Transcription
Okay, so the theme I would like to explore this morning is "The Wisdom of Non-Duality." I'm aware, of course, that -- I don't know how many people are in the hall, but everyone has different backgrounds, of course, in terms of practice, and different traditions they've moved through, or even within the Buddhist tradition, different streams of that. And so this word 'non-duality,' some of you may be very familiar with. Some may a little bit, and some really not very much at all.
In Sanskrit, the word is advaita. Dvai is two, -ta is -ness, and a- is not, so not-two-ness. The overarching idea behind all of it is that where there's a duality between two things, we say two things have been split. Human beings have made a split between two things, and a polarity in that split. One side of that polarity is deemed as good and desirable, and another side of that polarity, in the very duality itself, is deemed as not good and not desirable. And that split, in the teachings of non-duality, that split leads to suffering. It brings in a problem, and it brings in suffering. And so there are the teachings of non-duality to kind of heal that split, heal the split in the polarity that causes suffering, that's at the root of suffering, or some suffering.
And the first thing, before we go into this, is to actually say there are many kinds. Having said that as a principle, there are actually many kinds of non-duality -- many, many kinds of non-duality. And it's why it's such a complex area. So traditionally in Western religion, one of the big dualities was between spirit and flesh, or spirit and nature, running through Christianity, etc. That's been quite a big duality that's been quite central. Or the sacred and the profane. Again, one is deemed good, desirable. One is deemed bad. Out of that split, problems come. Good and evil, right and wrong.
Then we start getting more into the Buddhist traditions and Hindu traditions, etc., and what becomes very central, one of the dualities that becomes very central is enlightened/not enlightened -- enlightenment and not enlightenment, that duality -- somewhere to get to, somewhere to go/nothing to get, nowhere to go. But there are other kinds of dualities as well: pleasure/pain, subject/object, existence/non-existence. These last ones are actually much more subtle. I'll touch on them, definitely. So just having said all that, we can already see, this is a very complex area. It's a very rich area. It's not that simple. Oftentimes you get kind of very simple teachings. It doesn't really do justice to all of that. So perhaps foolishly, I want to kind of dive in here and give a bit of an overview.
I think it was in the talk on emotions, I was saying: please hear what's being offered as complementary. So it will sound like I'm contradicting sort of later in the talk what I might have said earlier. Can it be heard as complementary? Complementary approaches: so even duality and non-duality are complementary approaches rather than contradictory approaches. That complementariness, or whatever the noun is, is actually present right in the early discourses of the Buddha. It's often claimed that, well, if one goes back to the Pali Canon, what one will mostly encounter is very dualistic teachings. Just flick through the Majjhima Nikāya or something. The Buddha comes across as very, very dualistic. He's very much about, "We're aiming for the far shore -- that's nibbāna -- and this here is really not good." And very dualistic in terms of striving and what you're trying to encourage, etc. That's most of what one encounters.
But you also encounter something like this -- this is from the Dhammapada:
For whom there is neither a farther shore nor a hither shore [nor a nearer shore; in other words, for whom there is no over there, enlightenment, or non-enlightenment; for whom there is neither a farther shore nor a hither shore] nor both, who is undistressed and unfettered: him I call a brahman [him or her I call a brahman].[1]
So even that complementariness exists in the very earliest discourses. But for the most part, what we get is the Buddha talking very dualistically, and very much about seeking and getting and arriving and striving, etc.
So for example, talking about seeking and searching, which is already a dualistic motion:
Searching or seeking is of two sorts, I tell you [this is the Buddha]: to be pursued and not to be pursued. [Two sorts of searching: one to be pursued, one not to be pursued.] When one knows of a search, "As I pursue this search, unskilful qualities of heart and mind increase, and skilful qualities decrease," that sort of search is not to be pursued. [In other words, my loving-kindness, my generosity, my equanimity are getting less, and their opposites are getting more. That's not to be pursued, when that happens, when I follow in a certain direction, when I search in a certain direction.] But when one knows of a search, "As I pursue this search, this seeking, skilful qualities of heart and mind increase, and unskilful qualities decrease," that sort of search is to be pursued.[2]
So he's really emphasizing seeking, a kind of dualistic motion.
But what's really important, if one goes into what he's saying, is the fruits that come out of it. So the Buddha was immensely pragmatic as a teacher. Basically, like, what makes the difference is what you get out of it. How are the fruits? If the fruits are good, go for it. If they're not good, leave it alone. It's less about a philosophical position than a purely pragmatic position. This kind of pragmatism, I want to bring into this whole question of duality and non-duality. Any spiritual practice worth its salt must give an increase of positive qualities and a decrease of negative qualities -- so generosity, equanimity, mindfulness, loving-kindness, etc. But I would also highlight five more that any path that's useful, that's helpful, must include:
(1) Freedom. It must be leading to freedom. How can I judge duality or non-duality? Which is the right path? It must bring a freedom: freedom coming from a different understanding of things, a whole different way of seeing things, a different understanding of the self and of the world. Number one.
