Nothing inside or outside will save you

Ken: We have a couple of items to take care of with respect to view, and then start talking about practice. First thing is the notion that you’re going to get anywhere. There are any number of stories which point this out. One of them goes something like:

A man was told that there is a treasure of inestimable value. And he journeys to such-and-such a land that the person told him where the pot was located. So, he journeys to that land—a long and difficult journey—and finds the man who grew whatever. And he says, “Oh, I can’t help you, go and see this person.”

And he goes off and wanders all over the place and has all kinds of difficulties. And finally locates this person, who says, “Oh yeah, I know about all that, but I’m not the one to help you. You need to go to this person.” And he ends up going to one after another, more and more remote regions, more and more difficult trials, more problems.

And finally, he gets to the last person. He meets this guy and says, “So tell me where this fabulous treasure is.”

And this person looks at him and says, “There’s a tree in your backyard. It’s dying. You should take care of it.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“What about this treasure?”

“That’s all I have to say.”

What’s he got? He’s gone to everybody. And he’s told this tree in his backyard is dying. So, he’s got nothing left to do. So he starts the very, very long journey home, unlocks his house, settles in, goes into his backyard. Yeah. There’s the tree which he hadn’t thought about much. And the guy is right. It is dying; there’s a problem with it. It looks like something’s wrong with its roots. So he starts digging the roots of the tree and finds this fabulous gold treasure. So that’s one story about this.

T.S. Eliot expressed this as: “The end of our journey will be to return to the place that we started from and know it for the first time.” More poetically expressed.

My preference is a little different. I know all of you know, at least theoretically, that there’s nothing outside you that’s going to save you. Yes?

Caroline: I don’t know that. [Laughter]

Ken: You may leave. [Laughter] You’re still looking for something outside to save you, Caroline?

Caroline: Well there’s always hope isn’t there? But you took that away last night. [Laughter]

Ken: This style is very hard and there are many, many layers. How many of you believe there’s something inside you that can save you?

Student: What do you mean by “save”?

Ken: Make everything right. Well, if you don’t think there’s something inside you that can save you, what are you doing here? So how many of you are looking for the right experience? Let’s be honest here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. What do you think this experience is going to do for you? Yes, Ann.

Ann: I would like to die in peace.

Ken: Okay. So, if you can have the right experience, then you could die in peace?

Ann: No. The experience of not having a whole world of regrets at death.

Ken: That’s the one you’re looking for?

Ann: That would be cool.

Ken: We’ll just have somebody murder you while you’re asleep.

Ann: I’d die in peace then.

Ken: Exactly, done. [Laughter] Is that what you want? Is that what you came here for, to be murdered in your sleep?

Student: I don’t think so. Dying in peace and being murdered in your sleep are not exactly the same thing.

Ken: Gotta check with Ann about this. She’s not so sure.

Ann: I think being murdered in your sleep, you might die in peace. I don’t know.

Ken: You don’t really want to try that route. [Laughter] Do you ever watch Monty Python? It’s like the £5 for a two-minute argument. Do you remember that one?

He comes in and says, “I’d like an argument.”

“£5 please.” And then he goes, “What are you here for?”

“I want an argument.”

“Well, you can’t have one.” [Laughter]

“But I paid my £5. I should be able to have an argument!”

“I’m sorry, you can’t have an argument.” It goes on like this until ding, “time’s up.”

“But we didn’t have an argument.”

“Yes we did.”

“But that wasn’t the argument I wanted to have!”

That’s like being murdered in your sleep. You don’t get to come back and say, “That wasn’t the one I wanted. That wasn’t the experience I wanted.” That didin’t work. You’re dead.

Ann: So, I’m dead and it’s peaceful.

Ken: That’s what you want? We should be able to arrange that quite easily. Nothing outside which is going to save you. Nothing inside which is going to save you.

Franca: Has that been established? Are you just jumping over that?

Ken: Well, what is there inside you that could possibly save you, Franca?

