The inseparability of experience and awareness

Ken: This evening, I want to do two or three things. It’s a little ironic. This is, in a certain sense, the central section of mahamudra that falls on this holiday. And I guess a lot of people had trouble negotiating the traffic, or they decided this class wasn’t worth it. I don’t know. Anyway. Pardon, what did you say?

Nava: Let’s not do a podcast.

Ken: No, no. We’re going to do a podcast anyway. That’d be very irritating. You have a wonderful sense of humor, Nava. Now everybody knows who to write to. [Laughs]

Well, there are a couple of things I wanted to do. One, I am going to work from a very profound mahamudra textbook called, The More Than Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And then I want to go over the pointing out instructions and then take any questions and things you might find to be important in your own practice. In our last class, we talked about a couple of questions: nature of mind; nature of thought and perception; and nature of the relationship between mind, and thought and perception, or thought and sensation. ???

And what we came to see is that the inquiry into the nature of mind is, in a certain sense, equivalent to asking, what am I? I mean, here I am. And as we’ve discussed before, the only thing we actually know about ourselves is that we’re aware; or at least, we think that we are aware. I’ve always felt that Ambrose Bierce’s send-up of Descartes was more accurate than Descartes. Descartes, you may recall, said, “Cogito, ergo sum.” “I think therefore I am.” Ambrose Bierce’s was “Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum,” which means, “I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.” Get that? That’s actually more accurate. [Laughs] So, we have, what am I? And this awareness, what is it? And then we have, what’s all this stuff that we experience.

And most of these questions, of course, take us right into the mystery of life, the mystery of being. And when we examined it, we saw that it’s not possible to separate what we experience from the awareness that experienced it—the solution of subject/object duality in formal philosophical terms. We don’t experience the world and our lives like that. And there’s a reason: it’s because we have all of the stuff that gets in the way. So, one of the ways to look at mahamudra practice is that it’s a way of letting go of all of the stuff that stops us from experiencing life and ourselves as they actually are.

Living in the world we actually experience

Ken: Now, what I want to do is to read a section from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which describes what it might be like to live that way. How many of you are familiar with this book? Okay. Well, three people, Zaphod, Zarniwoop, and Trillion, have decided to visit the ruler of the universe. And here’s what happens:

A hundred yards away, pelted by the torrential rain, lay the Heart of Gold (which is the name of the Zaphod’s spaceship). Its hatchway opened, and three figures emerged, huddling into themselves to keep the rain off their faces. “In there?” shouted Trillian above the noise of the rain.

“Yes,” said Zarniwoop.

“That shack?”

“Yes.”

“Weird,” said Zaphod.

“But it’s in the middle of nowhere,” said Trillian, “we must have come to the wrong place. You can’t rule the Universe from a shack.”

They hurried through the pouring rain, and arrived, wet through, at the door. They knocked. They shivered. The door opened.

“Hello?” said the man.

“Ah, excuse me,” said Zarniwoop, “I have reason to believe …”

“Do you rule the Universe?” said Zaphod.

The man smiled at him. “I try not to,” he said. “Are you wet?”

Zaphod looked at him in astonishment. “Wet?” he cried. “Does it look to you as if we’re wet?”

“That’s how it looks to me,” said the man, “but how you feel about it might be an altogether different matter. If you find warmth makes you dry, you’d better come in.” They went in. They looked around the tiny shack, Zarniwoop with slight distaste, Trillian with interest, Zaphod with delight.

“Hey, er …” said Zaphod. “What’s your name?”

The man looked at them doubtfully. “I don’t know. Why, do you think I should have one? It seems very odd to give a bundle of vague sensory perceptions a name.” He invited Trillian to sit in the chair. He sat on the edge of the chair, Zarniwoop leaned stiffly against the table and Zaphod lay on the mattress.

“Wowee!” said Zaphod. “The seat of power!” He tickled the cat.

“Listen,” said Zarniwoop, “I must ask you some questions.”

“All right,” said the man kindly. “You can sing to my cat if you like.”

“Would he like that?” asked Zaphod.

“You’d better ask him,” said the man.

“Does he talk?” said Zaphod.

“I have no memory of him talking,” said the man, “but I am very unreliable.”

Zarniwoop pulled some notes out of a pocket. “Now,” he said, “you do rule the Universe, do you?”

“How can I tell?” said the man.

Zarniwoop ticked off a note on the paper. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Ah,” said the man, “this is a question about the past, is it?”

Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn’t exactly what he had been expecting. “Yes,” he said.

“How can I tell,” said the man, “that the past isn’t a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?”

Zarniwoop stared at him. The steam began to rise from his sodden clothes. “So, you answer all questions like this?” he said.

The man answered quickly. “I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.”

Zaphod laughed happily. “I’ll drink to that,” he said and pulled out the bottle of Janx spirit. He leaped up and handed the bottle to the ruler of the Universe, who took it with pleasure. “Good on you, great ruler,” he said. “Tell it like it is.”

