Experiences with the primary practice

Ken: I’d like to start off this evening with any questions or experiences you had with the tools that I presented to you yesterday. Yes?

Student: I really appreciate you adding a dimension of the primary practice of opening your heart to the experience. It adds a whole other dimension to the experience. I really feel like that’s an enhancement. I appreciate that.

Ken: Anybody else? Ann? One of the disadvantages of sitting right in front of me. People learn after a while.

Ann: I spent quite a bit of time outdoors. I was very comfortable. I was watching clouds. At a certain point sleepiness arose and the instruction was to do nothing. [Laughter] So I did nothing, and I was experiencing sleepiness and I’m not sure what happened, but it felt like I went to the edge. I didn’t fall asleep and then suddenly it just shifted, and I kept doing nothing for a while. That was very interesting.

Ken: Anybody else? Carolyn? It looked like you were avoiding saying something; it was my imagination, obviously.

Carolyn: Is there something you would like me to say?

Ken: No.

Carolyn: I found the day went better for me after I had the explicit instruction. Doing nothing was … enhanced. Does that make sense?

Ken: That’s very interesting. Doing nothing was enhanced by the explicit instruction. Do elaborate.

Carolyn: Yes. Part of doing nothing in the way we’ve been talking about it is what experiences that? Doing nothing is about when you rest. Your explicit instruction was what rests? So, it brought together two aspects of things for me.

Ken: Let’s see. That’s where we’re going to go this evening. I think this is called interdependence.

Carolyn: I didn’t hear a word, but if we’re going to go there this evening, can you give me a little synopsis so that I can hear?

Ken: And if you can’t hear just wave suitably or sit up front.

Ann: Sometimes you can’t even hear up front.

Ken: Yes. I know. I speak very softly.

Student: No, we’re sitting at the back, and we also didn’t hear.

Ken: She studied with me for a long time. It’s infectious.

Ann: No. I’m talking about other people in the room. It’s not just you …

Ken: Yes, I know. It’s infectious. They’ve learned very badly from me. That was a joke. I have to point out jokes these days.

Carolyn, synopsis. In the primary practice—to dance with what experiences this. And doing nothing involves, implicitly, a kind of resting. I posed Carolyn the question—what rests? And so this brought the two things together for her. Okay.

Carolyn: I’m not sure I understand.

Ken: Yeah, that was a synopsis though. Understanding is a whole nother matter. Any other experience with your questions coming out of the talks? Yes. Eli?

Eli: I had one coming out of our interview where I described that my difficulty with doing nothing was stability or staying in that place. And you had suggested that I tried to identify what it was that was causing what I referred to as instability. Within about 20 minutes of our having met, I sat and again tried to do nothing, and what I found was I became aware that it was almost a totally different experience, like the difference between high definition TV and the early 35 millimeter. I concluded that the difference was the degree of attention. I had thought that I wasn’t trying hard enough or concentrating enough, but that isn’t doing nothing. The attention seems to be from a different dimension, but it made a lot of difference for me.

Ken: You’re quite right. The level of attention makes a very big difference. When one has cultivated a good capacity in attention, then a lot of things that would normally distract, simply arise and come and go. One’s whole experience is more vivid because there’s a higher level of attention. And because things just come and go, one actually has the experience of doing nothing. Whereas if you’re distracted, you keep feeling like you’re coming back and working at something and so forth and so forth. This is why I put some emphasis on capacity last night. I want to go there and expand on that a little bit today. Hopefully, I won’t lose my notes.

Student: So, your attention goes up. The higher your attention, the more you get nothing.

Ken: Yes. The more attention, the more nothing you get. Sounds like a good deal to you?

Student: You can never have enough of nothing?

Ken: You can never have enough of nothing. What’s that song from Porgy and Bess?

Student: “I’ve got plenty of nothing.”

Guru yoga

Ken: First, with respect to guru yoga: I find one of the better ways of regarding the guru, I think I mentioned this yesterday, is how you experience awakened mind or awake mind. In this way of looking at things, the guru is your own mind. It is your own mind telling you how to be awake. So it’s very different from an idealized figure, a god substitute or what have you. Because one has an interest in being awake, it is quite natural to hold this aspect of one’s experience with the degree of reverence, appreciation. And it is also somewhat important that you feel some confidence or trust or faith in it.

In the Tibetan tradition, three kinds of faith are described. The usual order is progressing from clear, open appreciation to rational faith. I think this must have been because of some medieval institution, but in terms of guru yoga, I feel that the opposite order is the more appropriate one. Something makes sense to us and that both answers and arouses our curiosity. It feels right, it makes sense in some way. And so there’s a faith which comes from a rational appreciation, it’s a kind of confidence. On the basis of that a longing arises, a longing to dispel the sense of separation from the world, a longing to know how things are, a longing to know what we are. It can take many different forms. For some, it’s simply a longing to come home.