(2) Number two: must also express itself in ethical care, in concern, in care for how we are with each other. Non-ethics -- you know, stealing, lying, cheating, harming, etc. -- that comes, actually, out of self-view and non-freedom. So anything that's supposed to be bringing freedom should express itself in ethics.
(3) Number three: compassion, care, a wideness, a widening of the circle of our care, and a deepening of that care. If that isn't happening with any path, actually one's radius, one's diameter of care is staying quite constrained, something's not penetrating deeply enough. Sometimes you hear people say, "Well, I don't really do that. I don't really care about that. I don't really do much about the state of the planet or whatever, because it's all empty, after all." False, empty, hollow words.
That opening of the care, that widening of the care will be uncomfortable. It's not that it's necessarily always easy. We wrestle with this. I have so much energy, I have so much time, and the calling is immense for helping in the world. And if I think that opening my heart, letting go of the self, and increasing in love is always going to be just easy and effortless in the choices that it hands me for my life, for my energy, maybe that's a pipe dream. And maybe if I don't care, and if I say, "Well, I'm into non-duality. I don't care," maybe I'm just avoiding that wrestling. And something else is in the driving seat other than freedom, other than compassion.
(4) Fourth one: needs to express itself in a quietening of the usual human motion to gravitate towards pleasure, to want pleasure, and not to want the unpleasant, to avoid the unpleasant. So if a path is not giving someone a kind of openness of equality -- doesn't matter if things are difficult, if things are easy, if things are lovely, if things are not so lovely. We're not so pulled this way and avoiding that way. So again: path of non-duality, path of duality, that's one of the fruits it should bring.
(5) And also that there's a kind of, I feel, an endless wish, an endless longing, even, to continue one's growth, to continue expanding the heart, to continue practising and deepening. Even though I might feel very free, even though I might feel very free in myself, still want to grow. I still want to expand my capacities. Why? Because even though I'm free, there's a kind of infinite range of developability of how capable I am to offer help in the world, how skilful I am, how attuned, how sensitive, how much my energy, my capacity, my insight, my clarity. So I might feel fine. I might feel perfectly free. But I'm still interested in that. That also needs to be there. [12:15]
So the question is, what works to bring this fruit? This is pragmatic. What works to bring this fruit? In this area, as always in spiritual areas, being very careful of the mind's inclination, even the heart's inclination to grasp on to notions that have a kind of romantic appeal or an intuitive appeal, or to assumptions. So in this area, for instance, you might hear someone say, or read, or you might even think to yourself: "I want a path that goes beyond the mind, beyond the mind, beyond concepts." Beautiful. Important. Necessary. The mind and concepts, in what they are, they're naturally dualistic. Concepts, by their nature, are dualistic. How can mind and dualistic concepts go beyond the mind and concepts? How is that possible? It's impossible. That sounds good, and it sounds like it makes sense. But is it true? Has a certain appeal: I'll just drop concepts. Is it true? How much have I pushed to find out?
As I said at the beginning, there are many kinds of non-duality. One of the non-dualities I pulled out is there's nothing to do, nowhere to go. You're already enlightened. You're already awake. Very occasionally, you might find yourself speaking to someone who says this, and kind of says, "I go by that." And very occasionally, probing a little bit, one actually finds that it's really just an expression of laziness; just a small fraction, it's just an expression of laziness. And their saying "I'm into non-duality" is really just a kind of euphemism for "I don't practise." (Again, going back to the last talk about truthfulness, and how important that is, that level of kind of ruthless integrity.) And one can tell a person like that. One occasionally runs into them in spiritual circles. There isn't, for instance, this letting go of the inclination to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. That's still kind of very much in the driving seat, and you can see it by the way a person lives, by the choices they make.
Oftentimes, this kind of philosophical position or metaphysical position -- nothing to do, nowhere to go, already enlightened -- actually has its roots in how our relationship is to doing in practice. It's not so much a philosophical position. It's actually coming out of our relationship to doing. And it's not about laziness. It's about the fact that -- very, very common -- almost everyone feels that when, in my practice, I'm engaged in a doing, when I'm trying to do, I feel tight. I end up feeling tight to some degree or another. And that feels uncomfortable. And it colours my relationship with doing. And I think, "I don't know about doing."
So maybe a person says, "I won't do. Either I just stop practising, or I'll sit, walk, whatever it is, but I won't do." And maybe in that 'doing of the non-doing,' the tightness drains. The tightness goes. It's like, "Ahh, that's better." Great. But is that the end of the story? Is that as deep as we can go as human beings?
