also get in the Dharma talking about Mind, meaning just Awareness or Consciousness. Sometimes, people leave out the word Consciousness, people in Buddhist circles leave out the word Consciousness from that group. And there’s a reason they do that. Partly because the Buddha was a little bit dismissive of consciousness, in the sense it’s just something impermanent, not-self, etc. But actually to leave it out obscures something. It obscures, which I hope it’ll become clear in the talk and I hope it makes sense.
So, different streams of Dharma traditions kind of make a promise, and it’s: if we understand the nature of mind deeply, the nature of awareness, consciousness, etc, deeply, if we really understand that deeply, there is freedom. That’s the promise. And that runs through a lot of different Dharma traditions, a lot of different Buddhist traditions. What I want to explore and what I’m asking right at the beginning is, understand What about the nature of mind, what is it about the nature of awareness that I need to understand? And with that, How? How can I understand that?
So I’m gearing this talk not so much to questions of abstraction or philosophy, that can be very interesting, I think has its place in human’s (?) inquiry. But really talking on a very practice level. We, as meditation practitioners. So often times we don’t really think about the nature of mind. It’s not something we give that much reflection to. Maybe, until we start meditating. And then, maybe we do. Because meditation is a lot about Awareness, a lot about Consciousness.
And at first, perhaps in the beginning years even of practice, the notion of the Mind, or Awareness, as the metaphor of a mirror might feel very apt. And obviously we obviously don’t think that there’s a mirror in us that if we cut open our brain we get to this mirror. But that sense of Awareness is somehow reflecting the world. We have that, even if it’s not a conscious notion, that notion somehow embedded in us: Awareness is something that reflects the world.
And in a way, we can see practice and the devotion to mindfulness and being present and bare attention as a kind of polishing of that mirror to see things as they really are, things as they truly are, to quote the Buddha. And the constant practice to let go of the entanglement in the story, the entanglement in the papanca (conceptual proliferation) and complication, the opinions that we layer onto experience, the pre-conceptions, the views, the images, the likes, the dislikes, all that whole baggage of veil that covers over the actuality of experience. When we have a sense of practice, just patiently polishing the mirror, so that the awareness can reflect things as they really are. And so sometimes, people use the phrase or word “Pure Awareness” and that actually means very different things used in different contexts. But that might be a meaning. Awareness is pure in the sense that it’s free of all that papanchizing complication story, etc.
Having that kind of model or metaphor, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, can bring with it a lot of clarity, a lot of vividness into the experience and I’m sure many of you have felt on retreat or as practice times goes by, the actual imprint of perceptions becomes brighter, more vivid. The actual grass seems greener, the lights seem more colorful, everything stands out, a beautiful aliveness because we’re metaphorically polishing that mirror.
There’s also something else that’s very helpful about the metaphor of the mirror, and it’s just metaphor. If you think about a mirror, a mirror remains unaffected by what passes in front of it and is reflected by it. So I could be absolutely beautiful, I could be monstrously ugly, I could be scary, I could be this or that or radiant or whatever but the mirror is just still and reflecting. And in a way, incorporating that kind of aspect of the metaphor into the practice lends itself towards equanimity, can you see? Because there’s an aspect of the being that’s unaffected. This aspect of mindfulness that’s just unaffected by what passes in front. It’s very very useful.
Now, there’re problems with this and I’m going to come back to this. I’m going to lay out a few possible ways of conceiving the nature of awareness, and then later come back to what the potential problems there are with each of them. So that one with the mirror might be very understandable and useful, certainly at the beginning years, really years of practice, for most people, years. But after much practice or some degrees of practice, a different sense of awareness can begin to be discovered or opened to.
Now, one possibility is through developing the attentiveness, developing the mindfulness in a very sharp way, very focused awareness, very bright attentiveness, microscopic kind of fine awareness and really refining the mindfulness like that. And what happens is that the reality that’s revealed to us through that lens is of a very fastly, rapidly changing reality. Everything like pixels on the screen changing, like sand falling on the surface of a lake, just change, change, change, arising and passing, arising and passing, included in that consciousness. So the sense of consciousness is of rapidly arising moments, moment of consciousness, moment of consciousness, arises in relationship to something. And you find this very commonly in the commentaries to the Pali canon, it’s also a little bit in the Buddha said, but mostly in the commentaries. But again, can be very useful if one can develop that way just from the consistency of mindfulness. In that what it brings, seeing all these impermanence, there’s nothing to hold on to. Everything is just slipping through the fingers, like sand through the fingers, including consciousness, can’t be clung to. And so letting go happens with that. I say theoretically, because actually sometimes that mode of working doesn’t actually bring a letting go, but theoretically it brings a letting go and it certainly has that potential. So that’s another possibility again, with its fruits.
