Tibetan Buddhism and Non-Duality

It's a pleasure to be here, I'd like to

give a brief introduction to Tibetan

Buddhist understanding of the nature of
the mind and show how it functions in
facilitating being at ease in the world
and then I'll say a little bit about
these books the titles of Shen means
great completion which indicates that
from the very beginning everything has
been complete in itself that is to say
each moment is perfect as it is but not
in a frame of reference of relativity so
a rotting tomato is a perfect example of
a rotting tomato it may not be a
delicious tomato that you want to eat so
in terms of a normal dualistic framework
of good bad right wrong you'd say this
is disgusting I don't read this but if
you had open yourself to how it is in
itself you see that it is just this it
is only this and couldn't be any other
so this is the the basis for seeing that
a lot of the work that we do in life
work focused on transformation and
trying to become other than we are is
actually a delusion because we wander
off trying to create ourselves as a
better form of ourselves and this in
itself of course is artificial whatever
we construct because it has a beginning
is going to have an end eventually
the main focus of sake and understanding
is set out in the view then the
meditation the activity and the result
the view is to see that from the very
beginning the mind which is to say our
mind is not what we think it is thoughts
become like a veil or an intermediary or
an interpretive device but the mind
itself is pure that is to say it's empty
and open it's like a mirror in the
mirror and many different reflection
arise the reflections can be beautiful
they can be ugly they can seem to last
some time they can be very even essent
but whatever the nature the quality of
the reflection the mirror itself is not
damaged or touched for example the
winged view mirror in a car as you drive
along the road is having reflection
after reflection after reflection and
it's the very openness and emptiness of
the mirror that facilitates that flow of
images painting isn't like that a plate
with food on it isn't like that when we
have a something which seems to be a
container which seems to have self
substance then as it starts to
accumulate its own shape it takes up a
position in relation to other things so
we're always relativizing we say well
this is better than that this is older
than that this is newer than that this
arises from grasping at phenomena as if
they possess their own individual
identity when we see that the mind is
pure that is to say it doesn't have any
substance of its own and that it is the
play of the mind or the movement of the
mind the energy of the mind which gives
rise to all the multiplicity of
experiences which occur then these
experiences we see are inseparable from
the mind
they're the radiance of the mind which
give rise to illusory forms forms which
are devoid of self substance and yet are
manifestly there so this is in harmony
with the general Buddhist teaching of
the middle way not eternalism we don't
find fixed substances which endure
through time nor is it a kind of niall
ism or an annihilationism in which
things are wiped out forever
what you have is patterns of energy
moving round and round and round so that
our life actually manifests as a flow of
experience
who is the experiencer well normally we
say this is me I exist
and I seem to kind of exist inside this
body this is my home I look out through
my sense organs and I have many
different experiences so the starting
point then is I am someone and being
someone I am somewhere and unconcerned
about something and you are other than
me so our world is located in in
particular positionings and the
phenomena we encounter have duration of
various kinds some seem to last a long
time some don't last so long so while
we're telling ourselves these wonderful
analysis making sense of what's going on
what we often don't recognize is that
we're telling ourselves a story that we
are inventing what we seem to be
perceiving when we start with the
assumption that I am inside me and you
are outside me and you exist and you
have your history you're born in a
particular place your parents were like
this you went to that kind of school you
see the edifice of yourself as a
construct gradually being built up layer
after layer and manifesting particular
emergent qualities but what is that what
is the ground that this is standing on
because if our self existed as a true
substance it would have a reliability
but we are as we know very well
fundamentally unreliable
we're labile our mood is changing all
the time we're happy we're sad with
enthusiastic we're bored a lot of
fluctuations going on now this is the
actuality this is the the phenomenal
experience as it emerges but we blind
ourselves to it because we want to
maintain the illusion that I exist in a
predictable way and you exist in a
predictable way so if I know who you are
in You Know Who I am
we can start to choreograph a set-piece
encounter that is of course possible we
spend a lot of our lives doing that but
it's highly edited it requires a huge
capacity for selective attention for
taking up the factors which confirm my
own structure of belief and projecting
out the factors that I can't make use of
so the openness of the mind which has no
content of its own the ground as it's
called the a liar or legit is nothing
you can grasp hold off and yet it's
fecund it's always generating new forms
these are the appearances which arise in
