Making the Practice Your Own

From A Trackless Path I 13

Ken: And what I found is that at some point—and for most people this is after five to eight years of practice, though there’s often another wave around ten to fifteen years of practice when it’s usually deeper and more painful—people who have been trained that way find themselves struggling with the transition, which I like to call making the practice their own.

And it’s a difficult transition because around that period they’re beginning to feel the divergence between what their heart is seeking and this system of practice. And it’s very uncomfortable because they feel that by listening to their heart they’re in some sense either checking out or even betraying the way that they have been trained. And because there are often very significant emotional ties both to teachers and colleagues as well as, frequently, to the material itself, to the scriptures and texts, this questioning initially is usually engaged very, very tentatively, with considerable trepidation. And for good reason. Not infrequently the way many of these organizations and institutions function is that when one raises certain kinds of questions unless one has a really very, very good mentor—and they do exist, fortunately—but in many cases you start asking questions that aren’t customarily asked, and one finds one’s relationship with the whole system changing, sometimes extremely rapidly, which comes as a shock. Sometimes slowly, but you just find yourself being eased out in some way. And for reasons you can’t really figure out because “I was just talking about these questions.”

And now as I said this isn’t universally the case because there are some teachers who really are very familiar with this and are able to provide the right kind of guidance and support through such a transition. And if you happen to have contact with one of those, somebody like that, then treasure them because they’re really wonderful.

But what I’ve come across frequently is people who’ve found themselves outside the tradition of their training, not quite sure how they got there. And at the same time dealing with sometimes quite deep feelings of having betrayed something, but they’re not quite sure what. Or having violated something but they’re not quite sure what. And most of the people I’ve encountered, and I’ve worked with quite a few in this, they haven’t betrayed anything. They haven’t violated anything. What has happened is that they started listening to their own spiritual questions. And they frequently start letting go of certain practices and forming a relationship with particular ones that really mean something to them. Or they may go in quite different directions for a while. But now they’re really engaging in their own spiritual search. And it wouldn’t be incorrect to regard that first phase of their path as learning a lot of stuff, developing a lot of skills, developing abilities which now makes it possible for them to do this more individual search and questioning.

It’s very unpredictable but usually it’s probably over a two to four-year period, there’s a letting go of a lot of assumptions and ideas and tacit understandings, which were part of the institutional setting. And they’re replaced by something that is personally more vital, more visceral, and in many respects, more alive. And alive because there’s a different level of personal engagement. And this is where one moves out of the manufacturing process or a systematic process of, “Do this practice and then this one, and then this one,” into a much more exploratory way of practicing. And it’s important then for the person to be able to find the resources that they’re going to need. And in this process they’re going to re-examine almost everything that they’ve done. And in that process some stuff will fall away as not relevant, and other stuff, as I’ve said before, will take on a renewed vitality, or actually a new vitality.

Now if you look at the lives of most of the great teachers this is exactly what has happened. And it’s often buried in flowery language in the biographies. But most of the really great teachers, the ones who are regarded as holding the tradition, came to that position by doing very untraditional things. Milarepa who is revered in all of the different schools started off by killing 37 people. And it’s not exactly a traditional spiritual path.

Here Ken describes shifts that can occur in waves. You begin to sense a divergence between what your heart seeks and the form your practice has taken. While this can be unsettling and may feel like disloyalty, Ken offers reassurance that this may be sign of engaging the path more deeply because the years spent learning, practising, and trusting a tradition have honed the discernment needed to listen to your own spiritual questions.

When I heard this passage, I could sense this at play in my own life. My first teachers gave me immense gifts. They explained the Dharma, introduced practice forms, and opened the door to the living tradition. A pilgrimage to Tibet and meeting Lama Achuk at Yachen Gar helped me understand that dharma is my life. Yet, once home again, I found myself longing to hear teachings expressed directly in English. Over the long period that followed, I experienced difficult feelings of traitorousness and uncertainty. Eventually the search led to Ken, and he helped me navigate the transition. From the start, he encouraged me to trust my own experience.

Over the years this has continued to unfold in unpredictable ways. The sailboat of practice has passed through storms and languished in becalmed waters before catching the wind once more. And recently I've found myself deep in a second wave of making practice my own.

"So, Ānanda, you should all live with yourselves as your island, yourselves as your refuge, with no other as your refuge; with the Dhamma as your island, the Dhamma as your refuge, with no other as your refuge."

—Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16), §2.26, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Dhammatalks.org

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Trust You Will Ripen

For me, solo retreats nourish and energise practice in daily life. This year, while preparing, I listened again to Ken’s instructions on the sky-gazing practice.

From A Trackless Path II 14

Ken: There are a number of teachings in various traditions on sky-gazing but the one that I’ve been exposed to and feels most complete is one from the Dzogchen tradition in which there are three skies, just to make it complicated. The practice consists of sitting or lying down in a location where ideally all you have is sky in front of you. There were caves that were carefully constructed in Tibet on the sides of mountains so that when you sat in them if you sat in a certain position you saw nothing but sky. There was no other reference point whatsoever.

...

And then you quite literally look at the sky. Now as Tilopa says, “When you look at space, seeing stops. When you look at mind, thinking stops.” It is important to look at the sky, or to put it slightly differently, to look into the sky. So you’re actually looking. You’re not just letting your eyes go into soft focus because there’s nothing to look at. When you do that you actually become passive and probably move in a somewhat dull direction. The looking is active.

And the first sky is what we ordinarily call “sky”; it’s an infinite expanse of blue in front of us. And you look at that or into it. And just because the way the eyes are constructed there will be pixelation, and variation in shades and so forth you know. Pay no attention to all of that, that’s just stuff, and look. If the looking is active you’ll find a couple of things. In the beginning you probably won’t be able to do it for very long ’cause the intensity, the clarity is a little overwhelming, and you just find you’re sort of short-circuiting. But as you do it again and again you’ll build up more capacity. And as you look with that active looking you find it is actually difficult to hold any train of thought. I should mention one other thing on the practical side, at this altitude wear sunblock.

...

So there’s that active looking into the sky. And as you engage that and increase your capacity to hold that gaze into the sky—very hard to hold together the ordinary train of thinking—it just keeps disintegrating. Which of course is part of the purpose of this practice. And you find you’re beginning to experience calm-abiding, shamatha, just resting. But it’s got a little more juice than shamatha and meditation because you’re opening to the sky, and there’s just all that energy of the light coming in filling your whole mind and being with light and energy. So it’s quite a powerful practice.

And as your mind, or the thinking process, crumbles and disintegrates—and it doesn’t do this immediately so don’t get your hopes up—you find, speaking technically, the sensory consciousnesses become less and less dominant in one’s experience. That’s the five associated with the senses except the one for seeing, of course, and the mental consciousness, which is associated with thought. And you’ll find that the seventh consciousness, the emotional mind, which is what I like to call it, also subsides. And you’ll find yourself resting without much sense of “I.”

And basically what’s happening here is that you’re experiencing basis-of-everything consciousness. Sanskrit term for that is alaya-vijñāna. Now in basis-of-everything consciousness there is no explicit sense of “I” or “other” but it is not beyond duality. There’s no explicit sense of I or other, and as Dezhung Rinpoche explained to me, it’s clear, empty, and ineffective. And for those of you who want the Tibetan for ineffective it's lung ma bstan (pron. lung ma ten).