“No, listen to me,” said Zarniwoop. “People come to you, do they? In ships …”

“I think so,” said the man. He handed the bottle to Trillian.

“And they ask you,” said Zarniwoop, “to take decisions for them? About people’s lives, about worlds, about economies, about wars, about everything going on out there in the Universe?”

“Out there?” said the man. “Out where?”

“Out there!” said Zarniwoop pointing at the door.

“How can you tell there’s anything out there?” said the man politely. “The door’s closed.” The rain continued to pound the roof. Inside the shack it was warm.

“But you know there’s a whole Universe out there!” cried Zarniwoop. “You can’t dodge your responsibilities by saying they don’t exist!” The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while whilst Zarniwoop quivered with anger.

“You’re very sure of your facts,” he said at last. “I couldn’t trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe—if there is one—for granted.” Zarniwoop still quivered but was silent.

“I only decide about my Universe,” continued the man quietly. “My Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.”

“But don’t you believe in anything?”

The man shrugged and picked up his cat. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

“You don’t understand that what you decide in this shack of yours affects the lives and fates of millions of people? This is all monstrously wrong!”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met all these people you speak of. And neither, I suspect, have you. They only exist in words we hear. It is folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of their own eyes and ears.”

Trillian said, “I think I’m just popping outside for a moment.” She left and walked into the rain.

“Do you believe other people exist?” insisted Zarniwoop.

“I have no opinion. How can I say?”

“I’d better see what’s up with Trillian,” said Zaphod and slipped out. Outside, he said to her, “I think the Universe is in pretty good hands, yeah?”

“Very good,” said Trillian. They walked off into the rain.

Inside, Zarniwoop continued. “But don’t you understand that people live or die on your word?” The ruler of the Universe waited for as long as he could. When he heard the faint sound of the ship’s engines starting, he spoke to cover it.

“It’s nothing to do with me,” he said, “I am not involved with people. The Lord knows I am not a cruel man.”

“Ah!” barked Zarniwoop. “You say ‘The Lord’. You believe in something!”

“My cat,” said the man benignly, picking it up and stroking it, “I call him The Lord. I am kind to him.”

“All right,” said Zarniwoop, pressing home his point. “How do you know he exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or enjoys what he thinks of as your kindness?”

“I don’t,” said the man with a smile, “I have no idea. It merely pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. Do you behave any differently? Please, I think I am tired.”

Zarniwoop heaved a thoroughly dissatisfied sigh and looked about. “Where are the other two?” he said suddenly.

“What other two?” said the ruler of the Universe, settling back into his chair and refilling his whisky glass.

“Beeblebrox and the girl! The two who were here!”

“I remember no one. The past is a fiction to account for … “

“Stuff it,” snapped Zarniwoop and ran out into the rain. There was no ship. The rain continued to churn the mud. There was no sign to show where the ship had been. He hollered into the rain. He turned and ran back to the shack and found it locked.

The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn’t know whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Now, it’s obviously humor. But what about living, actually living, in the only world that you actually can know, which is everything you experience, think, and feel? That’s the only world you can actually know. As the ruler of the universe says in here, “everything else is hearsay.” [Laughs] Okay. So, what would it be like to live? How would you do that? And what would you need to be able to live and navigate that world?

Now, this is the world that Buddhism talks about and teaches us how to be present in and how to be awake in. It’s not the world of shared experience; not the world that’s been constructed, because that world is a fiction. It’s a construct. Or, another way of putting it: it’s a dream. All that we can know is what we think and feel and sense.

Balance, clarity, and effectiveness

Ken: Some of you have heard me use this other example from Uchiyama, which I rather like and may have mentioned in this in class already. If so, please forgive me [paraphrasing from How to Cook Your Life, Dögen, Uchiyama Roshi, p. 59]:

The scientists were studying the duck, trying to figure out when it turned its eggs or how it knew when to turn the eggs over. Periodically it would just get up and turn all the eggs over so that they were evenly warmed and hatched properly. The scientists figured there must be some kind of timing mechanism or whatever. But after doing some very careful study of it, they came to the conclusion that the duck got up and turned the eggs over when she got too hot; that was the time to turn the eggs over.

I love this example, because it shows how by being really, really present with our own experience, and balancing, and working in our world to correct imbalances, we actually create the conditions for balance to form in the larger world around us. And to me, this is the essence of—if you want to call it—Buddhist ethics. It’s not about orchestrating great changes in the world. But by being acutely, and intimately, connected with the world of our own experience, then balance, clarity, and effectiveness naturally manifest. They arise quite naturally in that, and that ripples out from us.