A third one we’ve touched more on in the course of the talks here, and it’s more practicing in the kind of more open out sense – and so awareness kind of opens out into the whole field of experience and phenomena. And this opening out of the practice lends itself to having a sense of awareness as something very spacious. Especially when we talk about silence a little bit. Awareness begins to seem incredibly spacious, vast, unimaginably vast. Now this can be arrived at actually through letting go. So the more we let go in practice, the likelihood of the sense of awareness opening up in this very beautiful way. Very vast awareness, dependent on letting go.
And how do we let go? We could either just focus on letting go, we could focus on the impermanence and then we let go, or we could focus on the Anatta – not me, not mine. That’s the three classic ways of letting go. That sense of vast awareness might also be discovered or arrived at just by kind of practicing in a kind of way that relaxes the attention. So usually we attend to this object and that object, and another object, and another object. But actually relaxing that propensity, and being more interested in the space that opens up, rather than the objects or things in the space. And we say you can rest then in Awareness, instead of going out and doing things with objects, one just rests in that space of Awareness that begins to opens up. This is something one can do with the eyes open, or with the eyes close, actually completely irrelevant. Practice it with the eyes open, practice it with the eyes closed.
One can also arrive at something quite similar in a more focused and less restful way and that is actually focusing in a very alive way in the moment on the sense of awareness itself. All these is practiced, everything that I’ve said so far comes out of practice and kind of tuning the practice in a certain way and a little bit of directing at a certain way and then these senses are discovered. One can actually do it in a more focused way, actually focusing on awareness, it will bring about a slightly different state.
So we can either use analogies to kind of help ourselves open to that sense. So, the night sky. Just vast, black, night sky. And then suddenly, fireworks. Burst of colors. A phenomena. Something is happening in experience. And of course we say, “Wow, look at that, amazing.” Dramatic event, phenomena. And in getting drawn into the object, we lose the sense of the context, we lose the sense of the space, the sky around that thing. Similarly you can say shooting star, phenomena arises out of the space, does its things and then disappears back into it. A cloud moving across the sky. Same thing, a sense of a context, a space, which is Awareness, and the object in it. And giving more attention to the space, the sense of Awareness, than the object.
So, phenomena begin to seem as if they’re arising, passing, and living In Awareness. Which is different from how we usually think of the world – my Awareness is somehow in here, and the world is out there, and there’s some kind of interaction going on. We begin a whole other sense that the world of phenomena has been born, living and dying In Awareness.
Now, I’m going through this very quickly, in other talks we spent more time on this. But this is something incredibly beautiful. If I had more time I would really emphasize that more. Something very very beautiful to open up to. There’s an incredible peace to it. Just the sky, the space, everything belonging to that. Real equanimity comes with it, and a real sense of very deep freedom comes with it. If we practice over and over, and develop that sense of Awareness. Now, someone doing this, might get the sense that Oh, that sky, that Awareness in the sense of a big spaciousness, that’s actually pure in the sense that it’s untainted, unaffected by what arises and disappears and lives in it. So similar to the Sky, shooting stars go through the Sky, fireworks go in the Sky, Sky remains the same. Unaffected. Still. Tranquil. Imperturbable. Vast.
And one might be practicing in this way, and if one does one is usually struck by this. There’s an incredible sense of depth and beauty here. Incredibly striking and attractive place to discover. And if one is practicing, when it’s heard of the Unconditioned, the Buddha talking about the Unconditioned, or the Deathless, and very common for a practitioner to think: this is it! Because it seems unchanging. Doesn’t seem to change. Everything else is arising, living there a while, and then dying back into it. Seems unchanging, and kind of eternal in the sense of lasting forever in some unperturbed way. So one really wonders or decides that it’s unconditional, or wonders.
Again, practice is to be developed. I’m moving a lot of territories tonight, very quickly. Laying out again, possible ways of navigating through this. If one learns to cultivate that space and discover that space and hang out and then sustain and be familiar it, it’s possible that it deepens. It’s possible that the whole sense of it begins to deepen and objects, the phenomena that occur begin to feel as if they’re made of the same substance as the space of awareness. They’re made of the same substance as Awareness. So you might have heard analogies like waves in the oceans. Whatever happens, you, me, this, that, sounds, an event, whatever, it’s all just waves in the Ocean of Being, or the Ocean of Awareness. It’s all just the same substance taking different shapes. Incredibly freeing and useful perspective to open to.