...

Carolyn: It’s interesting that that’s lung ma bstan because that’s the dullness in meditation too.

Ken: Sure, yeah. It’s as Dezhung Rinpoche would say, stong gsal lung ma bstan (pron. tong sal lung ma ten). lung ma bstan is often translated as neutral but there’s no juice to it, that’s the idea. Now, this is a little bit of an aside, but particularly in reference to Carolyn’s comment, it’s important. There are countless meditators over the centuries who mistake resting in alaya-vijñāna for enlightenment and it’s not.

Again Dezhung Rinpoche explained this when he was giving us mahamudra instruction: it’s empty, clear, and ineffective. No juice—however you want to describe that to yourselves. It’s like a block of ice. And alaya-vijñāna to buddha mind is like ice to water. That is, ice is clear, can see right through it, you don’t know it’s there, and it can’t do anything because it’s a block of ice. And when you rest in it, bringing active attention into it, basically the ice melts. And then you have empty, clear, unrestricted experience. And the lung ma bstan, the ineffective becomes unrestricted. So it becomes very, very alive.

Having no mental imagery or experience of "hearing" thoughts, my mind is naturally rather quiet. Rather than a flow of thoughts I experience a stream of sensations and feelings punctuated by silent thoughts. Looking into the sky dissolves the sense of I and other, and each time I do the practice, I recall Ken's often repeated advice: “Don’t work at practice, let practice work on you,” and also a line from T. S. Eliot that he often quotes: “The rest is not our business.”

James Low sums it up like this:

From Open to Life 8

James: If we're not ripe, it's not going to work.

...

So how do we become ripe? How do we become? Well, when we want things to ripen, it's better if they can ripen on the tree, and when the tree is rooted. So we root ourselves in the source, in the ground, in the openness, and we resource ourselves by exposure to the ripening forces, the warmth of engaging in the world, blowing with the wind of circumstances, absorbing the rain of the confusion which can flow on to us very easily, and gradually we ripen. Don't force it. Trust you will ripen. Everybody has buddha nature, everybody has buddha potential, but you have your unique individual story, and your path will not be like anyone else's.

In Open to Life 7 and many other retreat recordings, James also teaches a practice that doesn't depend on an unrestricted view of the sky. It's called the guru yoga of the three ah.

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Reality is the Best Teacher

A crucial task for you as a student is to be clear about your own intention. If you don’t clearly understand what you are looking for in a teacher or in internal work, you will inevitably accept someone else’s agenda as your own. While you may start internal transformative work on the suggestion or advice of another person, at some point your practice has to become a response to your own questions about life and being. Your own suffering, however it manifests, is the basis and motivation for your practice. To lose sight of it is to lose connection with your reason for practicing. Another person's experience can never answer your own questions. You have to know what you want from your practice. Then you can know what you want in a teacher.

From “The Mystery of Being,” p. 12, in Wake Up To Your Life by Ken McLeod

From time to time, friends talk about a workshop they've attended, a healing modality they've discovered, a new spiritual teacher they've encountered, or a framework that has helped them make sense of their lives. As culture evolves, so do our interests, and the way we talk about them. Lately I've noticed a shift in emphasis. These days, the framing is rarely about becoming your best self or manifesting the life you desire. Today's theme seems to be healing: healing trauma, healing old wounds, healing relationships, healing the self. Underlying much of this language is a wish to feel more whole, more understood, or more at ease.

The Buddhist tradition shares some of those concerns, and also points in a rather different direction. A central question is not how to become a better self, but how to see through the assumptions that make the self seem so solid and separate. I've sometimes wondered what, if anything, to say about this difference.

“How can I feel better about myself?” is a very different question from, “Who or what is this sense of self that I spend so much energy protecting?”

The first question seeks improvement. The second points in a different direction altogether. Many spiritual conversations never seem to reach that second question. They remain focused on managing experience, reducing discomfort, making sense of life, or cultivating a more satisfying identity. There is nothing wrong with these pursuits, and indeed, they may be necessary.

Practice often begins with these very practical concerns. In my case the concern was anger and the suffering it created. I was looking for improvement, for a way to live differently. Over time, however, the question that brought me to practice gave way to other questions.

When I first read this passage from Wake Up To Your Life, I took Ken's words mainly as advice about teachers and spiritual groups. Increasingly, I hear them differently. They point to a simple fact: no one else can give us the questions that matter. Those questions emerge from our own lives, our own disappointments, our own encounters with uncertainty, loss, beauty, love, and death. Reality is the best teacher.

So these days, when friends talk about their spiritual paths, I mostly listen.

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Looking for the Missing Piece

From Aspirations for Mahamudra, commentary on verse 19 by Ken McLeod

One day shortly after the three-year retreat ended, I went to Kalu Rinpoche for instruction in dzogchen. I had asked for the instruction because, frankly, I thought I might be missing something.

Rinpoche picked up a piece of paper from a pile of pages in front of him and read a pointing-out instruction to me. “Sounds like mahamudra to me,” he said.

He then picked up another piece of paper and read another instruction. “Hmmm, that sounds like mahamudra, too.” Another piece of paper elicited, “That sounds like dzogchen, no?”

I was familiar with almost all the instructions from my studies during the three-year retreat, and began to say so. Rinpoche ignored me and continued to read, mahamudra, dzogchen, dzogchen, mahamudra, back and forth—for half an hour or more.

Eventually he stopped, looked at me, and asked, “Do you understand?”

At the end of his commentary on verse 19, Ken shares this anecdote, which begins with a very familiar anxiety: “I might be missing something.” Shortly after completing the three-year retreat, he still wonders whether there is some crucial instruction, some hidden distinction, some deeper level that he has not yet received.

I find myself relating to this very strongly. Over the years, again and again I've had the feeling that somewhere there might be instructions that would work like a Rosetta Stone, decoding or illuminating experiences that don’t sit comfortably within descriptions of effects and results of practice, and releasing deep reactive patterns that keep reemerging. I've explored more than one ultimately fruitless rabbit hole searching for such keys. Then, through pure serendipity, I encountered Ken's anecdote.

Kalu Rinpoche’s response is wonderfully indirect. He doesn’t answer Ken’s question. He doesn’t explain the relationship between mahamudra and dzogchen or offer a philosophical comparison. Instead, he keeps reading instruction after instruction, refusing to let Ken settle into categories. Mahamudra. Dzogchen. Dzogchen. Mahamudra. Back and forth until the distinctions begin to lose their solidity. It feels as though Rinpoche is responding to Ken’s search for certainty by wearing out the mind that wants to classify, compare, conclude, and know the answer.

This anecdote touched a very tender place. Ken wanted to be sure he hadn't missed anything. I recognised that impulse immediately. My version of it has been, “I want to find a teaching or a practice that provides the missing piece.”

Ken comments that he is familiar with the instructions Rinpoche is reading. His frustration is palpable; he can distinguish one set of instructions from another. But Kalu Rinpoche seems to be pointing to something else. When he finally asks, “Do you understand?” it's not a test of knowledge. It's invitation to stop looking elsewhere. Searching for the perfect map is the very thing obscuring the territory.

Ken doesn't reveal how he answered, and Rinpoche’s question is left hanging in the air. Do we understand? Not the difference between mahamudra and dzogchen, but the nature of the doubt that keeps asking whether there is something else, somewhere else, that we still need to find or acquire.