We found the same thing in Taoism, expressed in very different language, but along the lines of: the perfected man, or the perfected person, leaves no footprints. He does nothing, but wonderful things happen around him. We’re talking about the same kind of thing. And I’d like you to just to reflect: what would it take for you to be able to be that aware of what you’re experiencing? That’s one thing. And also, what would it take to pour your energy into living in the actual world you experience, and not being distracted by the dream, by the projection, by the construction all the time?

Willingness, ability, and capacity

Ken: Now, another theme that we started last week was these three qualities that enable us to do things: willingness, know-how, and capacity. Maybe not 100 percent capacity, but I think this business of capacity is far more important than is usually reckoned. Particularly in this culture, we all want a magic bullet—we want to just be able to do things right away. And because of that, we often don’t place much value on the accumulation of ability and experience, which in many ways can’t be speeded up.

As I was saying, one way to regard practice is creating the conditions for attention really to grow. And just letting that happen. Now, there are a lot of things we can do to create the conditions. One is setting up our lives so that there is opportunity to practice on a regular basis. Another is developing a deep level of intention. That’s a very important condition.

And in terms of building capacity, we can not only just rest with the breath, or rest in awareness, but we can also use such practices as: loving-kindness, as it’s used in the Theravadan tradition; bodhicitta, compassion in the Mahayana tradition; or devotion in the Vajrayana tradition. And use those specific emotions as a way of transforming emotional energy into attention and uncovering awareness. And those are very, very powerful methods. So there are a lot of things that we can do to create conditions, but much of it has to do with building capacity rather than trying to understand things.

I think that the two most important areas in practice to initially put energy, is into the area of willingness and into the area of building capacity. What’s important in willingness? [Pause] This is something I’ve discussed quite deeply with a few of my colleagues and friends. And we tend to think that the willingness to be awake is natural, and that that’s actually captured in the buddhist notion of buddha nature. It’s the intention to awake. That’s one way of describing it. And it’s the natural proclivity of awareness to want to be awake. That’s very loose language and I probably could be taken to task for it, but I think you get what I mean.

So that means, well, what is unwillingness? And from this perspective, there isn’t any thing called, “unwillingness.” There is simply the momentum, or the inertia—as the case may be—of habituated patterns, which we experience as unwillingness. But it’s simply the experience that is encountered as that willingness tries to engage waking up. So, there isn’t a thing to overcome. It’s more being in the experience of whatever is arising.

Whatever arises

Ken: That’s what we’re going to focus on this evening: how to recognize, and how to be completely in the experience of what is, and what is arising. Now, as I was preparing for this evening, I realized that in the time frame that we’re working, this is going to be very, very quick. And I hope that I can work with you so that something arises.

And I also realized that the ideal conditions for this is a retreat condition. So I want to put this on everybody’s plate this evening: in 2008, I’ve reserved a very large block of time at a retreat center we’ve been using for the last couple of years. It’s a wonderful place out right at the edge of the plains in New Mexico. So, it’s very, very spacious. And it’s basically from the middle of July to the end of August. So it’s a month and a half. And I’m planning to do two retreats in that period of time. One is a 10-day retreat and one is a three week retreat.

One of those retreats, I decided as I was preparing for this, is going to be on mahamudra; probably the 10-day retreat, but I’m not sure. But it will be an opportunity to practice trying to pull all of the conditions together, so you can actually move into this experience and know it, which is a crucial step. Because once you know the experience, then you have something to work with in your life. I know that many people have to plan vacations far in advance, so I just wanted to put that out. You’re getting first word, but I’m going to put it out to a number of people. There are only 20 places available; it’s a small retreat center. And it’s not up on the website. You won’t be able to register until late next year. But I just want to let you know that that’s something that I’m planning, far in advance. And it is something to work towards.

This evening, let’s turn to the pages. Actually, I don’t want you to read; let me do this. What I want you to do is to work with this in your own experience. In Tibetan Buddhism, we have this set of instructions called the pointing out instructions, and they’re kind of neat. What they are is … there’s actually a fairly intimate relationship between teacher and student, in which teacher and student work together. And under the guidance of the teacher, the student is guided into very specific experiences. And the teacher said, “Okay, that’s that experience. And that’s that. And that’s that.”

So it’s like, if you’re learning about rocks. I’m just using that as an example. If you go on a field expedition with a really good geologist, he might pick something up and say, “Okay, this is basalt. This is what it looks like. It’s hexagonal. It’s black. It’s got this density,” etc. “This over here is granite. And you can tell it by its specks,” and things like that. “And this is mica,” and so forth. Well, it’s basically the equivalent. When you get that firsthand knowledge, now you know what mica looks like. You know what quartz looks like. You know what basalt looks like. And that’s the purpose of the pointing out instructions; so that you know this is this, and this is that, and that’s whatever, and so forth. So we’re going to do what we can this evening and we’ll just see how it goes. Okay?