space like clouds or rainbows they are
present as appearance but when you try
to grasp them and take hold of them all
you find that you've got is a concept
the actuality of what displays itself
through the senses is ungraspable when
you want to take hold of it you say oh
this orange is more on the side of red
this other orange is more on the side of
yellow we can make all sorts of
discriminations about sounds colors
tastes and so on and it's all on the
basis of comparing and contrasting but
you can only compare and contrast things
if you have things so the when we with
the view we start to understand that the
mind which is the ground and the sphere
the the environment within which
everything is emerging in its emptiness
it gives rise only to empty phenomena
ungraspable phenomena and this is the
basic non duality of appearance and
emptiness when we recognize that we have
the non duality of awareness and
emptiness which shows itself as the non
duality of clarity and emptiness that is
to say here we are in this in this
bookshop the space is not great but when
we look around
many things appear they appear instantly
almost magically in an undivided way but
when our mind starts to work the mind in
the sense of a cognitive processing
function relying on concepts then we
build up images of what's there we can
say oh these books are concerned with
indian philosophy these books are
concerned with myth and legend there are
titles and we see all the books have
been carefully stacked so that you know
where you are by relying on signs so by
understanding language by having a sense
of the Semantic Web within which we are
operating we can allocate different
meanings and values so someone will come
into this bookshop and if they're
interested in yoga they go to where the
science says yoga if they're not
interview yoga they wouldn't go there so
there's already a selectivity of I
become a person I becan my shape by
always being interested in particular
shapes in the world if I was interested
in everything I would just be open and
spacious on going somewhere doing
something so the very fact of choice in
a consumerist society makes it quite
difficult to be in touch with the
openness because once you start to see
the world not as open and radiant not
that appearance is inseparable from the
spacious ground then you're stuck with
stuff and there's enough a lot of stuff
it's everywhere so it's overwhelming so
in order to keep myself saying I want to
black out a lot of what's happening you
walk down the streets of London and
there's just so many people noise chaos
people don't walk in straight lines so
plug your little machine in listen to
music and answer to zone out which is a
way of protecting the shape of yourself
when you experience yourself moving in a
world of other shapes because I've got
to hang on to the sense that I'm me
and I know who I am or at least I can
tell many stories which generate
versions of the possibility of being Who
I am and these versions are consoling
they're comforting not only personally
for me but by being able to share some
kind of story with you that is
comprehensible which I hope I'm doing at
the moment then you are being confirmed
as somebody who can participate in the
world of stories and that's where we
meet and find ourselves we are
communicative beings so from the point
of view of the ocean there are three
aspects to how we manifest in the world
the first is the non manifest that is to
say it's merely the openness of the mind
the emptiness of the mind as potential
this openness is unedited so it gives
rise to the clarity of the immediacy of
the field of experience you come down
the stairs into this place there are
people here so many shapes that
everything happens at once you don't
have to build it up pixel by pixel
to make some image it's all at once and
this is the instant clarity of the mind
of course you see everything in an
instant but you don't know what it is
until you start processing it by
applying your conceptual apparatus in
terms of liking and not liking saying
this person stole this person has short
hair and so on
in that activity it usually feels to us
that I am merely perceiving what is
there so there's a lot of stuff and I
have some perception of it and based on
that some opinions about it but is that
really the case what is emerging in its
emptiness is

ungraspable there's nothing
to get hold of there's nothing to build
on it's it's immediately present and
immediately dissolving
so when I see something as strongly real
or as strongly established in itself
I am pute to it an internal essence an
internal ground or self definition it
becomes isolated and that individualized
entity whether it's a chair or a book or
a person is something in its shape
adness which I can apprehend and by
taking hold of it the very act of
grasping gives me a sense of power I
know what I'm doing I know where I am I
can manage my life so we move things
around in different patterns and the
consistency of these patterns and the
fact that the patterns that I generate
are accessible to other people and
understandable to other people allows us
to live in this great folia dirt or mass
folly actually we are all trapped in our
imagination of truly existing entities
but this is from the suction point of
view this is imagined this is mental
activity because as we know through
changes in politics changes in economy
changes in ecology changes in our body
through time changes in life experience
we invent ourselves and reinvent
ourselves when you're a child you