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Luminosity is Not a Light Show

Teachers do their best to convey what cannot be expressed in words, but the words can still get in the way. References to the luminosity of mind have always puzzled me, but Ken’s explanation in this class on the Ganges Mahamudra helped me "get" what this points to. Luminosity is not a light show. As Ken put it, "There's a clarity which arises as a knowing," and "It's the knowing quality that's always there in every experience."

From Ganges Mahamudra 2

Ken: What would it be like to have such familiarity with that empty, knowing quality of our experience that we could just experience everything and know that it was all just experience? What would it be like to live that way? This is really what we're pointing to. So we come back here:

Space has no color or shape.
It does not change.

And as I said, and it's a highly non-trivial point, because there is nothing there to change.

It does not take on a color, either black or white.
Likewise, your own mind, in essence, has no color or shape.
It does not change because you do good or evil.

So how many of you have a negative self-image? Hands up. Come on, let's be honest here. About half the class. How many of you have a positive self-image? A few. Okay. So you've got no basis for either of them. Well, there isn't any thing there.

The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim the brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun.

"The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim the brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun." A thousand eons, that's a very long time.

Let's take a more concrete example. Let's take a tomb, which was constructed a few centuries ago. And there's been absolutely no light in the tomb. And you find yourself—like Indiana Jones through a very intricate set of tunnels—in this room. And there hasn't been any light in this room for centuries. And you turn on your cell phone. You light a match or whatever. How long does it take for that darkness to be dispelled?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Where there's light, there's light. That's it.

Likewise, eons of samsara

For samsara, you can read, "habituated patterned existence." You can say your whole life. Okay.

Cannot dim the sheer clarity that is the essence of your own mind.

Now, the term in Tibetan is ’od gsal (pron: ösel). I can't remember what it is in Sanskrit. It's often translated as clear light. It's also translated as luminosity, or pellucidness, or various obscure words. Clear light, which is a literal translation of the Tibetan ’od gsal, is not inaccurate, but it does have the idea that there's some kind of light. Right?

And so, how many of you seek some kind of brilliant light experience in your meditation? Or you think that's what should happen, like the world should dissolve into light. I had a student who was saying, "You know, I'm just waiting for the blue flash of light. It's like a KMart special."

That's not what sheer clarity refers to.

Once again, look at your mind, or we could say, look at your experience, because they're not different. Now, when you look, as we've discussed earlier, you see nothing. But if I asked you, "Is that an experience of blankness?" what would you say? Anybody? Nava, your turn.

Nava: I'd say no, it's not an experience of blackness.

Ken: Blankness, or blackness. Okay, say more. And I know this is difficult to describe.

Nava: First of all, it changed the course of whatever happened before for me. Something stops, and there is movement.

Ken: So, what knows this? [Pause]

Now, right there, there's something which we can't put into words, but that is what the words "sheer clarity" are pointing to. There's a clarity which arises as a knowing, it arises as experience, but—and I don't know really how to put this into words myself either—but it's not blank.

So, when I ask Nava here, what knows this? And I've asked you this with respect to others. What knows this? Well, there is the experience of knowing. There is the experience of being aware. Everybody with me on that one? Okay.

That's what the sheer clarity—I chose the word "sheer" rather than say "clear light," because when we talk about a sheer cliff, it just goes shoom, and it just drops straight down. And so I used the word "sheer" to get at the nothing-to-it quality. And yet, that knowing's there, even though there's nothing to it. Does this fit with your experience? Yeah.

Now, it's a very subtle thing, and it's always there. Even when you're experiencing really turgid dullness in your meditation, where the mind just seems like completely black, all you have to do is ask, "What knows this?" and it's there.

That's what the sheer clarity is pointing to. And we've been emphasizing up to this point the space-like quality, but there's also this—radiant is almost too strong a word because you have this idea there should be something shining out of it. And as one's relationship deepens—and that can be brought out in various ways—it can, as you know it more and more clearly, have a radiant quality to it. But it's not like bright lights going off and wiping everything out. It's the knowing quality that's always there in every experience. Does that help?

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How to Look

From Aspirations for Mahamudra:

Look at objects and there is no object: one sees mind;
Look at mind and there is no mind: it is empty of nature;
Look at both of these and dualistic clinging subsides on its own.
May I know sheer clarity, the way mind is.

Here are instructions from three teachers on how to look at mind. This is gold.

From How to Look at the Mind, Donna McLaughlin

Be with the spaciousness of the sky.

Can you find where the sky begins or ends?

If anything appears in the sky leave it alone the way the sky does.

If something appears in the sky, does it leave a solid imprint on the sky?

Do the appearances leave a solid imprint?

Do the objects do anything to the sky to change it or affect it?

Rest like the sky, open to whatever appears.

From The View and Practice of Trekchö, James Low

The mind and the content of the mind are not things to be put on different shelves. When you have the mind, you have the content of the mind. Thoughts and feelings are not the problem. They're not something to be got rid of. They are how the mind shows itself. So what is the mind? Then we have to look again and again.

Where do we look? We look at the thought, we look at the feeling, at the sensation. But when I say we look at it, again it's not looking at it like something there. It's looking at it by being present with it.

So we're sitting in the practice. Something is occurring. We're there. What are we there as? We're aware. What is this awareness? It's not consciousness making sense of something, interpreting it, telling a narrative, a cognitive analysis of it. It's just registering or showing the way the mirror shows the reflection of what's inside it.

Awareness shows the content, but the awareness is not a thing. You can't pull it out from the thought. You can pull attention out from the thought.

If you keep getting caught up in thoughts, you can gently grasp your attention and bring it back. In Tibetan it's called dremba, which means like a memory or recollection. In Pali and Sanskrit it's sati.

Sati is the basis for the modern notion of mindfulness. When you're mindful, it means you have a recollection, a re-collecting of yourself moment by moment in the face of the tendency to merge in whatever is occurring. So the Satipatthana Sutra is describing how through attention to the body and the breath and so on, again and again there is the risk of being caught up, merged in what is going on.

And you call yourself back to where you always have been.

From Ganges Mahamudra 2, Ken McLeod

What Tilopa moves to now is: how do you cultivate? How do you create the conditions in your own life so that that possibility grows, evolves, and becomes more and more how you experience things. He says:

Stop all physical activity.

Stop running around.

Sit naturally at ease.

And people would work very, very hard at training their bodies, so they could sit absolutely at ease. It’s not that easy, for many people, you know. You can’t just sit and just let the body be quiet. We always have to be doing something.

Do not talk or speak: let sound be empty, like an echo.

Now, when people say something, we think, “Oh, what did they say?” But when we hear an echo, we don’t pay any attention, it’s just, “Oh, that was …,” like that. So, the way to relate here is to learn to relate to all sound as an echo. So it doesn’t stimulate a reaction in you.

Do not think about anything: look beyond experience.

That’s basically what I’ve been trying to show you how to do most of this evening. And the versification here is rather arbitrary, one could move lines around, because Tilopa now shifts again. When you do these three things: you stop all physical activity, you sit naturally at ease, you stop talking and just let sound be empty, like an echo, you stop thinking about things. Thoughts may come, but you stop thinking about things. And you look beyond experience, that looking quality which we’ve been engaging again and again tonight.