Shamatha: the resting mind

Ken: So, if you sit for meditation, [pause] let your body rest and settle naturally in attention. Let your breath settle naturally. And just let your mind settle naturally. Don’t think about the past. Don’t entertain the future. Don’t dwell on the present. Just rest. [Pause] Okay. Now, we did this last time and the time before. There’s a shift that takes place. So, Lynea, what did you experience?

Lynea: An awareness of clarity up here, but tension in my body.

Ken: Yeah. Well, there’s a moment of just clear awareness. Okay. John, what did you experience?

John: I went right to that place. I wasn’t in the past or the future.

Ken: Okay. So there’s a shift and you just opened. How would you describe it?

John: Just here.

Ken: Okay. Chuck?

Chuck: I felt a total relaxation. First there’s …

Ken: What happened to thinking?

Chuck: The thinking sort of just dissipates.

Ken: Okay. So hear what’s being described. That’s shamatha. That’s resting. That’s the resting mind. That’s the pointing out for resting mind. It’s actually quite natural. We are just doing this for very short periods of time. There’s no big mystery to it. That’s important. There’s no big mystery. Now, the difficulty for many is, it’s fine for one to five seconds. After that, other things start to happen. This is not a question of understanding. This is purely a question of capacity. And so that’s what you cultivate—more capacity—so you can just rest.

And we even go a bit further here, because thoughts can come and go, and the quality of resting is not disturbed. Some of you know that experience. That’s still shamatha. Eventually you reach the point where there can be huge emotional upheavals, and the quality of resting isn’t disturbed. That resting quality, that is shamatha. That’s the Sanskrit word. That is the resting mind. Okay. So, we go back to meditation.

But before we meditate, what can happen with shamatha? Shamatha, or this resting mind, has two qualities to it. One is stability and one is clarity. In the resting mind, just as you are experiencing now, it is stable and clear. Is everybody with me on that? What can happen is the stability is lost. Reactive patterns create disturbances. That’s where you start thinking; that’s the loss of stability. And then you just go off. The other thing that can happen is you lose the clarity. The reactive patterns create, or generate, dullness; a dulling of the attention. And when I talk about capacity, it is building the capacity so that you aren’t falling into busyness or dullness.

And if you look at chapter three in Wake Up to Your Life, you’ll find a whole bunch of techniques about that. But basically—and this is very, very important as part of this kind of practice—in mahamudra practice, the best way is that when it disintegrates into dullness or when it disintegrates into busyness, you just stop and start again. If it falls off, you stop, relax, and start again. And by doing this over and over again, you gradually extend or build your capacity to rest in that open clarity. And that is shamatha. Okay? Any questions before we go on? Yes, Susan.

Susan: You said in mahamudra practice, we do this. So is that different from shamatha?

Ken: Well, it’s different from some other forms of shamatha, where you will actually use remedies to balance the mind-state. In mahamudra, what I’m suggesting here is to just stop, and then start again.

Susan: Okay. So you’re saying that both things, those experiences, can happen in both shamatha and mahamudra. We’re applying mahamudra techniques to both.

Ken: Well, I’m giving you instruction within the mahamudra context. Shamatha is a very, very general term, but what I was pointing out there was the mahamudra form of shamatha, which doesn’t use any object. The attention isn’t resting on an object. It’s just resting. And you experience that shift into clear, stable resting.

Insight practice: vipashyana

Ken: So let’s go back and sit again. Let your body and breath settle. [Pause] And again, let go of the past, the future, and the present. Now, in that pure, stable attention, look to see, what is mind? What is the mind that rests? What is it? And when you look this way, you probably experience a shift in attention, shifting the energy of attention so things become brighter and clearer. And in that looking, you find yourself looking at absolutely nothing. Yet, there continues to be an awareness. It’s not like you are out cold or anything. So there’s this awareness, which is and sees nothing.

That’s insight. First, we had resting—shamatha. Now we have insight. The Sanskrit word for that is vipashyana. Now, a lot of people will say, or are of the opinion, that vipashyana or insight practice means you’re asking these questions: “What is mind? What’s the color of mind? What’s the shape of mind? Where is the mind?” All of that stuff. But … from this perspective, that actually isn’t insight. That’s what you engage, in order to precipitate the experience of insight. The actual experience of insight is this clear awareness which simultaneously apprehends and is no thing. Now, what did you experience with this? Nava.

Capacity to rest

Nava: When I look for mind, I don’t see anything, but I feel it here. So, I kind of look for that and I know if I continue from there, I see it as a perception. So, I keep looking there. That’s what happened.

Ken: Okay. The next time you try it, when you look at mind, as you say, and you see no thing but you have a sensation, then rest in the looking. Don’t do anything with the sensation. Because when you start looking, and looking, and looking, it’s like a dog chasing its own tail. You spin until you fall down in fatigue. So, try that next time. Okay? Anybody else? Lisa.