That longing becomes an impetus for practice in itself. Not only does it become an impetus for practice, it becomes a basis of trust. You find a person or people who seem to know something about this, and that actually deepens our longing, maybe provides some requitement, which in turn allows us to feel that longing more deeply. That longing is a very powerful emotion. We see it described very explicitly and very eloquently in A Far-Reaching Cry to the Guru. Here’s Kongtrül writing about all the different ways that he screws up in his practice: “I hate my enemies, cling to friends, and befuddle about what to do or not do. When I practice, I am dull, sluggish and sleepy; when I don’t practice, my senses are clear and sharp.” Can anybody relate to this?

Samsara has no purpose, I give it one. To get food and clothing, I let go of solid intentions.

Though I have the essentials, I always need more. I fool myself with insubstantial and delusory experiences.

A Far-Reaching Cry to the Guru

Anybody relate to this one? I’m just picking a few at random here.

My faults are huge like mountains, but I conceal them within me. Others’ faults are tiny like sesame seeds, but I publicly condemn them. Though I have no abilities, I brag about how good I am. I call myself a practitioner, but I don’t really practice.

Does this strike any chords?

One of the things I want to do at this point is differentiate this from notions of sin, particularly original sin and concepts, because these are part of our cultural heritage and Western culture. The difference here isn’t that I have done something fundamentally wrong, which is jeopardizing my relationship with the whole universe and all existence and thus I am in danger of being excommunicated from the universe. That’s basically how original sin plays, isn’t it? It may not be intended that way, but that’s how it plays inside. It’s not that kind of thing at all. It’s a very acute look and very honest look at what all of us do all of the time.

The story of Geshe Ben

Ken: One of the great heroes in Tibetan tradition is an individual called Geshe Ben. I’m not sure when he lived, but he took practice quite seriously and he took mind training teachings very seriously. And there are numerous stories, but I’ll just give you two as examples. One day he was seated in the monastery and in the monasteries the meals were served by cooks coming in with very large ladles. They would ladle the soup, or whatever it was, into your bowl and that was it. And as he was sitting there, he noted that he was hoping that when it came to his turn, that the cook would dip deep into the soup, so he’d get the thick stuff at the bottom rather than the thin gruel at the top. As soon as he noted that, he yelled out in the middle of the prayers, “Thief! Thief!”

Of course, everybody jumped up and looked around—where’s the thief? And he went, “Me! I was hoping to get more than other people, the thicker stuff at the bottom.”

On another occasion, he was in a solitary retreat. He received a note saying that his patron, who was supporting him on the retreat, was going to come visit. He looked at his shrine. It’s a mess! There are cobwebs all over it, he hadn’t done anything, it was dusty, etc. So he got up and polished all his bowls and refilled all the offerings and made all the images nice and spruced everything up and swept all the dust, cleared all the cobwebs away, sat down, looked up and went, “You, hypocrite!” He reached into his fireplace, pulled out a bunch of ashes, and threw them over the shrine.

It’s very easy for us in this culture to criticize ourselves and be very harshly critical. Part of this is because of the obsession with purity, that is again part of the Western, and I would say particularly American, heritage. One has to remember that the motivating emotion associated with purity is anger. The quest for purity is the cause for an awful lot of wars, internal and external. When we hear stories like this, a lot of people think, “Oh, I should be really hard on myself.” But that’s really not the intention. It’s just like, okay, I’m doing this now. And as soon as there’s that moment of recognition, there’s now a possibility of choice. Whereas before, there wasn’t any choice. And so you choose. Geshe Ben goes, “You hypocrite!” and throws stuff, which is a huge no-no in the Tibetan culture. You never throw ashes on the shrine. He came under a little criticism about that, but everybody agreed that his motivations were sound.

So many people, if they fail to be perfect, are harshly critical with themselves. And this is actually a form of internal abuse. When we’re talking about this longing, and you notice all your shortcomings, watch very carefully for that critical attitude to come out. You see what you’re not doing. You’re not capable yet. When I was studying with Rinpoche in India, he would always say, “If you can do this, good; and if you can’t do this, then pray to be able to do it.” I always thought when I first heard it, he was just saying that to make us feel good. We don’t have to feel bad about not being able to do it, because really we should be able to do it. As my own practice matured, and as I came to appreciate how intractable certain obstacles and reactive patterns can be, I began to see the wisdom in it. That is, okay, so you can’t do it. Well, don’t make your inability to do X into an enemy, use it as a basis for generating a positive aspiration and see what comes of that.

And that’s very important. When we talk about faith as longing, be very careful about being critical of yourself in the process. See what you do as clearly as possible, but let your heart open to that yearning and see what that does for your practice. Most people I’ve worked with find that if they opened that yearning in themselves, then they are much more capable of opening to whatever arises in experience. As you engage this kind of opening, the third kind of faith arises quite naturally. And that is just a lucid clear appreciation, which is not really rational. And it’s even a little bit beyond emotional. It has an element of clear or lucid knowing in it. And this aspect of faith, this kind of faith, is the connection between faith and insight.

Devotion and faith

Ken: One of the Shangpa masters, the fifth one of the seven jewels, the person called Kyergongpa, lived in the 12th century. I came across a short piece that Kongtrül had quoted from him in some supplementary text we were studying on retreat. He said that there are three doors in the dharma. There’s the door of impermanence, the door of compassion, and the door of devotion. For those of you want to dig around in this, you’ll find that those correspond to the three marks and the three gates of liberation and all of that, but I’m not going to go there this evening. I just want to focus on the last one—devotion.