encounter the sometimes annoying a fact
that your parents are trying to invent
you they've got some idea in their head
about who you actually are who you truly
are and they tend to try and massage
that into you so that you become the
person that they think you are and then
you would be fitting in with their idea
of who they are the cultural backgrounds
status and so on but of course that
starts to wash off as the years go by
and we find that instead of relying on
other people to tell us who we are and
internalizing that meaning
we can actually produce our own and that
is actually the freedom of the mind to
imagine the world differently
so is this imagination imagining some
commentary on what is there or is it
more fundamental that we imagine what is
there both the seeming essence if you
like the noun and we imagine the
qualities the adverbs and adjectives so
we say this is an apple it's a delicious
Apple or I don't like this kind of Apple
where is the Apple oh it's just an apple
number where is it it's on a plate how
did he get on the plate when it came in
a bag where did that come from from the
shop and it came from the supplier came
from the tree the Apple is always
somewhere you never find an apple just
by itself it's impossible we are also
always somewhere at the moment we're
here in this bookshop hapa 7 will be out
the door and in the street and then our
paths will separate and we'll go in
different directions
but we will always be somewhere that is
to say the self and its environment are
inseparable the subject and the object
field are inseparable so this is another
quality of non-duality that when we
privilege ourselves as internally
defined and project onto external
phenomena a truly existing internal
essence we deceive ourselves we don't
understand or open ourselves to the
illusory nature of phenomena this
dreamlike web that we are occupying all
the time becomes a play of the mind and
this play if we are present and grounded
and centered in it is ethical because
with the sense of the absence of true
substance in ourselves
we have a sense of the fragility of life
not as a thing but as patterns of energy
which are very easily swayed and
influenced by other things that are
round and when we see oh other people
are like that in fact everything is the
patterning of energy so we're more like
the wind when the wind moves then the
air around is moving in these very very
complex patterning beyond computation
beyond conceptualization that that might
feel a bit much that might feel quite
overwhelming
well how noth would either make sense of
things how could I stay open to this
incredible complexity of existence well
there are two main cars in that because
we one way of understanding our world is
that it is a movement and a shaping and
a patterning of the five elements so we
have earth water fire wind and space now
when these moving elements start to
become more manifest to us that is to
say when we see the world as exquisitely
dynamic as something vanishing in front
of our eyes like a gentle breeze in the
summer that blows across your cheek oh
and then it's gone so each moment is
like that undeniably here and yet
ungraspable so as these moving elements
are there if we're going to participate
in that way we have to loosen up our
desire for control instead of being a
stabilizing and reassuring function in
ourselves starts to appear a bit
problematic as we install the earth
element predictability imputed true
essence and reality into things we want
to build walls I'm me and here you are
out there or endlessly the endless
preoccupation countries have about
immigration we need to have a boundary
so that people can't come
because the free flow of people or the
free flow of goods is going to upset
what has been established we have to
protect our market share so the ego
works in just the same way as an
economic system we have to interact in
order to stay alive we breathe in and
breathe out we drink and eat and so on
we are we are processes part which are
part of the general movement of
processes and yet we also want to have
stability so we tend to become a bit too
tight and then we could become anxious
and worried and we the world isn't the
way we want it to be and that leads to
depression and frustration and then we
loosen up a bit and then you could use
some whiskey to help you do that and
then you end up being all over the place
and then you have to tighten yourself up
so most of the time we're going between
tight and loose tight and loose in a
kind of pulsation between polarities and
the middle way that the grounded
presence that's open to everything
becomes hidden it's hidden by our own
mental activity there's no God or demon
doing this to us
we're not being punished these are
simply patterns and we are either aware
of the ground of the patterning or we're
imagining internally defining essences
in these parallels and presenting this
in a very brief condensed way but with
that general view we come to the
meditation which is to say we want to
welcome ourselves back into the
spaciousness which is the presencing
ground of our own being we're not being
something as such we're not being a
banana as opposed to a pear we're not
being a man or a woman but being in the
sense of aliveness being here just being
simply being this pure presence is not
resting on anything it is inseparable
from space
and so the more we cling to seemingly
solid substances we become deluding to
ourselves the problem for that we have
is we have a lot of experience of