Lisa: After the shift, and while I’m looking, the sensation shifts to my heart, and just seems very warm, and open, and flushed. It feels like being carried away by the sensation.

Ken: And what if you look at the awareness?

Lisa: Then there’s both.

Ken: Yeah. So, you’re not dissimilar from Nava, in that when you experience that shift, there are sensations which arise. And whereas hers arises here, yours arises here, and there’s a shift in feeling there. And what happens time and time again with us, is that we get grabbed by the content of experience. It’s a bit like trying to know the ocean by taking hold of a wave. Do you follow? Yeah, the wave is the ocean, but if you try to take hold of the wave, you kind of miss it.

Lisa: Well, there’s a real strong preference that arises for that feeling of warmth, and then the clinging.

Ken: Yes. That’s usually what comes next. [Laughs] Okay, Raquel.

Raquel: Before you asked the question, and I was sitting there resting in attention, I felt more sensations. But then when you asked the question and there was, I guess you might call it, a second shift, then it felt … the sensations … I wasn’t aware of those same sensations and I just felt more open and a little …

Levels of energy

Ken: So, this raises another point. In this process, by the way that we’re working, we’re shifting energies; shifting levels of energy higher and higher. So when we just say, “Let go of the past, future, and present,” there’s a shift. And there we are in that clear, stable attention. And then look at the awareness that is present there. There’s another shift. Now, every time we shift energy, things that would have distracted us at one level, cease to distract us. It isn’t that they go away, it’s now that the energy is transformed into a higher level. So, it’s not disturbed by those sensations in the same way. This is very good.

Now, the challenge here is to learn, and again I’m going to emphasize this point and pound this one in: it is not a case of understanding. It’s a case of developing ability or capacity, so that you can rest in those higher-level energies. Do you follow, Raquel? And that’s something you develop by practicing. There’s nothing you can do. No amount of understanding will actually help you do it. You just have to keep practicing and actually develop that ability. It’s a bit like working out at the gym. You can understand exactly how to move a certain machine but what does that do for the muscles in your arm? Well, nothing. You’ve got to sit down and push and then you build up actual strength.

And here, you’re building up a capacity for attention. And things become possible—in the way that we were talking about last week—when you develop that capacity. And they remain very difficult, very unstable, if at all accessible, when you haven’t got that capacity. And I see so many people struggle with their practice because they’ve tried to understand how to do things, when all they actually need is to develop capacity. And then they will find that the knowing, which is really what they’re seeking, arises—not all the time, but very, very often—quite naturally. Whereas that knowing is almost inaccessible through just understanding. Okay. Lynea.

Lynea: Ultimately, what’s the difference between the awareness and … there’s clarity, which includes other things going on. In the end, I don’t know what the difference is between the awareness and the actual experience.

Ken: Is that something you don’t know or don’t understand?

Lynea: Don’t understand.

Ken: Yes, well, we’re not concerned with understanding. [Laughter] But you see, you’re trying to figure it out, right? I could give you a nice philosophical discourse on that one, and it wouldn’t do you a scrap of good. Bear with us. Maybe we’ll get there this evening, okay? Just after you had taken such care to craft that question so carefully! [Laughter]

Student: What’s the difference between the state after those two shifts, and doing one thing, like doing the dishes? That’s that first example.

Ken: Well it depends how you do the dishes, doesn’t it?

Student: If you do nothing else, and think about nothing else, and just do the dishes.

Ken: Yep. That’s mixing attention and activity.

Student: So, what you’re talking about has nothing to do with a physical activity?

Ken: No, we simply do it in meditation because it’s a little easier to point to when it’s unmixed with activity. But ideally, and something one works with, is to learn how to do this—how to be and experience the world this way—while you’re carrying on a conversation, doing the dishes, cooking, whatever.

Student: I missed what you recommended earlier to rest, not in the question, but to rest in the awareness of finding there’s nothing.

Ken: We’re going to be doing this again in just a moment. When you ask certain questions, you experience a shift in the level of attention, right? What many, many people do is once they experience that shift, they find themselves looking at nothing and they go, “Oh, there’s nothing here.” And they ask the question again, and they ask the question again. And that’s where you get like a dog spinning, chasing its own tail. And it’s not helpful. Or they try to understand it. Or they try to figure it out. What actually needs to be done—and it’s much more beneficial—is when you ask the question and experience the shift, you rest in that shift. So, you’re accustoming yourself and familiarizing yourself with being in that higher level of attention. So, let’s return to meditation again.