It might well be -- and please hear the complementariness that I said before -- it might well be, though, there's something really important for everyone, perhaps, at some point, to experiment with a non-doing in practice. Sometimes practice can become tight, can very much become, "I'm trying to get something then, in the future, over there, that I don't have here." And in the very kind of feelings and notions that are feeding practice, the whole thing is squeezed out of the present moment, in a way. It's squeezed into the future, and feels very constrained. Maybe it's possible to soften all that, to let a lot of that go, and move into more -- instead of a mode of striving, more a mode of opening, openness, receptivity -- receptivity, perhaps, to something that's already here. What's already here? What's already here that perhaps we're overlooking?
[17:37] So what is it to see the now, the present moment, not as a stepping-stone for something in the future, not as an intermediary, a launching-off point for something in the future? What is it to have a different relationship with the now that's already here? And what is it to notice that I might do this, I might do that, but actually, already here is awareness? There's awareness right here. Am I noticing that? What is it to let go, soften, open, and be receptive to the quality that, whatever I do, awareness is here? A beauty in that, and an opening in that. And again, in the spirit of complementariness and also time constraints, that's great. Wonderful. Not to stop there. Absolutely not to stop there. It's nowhere near deep enough, in terms of the capacity of the Dharma to radically change our sense of what existence is, but very, very helpful, very beautiful, very healing.
But this doing/non-doing -- "Should I do? Should I not do?" -- relationship with doing/non-doing is very much often at the heart, at the centre of this question of duality and non-duality. It's not all of it. It's part of it. It can be that when we get into a mode of doing, what's very easily caught up with it is the whole notion of development and progress. Very easily goes from doing to a sense of possible progression or development, and right quickly comes into that, very easy, as we were talking about last time, the sense, "That means I'm not good enough. That means the self is not being accepted in this moment." What's happened? The inner critic has got hold of the practice, has hijacked the practice. And if that's the case, it will feel, it really will feel that the ego is kind of belittled, or it will feel some pain. Feels -- yeah, painful, to have that sense. And so that might be there, in the heart, in the sense of things. Important to address. But is that pain of the inner critic intruding and hijacking, is that enough ground to decide the truth of doing or non-doing, as a truth, or duality or non-duality? It's just a feeling I'm having because of something that's come into the practice. Cannot decide truth.
So I've got some choices here as a practitioner. I can drop doing. And people regularly report, drop doing, and I find in my practice that the problematic self-view quietens. Because I'm not so much doing, I'm not so much striving, the whole kind of measured self, etc., quietens: "Ahh." Some relief, some spaciousness from that. However, it's not been seen through. It's just been kind of tucked into bed for a while. It's not been seen through. It's not been penetrated and understood. It's just that it's less obvious right then. It's less active. It will arise again. Most surely, it will arise again when we do. And our life is full of doing. It's full, and full of doing. And we find ourselves leaving the meditation hall, or leaving the retreat, engaged in doing again. Look what's come again: the self, the problematic self-view, the inner critic, because it's tied up with doing. We haven't seen through the doer. And if my practice is too much about non-doing, I might end up with a practice that actually bears very little resemblance to my life, which is full of doing, all kinds of doing.
But it is possible, it very much is possible that this non-doing can reveal something, as I said before. However, what it reveals -- how to say it? To the extent that there's mindfulness -- and the more mindfulness, the more it will reveal -- so already I've got a little bit of a paradox there. Non-doing as a sort of avenue in practice will reveal more to me about freedom, the more mindfulness there is. Again, not quite so simple.
One of the things it will reveal, if there's quite a lot of mindfulness, and I just say, "I'm just going to practise non-doing, just being," if there's enough mindfulness, what that will do is reveal the hidden, subtle doing that already exists, that we don't see as doing. And you say, "Oh, my goodness. Look, there's all this level of doing that I hadn't even seen."
So this question of non-doing -- is it really non-doing? If I say 'no do,' is it really no do? Or is it that I just haven't seen the doing? 'No do' may be not 'no do.' 'No do' may be 'no see do.' [laughs] Not maybe -- it actually is. Deeper one goes, the more sensitivity, there's all kinds of doing.
Maybe a person says, "If I try and do something in my practice, if I play with the breath, if I manipulate the breath, if I contemplate in a certain way -- impermanence, or something else, or emptiness -- if I cultivate samādhi, or calm, or loving-kindness, I will *become '*the meditator.'" And you may have heard, and a person may have heard, "And the whole point of meditation is to be rid of 'the meditator.'" Again, something sounds very nice. But I have to be careful of the subtle doing and the subtle self that comes in, because I can just as easily become 'the one who doesn't meditate.' Have to see through something. Have to see really deeply through something.