grasping of building up pictures you get
in your family you get it in school
situations you have to write essays you
have to learn grammar you have to learn
mathematical formulae which become
building blocks for conceptual
patterning and that gives you the power
to pass exams with your certificate you
can get a job with a job you get money
with the money you have a holiday and
you feel happy so building things up
seems like a pretty good thing to be
doing all the time however it's quite
exhausting when you're young and healthy
you can pop about where life's opening
up like something up but you never
really get anywhere year after year
you're running and running and doing and
making but there's a hole in your bucket
it always leaks away so you've got to
keep filling it up and filling it up
everything is impermanent all phenomena
are transient so how will I hang on to
anything that's what the ego wants to
get some security so the the meditation
instruction is to ease oneself out of
that disease out of that over aroused
anxiety that says if I don't have
something to hold on to I'm going to
fall apart or fade away or be
overwhelmed or have a breakdown because
I have to tell myself Who I am
that is to say myself to self narrative
is the defining mechanism the the
factory that produces my identity and if
that factory gets closed down what will
they be we can't imagine because we've
always been
buying on concepts to fill the space to
give us the tools for thinking for
imagining for creating and if we were to
let go of that there might just be space
and who would I be but the possibility
is that we are present in space as space
this is known as Vidya or Rig power
awareness it's a non cognitive
illumination whereby everything is
revealed just as when we leave here and
go into the street the street is there
you could look at the buildings and
they've got the the year that they were
built often carved in the stone and that
gives you a history but in terms of your
actual immediate experience it's there
it's there and the people are here and
the cars are moving and the bus is going
quickly down the road and it's all
coming at once and this is the clarity
of the display of the potential of the
mind in space so we we're doing a kind
of paradigm shift instead of thinking
that I have to develop myself and
accumulate more qualities and build up
more capacity to survive in this
complicated world the movement of the
practice is to relax and open relaxed
and open now if you have a wideout
hyper-vigilant ego it doesn't like that
message at all because it says being on
the job checking things out knowing
what's what that's what keeps you safe
but the more you enter into the practice
you see oh there is a deep security and
a deep safety in allowing the mind to
run free like a stream coming down a
steep mountain it babbles along and then
it comes to a waterfall and the waters
just in freefall and when we sit in the
practice the mind is in freefall we
don't know what's going to happen and we
don't need to know what's going to
happen so instead of worrying about
what's coming instead of looking behind
us about what's just
risen in our mind we stay

present as
this flow of experience moves on and on
and on and doesn't go anywhere so you
start to have the sense linear
progression is a story I tell myself
everything is happening in this moment
and the moment is infinite and infinite
and infinite and this relaxed open
spacious awareness is the basis for the
hospitality that we can have to all the
different situations so the more we
settle into this practice we realized
another aspect of the great completion
which is every experience is already in
the mind there is just one round one
source one basis which is the luminous
mind which is empty of self substance
there is no other factory anywhere
there's no export import it's all
immediately here staying present with
this there is the arising and passing of
the radiance of one's own mind but when
we say in this context if I say of one's
own mind that's not the same as saying
of one's own watch or of one's own shoes
normally when we say something is one's
own it's a possession it's something you
have you have books or money or a
partner and you can situate yourself in
relation to that possession but when we
say my mind or my own mind or the
radiance of my mind this is not revealed
through appropriation through taking
hold of it through grasping and building
up an image it is directly revealed as
participation in the ceaseless unfolding
so awareness is free of ownership that
is to say what we take to be the
personal self is actually impersonal
because it has no
individualized isolated seal of identity
and self-definition
and yet paradoxically the impersonal
ground manifests as the unique
specificity of each of us here we have
our own postures gestures vocabulary
that we use and so on
we are only ourselves and nobody else
and yet the ground of being that doesn't
belong to us
so you get a an inversion here instead
of starting with yourself and moving out
from there checking out where you are
and what's going on by relaxing into the
open ground you find that your revealed
to yourself in mode after mode after
mode and these modes are the unfolding
of the potential of the mind are not
done intentionally so if after here you
go and have a drink with a friend we sit
down and you start chatting before you
arrived you've no idea of what you're
gonna say even if you've got something
in the back of your mind that you'd like
to talk about you've no idea in what