Franca: I’m not going to argue, because I actually agree with you on this. But you had people hold up there hands here, so I think you need to satisfy these people.

Cindy: You haven’t had your arguement yet. [Laughter]

Ken: Okay, Cindy. What is there inside you that could possibly save you?

Cindy: I don’t think there is anything anymore.

Ken: That was quick.

Cindy: Well, you pretty much demolished that one, right, sustaining experience that made everything great.

Ken: So now what are you going to do? Leave here and go into total depression for the rest of your life? Or just say, “Well, there’s nothing to do. So, there’s no point in doing it.” So, what are you going to do?

Cindy: Just be in it.

Ken: What’s that going to do? That just sounds like just living your life. That’s that?

Cindy: That’s a question I’m pondering actually.

Donna: I think the premise of the question is flawed in that we’re not talking about being saved. If we look at the inner work, it’s a series of processes and a series of experiences without the ultimate goal of being saved, like going to heaven.

Ken: So why are you doing this?

Donna: The quality of living and being more aligned and more attention as we goes through the process called life. So, it’s a quality of life issue.

Ken: So you’re practicing so that you have a higher quality of life .

Student: Well, a less reactive quality of life.

Ken: So, a better life. Better is less reactive for you. Okay. So, bong, you’re not reactive at all. What do you do now?

Donna: I’m not reacting.

Ken: I’m just asking you a question, but you’re not going to react to this question. So, what do you do now? Keep going Donna. You can play tag with Ann; she’ll take over when you’re ready.

Donna: If I’m not reacting, that’s what my understanding from last night’s teaching was, the goal of this path or these teachings is to be in a state of complete attention all the time.

Ken: Is that what you want?

Donna: I think that would be nice.

Ken: I actually don’t think it’s very nice at all. That’s another matter.

Donna: It would be desirable.

Ken: So, there is somewhere you want to go. You want to go to this state of total non-reactivity. What do you do when you get there?

Donna: Just be?

Ken: That’s it? What’s involved in being?

Donna: Depends on what comes up.

Ken: So, you just respond to whatever arises. What sort of meanings arise?

Donna: Well, if I’m not reacting and I’m just in attention, then I don’t have a need to assign meaning. That’s where the faith comes in: that whatever’s going on is going on, that’s it.

Ken: So, you’re going to watch the world go to ruin: poverty, pollution, all of that. I’m being really unfair here.

Ann: Donna was actually expressing what I was trying to express when I said that I’d like to die in peace. I’d probably guess that there are a lot of people in this room who have spent a lot of years doing work in which they felt they were trying to be useful and help others. And they’ve seen how difficult it is. And I think what would motivate a lot of people in this room—I’m speaking for myself at the minimum—would be if there were less reactivity, it would be more likely that we did actually do something useful. So, I guess if I were less reactive then—

Ken: So, you want to be less reactive so you can do something useful?

Ann: Yes, to help others.

Ken: How do you feel about that, Donna?

Donna: I guess that was my assumption, that if I am in that state, that energy will have a positive impact.

Ken: Well, I think we have to go a little further here. Is it possible to make a difference in the world?

Donna: I think it’s possible to be of service in the world without the expectation of a specific result.

Ken: How many others go along with that?

Caroline: There’s a problem.

Ken: What’s the problem, Caroline?

Caroline: Well, if there’s no inside, no outside, and not two, then who are the others? And can you really make choices? It can feel like you make choices. But the kind of choices that they’re talking about wanting to make, aren’t choices.

Ken: What are they?

Caroline: What comes from really experiencing the situation. That’s what happens.

Ken: Are you saying that the more aware you are you are the less choice you have?

Caroline: Yes, I am, unfortunately. Life happens in emergencies. You’re not making choices.

Ken: And when you have a high degree of expertise, you see exactly what to do. And there wasn’t much choice about it, in any field. Right? So, sounds like you’re suggesting that when you’re fully aware, you lose the illusion of choice. So, is that what you’re going for: a totally choiceless life?