And going a little further, you can say, you learn how to rest, and in that resting you look. And as you develop that ability to look, then you learn how to rest in the looking. So, you look in the resting, and rest in the looking. That’s probably one of the best formulations of mahamudra practice I’ve found yet. It comes from a book called Clarifying the Natural State. Look in the resting, rest in the looking.

When you do this, then you’ll start to experience things like this:

Your body has no core, hollow like a bamboo.

Now, this isn’t a statement of fact, it’s a description of experience. And so you sit, and now you experience, “Oh, my body’s there, but there’s nothing to it.” And that is how you experience the body when the mind rests.

Your mind is beyond thought, open like space.

And several of you touched into that this evening. So, when you start to experience things that way:

Let go of control and rest right there.

That’s the hard part for a lot of us. Because, “Oh, I want to hold on to this.” Well, sorry, but you just started trying to control your experience. Or “I want to go a little deeper.” Uh, you just tried to control your experience.

So what this kind of meditation consists of is moving in and resting. And all the stuff: “I want this! I want that! I want more of this!” and things like that. You gotta just keep letting that go, as it arises.

Let go of control and rest right there.
Mind without reference is mahamudra.

And we could equally say, experience without reference is mahamudra.

Instill this deeply and supreme awakening results.

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No Big Deal

In this passage from Buddhahood Without Meditation, Ken is steering people away from treating direct awareness as something to produce, monitor, fine-tune, or possess. The phrase “Direct awareness is no big deal,” from his translation of Revelations of Ever-Present Good, can perhaps be understood as a deliberate antidote to spiritual ambition. Ken’s point is that because it is already here, direct awareness is not something to attain, but we keep trying to achieve it nonetheless.

This passage also helps me understand why Ken is wary of “observing” in the usual sense. “Be what knows the arising.” The point is not to become a skilful tracker of every thought and feeling. Instead, be awake in whatever is happening. No spacing out. No suppressing. No trying to manipulate experience. The image of standing “like an oak stake in hard ground” carries a strong, resilient simplicity.

Sukhasiddhi’s instruction gathers the whole thing into three lines:

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

For me, that “relax” is crucial, but relaxing is not drifting off or going blank. It means I have to drop the wishful thinking that understanding will dawn through conceptual clarity. It means I have to stop meddling.

From Buddhahood Without Meditation 6

Ken:

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.

Revelations of Ever-Present Good

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.

Ann: Didn’t you recommend that in the case of dullness that looking at what experiences the arising could be helpful?

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.

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No Dos or Don’ts in a Burning World

Complete—all teachings on behaviour end up in no dos or don’ts.

From: Revelations of Ever-Present Good, Jigme Lingpa.

This line from Ken’s translation of Jigme Lingpa’s poem is particularly enigmatic in today's world.

We are living through a convergence of upheavals—ecological collapse, political fragmentation, social polarisation, economic instability, and a lost sense of living in a meaningful, sacred world. Everywhere we look, there are urgent calls for action and for taking a stand. In these difficult circumstances, “no dos or don’ts” can sound not only impractical, but irresponsible.

Yet the point here is not the abandoning of ethics. It’s the end of relying on fixed notions of right and wrong as a way to navigate experience. We already know what happens when we rely on formulas.

Ken's book, A Trackless Path, is a commentary on Revelations of Ever-Present Good. As he points out in the commentary, moral systems organise belonging. They define who is right and who is wrong, who is inside and who is outside. In doing so, they generate cohesion—but also division. In the current climate, this dynamic is amplified everywhere. Positions harden. Identities form. The defence of what is “right” easily becomes the justification for dismissing or attacking others.

In the commentary Ken quotes Manhae (Han Yong-un, 1879–1944), a Korean Buddhist monk, poet, and independence activist. A key figure in modern Korean literature, Manhae's poetry explores love, loss, and awakening while also expressing Korea’s experience under Japanese occupation. He helped reform Korean Buddhism to re-engage with society and was imprisoned for his role in the 1919 independence movement.

Yes, I understand ethics, morality, law are nothing but the smoke worshipping the sword and gold.

Everything Yearned For, Manhae, Francisca Cho (translator)

Manhae’s line is not a rejection of ethics. It’s a recognition of how easily ethics becomes entangled with power, fear, and self-interest. And we see this not only in politics or institutions, but in the spiritual sphere as well.

So where does that leave us?

If we abandon external rules and cannot rely on shared moral ground, what guides action?

Ken’s answer is uncompromising: live from knowing. Not from conceptual knowing about what is right, not by applying a framework, not by aligning with a position—but meeting what arises directly, and responding from that immediacy.

This sounds simple. In practice, it is anything but, because we inevitably meet fear, anger, and grief. We fear the future; we fear loss and instability. We experience anger at injustice, indifference, and systems that seem beyond reach. We meet grief—often unacknowledged—for what is lost. And woven through these emotions are deeply conditioned patterns that shape what we see, what we feel, and what we do, often before we are even aware of it.

As Ken puts it:

Ordinarily, what I say or do in any moment is largely shaped by emotional and biological conditioning. Like the tectonic plates that make up the surface of this planet, reactive patterns shift and move inside me in ways that I can neither control nor predict. These movements may open fissures in my personality into which I tumble out of control. They may cause massive earthquakes that shake me to my core as different patterns collide and fracture. The notion that “I” exist as a seamlessly integrated personality is a Platonic pipe dream. All I can do is meet what does arise, open, and stand there until a way is clear. There is no guarantee that things will not turn out badly in a conventional sense. When they do, I meet that situation and then the next, learning in the process how to make similar occurrences less likely. Anything else seems arbitrary, contrived and self-serving.

A Trackless Path, Ken McLeod, p. 70

To live with “no dos or don’ts” means stepping into all of this without the protection of a script, without ethical systems that tell us what to do, without ideologies that tell us where to stand, and without dogmas that tell us what to believe. Without these, we are left exposed to the full complexity of each moment. And yet, this exposure makes a different kind of response possible.

Ken describes it as moving in the direction of balance and making ongoing adjustments. In this sense, the question is not, “What is the right thing to do?” It is, “What does this situation call for, when I am not defending an identity, a position, or a belief?”

Sometimes the response will look like action, sometimes like restraint, and it may be clumsy, incomplete, or even wrong in conventional terms. Closely connected with this is learning from mistakes. As Ken says, in session 4 of a retreat called A Trackless Path:

If you do something and you learn from it, no big problem. I mean it may be a problem, but if you do the same thing three times and you still don’t learn from it, now you have a really big problem.

So, there are no guarantees, and this is perhaps the hardest part to accept. In a world that feels unstable and deteriorating, we want certainty that our actions will lead to good outcomes. We want assurance that we are on the right side of history, or morality, or truth. Living without dos or don'ts offers no such assurance.

Instead, it asks that we do not turn away from what is in front of us, and that we respond from the clearest knowing available, again and again. Not as a principle. Not as an identity. But as a practice.

This does not resolve the crises we face. But it may change how we meet them. And that, in turn, has ripple effects.

p.s. Writing this reflection reminded me of Ekla Chalo Re, one of the most famous poems by Rabindranath Tagore, the renowned Bengali poet, philosopher, and Nobel laureate. "Ekla Chalo Re" translates to "walk alone" or "go alone." He wrote the poem during the Indian independence movement. It reflects the spirit of fearlessness that dawns with clear knowing. Here is a version performed by Shreya Ghoshal with Bengali lyrics, English translation, and some quotes from Rabindranath Tagore.