order the words are going to come out
because of course they are sitting with
you and you see their face and you can
have a sense of whether they're
available or maybe you've been blaring
on too long and whoa that's enough
so you're in a pulsation a conversation
is a co-creation subject and object are
not two separated domains but they're
actually like two wings of a bird
they're pulsating all the time together
you can't have a subject without an
object you can't have an object without
a subject so both subject and object are
the movement of the energy of the mind
when we take the subject to be separated
and isolated and being its own terrain
the master of its own world what you
have is a delusion that says
the expression is the whole thing if you
if you see the flowers which are
everywhere blooming at this time of the
year they have roots or bulbs what we
see is the flower above the above the
ground but without the bulb or the root
they would not be blossoming so it's
exactly the same the root of our being
is under the ground that is to say it's
invisible most of the time what's
visible to us are the patents of
interactive experience on and on and on
moment by moment something's happening
we're happy we're sad we want more of it
we want less of it
we are pulsate Ori and everyone around
us is policy tree so we are dynamic
movement emerging from the open empty
ground staying relaxed and open in
everyday life everything we do anyway is
movement you get up you clean your teeth
you have a pee you make a coffee
you run to get to work you're going to
work what do you do you open the door
you go into the four-year you maybe
climb the stairs you sit down a desk you
look up emails you talk to a colleague
you plan a meeting whatever your work
involved maybe a risk a folder you're
doing something very physical from
morning to night this is movement the
body is always moving it's moving in
interaction so you can construe that you
can formulate that story to yourself or
as I am doing this this is how I spend
my days so you can have a very self
referential modality of the discourse
which is what you tell yourself I am who
I tell myself I am and I can tell in the
story so there's going to be no end to
that that's a kind of fundamental fog
but beneath that is the ever open ground
the fog arises from the ground the
ground is open it gives rise to clarity
and to obscuration the clarity is there
as a more intrinsic
quality of space and the fog arises
through reliance on substances reliance
on real entities so the more we relax
the more we're able to move in the world
intuitively with less planning more
connectivity because you're allowing the
world to show you how to be it's not all
up to me I'm not trapped in this prison
of my body the prison of my identity
that you learn erotic messages that we
gain in school and from parents about
this is how we should be and we find the
fresh openness of the ground of being
opens endless endless endless
possibilities of reinvention that we
manifest imagine early in a world of
imagination so that illusion is the play
of the clarity of the empty mind and the
result of that is much less hassle life
gets easier and when life gets easier
you're not so preoccupied and if you're
less preoccupied you've again got more
space to be available to be receptive
and because you've got less agenda you
can now be more responsive to the unique
specificity of the different people you
meet and in that way you have the union
of wisdom and compassion where wisdom is
to see the empty open ground and to free
yourself from the delusion of grasping
and compassion is to stay in relatedness
and to allow your life to be molded and
shaped by your participation with others
so that rather than having a dictator
mentality where you outline your master
plan and then try to impose it on the
world you find yourself being fulfilled
through however life is and however it
is is complete in itself so emptiness
unborn emptiness there from the very
beginning
if you like the the womb of the Great
Mother is the support within which all
the patterns all the possible patterns
of manifestation occur and when we free
ourselves from trying to ring-fence
certain aspects as me and project our
other aspects as other you have real
communality there's a common ground and
then you have a concern for the common
weal the common good and that then
starts to be less and less divisive so
the instead of dividing splitting
projection you have awakening to
integration it's not actually that we
have to integrate anything because it's
always already integrated what the
activity of the practice of the
meditation is to avoid disintegration
the movement of the mind is separating
and dividing and privilege in one thing
over another so relaxing allowing things
to happen doesn't lead to madness you
get more clarity and then you start to
see oh I'm already on the inside and all
our lonely striving and anxiety about
how we're doing just fades away like
morning mist and here we are and it's
okay and we're bopping along however it
is so that's main thing I wanted to say
we have a new book sparks which is small
accounts of different kinds of
meditation and the view and simply being
which is a book of translations than the
Tibetan that I did with my Tibetan guru
one is in very traditional form the
other is in more modern form but the
meaning or both is the same and that's
really the central point of our time is
that we are so fortunate to be able to
inherit many of these great traditions