So one possibility is dropping the doing. Another possibility is learning to do without this problematic self-view, without this measuring of the self and the self-worth dependent on how well I do. One way of going about that is actually replacing the difficult self-view with a skilful self-view. In the Mahāyāna teaching, there's a very beautiful teaching about Buddha-nature. And it's actually extremely complex. I don't have time to go into it, but one of the reasons that it's there is actually this: so one doesn't undermine oneself and underestimate one's capacity as a practitioner, as a human being, and actually sees oneself as having Buddha-nature, having something beautiful and pure at the core of one's being, so to speak. But it is a very complex teaching. It's a very complex teaching. The word garbha is translated as 'nature.' Buddhagarbha. It means 'womb,' the womb of enlightenment. Also the embryo, the offspring, what we give birth to, the sprout, or conception. So it actually means a lot of stuff. It's not simple.
The examples in the traditions are, for example, Buddha-nature, your Buddha-nature is like a treasure that you own, buried underground, under your house, and you don't know it's there. Or honey, tasty honey, in the middle of a swarm of bees. Or a seed with a potential to sprout. Or a grain of wheat or rice or whatever in its husk. So from the Uttaratantra -- it's one of the classic Mahāyāna texts on Buddha-nature:
As the essential grain is covered by the husk, and cannot be consumed by any person, those seeking food and so on must themselves extract it from the husk. Similarly, sentient beings have delusions, and their Buddha-nature is mixed with their stains. As long as it is not freed from the stains of delusions, that long the activities of enlightenment will not extend through the universe.
So we need to actually do something. How do I get it if it's honey amongst a swarm of bees? How am I going to get it if it's grain in a husk? How am I going to get it so I can eat it?
Another word for Buddha-nature is Buddha-potential. And like a seed has a potential, we have the potential for Buddhahood, but I need to do something. I need to give it the right conditions for it to actually bear the fruit. So again, not such a simple teaching. How do I get it? How do I uncover it? How do I manifest it? How will I enjoy it? It's not enough just to know that, apparently, I have a treasure. "Apparently I have a treasure. They tell me I have a treasure." Great! Or to mistake my treasure. You have a gold treasure, and I say, "It's this bowl. Maybe I can sell it on eBay. I'll get about thirty quid," when actually, my treasure is, I don't know, a hundred billion dollars of gold bullion. Actually, I need to know what it is, the Buddha-nature. I need to be able to access it and know its worth, to buy something with it, to use it.
Still, again, and I hope I'm not confusing you, in the spirit of complementarity, even if I have a vague sense of something, a misunderstood sense of something, I can trust that, and then that will bring a confidence. And if it does bring faith, if it does bring a sense of one's beauty, one's preciousness, capacity of trusting one's potential, go for it. It's moving one on on the path. [28:51]
I said the second possibility is learning to do without a problematic self-sense. So one possibility is Buddha-nature. Another possibility, for some, is going back to this question I was talking about last week: what do I really, really, really want? Following that question, being pulled by that question. And if I'm in touch with that, if I'm in touch with that deeply, and the sources, the deep sources of my longing in my being, then I'm pulled in my practice, and I'm pulled by love, and I'm pulled by my deep longing. And that's a very, very different energy than being pulled by should, and being pulled by a sense of not being good enough. I'm being pulled by love, my love, my authentic love, because I've asked that question: what do I really want? And it's not about the inner critic having hijacked practice any more.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago: "When I do, it feels like not doing when it's coming out of love. When I do and it's coming out of love, it feels like non-doing." And if a person's in contact with that love, in contact with the deepest longing of our being, can almost feel impersonal. It's like it's gone right through the floor of our self, down to something kind of more universal, more primal. And it's love moving. And what will I do for love? How will I stretch myself for love? And practice is asking us to stretch ourselves. Or perhaps, how does love want to stretch me? How does it want to use me? Take me. Use me. I surrender to that. This comes through asking that question and contacting something.
I realize I have so much to say. I'm going to leave bits out here and there. It's okay. Sometimes, it's necessary for a person to actually stop practising for a while. And I know quite a few people who've done that, because the inner critic has hijacked the practice to such an extent that it can't move out of that loop. And so, just stop, just put it down, just do something else. And re-gather, and re-find the why of my practice, re-find that longing, that love.