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When Translation Meets Practice

Recently Ken published How to Lose Your Mind in the practice materials on the Unfettered Mind website, and he has been commenting on Gampopa's text in a series of newsletters. I then had the good fortune of stumbling across Eric Pema Kunzang's translation of the same text in Perfect Clarity: A Tibetan Buddhist Anthology of Mahamudra and Dzogchen.

Ken provides a link to the Tibetan root text, so I was able to give ChatGPT the Tibetan as well as both Ken and Eric's translations. ChatGPT commented that Eric's translation is "clear, respectful of tradition, slightly formal, and requires some background, while Ken's tone is direct and experiential—almost like he’s talking to you in retreat." Eric gives the architecture: cause, condition, method, path, fruition; disturbing and harmonious experiences; stillness, emptiness, attainment, and release. There is clarity in that. It lets me see the bones of the instruction and recognise its place in the Mahamudra tradition. But Ken’s translation brings the text into my heart.

Where Eric writes “nonfabrication,” Ken writes “this unaffected mind.” Where Eric writes “freeing concepts into dharmata,” Ken writes “this freeing of mind in empty experience.” Where Eric gives “disturbing experiences,” Ken gives “unconducive energy shifts”—including unstable attention, illness, panic attacks, and doubts. Suddenly the text is not speaking in codified and often self-referential language from a distant world. It is speaking to the actual texture of practice: what happens in the body, in attention, in fear, in discouragement, in the subtle ways we interfere with experience.

As someone who cannot read Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan or Chinese, I am utterly dependent on translators. Even with the help of ChatGPT, I have no possibility of understanding root texts. I don't know the range of a Tibetan word, or when a phrase is technical, poetic, ordinary, or deliberately paradoxical. So translators are not just carrying words across from one language to another; they are mediating our practice worlds. This makes translation style profoundly important.

A literal or tradition-preserving translation can be valuable, especially for those who are at ease with traditional vocabulary, or feel drawn to precise maps of practice. But I need language that shows me what to do when I practise, and helps me recognise what is happening. I need translation to reflect lived experience rather than adhere to standardised, technical terms.

Ken’s experiential style does that. His language points less to concepts and more to movements: mind resting, presence emptying, knowing arriving, clinging unwinding. These are not abstract ideas. They feel like things I might notice, return to, deepen, and not mistake for the end of the path.

The experiential style of translation is like ambrosia to me. Rather than aiming to preserve a sacred vocabulary, it functions to awaken recognition. For anyone who relies on translation as a bridge into practice, this matters enormously. A traditional translation may tell us what the teaching is. The experiential language helps us enter it.

Here are a few examples to illustrate how translation styles differ depending on the orientation of the translator.

Eric Pema Kunzang

The Single Sufficient Path of Mahamudra

Ken McLeod

The Pure Essence of Mind, The One and Only Path of Mahamudra

Mahamudra has no method, yet nonfabrication is the method.

Although mahamudra has no method, this unaffected mind is a method.

Mahamudra has no fruition, yet freeing concepts into dharmata is the fruition.

Although mahamudra has no result, this freeing of mind in empty experience is the result.

As the main practice, settle the mind in the state of nonfabrication and embrace it with nondistraction.

For the main matter, consistently place mind without distraction and rest without affectation.

The first harmonious experience is the occurrence of stillness; from this, the experience of the empty essence follows.

For conducive energy shifts, first the shift into mind resting arises, then the shift into presence emptying, then the shift into knowing arriving, and then the shift into clinging unwinding.

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Meeting Bitterness

In this passage from Buddhahood Without Meditation, Ken describes, with unflinching honesty, feeling crushed by the difficulties he experienced in his practice. Bitterness took root because he became convinced that doors were forever closed to him. His poignant insights on how to meet bitterness speak deeply to my own experience.

Slowly, over many years, I came to understand how much of my life has been shaped by core reactive patterns. Their reach is terrifyingly pervasive, influencing layer upon layer of decisions and commitments. Then, at some point, the impact of those core patterns came sharply into view. Although I'm less reactive now than 10 or 20 years ago, I'm still living a life shaped by earlier patterns, and by choices I would not have made with hindsight. With that clarity came bitterness, and meeting that bitterness has proved more difficult that I ever imagined.

Ken’s emphasis on view has been helpful. First, his reminder that bitterness has to be experienced fully whenever it arises. If not experienced, it leaches out into interactions and relationships, colouring them in ways that lead away from what we intend. Secondly, Ken highlights the importance of holding open the possibility that a difficulty is not final. It may feel claustrophobic and absolute, like a verdict, yet other possibilities remain. They may be barely visible, no more than a crack in a door. But remembering that tiny crack keeps the heart from closing completely, and an open heart makes it possible for what now seems fixed to soften with time.

From Buddhahood Without Meditation 8

Ken: What kind of beast is a difficulty in practice?

Student: It's an experience.

Ken: Difficulty in practice is an experience.

Ken: I encountered in my own practice and still do, really, really great difficulties. And there was at that point, no way to regard them as just as an experience. It was overwhelmingly difficult. Physically and emotionally I was just crushed. And just to sit there and go, "This is just an experience," that just didn't work for me at all. They were sufficiently challenging, should I say, that I felt that there was no possibility—this was a bit over 20 years ago now—of ever making progress again, that the doors were forever closed. One of the consequences of that was a bitterness in my heart, whose depths I could not even begin to plumb. It was just there.

I was wrong on all accounts, but that took a lot of time before that was revealed. I bring this up for two reasons. One, when I say difficulty in practice is an experience I don't mean this in any trivial or glib way. Even the harshest and most devastating of difficulties is, in the end, an experience.

And the second reason I bring it up is that, even when you don't know it at the time—this is where the practice of view comes in—hold it out as a possibility so that things don't completely close down in you. That closing down is actually quite problematic. I've seen it in a lot of people who've also encountered some difficulties. It's good to keep the door open, even if it's only a crack, and it may only be a crack. And that's why view or outlook is very important.

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When Old Patterns Loosen

Practice can release energy locked in old conditioning, and it helps to let this energy spread evenly through the whole body. Otherwise it can concentrate, stagnate, tip into imbalance, and feed more reactivity. My experience has been that the breaking up of deeply entrenched reactive patterns happens unpredictably and can take years, decades, or a lifetime. As patterns fall apart, all kinds of experiences can arise: clarity, intensity, agitation, vulnerability, confusion—even feelings of craziness.

This guided meditation from A Trackless Path I has been very helpful to me over the years because it takes us through an energy dispersion practice that can help to balance unruly energy. I’ve found this practice immensely valuable, not just on retreats, but also as part of daily practice when life feels like a rollercoaster or like riding a wild horse. Ken explains this in great detail in When Energy Runs Wild.

I've found that when a part of a deeply conditioned pattern is dissolving or releasing, it doesn't need interpretation. It needs space, patience, and a way for the energy to redistribute itself. As Ken says, "It is best to move in the direction of balance."

From A Trackless Path I, 15

Ken: So, let’s just let the mind settle. Body on the cushion. Mind in the body. And relaxation in the mind.

[Bell]

I’m going to take you through an energy dispersion exercise for balancing energy at the end of sitting practice—often helpful in retreat situations or intensive practice situations.