of the east where which are of have been
cooked for a thousand years they've been
refined the the internal workings of
them and the contradictions of the
have been sorted out this is watch a
wonderful and precious time but it's
also an open field in which we can find
new expression but the key thing is not
to express your egos interpretation of
what is there but to use the tradition
to find your own ground and their new
modes which are authentic because they
are non jewel and not in opposition to
natural integrity will start to emerge
so we've got a brief time see if there
are any question it's a very interesting
point this is a problem that often
arises when people do long retreats
because they have minimal external
disturbance and so everything can become
very subtle and then finer and finer and
finer but you're still in a dualistic
modality so the practice instruction is
not so much to do long retreats but to
have intensive periods and then go out
into the world because the provocations
of other people are a great blessing for
the ego-self they're not all a blessing
but in terms of the practice they're a
great blessing so famous in indian
buddhist master shantideva said that
your enemies are your best friends
because they show you your anger so the
people who really get to you and wind
you up they they show you how
here's your shadow this is what's hidden
so the active engagement in the world
with all the disturbance can be
incredibly helpful for meditators
because like like a pawn if you put a
stick in it and stir it around the mud
and the rotting leaves and the worms
come up from the bottom and that's what
we need to do because if you try to
approach it just by being more and more
subtle if you haven't really dissolved
the interpretation of subject and object
it can lead you into long periods of
kind of being blanked out
any other questions well the word real
is a bit problematic because it is
linked to the root for us
thing so what if the

question could be
what kind of thing am i and from this
option they'll be saying well you're not
a thing
you're a flow of experience and so the
issue is that how do you stay present in
the moment of the experience and how do
you sabotage that freshness and that
full aliveness by going into daydreams
by self criticism by fantasies of
compensating for difficulties in life
that is to say you go into a realm of
mental construction rather than staying
with the openness of the senses so in
the suction tradition they talk about
meditating sky - sky the world is like
an open sky and moving in that sky are
many different clouds and rainbows and
what we take to be my mind is like
another sky which is also wide open and
full of clouds and rainbows and the more
we allow these cloud these open spaces
to be contiguous to be in contact and in
fact to be without separation the clouds
and the rainbows are revealed as having
an equal taste so we're not happy happy
when we see a rainbow and very very sad
when it's a great cloud that's gonna
rain
both arrive so then you become the
hospitable space which can stay close to
the experience of everything
instead of being endlessly condemned to
select what I like and try to avoid what
I don't like which is a very exhausting
active business you find yourself
present in the richness of life so
rather than you being one little pure
essence which could be defined my true
self my real self you find that the self
is like a cornucopia it's endlessly open
and endlessly fool its its fullness is
its emptiness because if you were just
one thing and you were truly that
you couldn't have any more experiences
it be the end of the story but each day
you have so many experiences you are a
flow of experience in the radiant field
of awareness so that's not really what
we learned in school you've got two
possibilities of understanding here one
is I don't like this this isn't good for
me I'm feeling uncomfortable so the
formulation of the experience is arising
in terms of subject and object this is
happening to me
and then you might think I'm going to
tough it out are going to be brave and
strong and courageous and you hang in
there even though it's not very pleasant
that heroic mode is not really what I
would be drawn towards neither would
running away what we want to observe is
how is this occurring that is to say how
is the space of the mind when something
which could be interpreted as unpleasant
is arising within it so if you go back
to the image of the mirror if you have
something very ugly and you place it in
front of the mirror the mirror shows an
ugly reflection this reflection is
inside the mirror it's very intimate
it's not projected out at a distance but
when you take that ugly image away and
put something beautiful suddenly there's
beauty in the mirror the mind itself as
clarity is not contaminated by any
experience but the mind as energy is
moving in relation to the manifest
qualities of experience so when we see
that I'm not going to be fundamentally
defiled or damaged by this but
energetically it's not great but it's
not great as awful awful because
otherwise your rare fiying it and
solidifying it so the non duality of
experience and the ground and the non
duality of good and bad and subject and
object all come together but not as a
wall-e that sort of sits there and gets
crapped on but by the pulsation of
moving in the world so that's that's how
one would attempt to live and generally
speaking it works out well so thank you
for your attention and I think we're at
the end of this period