The union of seeing and resting

Ken: And again, let go of the past, and the future, and the present, and just rest. [Pause] Look at what you’re actually experiencing right now. [Pause] You’re likely experiencing a natural knowing that cannot be described or conceptualized in any way. Now, let that go for a moment and just ask, “What is mind?” [Pause] And you find yourself resting in clear, stable attention. So, in one way, we’ve been approaching this through the resting mind, and the other way we’ve been approaching it through the aware mind, or the looking mind—the insight. Is there a difference between the mind in insight and the mind that is resting? This is the union of seeing and resting, or in traditional terms, vipashyana and shamatha. That’s what I’m pointing to right now. Okay? Your experience here? Valerie, let’s start with you.

Valerie: Well, what was happening for me was that I was shifting back and forth between relaxing and looking. And, I don’t know, it’s just like a shift in energy between the two, maybe one brighter and one softer.

Ken: Well, let’s go a little further then. So, you have the resting mind and the seeing mind; which do you want to start with?

Valerie: The seeing mind.

Ken: Okay. So, bring up the seeing mind, which means look at mind nature. Look at what mind is, and rest there. [Silence]

Okay? Now, just let the mind rest, and look at what’s there. [Silence] Okay? Same or different?

Valerie: It’s the same.

Ken: Thank you. [Laughs] Robin, your experience?

Fear or panic

Robin: Well, I guess I want to say I’m appreciating this knowledge of this shifting things, because I feel that I’ve experienced this, but I haven’t had the shared experience with anybody else put in those terms. But then there’s sort of like an … in between place? Kind of a neither here nor there. And and then a little bit of backing out of that to try to take the question, or to understand the words, to apply the question kind of?

Ken: There’s a panic attack. [Laughter]

Robin: I don’t know.

Ken: What are you backing away from?

Robin: There could be an edge that …

Ken: Do you know what you do when you get to that edge?

Robin: Yeah. Do you ever come back when you go there? Or not?

Ken: When you get to that edge, do you know what to do?

Robin: Oh, do I know what to do if I get to the edge? Not yet.

Ken: Jump. [Laughs]

Robin: I guess a little thought pulls you back.

Ken: That’s right. Yeah. But when you come to an edge, jump.

Robin: Oh.

Ken: Not very enthusiastic. [Laughs] You know what I mean? Okay. Darren.

Darren: What exactly is the question?

Ken: What was your experience?

Darren: When I’m resting, there’s a certain dimensional experience. And then when we become aware of awareness, it’s almost like things become more vivid, and then sort of looking inward and outward at the same time. It’s the clarity and the vividness; it just gets magnified. And then sometimes there’s a voice that just starts answering that question, what is mind? And then I just sit back and listen to what it says.

Ken: You are seduced too, just like Odysseus and the Sirens.

Darren: I can understand Robin’s feeling; there’s almost a little bit of a part of me that feels a tiny bit of panic like the guy in the story from the Celtic fairy tale. He sailed away, and it was from the point of view that he’s gone. It’s almost like this sense of some ego part of me …

Ken: How many of you are experiencing that panic? Good. Same instruction I gave Robin. You’re going to experience that panic over and over again. What is that panic?

Darren: Death of the ego.

Ken: It’s not the death of the ego. I don’t like to use the term ego anyway, because I think it’s very misleading.

Darren: The death of the constructs.

Ken: Well, I wish it were the death. Unfortunately, it’s not the death. [Laughter] Fear is the mechanism of last resort that a pattern generates to dissipate tension.

Darren: It can work pretty well. In particular, a panic attack will take you right out.

Ken: Yeah, that’s right. Now, what do you do?

Darren: Well, stay in that experience.

Ken: Yep. And what do you need to do that?

Student: Capacity.

Ken: Ah, someone is getting the point. Capacity. [Laughter] Yeah. Understanding does not help here. You have to build the capacity to be able to experience that movement of mind just as a movement.

Darren: Actually, in a Tuesday night meeting we had, I had a panic attack and I had all the people around me. And I raised my hand and said, “By the way, I am having a panic attack.” And with all of those people helping, in some way that helped my ability.

Ken: Yes, they were able to support you, and you could mix the attention so that you could work at a higher level than you ordinarily are able to by yourself individually. And thus, you could actually experience it, and stay in the experience, rather than be thrown off.

Darren: And it absolutely helped quite a bit.

Ken: That’s one of the great benefits of group practice, and I’m very glad you had that experience. That’s very good. And that’s very good that people were able to support you that way.

Darren: They were very helpful.

Ken: Yeah, because when we practice together, we make a soup or a field of attention, which everybody contributes to and everybody can draw from, or utilize. It enables us to make greater efforts—because there’s more capacity there and I am going to pound this nail home—than we may be able to experience individually or generate individually. We can’t rely on that, but it does open possibilities for us. Of course, we don’t always have other people around. Okay. Very good. Now, let’s go a little further. [Pause]

Clear empty knowing: it’s what you are

Ken: So come back to [pause] the union of the resting and seeing mind. [Pause] So whether you come from the resting mind into the seeing mind, or the two together, or vice versa, it doesn’t make any difference. Now, where does this clear, empty knowing come from? [Pause] Where is it right now? [Pause] Does it ever go? And if so, where? [Pause]

This clear, empty knowing is what you are. It doesn’t come from anywhere. It is what you are. It doesn’t exist in any place. It is what you are. And it actually doesn’t go anywhere, because it is what you are. This clear, empty knowing is what you are. Okay. What was your experience with this? Susan.