Everything is just an impression in Awareness. And that in that sense, from that perspective we could say, things, the things of the world, all things, all phenomena, all observable phenomena are empty in the sense that they’re not different from empty. They’re empty of being something different from this vast insubstantial substance of Awareness. So things seem empty in that sense, they seem insubstantial, they seem not real in the sense of existing really outside of Awareness in the way that we usually think things do, usually perceive things. Have a whole different perception. With that too, as it deepens of course, there’s a sense of incredible oneness. All is One. And one has heard that in the teachings, different teachings, different traditions.
All is One. And sometimes we use the phrase Non-Duality, they use that in that sense as everything is One. So it seems to tie in very strongly. One has a real sense as this deepens of there being only One Mind. It’s not my mind, your mind, his mind, the dog’s mind, whatever. It’s One Mind. One Vast Mind that encompasses everything. And we hear about that in different teachings, some Buddhist teachings, some non-Buddhist teachings. One Mind, or Cosmic Consciousness, Awareness knowing itself. Everything is the play of Consciousness, but that Consciousness kind of is the Base, it’s somehow self-existent. That’s the Ultimate Reality. And so it’s very easy to have that view, very liberating. Very useful. And these views are not intellectual standpoints. I really like to stress this. They’re not intellectual standpoints. They are views that people come to through practice. So it’s not like someone is figuring out, “da da da da da”… It’s actually through deep and sincere care and practice. This is the practice that can easily, well not so easily, but eventually be come to.
And in that, there’s an incredible beauty, an incredible sense of mystery, that the being opens to. A person who practices in that way a lot, who practices at that level a lot, who cultivates that and looks to cultivate that and learns, develops the skill, the art of really hanging out there a lot, if you meet a person like that, they are going to be really radiant. Very shiny. Very big aura. Very free. And they will feel very free, at quite a deep level quite a lot of the time. They will also probably be quite compassionate. A lot of love there.
The Buddha makes a very marked point on one occasion, I think it was to Ananda, which is never judge someone’s awakening or non-awakening, enlightenment or non-enlightenment by how radiant they seem, by how shiny they seem, by how glowing. Absolutely not the way you discern where someone’s really at in the practice. But to practice at that level will bring that, and to learn people do they develop it as kind of what they’re going for, we’re talking about Buddhists and non-Buddhists, and they learn to hang out there. Incredibly beautiful and incredibly powerful.
So before I kind of go into this in a kind of deeper way, I really like to make a point before I sort of say what’s the problems with these views. I really want to make a point that all of these are to be cultivated, so it’s not that we’re dismissing them out of hand immediately at all. They’re to be cultivated. So we actually want to practice developing these in our practice.
But, there’s problems with them, when we look into this. So let’s take the mirror one, for example. The notion of a mirror, the metaphor of the mirror as something that gives a true reflection of a real world. There’s a problem with that. I can’t find a stance in consciousness, I can’t find a place from which to look, can’t find a moment of looking, where there’s not something in the Mind, in Awareness, shaping, fabricating, what is perceived. In that moment, in that present moment. So the conditioning factors, they’re not just in the past, they’re in the present as well. So what I see is always being shaped. I cannot find a sort of zero point in the mind. Sometimes we think that’s what mindfulness is, or that’s what equanimity is, it’s actually not. If one actually goes into practice one sees one cannot find that place. This is one of the most fundamental insights of the Buddha, that it’s easy to practice for a long time without going into this, I know we’ve touched on it before in other weeks but it’s so important. If we don’t see this, that what we perceived is being conditioned in the present by how I’m seeing it and relating to it, we’re missing one of the most fundamental and important insights of the Buddha.
We might say, what’s the problem with that vast Awareness? Well, one thing is, it might seem that all phenomena arise in it and die back into it, but what about my actual death? Actual time when I actually (?) over. I have to have a bit of faith that that will just be another event in this Awareness. There’s no way of knowing that. It’s a leap of faith. Is it possible to have such a deep insight that it’s actually not dependent on faith anymore. There’s no sense of needing faith there. So there is so much to this as said in the beginning of the talk, and to beware of answers, I think of all us as practitioners, to beware of answers to what is the ultimate nature of Awareness, etc, that are too easy or too facile. Or also answers to what liberation might be, “it’s just kind of hanging out in that place and realizing that it’s vast.” Beware of answers that are too glib, too facile, too easy.