Devotion is an emotion, and it is, like the four immeasurables, an emotion that is not organized around a sense of self. That’s what distinguishes the four immeasurables and emotions such as devotion from the reactive emotions, such as anger, pride, jealousy, greed, and so forth. They aren’t organized around a sense of self, all of them are a form of opening or engaging the world in an open way. I like to call these the higher emotions, or if I’m feeling impish, I like to call them the impersonal emotions because they aren’t organised around the sense of self. In the practice of devotion there is this emotional opening to whoever you’re regarding as your guru, whether there’s a historical figure or an alive figure. In other traditions, it’s the dharma, in the Theravadan, it’s the dharma. Every tradition has its repository of devotion or faith, and it varies.

As there’s the emotional opening, this third kind of faith begins to arise. And it is just clear, open heart, and open mind. It moves very naturally, because of the high level of emotional energy. It moves very naturally into non-thought and clarity, and for many people, they also often experience bliss associated with it. This is how it bridges into insight because with any three of those—the bliss, clarity and non-thought—you have a high level of attention. And so that begins to power the scene. In Kagyu tradition particularly, and generally in the Tibetan tradition, devotion is regarded as very important. That’s probably the most crucial factor in spiritual practice, because it opens one to this kind of faith, which in turn, just naturally opens into insight and clearer knowing.

An extreme example of this is Götsangpa, who is one of the Drukpa Kagyu patriarchs. He installed himself on an island and just practiced guru yoga, nothing else, very intensively. By the end of the month he found that he had round-the-clock stable, lucid attention. That’s a fairly extreme example. That was his experience. I think there’s a little bit of talent to that too …

Student: Struggling with faith and devotion in that historical mind-perception of those two concepts is based in something or devotion to something. So it felt like an object out there so I’m a little …

Ken: Yeah. Thank you. That’s a good question. The way I define faith, and I would hold this definition up in any tradition, not just Buddhism. You can plonk me down in the Christian Church and I’ll argue for the same definition: the willingness to open to whatever arises. If you look at what happens if somebody says they have faith in God or faith in Allah, if you look at that functionally, from a functional point of view, that’s exactly what it enables them to do. Because they have faith, they’re willing to open to whatever arises. The devotion is usually directed at an object because of its emotional nature. And that’s why it’s either an object or a symbol but it could be a person or a symbol, but it is something. That’s where it starts. As one moves into a deeper relationship with it, one finds that, in a certain sense, that quality in which you feel the devotion for—everything becomes an expression of that. You have that opening everywhere. You follow?

Student: Everything, meaning all experience …

Ken: Everything you experience. In Christian terms, you see everything as the manifestation of God; in Buddhist terms, you see everything as the manifestation of your guru. In yidam practice, you see everything is a manifestation of the yidam. That’s what you’re training to do in yidam practice. Does this imply that there is a God, there is a yidam or that these things exist? No. One of the things that’s really important to remember here is that Buddhism is completely epistemological. It’s not ontological at all. That is to say it’s not positing the actual existence of any thing. In fact, I was just reading Buddhahood without Meditation. If you think that Buddha exists, you’re on the wrong track. Buddha is a way of experiencing things and that’s very important to keep in mind too.

I wanted to mention those three kinds of faiths in connection with guru yoga, because it’s important and it often allows a way in. One can view those three kinds of faith as hierarchical, I’m not sure that they actually are. They very definitely reinforce each other. The main thing is to let yourself feel that faith however it arises for you and that’s what transforms emotional energy into attention and uncovers awareness so that you can just be present. So any questions on that before I go on. Dan?

Dan: I just don’t see the connection between faith and awareness. I know lots of Christians who are fundamentalists with lots of faith. I don’t see a lot of open awareness.

Ken: Do they have a lot of faith or do they have very strong beliefs? [unclear] Yeah, I think it’s important. Belief, I define as the attempt to interpret what’s out there to conform to what’s in here. I haven’t done a lot of work with fundamentalists, but the little bit I have, I found both are present: that in some it is absolutely belief. And if you don’t fit into certain things like that, then there’s zero communication. At the same time, I remember a fundamentalist minister who was on the AIDS Interfaith Council, which I was also on for a while in LA. And she was just amazing. Her practice allowed her to open to whatever was there. I really admired her because she would come to meetings and, around the table there would be all these extremely liberal Jewish rabbis and Episcopalian priests and things like that. And she would just be right there focusing exactly on and telling everybody what really needed to happen if they wanted to enlist the support of the fundamentalist people in the work dealing with AIDS. This is the late 1980s, when the epidemic was at its height. I would very much like get in touch with her because I thought she was marvelous. She would stand up and work with these crowds, like 200 people, and she knew that everybody was coming from a completely different perspective. And she was just there and I did not get the sense that it was a rigidity in belief at all. Okay? Claudia?

Claudia: In Catholic theology, faith is trusting in what is unknowable.

Ken: That sounds awfully similar to my definition.

Claudia: And love is opening to whatever arises.

Ken: There’s a problem here?

Claudia: No. I mean, I think that it’s a semantic issue sometimes.