So, let the body settle. Let the breath settle. And let the mind and heart settle. [Pause]

Then let your attention drop to the dantien, the center of your body, four fingers below your navel, a couple of inches in front of your spine, right in the center of your body. And feel energy gathering there.

You may feel that part of your body getting a little heavier. Maybe there’s a slight kinesthetic sensation. Maybe you have your own way of experiencing energy. Just feel energy collecting there, following the general principle of energy follows attention. [Pause]

Let your attention widen. And feel the energy spreading from the dantien throughout lower torso, and abdomen. Up into the upper abdomen and chest. Down into the pelvic region and the legs. Right down the legs to the toes, feet and toes. Now into your arms and down into your hands and right up into your head. Energy spreading gently, smoothly, through the whole body. [Pause]

And then feel the energy coming out of the pores of your skin all over your body, evenly, so that you come to be sitting in a field of energy that extends two or three inches beyond your body. Top and bottom, front, back, both sides, all over. And just sit for a few minutes in that field of energy. [Pause]

Then let it go. And rest for a minute or two. [Pause]

And again, bring your energy to the center of your body. Four fingers below the navel and a couple of inches in front of your spine, and feel energy gathering there again. [Pause]

And again, feel the energy spreading all through your torso and abdomen up into the chest, down into the pelvis, into the arms and legs and up into your head. [Pause]

So energy spreads evenly through your whole body. And feel the energy coming out of the pores of your skin, in front of your body and the back, top of the head, bottom of your legs and feet, arms, so you come to be sitting in a field of energy that extends two or three inches away from your body. [Pause]

Then let it all go and just rest. [Pause]

And once more, feel energy collecting in the dantien. Let it spread through all your body, abdomen, the torso, arms, legs, head. [Pause]

Feel it come out of the pores of your skin. And you’re sitting in a field of energy that extends two or three inches away from your body, evenly all over your whole body. And just rest there. [Pause]

[Three bells]

Now this is a simple dispersion exercise. As I said before, dispersion here doesn’t mean dissipating the energy. It means spreading it uniformly through the whole system so that imbalances are evened out, it doesn’t stagnate anywhere, cause problems. You can use this dispersion exercise after periods of meditation just to balance energy. And it’s particularly useful in retreat settings like this where one’s been practicing a lot. The level of energy has been raised. Sometimes imbalances have set up in the course of the day. But spread this out and it may help one to sleep more easily and peacefully rather than being a bit wired.

This is quite a safe technique. There are no inherent dangers in it that I know of. And if you’re feeling very high states of energy, you can extend it further than two or three inches. You can take it out six inches, or even six feet or more. So you just have this feeling of being in an even field of energy which is commensurate with what you’re feeling. And you’ll know how far to take it out by how you feel. It’s when you just begin to settle and feel in balance that will tell you that that’s the right distance to take it. And again, you’re not removing energy from your body, you’re creating a larger and larger field. So, again I want to emphasize this isn’t about dissipating the energy, but dispersing it so that it can balance out.

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No Enemy, No Separation

I’ve noticed that non-duality has become a kind of spiritual umbrella term. It can sound like a special state, a metaphysical concept, or a badge of accomplishment. By contrast, Ken has an uncommon knack for finding plain, experiential language: “nothing to push against,” “no separation,” “no enemy.” This language feels closer to practice and speaks to me much more deeply.

In the opening session of There Is No Enemy, Ken reveals that a shift in his own practice came through “really experiencing that there was just nothing to push against.” Towards the end of the session, and on several other occasions, he says that when attention rests in the experience of breathing, there is “less separation.”

Further into the retreat, in session 5, Ken says, “An enemy is an experience, not a fact.” That feels to me like one of the clearest ways of talking about what others might call non-dual understanding. The problem is not simply that we divide the world into subject and object in some philosophical sense. It is that we turn parts of experience into enemies. We set ourselves against what is arising, inwardly or outwardly, because something in us cannot bear to feel it, receive it, or make room for it.

Seen this way, no separation is the lived absence of opposition, what remains when there is nothing to push against. Distinctions still exist. Pain is still pain, conflict is still conflict, difficulty is still difficulty. But the habitual move of making an enemy, of hardening into self here and problem there, begins to relax.

Ken keeps bringing me back to lived experience. Not to an ultimate truth or absolute view, but to this breath, this contraction, this resistance, my habit of trying to get something out of my world. His use of language helps me sense what becomes possible when there is less and less separation.

From There Is No Enemy 1

Ken: So welcome to the fall retreat here at Mt. Baldy Zen Center. As you all know, the topic for the retreat is, There Is No Enemy.

Now, I’ll be quite up front with you. Exactly what we’ll be doing, I have some ideas, but we will see as it unfolds, because this will be the first time I’ve actually approached this topic in a retreat. And as Carrie said earlier, in a certain sense you’re all guinea pigs. But basically everybody who ever comes to retreat with me is a guinea pig because I very rarely do the same thing twice, so it’s always a bit of an experiment.

This phrase, there is no enemy, came up very much from my own experience. A bit over a year ago, I experienced a very significant shift in my practice, which was very deep and very disconcerting, because I’d just finished a ten-day retreat in New Mexico with a group of eighteen people, teaching them mahamudra. There’s a three-day break between retreats where I was hanging out with a couple of people who were there for both retreats, and then I was to do another ten-day retreat with a different group of people on dzogchen. And in the middle of this break, everything just shifted in me. And I no longer had any idea what I was going to teach in the second retreat. So it was very irritating—or not exactly irritating, just like, “Okay, now what?”

And the shift had a lot to do with really experiencing that there was just nothing to push against. And it was sometime during that time this phrase just came to mind, there is no enemy.

And I looked it up on Google and there was nothing. It is actually not a common phrase at all. Though it is now the name of an album put out by a rock band in Des Moines, Iowa. So if you look it up on Google, that’s what you’re going to get. And Google’s full of that stuff. But the album, or the group, is very honest, they say, “This is an album name, it is not a philosophy.” So I’m going to say, “This is a philosophy, not an album name.” [Laughter]

For most of us, there’s definitely a posture of opposition deeply, deeply conditioned. I was reading something on more of this brain imaging stuff and running some experiments on brain imaging with people watching sports. How if they’re watching a sports event between two teams from two different cities that they didn’t belong to, they just watched it and there was no particular brain activity in a certain region. But when one of the teams was from their city, then a whole other area of the brain lit up. Now, it’s very uncertain what the lighting up of the brain actually means in these PET scans. There’s a lot of speculation. But it does possibly suggest that this tribal identification, “us vs. them,” is very, very deeply conditioned in us, both biologically through evolution, psychologically, emotionally, etc. Yet it’s functional in a certain way in that it creates group cohesion which enhances survival, etc. But it also is the source of a great deal of suffering for ourselves and others, as all of us know.

So what we’re doing in spiritual practice, generally speaking, is trying to find a way to come to terms with this experience we call life. And all of you are here because you think that by attending this retreat it’s going help you in some way: either learn some skills, or build some capacities, or gain some insights or something like that, which will help you negotiate this experience in a better way. And I’m going to leave “better” here very, very undefined.