Caroline: I’ve never put it that way myself before. [Laughter] I still want to believe the myth.

Ken: And the myth is?

Caroline: That there is complete buddhahood with no remainder.

Ken: So, you think there is somewhere to go?

Caroline: No, I’m giving it up, but it’s painful. But no choice, yes. That is very real to me.

Ken: So, we’re covering essential points that I wanted to cover here. The idea that there is something outside, inside or some kind of experience that’s going to make everything just hunky-dory. That we actually have any choice about all of this. All of these ideas we hold very deeply and cherish. But as you see, they don’t really hold up under any examination.

Recognize what is happening right now

Ken: In order to rest completely, one also has to let go of the idea—or come to terms with the idea—that there is nothing other than what we experience right now. And any idea of anything else is the projection of a wish. In one sense that sounds very negative and very depressing. In another sense, that’s a kind of freedom. Because every bit of our energy that goes to some expectation or goal, has been taken away from experiencing the only thing that we can know, which is right now. This is why the meditation instruction—which we’re going to talk more about in a few minutes—is to just recognize what is happening right now. And it’s very important to note that the verb there is recognize, not observe. Thought arises, recognize that, what happens?

Larry: It loses its spell.

Ken: But what happens to you, Larry?

Larry: Something in me pauses. And rather than my attention being eaten by the thought, it becomes available.

Ken: Could I interpret that as a kind of waking up? What happens when you recognize that you’re resting? There we are resting. What happens? Do any of you know this experience? Caroline, what happens?

Caroline: I stop resting.

Ken: Do you? And then do you start thinking?

Caroline: I’m actually sometimes startled. And then there’s the commentary.

Ken: Describe the startle.

Caroline: I’ve divided into two of something. And, there’s surprise.

Ken: Describe the experience of surprise.

Caroline: First there’s energy that goes up.

Ken: What do you experience right there?

Caroline: it’s actually a deepening for a moment.

Ken: Can you rest in the recognition? It’s very different from observing, very different. Donna.

Donna: Now I’m confused. You kept pushing to, if you get to a place of complete attention, then what are you doing? And we were saying, “You’re not doing anything.” And so they’re saying, “There’s no choice.” So I’m just confused with that. And this concept you talked about last night, about ethics, which is making a decision around what brings you peace of mind.

Ken: What’s the confusion?

Student: The candidate for confusion can be that when you think of resting as an experience itself rather than resting in experience, then we try to get to this experience called resting rather than meeting what arises.

Donna: I guess my confusion was just from your original question of …

Ken: We started off by saying we all want to get somewhere. And when we examine that, the notion of getting somewhere actually starts to fall apart in any one of a number of ways, which you just explored. Another part of the view is letting go completely of the notion of getting somewhere. So I was pushing, in various ways. That notion of getting somewhere can manifest as: trying to achieve some ideal state in the world, some ideal relationship with the world, some ideal state in ourselves. But it all comes down to the same thing. We’re setting up an expectation and a goal. How many of you have done this?

Student: You can also set a goal of accepting things as they are.

Ken: Exactly. Any idea of a goal is going to cause us inevitably to appraise our current experience in terms of that goal. Carolyn, then Marcia.

Caroline: I just did that in a very tiny way today because I was sitting and then I just thought, “You gotta be here until 6:00 AM tomorrow.” And it really helped me to relax. As soon as I set a different sitting time goal it helped me to relax. Instead of thinking, “How many minutes, I only have 10 minutes left,” I just thought, “You’re not going anywhere for a long time.”

Ken: It just took all that short term goal out of the picture completely. Marcia.

Marcia: I’ve been thinking about all my useless plans. I notice that there’s a qualifier in there of useless. [Laughter] There was a lot of planning that went into the retreat, the goal of having the retreat.