Ken: Sure. Trusting in what is unknowable. That’s pretty close to opening to whatever arises. Dan?

Dan: I don’t mean to split hairs with you …

Ken: Yes, you do. Absolutely you mean to split hairs. Go ahead and split them.

Dan: The way that pristine awareness is written about and described in the text that we were using [unclear] to me that sounds like an ontological concept.

Ken: Yeah, I’m working on that one. Thank you for reminding me. I need to go back and re-read some things from that perspective. We are so used to ontological thinking that we fall into it very naturally, but I remember Rinpoche—in the first two tours of North America, which I translated for him—again and again he would be asked, does Chenrezi exist? Do yidams exist? etc. And he would always say “yes.” But then you have to pay very close attention to why he thought they existed: because people had experienced them. And that isn’t epistemological because anything that’s experienced is.

Student: On page 139 [Buddhahood Without Meditation, Dujom Lingpa, Richard Barron (translator)], there’s a refutation of the chapter before, which sounds epistomological. Can you define those two terms?

Ken: Ontology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being—do things exist? And how do they exist and so forth. Epistomology is the branch of philosophy that deals with how do we know things? How do we experience things? And, time and time again, people get tripped up on this because Western philosophy, particularly Christian philosophy, has focused on ontology because it wants to prove the existence of God. God exists and that’s the big debate. And Buddhism, for a very good reason, decided that this was a complete rat’s nest. And Nagarjuna around 100 BC showed that any categorical statement about experience was inherently self-contradictory, thus putting an end to any ontological discussion. Which is why all other philosophies find Buddhism so very irritating.

I remember when we did a retreat with Rinpoche in 1986 at Big Bear in California, we had to share the facilities with a Korean Christian group for the first weekend. When we were cleaning up afterwards, they found a mimeograph sheet saying “Witnessing Buddhism,” and it had the four noble truths and a couple of other things. Underneath scrawled in pencil was “Never get into an argument with a Buddhist. You will lose.” Because what happens is that Buddhism moves it onto epistemological grounds and then just wipes out anything. And this is what people study for years in monasteries to do.

Student: I’d just like to say, I used to be a Presbyterian. And the way I came to understand the word “God” actually meant “truth” way back in the old biblical days but it had been converted into a being, some being above who was omnipotent and so on. But, actually, when I came to understand that, then I saw no difference between Buddhism and Christianity.

Ken: And I think there’s a lot in that. I have a Catholic priest friend who attributes the possibility of atheism to Martin Luther, because do you believe in god as a person? If god is a person, then you have the option of whether you believe in him or not. There were these changes. I just wanted to open up those three faiths to give you a little more to work with in the guru yoga.

Student: Can you name those again?

Ken: There’s faith which arises from a rational appreciation, a rational understanding; there is faith which arises from longing; and then there’s faith which is a lucid, non-intellectual, non-conceptual appreciation.

Sky-gazing

Ken: Second thing I want to talk about is extending the opening practice. Hopefully the storm will blow over and we will have clear skies tomorrow. [Laughter] No? What’s the forecast

Student: Rain, rain, rain, rain. Thunder. Rain. Thunder. Rain. That’s for the next week.

Student: In that order?

Student: Yeah.

Ken: Wow.

Student: Yeah. It’ll get warmer towards the end.

Student: Karma?

Student: Apparently, it’s his fault … [Laughter]

Ken: A long time ago, I came to the point of view that it was just much easier to regard everything as my fault. It solves so many arguments. [Laughter]

Student: Instead of the instruction “regard everything as a dream”—regard everything as Ken’s fault.

Ken: It’s “drive all blames into one,” you see. And the way I practice is I drive all blames and it’s me; and the way you practice is that you drive all blame into me. [Laughter] You don’t have any arguments about anything.

Sky-gazing: if the sky does clear by some fluke, bucking the weather odds and all that, a very good practice is to just look into the sky, into the clear sky. And that’s all you do, you just sit there and look at it. And you can do this sitting up, or you can do this on one of the chairs on the deck and lean back a little bit, or you can do this lying down on the ground. It’s a very powerful practice. First, on the practical side, given the intensity of the light here, it’s probably a good idea to wear sunglasses and definitely put sunblock on your face. Otherwise you’ll come back something like a lobster because the ultraviolet is very strong at this altitude. Don’t do this facing the sun, of course. That’s bad for your eyes.

The way this works is that there are three skies. The first sky is the sky that you’re looking into. When you look into the sky, you literally don’t see anything. You have this blue in front of you, but there’s nothing in it. Occasionally a bird or a plane goes by but that’s inconsequential. So there is nothing to focus on. When you do this you may notice various phenomena associated with your eyes. Until the rods and cones settle down in the retina, you’ll see different shades of blue and little wrinkles and sometimes ripples moving through, etc., that go on for quite a while. And you also may see little circles, which are simply fluid on the cornea, right over the iris and pupil. That’s just stuff. As you look into this, you’ll find it extremely difficult to hold thought. Thoughts may arise, but because of the openness of the sky and the intensity of the light that’s coming in, it’s very difficult to hold thought. Some people just check out and go to sleep. So you may want to start doing this just in small steps to accustom yourself. Once you get used to it, it’s quite difficult to go to sleep because you’re very awake when you do this.