I feel, and there can be, for practitioners at that point for many times, is a sense of uneasiness at that point. Despite all the beauty, despite all the loveliness and the depth and the freedom that comes from it, at some deep level in the being, there’s a sense of “mm, not quite sure about this”. A real uneasiness. I think that needs to be cultivated, that uneasiness. And one doesn’t stop probing and asking and questioning. I actually remember years ago in my practice being on retreats, and actually quite a long period of time where anytime I met a teacher, I would ask them about this. And get all these different takes, and then try to understand in my practice, trying to understand, and one time feeling that I couldn’t understand it and I wasn’t happy with any of the answers I got. And being so upset with that, that I actually remember being on a retreat at Gaia House and just sitting outside and crying. I think it’s really Ok in the quest for truth, in the quest for liberation that there’s agitation at times. I think it’s a sign of how much we care.
With that Big Space Awareness, the Vast Awareness, it’s the place where most people would tend to stop their inquiry. It’s the most common place nowadays to stop the inquiry. But there’s a lot of assumptions there. A lot of assumptions. One is that Awareness is something simple and passive. In the sense of it’s just there, and it just receives experience. I think this came up in a question and answers or something. Just here, and I hear the bird twitting, I didn’t …, it just comes. Awareness is simple and passive and has a kind of naturalness to it and a kind of natural openness to it, versus what sometimes we use the word “mind” as a very complicated, enmeshed in thoughts, etc.
But is there an assumption that simple means true? So we’re very attracted to simplicity, often times because our lives are very complex, and our thinking minds seem very complex. And simplicity has a very “ah, that’s nice, simple.” Feels soothing. Does it mean that it’s true? These are the kinds of things one really needs to watch out for one’s preconceptions, likes, assumptions. I think it’s really important to bring into practice as much as possible the quality of integrity that there’s a real sense of caring about the truth and not stopping short and keeping the heart alive in its penetrating questioning. Not settling too easy. Really caring and really being careful in one’s inquiry. Part of integrity is a heart movement. Another part of integrity is actually intelligence. It’s actually using one’s intelligence as part of the integrity, part of the care in practice. So not almost like leaving the intelligence outside of practice, outside of our meditation practice. To me this is actually really important. And because we often have a very difficult relationship with thought and with discursive thoughts and the thinking mind, often we jettison the whole of our intelligence as well, as we regard it as something we need to get rid off in practice. That may be a huge mistake at times.
Does there need to be a divorcing of head and heart? So just because my head is getting involved and thinking through stuff, does that mean that my heart has to close down? For a lot of people it does, but that’s just a habit and that doesn’t have to be so. So it might feel better but it’s just a feeling of it feeling better, and as such it doesn’t mean anything about the truth. Again we might have an intuition that the truth is this way, or that Awareness is this way, etc. But in a way, lovely and good and helpful as that can be at times, it’s still just an intuition, needs to be probed, needs to be questioned, needs to be checked out.
Sometimes, when we go to the texts of different Buddhist traditions, it seems as if, especially the Vast Awareness, it seems we find something in the texts that really corresponds to that. And I can find plenty of references. But this is actually not as simple as it seems. Words can sound very very similar when you get to a certain level in practice, and we say empty or nothingness or vastness or this or that, and it kind of all begin to sound very similar after some point. So it behooves us I think to really be careful not to be sloppy with language in our practice, as it's difficult, as precise as we can, which isn’t easy. And not to throw out words or concepts, because as I said, I can’t remember where it was in one of the talks. If I throw out conceptuality too early, what happens is I’m just left with my default unexamined concepts. I’ve done nothing to really dig them out. I’m just saying concepts are not helpful.
What we also find if you do kind of check out a lot of texts on this is the same words used in very different ways. So when we use words like Awareness is luminous, but it turns out if you really probe that, that luminous actually means empty. Or pure, meaning empty of inherent existence. Doesn’t mean bright in that sense. You wonder why they’re using that word. Or clarity, doesn’t mean clarity in the sense we would usually mean clarity. Or even the word space, funnily enough, doesn’t even mean space in the way we would usually mean space. It’s not easy.