Ken: Utterly useless! [Laughter]

No one on this earth has ever escaped death.
Even now, one after another, people pass away.
While I, too, will have to die soon,
I close my heart and prepare to live for a long time.
Guru, think of me: look upon me quickly with compassion.
Give me energy to stop useless planning

A Far-reaching Cry to the Guru

Student: Are you trying to cheer us up? [Laughter]

Ken: It’s one of the things people find infuriating about Buddhists: they’re always talking about suffering and death, and yet they’re always laughing. How do you understand this?

Helen: I’m confused about it.

Ken: One way to read what it’s saying here is, if you’re going to go to sleep anyway, why do you bother rearranging the pillows? [Laughter]

Helen: In the case of Caroline saying you have no choice, you see what the right action is, did you have a choice in doing the retreat? Did you set a goal of having the retreat?

Ken: Well, I think what Kongtrül is talking about here is, that we set up goals in our lives to achieve this and achieve that and achieve that. What happens to all of those things after we die?

Student: House of cards.

Ken: Exactly.

Franca: What comes to mind is the example From the Zen Kitchen.

Ken: House of cards. It means that you do all of this stuff. Did you ever read the poem Ozymandias by Shelley? “Two great and legless trunks of stone stand in the desert”. It’s about the statue that’s crumbled and all that’s left is the head and a couple of other things. On the head, there’s this “sneer of cold command”, I think is the phrase. And at the base of the statue, there is an inscription that says: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.” And there’s nothing but desert all around. It’s a wonderful poem by Shelley called Ozymandias. And I think that’s what Marcia was referring to.

Now, The Zen Kitchen that Franca is referring to. This is a very good book now published under the title How to Cook your Life. There are at least two books by that title. The one you’re interested in is by Uchiyama, not Bernie Glassman. You can order it through Unfettered Mind’s website. Just find it there, click on it, it’ll take you right to Amazon. And in it he gives the example of, when such-and-such is being done, then tomorrow’s gruel, or soup, can be prepared. And Uchiyama makes a point here in this very simple phrase. The whole way to approach life is captured. Because when you start preparing the soup for tomorrow, you actually have no idea whether the soup will ever be served because there could be riots, earthquakes, fires, mudslides.

We live in Los Angeles, we have this all the time: mudslides, riots, fires, earthquakes, freeway jams at the mall. I remember the earthquake in 1994, very strong earthquake. Good, the television may be broken … oh, seems to be over. It’s 4:30 in the morning, go out into living room, damn television’s not broken. Go back to sleep. Yes, Dan.

Dan: I’d like to step in here. Aren’t you setting up resting as a desirable state?

Ken: No, I’m not. Let me finish. Resting is a means, not an end. So he says, you don’t know whether you’re ever going to serve the soup. So if you become attached to the notion of serving the soup you’ve set up a goal. You prepare the soup this evening because that’s tonight’s work. And he says, this is the only way to live in the absolute paradox, which is the human condition. That things have a certain order and sequence. And we have no idea whether it’s going to be disrupted by death. So on one hand we have the evolution of actions, karma, and on the other we have death can come at any time. And the only way to live in that paradox is to do things as today’s work, or the activity in the present. This is what Donna was referring to, without setting up any goal of actually achieving or having a certain result.

To Dan’s point: if you take what I just described to Helen, being able to live that way—which is not resting—in order to be able to live that way, we have to let everything fall away. Now we do that by resting. At a certain point we come to be able to rest in what we are doing. So it just continues, you don’t actually have to be doing a sitting practice. But we learn how to do this by just sitting. And all of the things come up when we do this. I need to be productive. I need to make a difference in the world. I need to prove myself to so-and-so.

Student: I need to be entertained.

Ken: I need to be entertaining. All of these things come up, and all our idealism, all our beliefs come up, and there they are. They’re pulling and pushing, trying to get us to move out of just being right here. So it’s a means.

Student: That’s a very important point. Because of the English word, it could be confused as an anesthetic.