You may also notice because the sky heightens your intention you may become aware of much more subtle body sensations and the relationship between body sensations and thought than you were used to before. Or that you were able to before. As your mind begins to rest, and looking at this sky is addressed in a somewhat different way because you’re looking, but there really is nothing to look at. Because there is nothing to look at, the sense of subject tends to diminish. And you find yourself experiencing a non-conceptual mind fairly easily. This may not be in the first, second or third session. Sky-gazing matures. How it matures will vary from individual to individual. That non-conceptual mind is the resting mind. It’s the second sky. And as you become aware of it, you look into it. As you look into the sky, the first sky, the external sky. So now you are looking into both skies.

Because awareness is now looking at nothing, all concept falls away and you find yourself experiencing non-conceptual, direct awareness, in dzogchen terminology, rigpa. And that’s the third sky, the mystical sky. So you have the outer sky, the inner sky, the mystical sky. Secret sky, if you want the usual translation. Sky-gazing is a very direct way of bringing that up. We’ll see if the weather cooperates.

Student: Can you repeat the three skies?

Ken: There’s the outer sky, which is the “physical sky.” I hesitate to say that because there’s nothing there. The “inner sky” is the mind resting free from concept but, even though it’s resting free from concept, it’s still the conceptual mind because it gives rise to concept as soon as it moves. It’s the resting mind.

And then the “secret” or the “mystical sky” is knowing in which all concept has fallen away. It’s dropped out of the conceptual framework, whichever way you want to put it. Once you have the experience of looking at the inner sky, you can actually do this without looking at the sky. Just let your mind grow quiet and look at that. Any questions on that?

Student: You say the physical sky has no object in it, so when you say clear sky, are you talking about a cloudless sky?

Ken: Yeah, ideally it’s a cloudless sky. There were caves in Tibet set up so that when you sat in the cave, you only saw sky, there was no other reference point. You just sat at the opening of the cave. They were angled so that you couldn’t see the ground in the valley or anything like that. They were specially set up for this. It’s relatively easy to build a platform in your backyard if you have clear skies. Any other questions on that?

Student: Can I ask a question about sky three?

Ken: Of course. But speak up so Carolyn can hear it.

Student: In sky three, you said knowing arises, in which all concepts have gone away or another way to say it is that knowing is outside the realm of concept.

Ken: It’s dropped.

Student: And that the second sky, concepts return with the movement of mind.

Ken: Yeah. It’s the resting mind. It’s like the eighth consciousness. It’s experienced, it’s clear, empty, but it’s static. It’s not like rigpa which is clear, empty, and dynamic.

Student: That’s what I’m asking about, because mind is going to move, even there.

Ken: Yes. But when resting in the eighth consciousness, when there’s any movement at all, then that movement is either experienced as a sense of self or a sense of other. That is it arises in the seventh consciousness, which is the sense of self, or it arises in one of the six consciousnesses, which are associated with the six senses.

Student: So you’d say it leaves the basic ground.

Student: Leaves kun gzhi.

Ken: Well, you have just to distinguish between kun gzhi (pron kun zhyi) and kun gzhi rnam par shes pa (pron. kun shyi nampar shépa). kun gzhi, the all-ground, or the basis of everything, was introduced by Taranatha basically. It’s a fairly late introduction. All the Gelugpas raged at him because they thought he was talking about the “basis of everything” consciousness. So he just wrote a short paragraph saying, “You guys have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’m not even gonna argue with you.”

The “basis of everything” consciousness is the mind completely at rest, but it’s not free from the operation of duality. There isn’t any duality experienced in it, but any movement is immediately experienced as duality. And if you go back, all the answers are in here [retreat booklet]. I keep telling you this. Page 27. In the middle of page 27 you have:

I, Ever-present Good,
Am the ground, without genesis or conditioning.
I am ground natural awareness—what is.
Internal and external distortions do not touch me.
The stupor of mindlessness does not conceal me.
Projections do not contaminate me.

Ever-present Good’s Prayer of Intention

etc. That’s basis of everything. Okay. Over the page.

First, the fourth stanza.

First, for confused beings
Ground awareness does not arise.
That blankness, in which there is no idea of anything,
Is the genesis of confusion and ignorance.

Suddenly, from that unconsciousness
A terrified and unclear knowing stirs.
From that, I and then other, the enemy, arise.

Carolyn, back to you.

Carolyn: You answered the question.

Ken: Okay.

There’s no magic way of looking

Carolyn: I don’t know how to even ask the question. Are there words that can explain how to look so that the dynamic aspect of—whatever that is—I mean, I’ve asked you this question since the beginning.

Ken: Since the very beginning. You’ve been doing this for lifetimes, Carolyn.

Carolyn: I’m afraid that might be true, Ken.

Ken: Is there a way of looking, continue .

Carolyn: Is there a way of looking that helps go, that stifles, empty, what?

Ken: Stifles, empty?

Carolyn: Stifled, empty kind of no-experience into dynamic?