One time the Buddha went to a group of monks and he basically told them not to see Awareness as The Source of all things. So this sense of there being a vast awareness and everything just appears out of that and disappears back into it, beautiful as that is, he told them that’s actually not a skillful way of viewing reality. And that is a very interesting sutta, because it’s one of the only suttas where at the end it doesn’t say the monks rejoiced in his words.
This group of monks didn’t want to hear that. They were quite happy with that level of insight, lovely as it was, and it said the monks did not rejoice in the Buddha’s words. (laughter) And similarly, one runs into this as a teacher, I have to say. This level is so attractive, it has so much of the flavor of something ultimate, that often times people are unbudgeable there.
In the Dzogchen tradition, there’s a very beautiful saying – very simple but very beautiful. And it says, “trust your experience, but keep refining your view.” Trust your experience, but keep refining your view - there’s a lot of wisdom in that, a lot of wisdom. One of my teachers years ago, when I was describing some of these states to him and questioning, “Is this right? Is this real? Doesn’t seem …” And he said to me actually, “Get attached, Rob. Get attached there, slow down, hang out.” Of course, that was very surprising to hear. “Really?”
We need to actually hang out in these states, because through time they work their way into the cells and into the view, and they begin transforming the heart and transforming the view long-term. In terms of freedom, in terms of opening, in terms of love. They really have that power. So it’s interesting. You get different personalities. People who want to park the bus there, and build the house, and arrive and finish there. Not with the kind of agitated impetus to keep questioning. And other people who want to move through too quick, it’s just different personalities. So one needs to get attached but not stop there.
So again, please see all these as in the context of how practice might navigate through all these. Sometimes I really feel that people need to fall in love with those kind of spaces. Something really feels touched so beautifully inside. So, how might a practitioner move on from there? How might one come to a deeper understanding? One might reveal that that’s not quite it. Well, one clue is in the fact that if one really develops one’s practice, it’s actually possible to experience both this sort of rapid arising and disappearing of consciousness that I was talking about, the very fine awareness. It’s actually possible to experience that. And it’s actually possible to experience a very wide, vast, spacious, still awareness. And if you really practice these kind of stuff a lot, then it’s actually possible to have both those experiences in the same sitting. See it one way, or see it another way. And actually to choose which one to have. What does that imply? There’s something right there that is at the core of all these.
Now, sometimes I come across people, I won’t say who, but people who actually then come up with a kind of theory, “Consciousness is what’s called the rapid arising and passing, and you something else called Awareness, which is the vast thing in which consciousness takes place and the Awareness knows the consciousness which knows the object.” It’s kind of this quite complex theory that’s actually just a theory. Might be a perception.
But there’s something here to question. Could it be that Awareness or Consciousness or Mind or whatever name we give it, that Awareness and Perception are inseparable? In other words, when I focus my mind in a certain way, when I focus in a very narrow, microscopic way, I have certain perceptions and I will have certain perceptions and sense of awareness. When I focus my mind, when I use my mind in a different way, I’ll have different kinds of perceptions of things, and with that a different perception or sense of awareness. So the sense of awareness takes on the aspect of perception. We could say Awareness, Consciousness, or whatever you want to call it is bound up with perception. This is at the core, and this is something we want to understand. Doesn’t sound very glamorous at first at all. But this is what we need to understand. So how might I work with this?
Well, one way, shouldn’t say cheap and easy way but um (laughs), one way of doing it is to practice in this vast way. You get the sense of vastness and a sense of awareness as vast. And yet a kind of global sense of awareness. But then kind of introduce the thought subtly, the insight subtly, that the sense of awareness is also so to speak – happening in awareness. In other words that’s just a perception too. And you introduce that, and see what happens. See where it goes. That can be very powerful for some people and very useful. But I don’t think it will give a really full, probably not, a full understanding of the whole picture of what is going on.
So there’s many possibilities to navigate through, but one possibility, we’ve touched on this in here before, is using the practice of not-self, not-me, not-mine. Regarding whatever comes up, regarding whatever phenomena as not-me, not-mine, not-self. And we’ve touched on developing that as a practice. I’m not going to go too much into it again. But including in that seeing the awareness as I said I think in the last talk, seeing awareness or consciousness also as not-me, not-mine, I am not that. This is a practice, as I said in other talks, that we can develop and we want to develop. We really go on a journey with it and we deepen it and develop it.
And what happens potentially when we develop it, and in the moments when we managed to (it might be just an instance or two) unhook the identification from objects or awareness. In those moments, what happens? Well, a number of things can happen. One of them is, the whole experience opens up to a whole other level of freedom, a whole different sense of freedom because at that point there is no identification with either object or subject. There is no identification with any of the five aggregates. So of course there is gonna be a lot of freedom. Feels very free.