Ken: Exactly. What I’m discussing right now is view: letting go of all of these ideas, which creates the possibility of resting. So I think I’ve taken care of everything I wanted to. Oh no, not quite.

Student: It would prevent disappointment if we could do this. But shouldn’t there also be a way of dealing with disappointment if we can’t always be in the present?

Ken: That’s an experience too. Can you be in that experience? Oh, I failed again. Most people, when they slip out of attention, they reach round and get a nice big baseball bat and go thump, thump, thump, thump. They get very critical of themselves. The other possibility is just to be in the experience of disappointment, in other words, to continue. Most people would prefer to beat themselves up. Okay.

Student: I’m sorry. Did you say there was an end? The means was the resting. Was there an end?

Ken: The end was what I was discussing with Helen, to put it in slightly different words. And it’s about what Donna was raising earlier: responding to what is arising in the present without setting up attachment to goals for the future.

Now, here is the traditional description of this:

Utimate vajra emptiness is the space in which all experience, patterned and free, of samsara and nirvana manifest in specific forms that come and go. The coming and going in that ultimate vajra space is what is represented by Vajradakini. Ratnadakini (which means jewel dakini) refers to all aspects of timeless awareness and the enlightened qualities occurring naturally, similar to a treasure house of precious jewels. Padmadakini (lotus dakini) refers to the aspect of freedom from all attachment. Karmadakini (or action dakini) refers to the aspect of all activities of the spontaneously present kayas and timeless awareness occurring naturally, not created or accomplished through effort. (So, I’m going to abbreviate that one: Action dakini refers to the aspect of all activities being neither created or accomplished through effort. That is, they arise naturally.) Since emotional and cognitive distortions are cleared away in basic space and the scope of timeless awareness and enlightened qualities unfolds, there is ‘Buddha.’ And ‘dakini’ refers to the way in which all sensory appearances manifest as specific forms that come and go within the expanse of space.

Buddhahood Without Meditation, Dudjom Lingpa, Richard Barron (Translator), p. 127


So, the term dakini, which means traveler in space, or movement in space, refers to the movement of all sensory appearances in supreme emptiness.

To gain true independence (I have a little trouble with the translation of that. It’s a very difficult term to translate) through the natural premise that the ground aspect of awareness is the essence in which all of the highest spiritual principles unite—is to take the way of abiding as the unsurpassable, ultimate refuge.

p. 129


So, that’s refuge.

Throughout a beginningless series of lifetimes, the scope of your intellect has been severely limited by conceiving of yourself as truly existing by fixating on sense objects. Now that you have reached the decision that samsara and nirvana are all a magical appearance of a single awareness, the scope of your ordinary awareness has grown. This is the most sacred of all meanings of arousing awakening mind.” (or bodhicitta)

p. 129

No sense of other

Ken: So, these are deep interpretations, but these are really what our practice is about. Let’s translate this into English. In Tibetan it says it somewhat differently, I think. Refuge is to see or view that all the qualities of being awake are present in natural awareness. So there’s nothing outside or inside to save you, just awareness itself. And then bodhicitta …

Student: Excuse me, but awareness is not inside?

Ken: We went through that the other day. Is it inside or outside? You can’t say where it is. Bodhichitta—that is, awakening mind—is awakening to the experience that everything experienced, samsara and nirvana, is—the usual translation is—the play of awareness. Now what does this mean? Let your mind grow quiet and float the thought of a flower. And you look at that thought. What is its relationship with your mind? Anybody? Caroline?

Caroline: It’s an expression of mind?

Ken: What does that mean? We have expressions like, I wrinkle my face, that’s an expression. So is it like mind wrinkling?

Student: It’s getting old. [Laughter]

Ken: Maybe it’s getting young. So is it something that is separate from mind? Comes out of mind?

Student: I had an image. It’s like if you plant a seed, then there’s a flower.

Ken: So, it’s something that grows out of mind? Anybody else?