Susan: Starting with the union of shamatha and vipashyana, it was like—I don’t want to say—being aware of awareness, but there’s a sense of there being different flavors and each had a different quality. And then moving beyond that, it’s like the bottom dropped out. It felt open, like I was just there.

Ken: George. And I’m listening to you very carefully. [Laughs] What was your experience?

George: It changed. It went first from space to even more expansion, but then it felt more like focusing without focusing on anything. And then it felt like within much more space.

Ken: I’m going to stop you there before you ruin it. That’s good. [Laughs] You don’t go any further than that. That’s good. Molly?

Molly: I was just right with really experiencing what Susan was talking about—with the two different flavors—and resting there. And I think I became a lot more aware of sort of everything around me at the same time, like in this room, and of those two qualities.

Ken: Okay. This is as far as we go tonight; this is very good. As it says on page 42:

The meaning in a nutshell is this: allow your mind to be as it naturally is, and let thoughts dissolve in themselves. This is your innate mind, which is an unidentifiable, self-knowing, natural awareness.” (It says,) “Remain one-pointedly in its continuity and do not get distracted.” (It’s clumsy translation.) “During the daily activities … try to keep this kind of mindfulness undistractedly as much as you can.”

Clarifying the Natural State, Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, p. 42

I don’t like the translation. I’m going to go back to the Tibetan, but I won’t read it in Tibetan: When you let the mind rest, settle naturally. Thinking releases itself … or is naturally released. Your experience, and innate or natural knowing, which is intrinsically clear and not identifiable as any thing. Don’t be distracted. Do just this. In the course of the day, in everything that you do, remember it without distraction. Work on this very consistently for the next few days. ???

So, you all have a knowing. That’s been the point of this evening’s pointing out. It’s always there. Now, having had it pointed out, you can recognize it. And, basically, keep recognizing it during your meditation, and also during the day. Just keep recognizing it. Don’t try to hold onto it. That never works. Instead, recognize, rest. And then it’ll dissipate or fade. Then recognize, rest. And so you begin to develop some sort of … You become conversant with it. And that’s really the essence of this practice. Any questions? Molly.

Molly: Are there more than vipashyana and shamatha?

Ken: Seeing and resting?

Molly: Yeah.

Ken: Oh yeah. I mean, yes and no. Are there more aspects that can be pointed out?

Molly: I am wondering because I feel like this is the first time I’ve felt those two as being distinct and I’m just like, how many other ways can I see this thing? Are there 31? And I just don’t know. I was just wondering.

Ken: Well, you not only experienced them as distinct, you also experienced them as the same. No, you don’t have to worry about there being too much more than that. But it’s very much a case of developing capacity, so that one can be there. And then actually applying—which is what much of the next part is about, actually applying—this to all aspects of experience. And these require progressively more powerful states of attention, so you can apply it to more and more aspects of experience. So we start off here, and it is fair to say this includes the essential matters. Okay. Steve.

Seeing and resting and compassion

Steve: Thanks. Two questions, one very quick: We’re not talking about, so far, any union of this resting and seeing with compassion. And, I’m not saying we should start that at 9:30, but does mahamudra encompass that union? Is that part of it? This is just an issue that has always been a little difficult, for me anyway, and we’re not touching on it.

Ken: What’s he trying to do, Lynea?

Lynea: Move away?

Ken: I’d say, he’s trying to understand. What do you recommend to him? What would you advise him?

Lynea: I don’t want him to understand. [Laughter]

Ken: Yeah, that could be useful, but I was hoping you’d be a little more constructive than that. [Laughter] This is not very helpful instruction—the suggestions you’re getting—on this. Anybody got anything for Steve? Lynea.

Lynea: Sit in the discomfort?

Ken: I think we can go further. So, when you experience seeing resting mind, what’s your attitude to everything that you experience?

Steve: I don’t perceive an attitude in that moment. Or if there was, I would say, acceptance.

Ken: Acceptance. Say a bit more.

Steve: There’s no judgment in that.

Ken: There’s no judgment. What else? Let’s put it this way—

Steve: Not … not as much separation. A lack of separation.

Ken: Lack of separation, okay. Suppose you’re there and you see someone spinning out of control in anger. What arises in you?

Steve: Coming from … somewhat of this state of …

Ken: Yeah. Your mind is clear and present.

Steve: I’ll be angry that they messed up my nice meditation. [Laughter]

Ken: That one didn’t work at all, did it? Seriously?