But the second thing that will happen if one learns how to hang out there and learns to re-sustain that as a way of looking, and we’ve touched on this as well, so just to repeat: it’s that objects and perceptions begin to fade, because I’m not supporting them by identifying. Objects and perceptions begin to fade, this is so, so crucial an observation in Dharma insight unfolding. Including the perception of space will fade. Now, if I have a notion of awareness as vast, and space itself begins to kind of fade or lose it’s reality. Well, I can’t really call awareness vast because space isn’t something really real. And maybe my notion of awareness as something really vast is actually re-enforcing or reifying a sense of space.
If objects fade completely, completely, completely gone as it really deepens, is what’s left Awareness in the usual sense that we call, that we use that word Awareness? So let’s take a whole big step backwards and actually ask actually the most basic question of all, which often as meditators we don’t really ask, which is, “What on Earth do we mean by Awareness?” So we use that word all the time, just hold on a minute, what do we mean by Awareness, what do we mean by Consciousness?
In English we have a noun, “Awareness”, “Consciousness”, a noun, and nouns have a way of giving something a kind of sense of independent reality – it’s a clock, a thingy. It’s a thingy. And because Awareness or Consciousness is a noun, it seems to be a thing, a thingy. Pali apparently is more of a verb based language. When we think of what Awareness means, well it’s Awareness Of something, rather than Some Thing, some substance, it’s Awareness Of something. Putting it in verb terms, we could say it’s knowing. Consciousness or Awareness means knowing. Now, knowing needs a known, ok. For there to be knowing there has to be something that’s known. And if there’s a known, it needs knowing. So vice versa. Knowing needs a known, and a known needs knowing.
If I followed the not-self practice, or a number of other practices too, it’s not just that at all. If I follow that, I see that the known or otherwise the perceptions or objects are empty, because they don’t kind of exist by themselves. They depend on the identifying and clinging. And I don’t know how they really are, how much clinging reveals the real object. Then in a way the knowing, we could say, is leaning – it needs a known and it’s leaning on something that’s empty, it’s leaning on a vacuum. Do you see this? Knowing needs a known, the known needs knowing. If the known is empty, it’s leaning on nothing. It’s leaning on something that’s empty. We say that it’s groundless or unsupported. Awareness is unsupported, it’s groundless.
So tracing stages, we want to deliberately consolidate the insights, so – objects depend on the mind, so they’re empty, and the mind or consciousness or awareness depends on object so that is empty too, because it’s depending on something that’s empty. Anytime two things are mutually dependent, they have to both be empty. We can go into that but we don’t have time. This groundlessness, this emptiness, this lack of independent existence of Awareness, rather than being a kind of conundrum or a complication, is actually the insight that brings the deepest level of freedom. It’s not anywhere, and it’s not supported by anything, and it’s not anything that supports anything. Empty.
Most people are gonna need to develop that practice in, take this word very lightly, stages. In the sense of gaining conviction first that the object is empty. We’re learning actually how to disidentify and seeing that because of that, things are dependent on that, which means they’re empty. Gaining conviction in that, and moving on, resting on a kind of secure footing in practice. With that, the conviction comes and eventually the conviction that Awareness is empty too comes. And with that, the deepest will (?).
I was gonna drop a little bit more about doing versus not doing in practice because I know it has come up and it came up in a question, but we’re actually going to leave that aside for now.
So taking this one strand that we’ve talked about, it’s just one possibility, one way of going about it. Disidentify. Learning to disidentify. Practicing this disidentification. We said in those moments what can happen is that a much deeper level of freedom opens up. Second thing that can happen is that objects of perceptions begin to fade (very important). A third thing can happen, sometimes. And that is that time, or the sense of time, begins kind of fading or stopping or losing its meaning. Some of you may have had a glimpse of this. The whole notion of past, present, and future and the flow of time or moments of time, it’s seen through. Time can stop. There’s a number of different experiences that are possible, and one can sometimes can get a glimpse of that or it could be a more extended thing. One can feel as if one has a glimpse of eternity but it is not eternity in the sense of something lasting forever. It’s a sense of time not being really the reality of things. One goes beyond that. That’s something we could give a whole talk to, and obviously I’m not going to, but it’s also something that one can develop conviction in, and one should develop conviction.