Ken: Ah. Dezhung Rinpoche explained it to me once. You look at mind—whether you do this through sky-gazing or just looking at mind makes no difference. When you look deeply, the mind becomes quiet and you experience the eighth consciousness. You’re looking, and you experience that as empty and clear. There are many records, in the books and in the sutras, how people mistake the eighth consciousness for enlightenment, for awakening. He said, you look at this and you just keep looking at it. Like an ice cube melting into water. And you come to know how things are. So, there isn’t a magic way of looking. This is not a matter of know-how, it is a matter of capacity.

Carolyn: I couldn’t hear you.

Ken: It is not a matter of know-how. Once you know how to look at mind, you have all the know-how you need. It is a matter of capacity. It is the level of attention that you’re able to bring, which is why there was so much emphasis at this stage in developing capacity. Rangjung Dorje was not allowed to do any insight practice until he practiced shamatha for three years. Capacity. That’s why one does things like tummo etc. It’s all about building capacity.

Student: What’s tummo?

Learning how to look

Ken: The internal heat. Okay. So, what I want to focus on now is actually continuing straight on from Carolyn’s question—learning how to look. And we’re going to work on this today and tomorrow, maybe a third day, if it’s necessary. In dzogchen parlance, this is about the view. And there are many approaches to it. We’re going to work at two or three.

As I suggested yesterday, breathe out, and just rest wherever the out-breath leaves you. Don’t hold your breath out. That’s not what I’m talking about. When you breathe out, the out-breath will leave you in a certain way, just rest there. Let the in-breath happen by itself. The breathing continues. Just rest in however the out-breath leaves you.

Then ask the question: What am I? You will feel a shift, just rest in the shift. Then relax. Look around the room. Do it again. Breathe out. Rest wherever the out-breath leaves you. Ask: What am I? And rest in the shift. Relax. Look around the room. Move your body. And do it again. Breathe out. Rest wherever the out-breath leaves you. Ask: What am I? Rest in the shift. Okay. Relax. What was your experience here?

Student: I experienced heightened perception.

Ken: Okay. Anybody else?

Student: Well, I was actually doing this earlier today where I’ve always asked the question “who am I?” I’ve heard you say before that it’s really, “what am I?” and I could never quite connect with that, the “what am I?” But today I could connect with the “what am I?” And “what am I?” is such a different question than “who am I?” And in doing this practice now it’s like, when I say, “what am I?” it’s like, “oh yeah.” I’m part of that substance of whatever it is. It felt like I could be a part of that, as opposed to “who am I?” which already is “I” and “other”.

Ken: Okay. That’s good. However, as soon as you formed the idea of “I am part of the substance or whatever,” you’re in the thinking mind. What do you experience before that?

Student: Joy.

Ken: What else?

Student: I experience being on the edge of something.

Ken: Okay. So that’s where you rest. Anybody else?

Student: I’m very nervous.

Ken: Nervous? Say a bit more.

Student: Like, “Oh shit.” [Laughter]

Ken: Sounds like being on the edge of something. Would that be right? Anybody else? Everybody else experienced nothing whatsoever.

Student: It seemed like a blank, bright blankness.

Ken: Okay.

Student: It shifted. But I didn’t notice any … There was a shift but I cannot describe it. It was …

Ken: Okay. So you experienced a shift? Beyond that, you can’t describe it?

Student: Right.

Ken: Okay.

Student: Just nothing. Not even a shift.

Ken: When you asked “what am I?” what happened? What did you experience?

Student: Just blank.

Ken: Blank? Okay. No answers. Would you describe that blankness as dull or clear?

Student: Dull.

Ken: Ah! Okay. What experiences the dullness?

Student: Well, just [unclear]

Ken: No. What experiences the dullness? Don’t think. What do you experience right now?

Student: Nothing much.

Ken: But it’s a little different, isn’t it?

Student: Now there’s a question mark.

Ken: Question mark. Can you rest in that question mark?

Student: Yeah.

Ken: Good. Do that. Anybody else? Do you have something to say, Carolyn?

Carolyn: I don’t know.

Ken: I’ll pick on Frank. I can pick on Frank next if you are semi-conscious.

Carolyn: It won’t be nearly as much fun.

Ken: We’ll see.

Carolyn: The out-breath takes me to a place where there is the beginning of the world as me. That’s just there. So do you want to pan in on it? It gets much more vividly insubstantial. That’s what happens in here.

Ken: Can you imagine resting there and doing nothing?

Carolyn: Yeah. I mean I did it three times or however long that was. So I can imagine it. I don’t have to imagine it. It’s a memory.

Ken: Okay. Ann?

Ann: The first part is an opening with the shift. The second, with the question, is this intensity. I don’t know how to explain.

Ken: Okay. Alright. So, that inexpressible intensity is where you rest. It’s not so hard, is it?

Ann: I’ll try. I’ll give it a go.

Student: With that question and knowing quality, what I am is not what I think. It’s kind of light.

Ken: Yeah. Okay. So we’re going to go a little bit further. Go back there now. Breathe out. Rest wherever the out-breath leaves you. Ask: What am I? Rest in the shift. Are you your body? Are you a name? Are you the agent of your life?Are you the perceiver? What are you? Okay. Relax. Move your body. What sayest thou, Carolyn?