Student: Well like we talked about last time, it is mind.

Ken: That’s right. It is mind. When you experience awakening mind is knowing that everything you experience is mind in the same way as that thought is. That’s why Guenther translates awakening mind in Kindly Bent to Ease Us as limpid clarity and consummate perspicacity. He’s Austrian, you have to forgive him.

The link here is to the traditional notion of awakening mind as the union of emptiness and compassion. If the thought of the flower is your mind, its nature is necessarily empty. That’s the emptiness aspect. The compassion aspect is that it is your mind. And what I mean by that is that there’s no sense of other. And in another sense, the only thing you can do is be with it. Be with or in, properly speaking, in the experience. That’s the essence of compassion: to be in the experience of what’s arising. When we’re present with someone who is suffering, the essence of compassion is to be in that experience of pain. From there, the possibility of appropriate response is possible. If we are not in that experience of pain, then in all likelihood we will seek to control it or diminish it in some way because of our own discomfort.

Student: This may be a sidetrack. You might have talked about this briefly in the past. Is some of the concern about, for lack of a better word social activism, centered around the fact that it is not in the moment? That it’s responding to an agenda other than what’s actually occurring?

Ken: Yes, actually I would agree with that. I’d put it slightly differently. One of the concerns I have about social activism is based on the notion that it is possible to create an ideal world. And in some of the reading I’ve been doing lately, in the history of mankind this is a relatively recent notion that finds its beginning of the late 18th, early 19th century. And, one can lay communism, fascism, nazism, radical Islam, etc., all at the doorstep of the same notion: it’s possible to create an ideal world.

Student: I’m curious how the word play is used.

Ken: Yeah. The word in Tibetan is rol pa (pron. rol pa). There are various metaphors which are used, just to take one: hold up a crystal, light shines through it, spectrums all over the place. That’s the play of light. You look in the lake or an ocean and see the reflections of the stars. That’s the play of the ocean. All experience, samsara and nirvana, is the play of awareness. Reflections are the play of the mirror. We’ll get into that later.

Student: I also think that a key thing to deal with is resistance because that’s the very thing that gets us caught up in suffering. And we can’t always directly go to our experience.

Ken: And what do you do with resistance?

Student: We’re fighting it.

Ken: Yeah, that’s what we tend to do. And in this approach, what is resistance?

Student: Pushing the experience away.

Ken: But what is resistance? When you say resistance, what are you referring to?

Student: To the experience of pain.

Ken: So, resistance is an experience. Rest in that experience. It’s just another experience. It’s easy to say that, not so easy to do. I’ll give you another piece here. Can you stand right there please? So Art’s going to be the resistance. Now what’s going on? I’m pushing. Art’s not moving. Art is resistance. Now we’ll go back. How do you view me, Art?

Art: A force. [Laughter] Something that’s pushing.

Ken: Something that’s pushing, right? What we call resistance is actually a system in which we have identified with a piece that wants to move. We could equally as well identify with the piece that doesn’t want to move. And then we would experience something pushing us. In mahamudra and dzogchen, what we do is, we don’t identify with either. So when you’re experiencing resistance, experience the part that doesn’t want to move and the part that does want to move. It’s very interesting.

Student: I like the distinction between experience and identify with.

Practice instructions

Ken: So now we’re going to start talking about how we practice. Halfway through the retreat, it’s about time. For those who have the text, page 157. Not that it will help you much. [Laughter] [Unclear] Anybody can do this.

Gaining mastery within the supreme and timeless primordial ground—by awakening to it and opening to it in all its immediacy—is meditation free from any fixed frame of reference.(That’s perfectly straightforward.) Be like a drop of water, blending with the ocean and become the ocean without altering it.