Steve: No, I am trying to keep it from being too serious.

Ken: Well, the thing is, would your state of mind be disturbed? That natural, clear knowing?

Steve: If I could stay in that place.

Ken: Well, why wouldn’t you?

Steve: Well, if it triggered reactions.

Ken: No, don’t talk about this theoretically.

Steve: If you could stay in that …

Ken: No, don’t talk about it theoretically. Check your own experience. Is that clear, stable union of seeing and resting disturbed by anything that arises in experience?

Steve: No.

Ken: No. So, what would you feel if you saw someone spinning out of control in anger? [Pause]

Steve: I imagine you would just … it would just be an event—

Ken: But what would you feel? Yes, that “F” word. You’re thinking too much. Anybody?

Student: Compassion.

Ken: Yeah. And quite naturally. Yeah. It would just arise. Wouldn’t it?

Steve: Compassion, yes.

Ken: Compassion would just arise.

Steve: Out of that still … out of that …

Ken: Yeah. Well, it is the clarity actually, compassion. Why? Because in that clear knowing, you know that anger is the result of hurt. The anger is the result of hurting. You aren’t caught up in the anger; you weren’t disturbed by it. You see how things are. So compassion naturally arises.

Claire: What if the anger is going to hurt some one? What if you see somebody who’s out of control and angry, and you see they’re going to hit a kid? Do you feel compassion?

Ken: I think we’ve been here before, Claire. [Laughs] Yes, I know that’s how you feel. And I would say, yes, you do feel compassion. You feel compassion for both parties.

Claire: You wouldn’t want to stop the person?

Ken: I would imagine you would want to stop the person, and you probably would stop them. But you don’t have to be motivated by anger to do that.

Student: Don’t you do what needs to be done?

Claire: Yeah.

Ken: Yeah. But you’re making the assumption that you would have to be motivated by anger to do that. You don’t. No, you can be motivated by compassion for both. And it may affect how you try to stop.

Claire: Well, compassion is the appropriate action, is it not?

Ken: Well, it depends on what arises in the circumstance, but one would hope. Yeah. It’s certainly more likely to be the appropriate action than anger.

There’s a very good Tai Chi person, somebody Lu. I can’t remember the first name now. And he trained for many, many years in Tai Chi, which is a difficult martial art. You have to train a very long time before you’re really effective. And he was on a subway in New York and there was a drunk on the subway who was hassling a young woman. And he thought, “Oh, I’ll put him in his place!” He was just preparing to do that when this very small, very short Oriental man stepped in front of him, walked up to the drunk, and quietly engaged the drunk in a conversation. The result of which was that the attention of the drunk was turned away from the young woman and he became completely absorbed in the conversation with this short, very short, slim man. And the Tai Chi guy said this was a real learning experience for him. He said, “Oh, different ways.” Okay? Compassion, it’s a useful thing, sometimes. Okay. Any other questions before we close?

Student: So, as I was practicing this instruction from last week about expanding our senses, going through our senses, which is great because it’s portable—

Ken: [Laughs] You don’t need a lot of machinery.

Student: It is really helpful. I don’t have to be on my cushion at home. Anyway, one thing I noticed was I could hear all the things that my brain and my senses automatically filtered out, which is better for our construct of life. Then I opened up to that and the field of focus opened up. And then there were all these unwelcome things, like I realized I have my little bit of ringing in my ears.

Ken: Everybody does.

Student: Now, that’s there. And I could realize that in the outdoor fresh air, I could actually smell the smog. And you know where I am getting at with this; there’s all of these things that we actually, it would be helpful …

Ken: Everybody thinks that being aware is groovy, but it’s not.

Student: My question is, should I do that as a practice and then go back to the state … Am I supposed to always be experiencing the ringing of my ears? I’m not really joking around. I mean, I’m actually being serious about it. Is the goal to live with the ringing of the ears, or is it to experience that as a practice?

Ken: Why are you practicing? Why are you here?

Student: To become awake.

Ken: Well, that’s your answer, then, isn’t it? I’m not making you do this. You’re here out of your own volition! [Laughter]

Student: So, your answer is, “yes?”

Ken: It’s not. I mean, you want to be awake.

Student: If I would like to become awake, then I should get used to—

Ken: Being awake! [Laughter] When you’re totally aware, you don’t get to choose what you’re aware of. You learn how to live in that world. Your choice. But if that’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re here. I’m not making you do a damn thing, so don’t put it on me. [Laughs] People love to project that way, but it’s just not—

Student: I wasn’t—

Ken: Yes, you were [Laughs]. “Are you saying that the goal is …”

Student: I was just asking for instruction.

Ken: Yes. Well, but you have it already and you’re giving it to yourself. I can tell you how. You decide what you actually do. Okay?

Student: The smog doesn’t smell that bad. [Laughter]

Ken: Okay. Let’s close here for the evening.