Carolyn: Until the last question, there would be additional tension in my body and then it would relax [unclear]. The last question, you can never get to the ease. Part of you. The one who’s doing your life? No, it’s all arising together. There is no here. There is no me.

Ken: Ah. Good.

Carolyn: Good?

Ken: Thus dieth narrative therapy.

Carolyn: That will be buried in memory with other things I’ve cherished.

Ken: You’re welcome. Small point, it may be useful. Anybody else? Dan?

Dan: You have to back up to describe it, so … totality.

Ken: Totality. What the hell is that?

Dan: Rinpoche says this quote …

Ken: How about your own words?

Dan: I don’t have any.

Ken: No, you don’t get to stay and go there. You’re on the spot now. You say anything, I’ll hit you. If you don’t say anything, I’ll hit you. What have you got to say?

Student: Please hit me. [Laughter]

Ken: You just want to get out of the misery! [Laughter] Don’t be selfish here. I’ll come back to you.

Dan: Do I have a choice?

Ken: No. It’s actually quite important. For a lot of different reasons. And yes, we have the famous lines from the Perfection of Wisdom: inexpressible, inconceivable, unimaginable, etc., but it’s actually quite important to learn to speak from that experience. So go ahead. I can give you a hint if you wish.

Dan: I dunno.

Ken: Let the experience speak. Forget about you speaking.

Dan: I’m sorry I can’t speak.

Ken: Right into your conceptual mind, you just exited right there.

Dan: You tricked me.

Ken: No, I didn’t trick you. It’s a way, but that’s what happens. We have certain fixed ideas. You stay in that experience, you let them all go. The experience actually can and does speak all the time, but we have our preconceived ideas. They flash up and take us out [snaps fingers] very quickly.

Dan: No. What actually arose, in trying to think about describing it, is some anxiety surfaces …

Ken: Exactly. That’s right.

Dan: Some anxiety …

Ken: Okay. Yeah. Now open to the experience of that anxiety.

Dan: That’s fair.

Ken: Yeah. Go right into it and through it. Not with your head.

Dan: No, no, no … well there’s no going through it.

Ken: Okay. Then speak from it. Right there.

Dan: Hmm. More anxiety.

Ken: Okay. That’s the edge of your practice.

Dan: Learning how to describe it?

Ken: No. Experiencing that anxiety. You know, this was useful because it put you in touch with it but that’s the edge of your practice. You follow? Anybody else? Nava.

Nava: I have very heavy emotions, in every stage that you took us there. How can I tell? It’s like a balloon that flies up—my emotions—and it pulls back again. Every time, it goes up and … it went up and down.

Ken: What experiences the emotions? [Silence] Can’t see, or can’t say?

Nava: Can’t see.

Ken: You can’t see, what are you looking at? You can’t see what experiences the emotions. Can you rest in that not seeing? What happens when you rest in that not seeing?

Nava: I become relaxed. For that moment.

Ken: Okay. So you take that moment and you come back to it again and again. As soon as thought arises, relax, let it all go, then come back. Okay. Any other questions? Yes?

Student: Did I hear you say that non-thought can not be experienced other than through skygazing?

Ken: Non-thought?

Student: I’m sorry. Non-conceptual.

Ken: Can be experienced?

Student: Can not be experienced other than …

Ken: Oh no, it can be experienced In many ways.

Student: Ah, okay.

Ken: All of them, all of the ways in which non-thought is going to arise are, in one way or another, going to involve looking at nothing. Okay. So whether we look at the sky, we look at what we are, we look at what experiences—it doesn’t make any difference, but we learn to look at nothing.

Student: With those questions as the first thing, are you your body?

Ken: A name.

Student: A name.

Ken: Perceiver. Agent of your life.

Student: Right. What I noticed was there was an effort to identify with that. And then, and now, like the effort made it—I’m real in some way or not believable.

Ken: I could’ve made the list a little bit longer, but these are the principal points. So here you have the direct experience. You’re not a name. You’re not your body. You’re not the perceiver—little disturbing, that one. And you’re not the agent of your life. On a rating of one to 10 how disturbing is that? 14? Okay.

Student: Can I ask a stupid question?

Ken: Yes.

Student: Before, we were involved in not doing anything. Now we are looking at …

Ken: I’m going to come back to that in just a minute. Okay. Let me take care of Larry, then I’m going to come back to that. So, you’re not the agent of your life. How does this sit with you?

Larry: In this moment, it’s fine. [Laughter]

Ken: Okay. But there’s some emotional material connected with that, right?

Larry: On reflection.

Ken: Okay. So, this is a way of refining what in dzogchen is called “the view.”

Student: What?

Ken: This is a way of refining what in dzogchen is called “the view,” or “the outlook.”

Student: Refining?

Ken: Refining. This is what I’m doing.

Student: Are you saying to disabuse oneself of any identification …

Ken: To look and know through your own experience. That you’re not this, you’re not this, you’re not this, you’re not this.

What is the body?

Ken: Okay? Now coming back to Eugene’s question. When you know you’re not a name, and you’re sitting, and somebody calls your name in your thoughts. Who are they calling

Student: When someone calls you and your name is Ken?