Buddhahood Without Meditation, Dudjom Lingpa, Richard Barron (Translator), p. 157

Furthermore, all the times we’re going about sitting, shifting, moving, repeating mantra, speaking loud, thinking or otherwise conducting yourself without losing the perspective of view you are aware that the world of appearance and possibilities is like an illusion. Without losing the indwelling confidence of your meditation, you are aware of your fundamental nature becoming evident. And without your conduct becoming careless you arrive correctly at the four kinds of authentic conduct.

p. 159


… which we’ll be discussing later. So, it goes through all of this, but the actual meditation instruction isn’t very clear. So we go to the book of all answers, page 39, in the middle of the page. This whole section to the end pretty well gives the only kind of practice instruction which is helpful here, which tells you what not to do. The point here is to recognize that. For instance, in the third stanza:

Some people cut off the ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings and construct an emptiness practice corrupted by goal-seeking.

(skipping down a few lines)

Taking an intense dullness that conceals thoughts and feelings as the essence of practice, they are confused. Some use their ability to know movement as mind to mull over the traces as thoughts and feelings ebb and flow. (Anybody guilty here? Yes, we were talking about following ripples, right?)

People who track arising and fading in stable meditation just spin in confusion, even if they practice for a hundred years. (That’s why I’m not a big fan of observing.)

In general, work and effort alone just create opposition.
(That’s exactly what I was pointing out with Art.)

You aren’t happy when you practice and your stir up all sorts of pains; when you don’t practice, you don’t know your own nature and wander in confusion. In either case you fall away from what is natural and true. Be clear that the approach of meditation versus not meditation relies on an artificial distinction. Be present right now without trying to change or control anything.

Revelations of Ever-Present Good

This is basically what I’ve been encouraging you to do since the beginning of the retreat.

Put a complete stop to any kind of scrutiny, control or goal-seeking using conditioned states of mind.

We have to be careful here. Suppose you find yourself thinking about the future. What do you do? Just notice it and let it be. Sometimes when you notice it, it’ll go poof, and that’ll be that. A lot of times it won’t go poof. Now you’ll be awake in the experience of thinking about the future.

Student: In other words the future could become the present?

Ken: No, that’s a lovely conceptual understanding. Be awake in thinking about the future. Your present experience is thinking about the future. It doesn’t make the future the present. And you’re awake in that. What this is like, and I’ve never done this myself, is like riding a wave. There’s a level of attention in which you experience what is happening, and you are awake. You’re not completely sucked into it. Then there’s nothing.

Now inevitably—and just the way that I talked about Saraha and the bird flying from the ship—future planning breaks up, dissolves, comes to an end. And you’re right there. And the future planning is just something which arises. It’s the play of mind. It’s useless thinking it is the play of mind. You experience it and you are awake in it. That’s why you need a high level of attention, which is why I recommend you do either guru yoga or the primary practice on a regular basis. Because that’s what helps to raise the level of attention.

Student: When you’re asleep and you’re dreaming and you’re aware that you’re dreaming, but you still keep doing the stuff that you’re doing in your dreams. Sometimes when you become aware that you’re dreaming, you change the dream. And sometimes when you become aware that your dreaming you just keep doing it.

Ken: It’s similar to that. Yeah.

Direct awareness is no big deal and doesn’t need any work. Stop trying to change it or adjust it. (How many of you spend your meditation practices trying to fine-tune that natural awareness?)

Whenever conceptual thinking arises, don’t look at what arises: be what knows the arising. Like an oak stake in hard ground, stand firm in awareness that knows, and go deep into the mystery.

Now, there are two approaches to this kind of practice. One is look at what arises. And the other is to look at what experiences the arising. Very broadly speaking, some people say that in mahamudra, the emphasis is on looking at what arises. In dzogchen, the emphasis is on looking at what experiences the arising. What’s the difference? Caroline?

Caroline: No difference, because what experiences and the experience, you can’t separate them.

Ken: That’s right. Two different approaches that end up in the same place. So one approach will probably work better for some people, the other approach would work better for others. That’s how it is. And one isn’t particularly better, even though lots of people will stand up on soap boxes and claim that it is.