Now, we run into all kinds of things in the context of spiritual practice, many of which I’ve come to question quite deeply. One which I let go of a long time ago was the idea that all spiritual practices lead to the same thing. You know, there’s one enlightenment and, you know, it’s the same for everybody who experiences it. Ah, well maybe, but I don’t think so.

A few years ago I received an email inviting me to participate in a film project that was going to discuss the common vision of non-duality that was present in all spiritual traditions. I’m not that well known in North America, so I was very surprised to get this invitation. So I emailed back and said, “I’m very happy to, feel quite honored by this; however, in the spirit of full disclosure what you’re taking as a fact, I regard as a question.” Fifteen minutes later my phone rang. “What!?” was basically what the other person was saying. And we had a rather difficult conversation, which basically ended when I said, “Look let’s get down to basics. If you and I take a slice of pie from the same strawberry pie and each of us eat it, we actually have no idea whether we have the same experience or not. And if that’s the case for strawberry pie, I can’t see it’s going to be any different for non-dualistic vision, or whatever.” And there was sort of a grunt at the other end and we concluded the phone call. And an hour later I got an email saying that, “You’re right, you’re probably not the right person for this movie.” [Laughter] How to win friends and influence people: do not study with me.

So, I think it’s very important to keep that general aim in mind. In Buddhism, the aim is generally described as ending suffering. And people have many, many ideas about what that means. And a lot of people think you reach a state where you simply don’t suffer anymore, and so it’s a case of achieving a state. That may happen for some people. I’ve heard people describe that for them. I’m not sure that it happens for everybody. I’m not sure that it can happen for everybody. And my own feeling is that when we talk about ending suffering, it’s about learning how to live life a different way, so that the ending of suffering takes place moment to moment.

And to give you a very simple example of that, how many of you have had the experience of getting carried away by a thought and getting into quite a negative state because of that? [Laughter] Okay. So, there, ending suffering means being able to just experience that negative thought and not get all wrapped up in it and allowing it to propagate, etc.

Now I’m feeling somewhat sheepish teaching this retreat because I had a two-week experience of getting completely wrapped up with certain thoughts about AT&T. And I spent two weeks absolutely in full rage. Angry enough that people were hanging up on me at the other end of the phone, because they managed to do everything that irritated me. And eventually their corporate process ground through so everything got fixed and it’s all working now. So now I feel rather sheepish about the whole thing. But, yeah, I mean we create an awful lot of suffering not just for ourselves but for other people by not being able to experience certain things.

So one of the central theses of this retreat, and it’s something that I’ve certainly found through my own experience, is that the notion of enemy—of something opposing us—arises because in the interaction with whatever that is, a feeling comes up in us which we are unable to experience, for whatever reason. And me being without the internet was an intolerable experience for me. Because I do a lot of work through email and things like that so I just felt like. And if I’d been smart I would have said, “Oh, I’m without internet for a few days. Cool.” But since I’d been away for a month and I needed to catch up with like 300 emails I wasn’t too cool about that.

So there’s that experience in ourselves that we can’t experience and whatever is bringing up that experience we label as enemy. And now we try to get that out of our experience completely. So one of the things, as a kind of framework this evening, I want to offer a kind of systems perspective on this. I’m going to give you three definitions here: a definition of relationship, a definition of conflict, and a definition of enemy which we’ll be using in the context of this retreat.

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Two Temptations

Reflecting on Seek Knowing, Not Truth by Ken McLeod showed me how often I succumb to the temptation of looking for an explanation when something hurts or feels confusing. I want an interpretation or a framework so that I can feel oriented. The habit of seeking "truth" is a pull towards certainty, a wish to pin things down, reach the right conclusion, and to feel nourished and protected by it.

I’m also prone to the other temptation he describes: a collapse into distrust, cynicism, and, sometimes even nihilism. If every formulation is limited, then why trust anyone or anything, why commit to anything, why not retreat into bitterness and despair, or decide to do whatever I damn well please?

And yet I know that practice points in a different direction altogether—towards meeting the movements of fear, projection, and reactivity directly, rather than trying to secure them in belief or dismiss them in cynicism. Practice asks me to know what is here without turning it into something to cling to or a target to attack.

Then there’s Ken's description of lineage, not as the handing down of truth, but as the passing on of methods. This way of viewing lineage feels so alive. It leaves room for respect without idealisation, and for discovery without self-importance.

From Seek Knowing, Not Truth

A king, disenchanted with his subjects’ dishonesty, decided to force them to tell the truth. When the city gates were opened one morning, gallows had been erected in front of them. A captain of the royal guard stood by. A herald announced, “Whoever will enter the city must first answer a question which will be put to them by the captain of the guard.”

Mullah Nasrudin, who had been waiting outside the gates of the city, stepped forward first. The captain spoke: “Where are you going? Tell the truth … the alternative is death by hanging.”

“I am going,” said Nasrudin, “to be hanged on those gallows.”

“I don’t believe you!” replied the guard.

Nasrudin calmly replied, “Very well then. If I have told a lie, hang me!”

“But that would make it the truth!” said the confused guard.

“Exactly,” said Nasrudin, “your truth.”

“Why do I have to experience this?”

That’s where it all starts, isn’t it? The this may be many things: suffering, loss, confusion, an unnamable angst, etc. Right away, you have to make a choice. Do you look for a formula that explains this (i.e., look for “The Truth”) or do you look for a way to know this completely? Watch out. In going after “The Truth,” you are sailing headlong into the Straits of Messina where Scylla and Charybdis—two monsters from Greek mythology—lie waiting.

The reliance on formulaic or conceptually based “truth” is one of the diseases of modernism. It takes expression in the two great religions of today: fundamentalism and materialism. Both seek to justify themselves through reason and logic. Materialists use the belief that “Only that which can be measured is real” to define their world. They worship science, which sees “The Truth” in the construction of models that account for what is measured. Fundamentalists (religious, economic, or political) use the recorded word of God, of Buddha, of Mohammed, Adam Smith, Lenin, or whomever, to define their world. Belief in the recorded word leads to “The Truth”, but it is usually belief in just those passages that embody their inherent prejudices. Both materialism and fundamentalism are closed systems that rely on conceptual processes, restrict the scope of inquiry and reflection, and marginalize other perspectives. Like Scylla, they are multi-headed monsters that attack anything (outside or inside) that asks basic questions about their approaches to life.

Opposite the Scylla of modernism lies the Charybdis of post-modernism, the questioning of any claim to objective “Truth”. Post-modernism sees all worldviews as constructions that arise from historical processes, and, as such, as a function of power rather than truth.

Because there is no objective reality, worldviews are constructed. Constructed worldviews embody the power and interests of those who build them. Therefore, they are inherently oppressive. Because they are oppressive, they should be taken apart (deconstructed). Deconstruction shows that all worldviews are relative. Hence, there is no objective reality. Because there is no objective reality, worldviews are constructed. Constructed world views…

This circular thinking leads nowhere and people are sucked into a whirlpool of nihilism, cynicism, and despair.

Many cultures and traditions find these waters difficult to navigate. Islam today faces exactly these issues and I’ve based the above critiques on this essay.

Buddhism has never postulated a “Truth” existing apart from experience itself. The respective lineages offer tools for a more mundane aim: to know whatever arises in experience, free from the projections of thought and emotion. Whether through the Theravadan practices of bare attention (mindfulness), the Mahayana practice of awakening to experience (bodhicitta), or the Vajrayana practices of direct awareness (mahamudra, dzogchen), the aim is one and the same: natural knowing that is not separate from experience.