Just a small point: sometimes this whole resistance to doing is because, if one looks, I'm not resistant to doing, for instance, cooking myself a meal that might taste good. That's a doing. Why am I not so resistant -- I mean, sometimes I am, but generally speaking, in my life, am I not so resistant? Because with not too much effort, I can create for myself, through the doing, enough satisfaction and enjoyment that I feel satisfied. And so I don't gripe about the doing and the non-doing. It's not an issue. A similar thing with practice -- it's like, actually learning to have some enjoyment and pleasure as a fruit in practice. Then that minimizes this whole issue of doing and non-doing, because I actually feel satisfied through the doing. [32:49]
If a person is engaged in doing, is engaged in cultivating -- let's say, concentration, samādhi, mettā practice, some particular avenue of insight practice where they're really trying to look in a particular way, or cultivate a certain quality -- sooner or later, and usually sooner, a person will notice, a practitioner will notice: when I cultivate the positive, I seem to notice more of the exact opposite of what I'm trying to cultivate. It seems that I'm going backwards, a person might think. When I try and cultivate concentration, what I notice more is distraction. When I cultivate mettā, what I notice more is irritability, etc. The seeking of a positive quality, the cultivation of a positive quality will necessarily, because of the way perception works, invite the perception of its corresponding negative quality. It has to. I'm looking for white, I will see not white. I'm looking for tall, I will see not tall. I'm looking for mettā, I will see irritability. Dualities go together as pairs, and perception works by kind of separating them out, standing them out in contrast. So it will necessarily bring that together. [34:17]
So again, here, I notice this, and what do I do with that? What do I do with that as a practitioner? I could say, "It's pointless. I seem to be going backwards. It seems to be inviting more pain, because I'm interested in going this way, and I keep being shown the other direction. So I'll throw the whole thing out." That's probably throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But I have, again, choices here. So one possibility is learning to cultivate, learning to cultivate concentration, loving-kindness, a certain avenue of insight, etc., without the pain of over-grasping. That's an art. It's the delicacy, the beauty of that art: moving towards something, I have that aspiration, but I'm holding it very lightly. Can absolutely be developed.
Second possibility, though, is to actually be interested in these dualities, and aware of dualities as they arise. So I'm aware of kindness and non-kindness. I'm aware of, say, peace and non-peace, and aware of dualities and letting them go, not chasing one, not prioritizing one. So a mode of working of non-duality -- I see pleasure, let it go. I see pain, let it go. Don't pull apart these dualities. See the dualities and -- aware of them, as a practice.
So that's actually more than saying, "Just be mindful," because we actually -- the habit of the mind is to polarize dualities, is to pull dualities apart, automatically. So yes, mindfulness will help, but actually prioritizing a mode of practising where one's not chasing this or that -- even a lovely thing, even a lovely Dharmic quality. I'm going to come back to that. Both these -- both learning to cultivate without the problematic over-grasping of self-view, and letting go of dualities -- both are important.
But earlier I was saying, we need to see through the doer. I need to see through doing and the doer, and see through it deeply, completely see its emptiness. How am I going to do that? Sometimes, or quite regularly, a practitioner reports: "I had an experience of no-self." And oftentimes, the person's very excited about this, quite rightly. And the person will say, "I had -- I just slipped into a completely non-dual awareness. Or I was in a mode where I was beyond the subject/object duality."
And sometimes -- again, just some portion of times -- one goes a little bit into this, and hears from the person, and finds that, actually, what really happened is they -- it's just that they were really, really absorbed in what they were doing for a period. So they were really, really into the breath, or into washing up the dishes, or really in the flow playing tennis or dancing, or whatever it was, really one with whatever they were doing. Beautiful, really precious experience as a human being, lovely, and important, but probably not going to bring much freedom in one's life in a long-term impact. [38:08] Even if one has a few of those moments, probably not going to make much long-term freedom coming out of that.
People that do a lot of meditation -- long-term meditators, and I suppose, particularly people on long-term retreat, but not just those people -- as one deepens, one notices a movement in the consciousness. Seem to go into an experience or experiences of no-self, and then later, some time goes by, and the self comes back. And some time goes by, and I'm back without the self: no-self, self, no-self, self, no-self, self. Of course, at first this is quite exciting, quite new, quite lovely, immensely opening, freeing, touching the heart, etc. Mostly, at first, almost everyone at first will try to stay in the place of no-self. It's natural. It's so lovely and captivating and freeing. We'll try to, and we'll get frustrated by the movement out of the no-self. "I had so much freedom, and I felt so expansive and so one with everything, and so much love, and now here I am, back in my old kind of grumbly, separate [self]," and frustrated by that. What do I need to understand that will bring and open a freedom that embraces self and no-self totally equally? What do I need to understand that is larger than that movement from no-self to self to no-self to self? What do I need to understand?
Could say, "Well, everything's impermanent. You know, live with it." True. Is that satisfying? Is that deep enough? Is that full enough? Does that penetrate it fully enough? I could say, if I've really gone through this a lot, I could say, "The no-self is what's real. The self, the way things seem when there's that -- that's not real. The no-self is real. The other is not." And in the no-self being real, that means that a self getting enlightened or not enlightened is moot, a moot point, and therefore the whole thing is non-dual. But to really, really be convinced that the no-self is the real thing, and the self is not the real thing, first of all, it's going to take a lot, a lot of convincing, an enormous amount of convincing, of going back and forth and back and forth, spending a lot, a lot, a lot of time in this no-self, and trying to keep it there.