I’m going to take a little time, because there’s another way in approaching this, and it’s probably gonna be new to most people, I imagine. So one way of looking into this time thing, is through the practice, letting go, letting go, letting go, it could just be through letting go, letting go, letting go, the actual sense of time is seen through. But another way, and it’s actually using reasoning. And this is very popular in some Mahayana schools, the Dalai Lama’s school, the Gelug school, and other schools. So again one has to ask what is the relationship with the thinking, logical mind, and what is the relationship with the reasoning mind, and do we reject that as an avenue of truth?
So, check this out – This moment of consciousness, this moment of awareness, is it inherently one moment or is it actually many moments? If I say this moment of time is one moment, if I say it’s one – in it’s essence it’s one, then either it’s divisible into a beginning, a middle and an end or it’s not. Ok, either it has a beginning, middle and an end or it doesn’t. If it is divisible into beginning, middle and end, that actually means in that one moment it’s actually three moments. Because when so to speak it’s at the beginning, it’s not at the end, and when it’s at the end it’s not at the beginning. Time is here, and then it’s here. It has actually become three moments, it’s not one moment. The beginning must come before the end, so at the time it’s at the beginning it’s not at the end. If we say the moment cannot be divided into beginning, middle and end, then that means it has no beginning and end, which means it’s actually non-existent, it’s infinitely small. No beginning, no end, also means it’s impossible to make a continuum of moments in which anything can happen. So I have to connect the end of this first moment with the beginning of the next one, do you see that, like a chain? It’s actually impossible, you can’t actually arrange moments in order in time, in happening. If I then say, Ok, I’ll say the present moment is actually many moments somehow. But Many is an accumulation of One, One, One, One, together. But we’ve already said one moment can’t exist, so it can’t be many either. It must be either one or many, if it’s something real. It must in its essence be either one or many, but it can’t be either.
I’m aware of going through that very quickly, and I know that for most insight meditators that’s going to sound very alien, that whole approach. It’s, I think extremely powerful, what one can do in practice is to actually hold the sense of the moment in awareness, focus on it, and get used to this reasoning in a way that you can bring it in a very light way, you’re actually contemplating the moment. It can be extremely powerful for some people, extremely powerful.
But either way, whether it’s through letting go or through disidentifying, whether it’s through using this reasoning, we see that time is actually empty. Time is also a kind of fabrication. What happens? What does that imply in terms of Awareness and the reality of Awareness? Awareness as said in the different traditions is unfindable, we can’t find Awareness. You can’t find the Mind. We can’t find Consciousness no matter how much you look for it, in it’s essence. Now, one meaning of that is I can’t see it because it has no form, no shape, no color. It’s formless. And sometimes people again attempted to stop there as a kind of seeing the complete unfindability of consciousness, but there’s more to it than that.
That’s what the Dalai Lama would call, the conventional truth about Awareness. It’s that it doesn’t have a form, and so you can’t see it. But relating to what we said, if there’s nothing real to know, because the objects are empty, because I’ve seen the objects are empty, how can we really talk about a real knowing? There’s nothing real to know. And if there’s no time for the mind or awareness to exist in, how is it really going to exist? So we say Awareness is without essence. But seeing all those reasons why it’s without essence – because of the time, and because the emptiness and fabrication of objects – all of that’s involved there.
So what’s happening in all these is we’re seeing that Awareness completely counterintuitively, is actually something built. And because it’s built, it’s Empty. We build Awareness, and it’s Empty. And the Buddha in a lovely quote, said, “Consciousness, when examined, is empty, void, without substance.” Now if we just stop the quote there, that could sound like the vast, spacious, insubstantial Awareness. But he doesn’t finish there. He goes on to say, “Like a magician’s trick, like an illusion.” In other words there’s some hocus pocus going in the mind, and baadaabim baadaaboom – there’s awareness. And it’s a trick. It doesn’t actually exist as something real. Consciousness, the Buddha says, is like a magician’s trick, like an illusion, and in the formal Dharma language, it lacks inherent existence.
If one goes into this unfabricated, unbuilding, letting go of the building, is there a language for what’s left. Some people use the words “it’s Awareness unbound”, “it’s Awareness not being bound to objects, and space and time”, it's unwrapped itself from all of that. But that Awareness is different than what we ordinarily mean when we use the word Awareness. Because ordinarily, as I said before, means “awareness of”. In everyday language, whether we are conscious of it or not, that’s what we mean by awareness – it’s an awareness of.