Student: Didn’t you recommend that in the case of dullness that looking at what experiences the arising could be …

Ken: Yeah, I did. You can also do it the other way. What is the dullness? Minor question: what’s the difference between knowing and emptiness?

Student: I really want the answer to that one, because in the Dancer in Pristine Awareness practice, you plant the root of mind in empty space.

Ken:

In empty space, free from concept,
Plant the root of mind which is awareness.
Plant the root and relax.

This is Sukhasiddhi’s very famous pointing-out instruction. So what is the difference between emptiness and knowing? Or awareness, same diff. Anita, what’s the difference between awareness and emptiness?

Anita: No difference.

Ken: How can that be? Guess what? You’re on the spot to explain this to everybody. Aren’t you glad you came tonight? [Laughter]

Anita: How can it be? It just is.

Ken: Anybody want to ask Anita about this?

Student: Part of this is a language problem. Emptiness we experience as space in this room in our ordinary deluded way. So emptiness can mean two very different things and awareness has at least a smidgen of overlap.

Ken: Look at awareness. What do you see? Anybody?

Student: Nothing.

Ken: Look at nothing. What do you experience? We’ll do that again. Look at awareness. Look at what is aware. What do you see? Somebody said “nothing.” How many buy nothing? How big is this nothing? Look at the nothing. What do you experience? Anybody?

Student: Awareness.

Ken: The experience of being aware. So maybe that’ll be useful in your practice. Is there anything to emptiness?

Student: The literal word of emptiness, no, but I feel emptiness …

Look at experience and rest there

Ken: You know what the problem is there? You thought. I have to emphasize that in this kind of practice, trying to understand it doesn’t work at all. It’s totally experiential. And we can look at the sky or you can look at your awareness or you can look at your experience of anything, not look at the the thing. Look at the experience of the thing.

You can use any of those three. Just rest there, rest in the looking, or you can rest and look in the resting. So the resting mind and the looking mind are the same. And that’s it. As it says in the text, natural awareness is no big deal. Don’t try to change it or adjust it. That’s there all the time. You can’t go out and get it.

This is a song by Kyergongpa called Recognizing Mind as the Guru:

I can’t see, hear, taste, smell, or touch you: You are not a thing, yet you are the source of all experience. Try as I may, there’s nothing I can point to and say, “that’s you!” But when I sit and don’t look for you, you are present in everything. You are not subject to conditioning, good or bad. Finer than everything, you don’t attach to anything. Not being a thing, you are the basis of everything. Free from reasoning, you arise clearly when I don’t reason.

Recognizing Mind as Guru

So, Eugene, you ask about the phrase in the guru yoga prayer saying “May I know mind has no beginning.” This awareness that you experience right now, where is it, Eugene?

Eugene: Right here.

Ken: Where is here?

Eugene: Nowhere.

Ken: Where does it come from?

Eugene: If it’s nowhere it can’t come from anywhere.

Ken: Yes, that’s logic, but I want you to look and see where does it come from. When you look at where it comes from, what do you see?

Eugene: I don’t see anything.

Ken: Where does it go?

Eugene: I don’t know.

Ken: When did it begin?

Eugene: As soon as I look …

Ken: Is it not there before you look? When you look, it begins; is that how it is?

Eugene: I don’t know when it began. But I do know I started looking when you asked me to look.

Ken: Yes, but the awareness, did it only come into being when you looked? So when did it begin?

Eugene: I don’t know.

Ken: When will it end?

Eugene: I don’t know.

Ken: Okay. Awareness, mind which has no beginning.

Eugene: Why is it important to know that?

Ken: What happens to you when you rest in, or connect with that awareness?

Eugene: I am the awareness.

Ken: What do you experience there? Do you experience confusion? Do you experience disturbance? Maybe it is important. Maybe, if you have a use for it.

Student: It’s related to the line before and after: “energy to stop ordinary thinking” and to see “samsara subside on its own.”

Ken: Yes.