But again, we have to ask: is it true? Is it true that the no-self is real, and the self ...? It seems to agree with all the teachings I read, etc., and the talks I hear, da-da-da. But is it real? Is it true? It seems true. It might even seem, eventually, much more authentic. But is it true? How will I know?
For a practitioner going through this kind of thing, usually, or often, with all that, at the same time as it's deepening, and as there's this lovely, lovely opening to not-self -- this is one of the dangers of giving an overview talk, is I can't spend long enough on these areas and sort of go into them enough. But, moving through a lot of territory. It's okay. Spending time in that, something else begins to open: something, a sense of something other, something other than the usual sense of life, something vast that seems to disappear when the self comes back, and open out, reveal itself, when the self goes. Something other and vast, a sense of vast awareness, a sense of the great silence, the unfathomable silence. Sense of peace pervading all things, of love woven into the fabric of the universe. These are all possibilities. Sense of some huge space of emptiness, nothingness. And somehow, we are in that. We are in that. It embraces and contains, effortlessly, everything. So touching, so beautiful, so freeing, so expanding when we come into contact with that. We're in that, and all experience is in that, in that vast awareness, in that great silence, etc. And because all experience is in, is that -- again, there's a non-duality there.
Some of you know the very famous poem from Rumi: "I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I've been knocking from the inside." It's famous. We realize we're actually in what we've been looking for -- beautiful, to hang out there, to get familiar with it, to open the being and let it touch the cells, and touch the heart, and transform something -- immense value here, immense possibility of transformation, real beauty there for the being.
And it might be, again, as this experience goes deeper, there's a kind of oneness in all that. So it's not only that this great silence or great awareness contains everything. It's also that the fabric of things is the same as that, is the same as silence. [knocks twice on a hard surface] What seems solid is actually silence. What seems solid is actually awareness. What seems solid is actually love. Seems like everything, all phenomena are That -- That with a capital T. And again, there's a non-duality in that. They're not dual, separate things, opposites. They're all That -- beautiful, mystic, deep.
Another poem from Rumi expresses this: "I am filled with you" -- the you is this That. "I am filled with you. Skin, blood, bone, brain, and soul. There's no room for lack of trust, or trust. Nothing in this existence but that existence."
And it may be that through this or some other way, this question about the self, no-self, self, no-self, it may be that it goes deeper, and at some point, a coin drops. At some point a coin drops. The appearance of self is just that. It's just the appearance of self. It's just an appearance like any other appearance. End of dichotomy -- self, no-self. Very, very important stage in practice. So self is free to come and go. There can be the appearance of self, and the disappearance of self. It's fine. It's just an appearance. It's fine for this or that quality that's maybe not so flattering to come up -- agitation, irritation, whatever it is, can come up and not be self-referenced. It's just an appearance. Doesn't take away from this freedom of appearances to come and go in the vastness of things. [46:22] Even freedom, even my sense of freedom can come and go, and doesn't touch this more vast sense of liberation -- hugely important.
Is that the end? Is that the end of practice? Some people say it is. Is that a full enough understanding? Is that a full enough freedom? Some people say it is. Buddha had a chat with a cosmologist who said, "Everything is one." He said, "That's just a view. It's just one of the views you can have based on perception." The Buddha's teaching actually goes even deeper than this. And please, complementariness -- all of this is immensely useful, not throwing anything out at all.
This is the Buddha talking:
That practitioner who sees no essence in existence, like one seeking flowers in uḍumbara trees [it's a kind of fig tree that doesn't flower; like one seeking flowers in an unflowering tree] will give up the here and there, the near and far shore [enlightenment, dualities] like a snake its decrepit old skin.[3]
One who sees no essence in existence. This isn't pointing to nihilism. At first we hear this -- many people will just, "It sounds like he's just saying nothing exists, nothing is important." It's much more subtle than that, what's being said -- much, much more subtle.
So the Buddha's talking about another kind of duality -- the most subtle kind of duality. He's talking to a guy called Kaccāyana here. This actually is in the Pali Canon, for those of you that are interested historically with the way these things evolved:
That things exist, O Kaccāyana, is one extreme. That they do not exist is another. But I, the Tathāgata, the Buddha, accept neither 'is' nor 'is not.' And I declare the truth from the middle position.[4]
Middle: not 'is,' not 'is not.'