So it’s different, different what’s left after we’ve unbuilt everything, from ordinary awareness. In some Zen traditions they have the phrase “No Mind”. That doesn’t mean learning not to think. It actually means this: it’s like a Mind in its essence that doesn’t know anything, that’s not aware of all the things that we’re usually aware of. So there’s a beautiful Zen teacher that I really love, called Huang Po. He doesn’t seem to be that popular at the moment in the West, partly I think because his teaching is almost exclusively edicts on an uncompromisingly deep level. But he’s very fun, I don’t know if he started it, he’s very fun with this language of “No Mind”. He also sometimes uses that inter-changeably with “Pure Mind” or “Real Mind” but they mean the same thing.
Now listen to this, this beautiful quote from him. “This Pure Mind, the people of the world do not awake to it, regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as Mind. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowing, they do not perceive the spiritual brilliance of that truth.” Later on, he says, “Realize that, though Real Mind is expressed in these perceptions (our normal perceptions), it neither forms part of them nor is separate from them.” Incredibly beautiful and profound. Last thing I want to say, I’m aware talking about these stuff, that it lands in very different places for very different reasons for people. And it could seem, I hope it didn’t, but it could seem that all these is almost an hour's worth of quibbling, an hour's worth of sort of petty wrangling about some kind of intellectual something or rather it might seem that way.
But one of the things I want to say is, it’s very easy in the Dharma after a long time of practice, to sort of hear this kind of talk and say, “well, I don’t want to quibble. Does it really matter? It’s all good, you say this, you say that, he says that, it’s all good. Let’s all be friends, and we can all be happy together.” And that kind of attitude again is very popular. I think it’s quite popular in the west. I think contrary to the self-image that we have, we actually don’t like debating with each other and wrangling out these points, we actually don’t like it. We prefer this kind of “it’s all good”, but there’s something that happens if I don’t grapple with these questions. When people in the Dharma look at me from the outside, and if my attitude is you know, “all this is the mind getting into complications and arguing”, if that’s what I say and it’s like I’m not gonna get into that, what it’s gonna look like, what it can look like from the outside is, “there’s someone really peaceful and wise and not engaging in da da da…”
But if I’m not grappling with these questions, although it might look like there’s some peace and freedom here, I don’t think that the deeper level of freedom will be arrived at. Like I said, I think it’s almost inevitable that at points in the unfolding of insights there’s going to be agitation. There’s going to be difficulty, there’s going to be frustration, there’s going to be confusion, there’s going to be a wrestling with these things. That deep freedom won’t be discovered unless we grapple with these stuff at some point in our practice whenever that is. And I hope it doesn’t sound intellectual tonight, it might have, I hope it didn’t. And that’s really not the point. What I really wanted to unfold is something we can see in practice through developing practice in the right ways.
There’s not one way of going about this but there’s ways that will unfold this. And what one sees is that different levels of freedom, unmistakably different levels of freedom open up in one’s experience. Different levels of freedom and release. And going through that, one sees, one understands this building process. Oh, goodness me, this whole structure of reality, what seemed to be a self, and a world and things, and time, and awareness, everything in space, everything I took for granted, is actually built. And I’ve understood that because I’ve gone through it and kind of unbuild it, and unbind it. And then one realizes almost in hind sight that one was either consciously or unconsciously giving things – the things of this world, subtle things and gross things, giving them an inherent existence, seeing them as possessing inherent existence. Ascribing to them an inherent existence.
Usually we unwittingly do that. So a good rule of thumb, (you know we talk about the emptiness of this, the emptiness of that, and the emptiness of all things and blah blah blah) to actually safely assume that you are giving something an inherent existence – in other words not seeing it’s empty, unless you’re really deliberately seeing it's empty. In other words the default mode the mind gives inherent existence to things all the time, and that’s what the Buddha called delusion, the fundamental level of delusion.
The thing I really want to emphasize is the possibility of practice to actually discover this in a real way, a way that can be brought into the life and have an enormous impact in our sense of freedom in life. That’s possible and developable for us in this room as practitioners. It’s just a matter of finding the way for that unbuilding, that unpacking, that seeing of emptiness to happen. That is possible, there’s no reason why it cannot be or shouldn’t be. If we care deeply, as I said if we don’t really want to grapple with it, it’s not like it’s like it’s suddenly gonna be known to us at a heart level. So it’s something really possible for us as practitioners.
Ok, let’s have a bit of quiet together.