Ken: No, I mean, your name comes up in your thoughts. That’s all I’m talking about. When you know you’re not your body and you’re sitting doing nothing. What is the body? Eugene?

Eugene: You’re asking: What is the body?

Ken: What is the body when you’re sitting doing nothing? What is the body?

Eugene: It feels like an appendage.

Ken: Yeah. That’s in the right direction. It’s a set of sensations.

Eugene: So it’s just a no.

Ken: I don’t follow.

Eugene: You have a body that can be seen. Right?

Ken: Okay.

Eugene: But it’s not the totality of who you are. People can probably identify with the body …

Ken: That’s right. Yeah. We have a few of those in Southern California.

Eugene: Yeah. [unclear] So yes, there is a body. Is that ultimately who we are? No …

Ken: Well, we’re going a bit beyond that there.

Eugene: I know that there’s pure sensation.

Ken: No, all you know is sensation.

Eugene: That’s your only reference.

Ken: Yes. The body is a construction from sensation. That’s actually quite different. Okay. That’s the difference. There is no body. There is only sensation.

Eugene: Anything beyond that is a construct?

Ken: Anything beyond that is a construct. Exactly. Okay? Are you the perceiver? Anytime you’re doing nothing and you think you’re looking at something, Nope. Are you the agent of your life? This is very important. Because how many of you have any hang-ups with productivity?

Student: And efficiency.

Ken: All of these have to do with being an agent in one’s life. Right?

Student: Again, yes and no.

Ken: But it’s a construction. Things happen. We string together a story. What, Carolyn?

Carolyn: Not so much anymore …

Ken: The story is a construction. The purpose of the view is to make it more possible for you to rest and do nothing. What I was doing this evening was pointing these things out so you had some experience of them. For some of you, that experience may be sufficient, so you can just rest. And when those kinds of thoughts or considerations or pulls arise they just come and go. For others of you, you may find it useful to duplicate what we did this evening together so that you go through in your own experience. So you know, in your own experience, that the body is sensation, that there is no agent of our life etc. In this book, they go through a very long analytical process. Am I my head? No. Am I my left arm? No. Am I my right arm? No. Am I my torso? No. Am I my heart? No. Am I the marrow? No. Am I my nose? No. And just on and on and on …

Student: And if you bash them all up, and dry them out into a powder and then add water and squish them together again. Do you ask that question too?

Ken: No.

The difference between zero and infinity

Student: Those things always talk about the physical body, they don’t talk about consciousness. That’s the problem I have with that section.

Ken: Am I consciousness?

Student: I am conscious.

Ken: Yes. You may be conscious, but are you consciousness? You took a quote right out of An Arrow to the Heart. Thank you.

Student: So, is this between the noun and the verb? I mean, we’re not necessarily these things, but we do experience, we do experience perceiving.

Ken: What experiences it?

Student: Well …

Ken: Just like that is how you practice, just looking like that.

Student: Puzzled.

Ken: I thought you were just looking. What experiences it? When you were looking that way, were you doing anything?

Student: Well, I was searching.

Ken: Just rest in the looking. When you do that, are “you” doing anything?

Student: Resting is doing something.

Ken: Okay. So let that go too …

Student: I’m just being.

Ken: Yes. How is that?

Student: I guess it could be okay …

Ken: So try that. Carolyn?

Carolyn: I have a question. Looking versus things just coming in. That’s not a question, is it? I think I need a verb. Can you comment on it? Because I think there’s a difference.

Ken: What’s the difference between zero and infinity?

Carolyn: Nothing and everything?

Ken: What’s the difference?

Carolyn: The symbol?

Ken: Go a little further … What’s the difference between becoming nothing and becoming everything?

Carolyn: Are they the same thing?

Ken: You tell me.

Student: I would say that infinity is one. I would say the difference is one.

Ken: I’m not asking you. I’m asking Carolyn. For you I have other questions! [Laughter]

Carolyn: I was just going to say, that if I go back to the difference in the experience when I look versus when I’m thinking specifically, say, in terms of the primary practice.

Ken: Yeah.

Carolyn: I did the primary practice yesterday [unclear]. I was more passive and just things were just coming in. And then I’ve often mostly done the primary practice very actively. I’m looking at the edges of the field. And so there’s a different quality. I don’t know how it relates to zero and infinity but …

Ken: So what’s the difference between looking and opening?

Carolyn: When I look, I feel like I’m actively looking into everything … possibly, but I don’t know what that is.

Ken: Okay. And opening?

Carolyn: Opening, it just feels like everything just comes in. It does have a different quality …

Ken: Start there. What’s that? Okay. Thank you. Everybody clear about their practice?

Student: It feels very non-consequential …

Ken: Doesn’t it, though. Like you’re doing nothing, right? You aren’t one of these people who feels that doing something is a virtue, are you?

Student: I suppose … It just feels so immaterial and so … empty and useless. And meaningless.

Ken: You’re beginning to get it. You’re beginning to run into what prevents you from just being—you say immaterial, useless, empty. I’m not doing anything. Right? Yes, that’s right. Let’s take a five minute break and come back shortly.