So in explaining this, to paraphrase it: ordinary beings, unenlightened beings, we're used to seeing and thinking and conceiving dualistically -- seeing, thinking, speaking also of ourselves and phenomena -- things, appearances -- in terms of is and is not. And in doing so, then we take things and situations and problems and desired things, all of it, to be really real, really, we say, inherently real -- or really not: passed out of existence, or never existing. And so doing, we cling. Because of that, we cling, and we act in saṃsāra, and we act in a way that causes suffering. And the Buddha says, "But for those with wisdom, correctly perceiving the truth of how phenomena arise, abide, pass, there is no 'is,' and no 'is not.'"
So this duality -- existence/non-existence -- the most subtle and profound duality. 'Phenomena' means everything, so even includes awareness, even includes now, the present. Sometimes you get kind of -- I don't know what to call it -- easy kind of teachings that say, "You're always aware, and it's always now, so what's the problem?" That's a paraphrase. Too easy. Even if I say the vast awareness, that still -- tend to give that a kind of essence. And the Buddha's saying it's not 'is,' and it's not 'is not.'
To say that awareness, space, time, the present moment -- these building blocks of our existence that we take completely for granted -- to say they actually don't really exist, but they don't not exist, that's much, much harder. It's much harder to understand. It's much harder to teach about. It's much harder. As the Buddha said after his awakening: "This, what I've discovered, is profound, subtle, hard to see, discernible only by the wise," etc.[5]
And we have poems, and you know, Rumi's so beautiful as a poet, as a mystic poet, so beautiful. But it's ambiguous. Which level is he talking about? Hard to say. I can teach, a teacher can teach in a way -- and sometimes it's much more attractive to people -- not to be too precise about all this, and actually just speak in a kind of open sense, and vagueness. I could have stopped the talk, you know, ten minutes ago, and just leave it very open, and leave a vague hint of something, and the heart is moved. But it's ambiguous. And we could be using the same words and be talking about very, very different levels of insight and freedom.
Or I might think, "Well, I don't want it to be a bit more clear. Now you've just opened this whole other thing, and it sounds really complicated now, and I like the simplicity." But my liking of simplicity -- is that enough of a reason for me to decide the truth or untruth of something? So it might sound like, for some people, that "You've said something. I've heard that. I don't understand. And it sounds like you're talking about a level I doubt that I ever could understand." Despair comes up, potentially. Don't -- not to despair. It's really possible to see this. Actually, the Buddha already gave us a clue. He said: "But for those with wisdom, correctly perceiving the truth of how phenomena arise, abide, and pass, there is no 'is' and 'is not.'"
How: that one word is a clue. It's a massive clue. And there are actually many ways, and many possibilities of going into this level of things. Earlier in the talk, I talked about a mode of practice, a way of practising kind of non-duality, a mode of non-duality. I won't feed dualities by chasing one and rejecting the other: good/bad, peace/agitation, concentration/distraction, mindfulness/non-mindfulness, equanimity/non-equanimity, blab-dee-blab-dee-blah. I won't feed dualities. I'll see the dualities and I'll just let them be. I'll let go of picking up either end of that stick. I won't feed them by grasping or aversion. In the moment, moment after moment, I use that as a mode of practice. I won't go toward or away from any duality. A mode of practice -- what happens if I develop that as a practitioner, and I do it, and I just do it, and I do it over and over? One thing I notice is suffering ... [long sigh] drains. Suffering drains out of the moment. I'm giving up suffering because I'm giving up energizing greed and aversion. "Ahhh*,"* peace comes. But I'm not chasing that peace. And so, don't chase the peace, more peace comes. Suffering drains.
But even more significant -- as I really play with this, if I really take it on board, really play with it, I notice something even more significant, which is that my sense of self also begins to fade, to drain, to quieten. The sense of substantiality of things, solidity of things, inner and outer, begins to get less. Things begin to feel more and more insubstantial, the less I chase dualities. And the very phenomena that are arising, the appearances themselves, begin to fade, to blur, to dissolve, to fade from consciousness. It would be hard for me to overstate the significance of that. What does it imply? As I begin, one begins to go into this, and sees this relationship: the less I chase dualities, the less things appear. The more I chase dualities, the more solid, substantial, and the more stuff appears, and the more self. The implication is that self and phenomena and appearances are what we call dependent arisings. Their very appearance as something solid is dependent on the way the mind relates to them, dependent on clinging.
So with the sense of self -- sense of anything -- it's actually a spectrum. The person coming and saying, "I had an experience of no-self," actually had an experience of less self. One can have an experience of a little less self, and a little less, a little less, just as we can have an experience of a very, very solid and built-up self. There's a continuum there. And we move on that continuum -- big, solid self, normal self, little less, little less, little less, little less. We move on that continuum dependent on clinging. More clinging, more self, more solid self. Less clinging, less self, less solid self. Which is the real self? The solid one? I see I've just manufactured it through a lot of clinging. No-self? Completely? That's actually quite a radical, rare experience. A very little self? Somewhere exactly the midpoint, wherever the hell that is? In there? Which is the real self? Does the self have a reality other than what's being created by perception, fabricated by perception? So this is one way. What goes for self also goes for phenomena. This is one way.
Second way is actually using this vastness. Most people will go through this vastness, and then actually beginning to question the reality of the vast awareness. Does it have an essence? Does it have a reality? And using that beautiful, vast awareness, or peace, or whatever it is, as a stepping-stone, and seeing through that, and seeing that awareness and mind -- whatever we call it -- also neither exists nor not exists. It's the Middle Way. [58:06]
Another possibility is through logical analysis. Don't have time to talk about it. There are ways of actually using the reflective mind to cut through the belief in real existence or real non-existence. All of them are important. All are important.
That level of understanding -- that the self and all phenomena, all phenomena without exception are dependent arisings, and so are empty -- I cannot arrive at just by non-doing. I very probably won't arrive at it just by non-doing. And it's not just about hanging out in a state of not-self or less self. I've gone much deeper. It's gone much deeper. The very building blocks of existence are called into question: awareness, space, time, etc. And it's gone to a place, because I've seen a connection, like a scientist sees an experiment, a hundred, you know, thousand, ten thousand times: I've seen a connection. It's undeniable. I no longer need a belief of something's eternalism or oneness or whatever. It's gone beyond that.
Sometimes, one comes across teachings that only emphasize non-duality. And oftentimes -- not always, but sometimes, there's a sort of story that a person has. And they're basically saying, "Stop trying. Stop trying. Stop meditating." That's the message. Or their personal story -- often there are quite similar personal stories that you might hear. It's like, "I was trying, and then I gave up." Or, "I was really depressed. And then I just gave up. Something something something, then I gave up, and then I awakened." Very common.
However, as far as I can tell, at best, that awakening will only lead to the level of oneness or interconnectedness or a sense of it's always now, or there's always awareness, or the vast awareness, or something like that -- all of which is great. And I could of course be wrong, but I've never come across someone who just emphasizes non-duality -- just -- that's reached that other level of understanding, and that full depth. The habit human beings have of seeing reality in things, seeing an is-ness in things or an is-not-ness, into, as I said, the basic elements of our existence, is so deeply ingrained, is so habitual, at the core of our being, it needs a direct challenge. It needs to be undermined, to be pried loose, to have different ways of seeing that turn it on its head.
In Tibetan, one of the words for meditation is gom, I think, gom. It means 'familiarity.' I need to familiarize myself with a whole other way of seeing. And the implication is, familiarity takes effort and repeating. I familiarize myself with a view, a view that frees through effort, through repetition, through doing. So one who's seen at that level has access to a different kind of non-duality, and actually sees things, or has recourse to a way of seeing things very, very differently, very differently, seeing our whole existence very differently.
This level of non-duality, then, in a way, kind of includes all the others. It includes a non-duality of pleasure and pain, good and evil, nirvāṇa/saṃsāra, and also will absolutely, for sure, bring compassion and ethics and all the rest of it. It can't just be an intellectual position, because it won't go deep enough. I have to see something in meditation. If I don't, it won't make a real difference. It's familiarizing and understanding this experience -- or these experiences, we should say, or experiences in general, seeing them as dependent arisings and empty -- that I need. Familiarizing and understanding. Otherwise, the habit of the mind, I'll just go back to my default views. I'll believe in some kind of self to some degree, even if it's a subtle or cosmic, mystical, vast, universal self, self as awareness. I'll believe in a present moment. I'll believe in space and time. Habits, like an elastic band -- I'll just go back to the default views.
So to wrap up, again, I know I've moved through a lot of territory. Can it all be complementary? All of this is stepping-stones. None of this is thrown out. It's all stepping-stones. All of it's helpful. They're just different levels of understanding or working. And we need to find what's helpful for me right now, and use that, and really use it. And it could be, for instance, with a sense of vast awareness, or vast silence, whatever, that that's having such a beautiful effect on the heart, in terms of freedom and compassion, that I actually stay there for -- I don't know, a year, two years, three years, and let it really seep in and have its effect. Use it. We have periods in our practice. Can be years. And the time comes when it's time to question, and time to move on. And how hungry, how deep is my hunger for the truth?
So there are different kinds of non-duality that I can use, we can use as different views, and going in and out of these views that are helpful. I go into a mode of seeing, and out of a mode of seeing: duality, non-duality. It's fine. Use it all. They're both helpful.
In a way, the Dharma's kind of offering us this massive feast of possibility, of ways we can work and approaches. Use all our intelligence, and all the fullness of our being, different things at different times. That's all there. Can take us to that -- eventually, everyone to that fullness of understanding, and the deepest level of non-duality, which brings the deepest freedom.
Okay. So let's just have a quiet moment together.