Many people don’t know what to make of this possibility. Unable to fit natural knowing into their usual frame of reference, they react with suspicion and fear. In looking for a reference point that is more familiar, they conceptualize the result of practice as “The Truth” or some other ideal. Modernist tendencies kick in. “The Truth” becomes an object, either of scientific investigation or of belief.

To counteract this objectifying tendency, students are often told just to trust the lineage as the guarantee of transmission from an enlightened master to a perfectly devoted disciple. Two problems now arise. First, the sanctity of transmission sends a hidden message: what was once discovered cannot now be discovered again. Second, disillusionment inevitably sets in when the teacher turns out to be something less than their idea of an enlightened master and the student fails to be the perfectly devoted disciple. Unable to trust either their own experience or the lineage, they succumb to the bitterness of post-modern cynicism and despair.

Lineage is not the passing on of “The Truth” from one generation to another. It is the passing on of the methods, the tools, with which you uncover and live this natural knowing. Then you see that things are neither true nor not true, they just are. You see that things always change, that emotional reactions to change are suffering, and that you are not an entity that exists in opposition to experience.

You see that this knowing is there for anyone who makes the same efforts. It is not the result of reasoning. It is not the result of belief. It is not the property of those in power. Nor can it be used to oppress or control. Increasingly you appreciate not only the wisdom and understanding of those who have come before you, but their courage and efforts in letting so much conditioning and projection fall away. In this way, a clear open appreciation of lineage arises in you and a door to still deeper knowing opens.

A Chinese master lay dying. A close student, fearful that his teacher would die before he had understood what is ultimately true, came to him, and asked, “Dear master, please tell me the first truth.”

The old man smiled and said, “I will.”

Days passed, and the master’s life continued to wane. Again, the student approached. “Please, master, please tell me the first truth.”

“I will,” said his teacher, “but this is not the time.”

Soon after, the signs that death would soon claim him were clearly evident. Desperate, the student approached him a third time with the same request.

With his last ounce of strength, the master looked gently at him, gazing with an extraordinary clarity deep into the student’s eyes. In a barely audible whisper, he said, “Ah, if I tell you the first truth, it will become the second,” and then he died.

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Leave No Ashes

In this short passage, Ken points to two aspects of practice. One is to experience completely, so that life is lived fully with few echoes or reverberations. The other is to do completely, to give full attention and leave nothing half-done or trailing behind.

I feel these as distinct yet inseparable. To experience completely asks for openness to whatever is here, pleasant, neutral, or painful. To do completely asks for wholehearted responses to life experiences. A key here is balance: openness can become inward, passive, or ungrounded, while wholehearted response can become driven, performative, or self-important.

This passage reminds me of the famous line in the Heart Sutra: form is emptiness, emptiness is form. It also brings to mind the two wings of Mahayana practice, emptiness and compassion. Taken together, they point to a balanced practice: emptiness or wisdom prevents compassion from collapsing into sentimentality, attachment, or the need to fix everything, and compassion prevents wisdom from hardening into abstraction, coldness, or nihilism.

The Rocky Path of Not Knowing

This is an amazing half hour with Ken McLeod on mahamudra, beginning with students’ questions about the single mind, the absolute, and whether there is anything at all to hold on to.

Rather than offering a philosophical answer, Ken brings the inquiry back to direct experience, showing how the wish for certainty or belief can itself become an obstacle.

Again and again, he points away from explanation and towards the unsettling, vivid knowing that appears when we stop trying to resolve experience into something we can believe in.

From Learning Mahamudra 4

Ken: Some traditions have really cheery ways of looking at things. Dilgo Khyentse was once asked why do we practice? And he said, “To make the best of a bad situation.” [Laughter]

But here’s something from the Sufi tradition:

I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.
You asked me what to do about them.
It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.
Face that one first.

Your Problem, Reflections, Idries Shah, p. 79

So, how’s it going as a member of the human race? [Pause] Let’s take the first part of this evening and hear about some of your practice experience, questions, challenges, or insights.

Chuck: Claire and I have been wondering for the last 15 years about the last sentence on page five.

Ken: Who and you? Claire. Oh, in this book?

Chuck: Yes. The mahamudra book.

Claire: The last paragraph on page five.

Chuck: And then there’s the next paragraph on the other page:

This essence is not something that exists within the mind-stream of just one individual person or just one buddha. It is the actual basis of all that appears and exists, the whole of samsara and nirvana.
(Then on the next page it sort of follows along with it.)
The Great Brahmin Saraha stated: “The single mind is the seed of everything. From it, samsaric existence and nirvana manifest.”

Lamp of Mahamudra, Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, Erik Pema Kunsang (translator), p. 6

What does all that mean?

Claire: And is there an absolute?

Ken: So that’s the real question, is there an absolute?

Chuck: That’s her question.

Ken: Okay, what’s yours?

Chuck: Mine is, what does it mean? I’m primarily interested in the one: “The single mind is the seed of everything. From it samsara and nirvana manifest.” Now, does this mean each one of us? Is that what it’s trying to say? It seemed so lonely. [Laughter]

Ken: May I be glib first? It’s only lonely if there’s somebody there.

Chuck: [Laughter] I see. So, there isn’t even a single mind seed?

Ken: Well, no, there isn’t. This is a very good question, Chuck. Let me respond to Claire’s question first, because that’s a little easier. At least for me, it’s a little easier. It may not be actually easier, but for me it is. Is there an absolute?

Claire: Is that single mind?

Ken: Yes. Well, in a phrase that became a cause celebre in the last decade, it depends what you mean by is.

Claire: Actually, it depends on what the meaning of is is.

Ken: Okay. It depends what the meaning of is is.

Claire: “It is the actual basis.”

Ken: Okay. It says, “It is the actual basis.”

Claire: It says, “It is the actual basis of all that appears and exists, the whole of samsara and nirvana.”

Ken: Yeah. Now, it’s one thing to have a philosophical discussion, and we can go into a philosophical discussion, but in my experience it’s relatively useless. What I would like to invite both of you to do is: when you read this, there’s something that happens in you. Okay. Claire, you’re first. What happens?

Claire: I would love there to be an absolute. I would like to have something to believe in, because I don’t believe in any of this, as you well know. [Laughter] If you’re a buddha and I’m a buddha, and we both experience emptiness, are we both experiencing the same thing?

Ken: Ah, now you move on to Chuck’s question, which is the more difficult question.

Claire: You haven’t answered mine.

Ken: Well, you just took care of yours by revealing what the real question is, which I appreciate. Thank you. It’s wonderful that you should ask this question because a week or two ago, I received an email inviting me to participate in a documentary film—to be interviewed—on the subject of the vision of nondual truth. And there were going to be representatives from the Buddhist tradition, and the Christian tradition, and the Sufi tradition, and Jewish tradition.

And the purpose of the documentary was to show that—while it may be expressed differently in different traditions—the vision of non-dual truth was the same in all traditions. And so I emailed back the producer and said, “I’m very honored and a little surprised that you’re asking me to participate. And I’d be very happy to. But you should know that what you take as a premise, I take as a question. And this may affect your interest in having me participate.”

So literally 10 minutes after I sent the email, my phone rang, “What do you mean?” [Laughs] And so we had about a 15 or 20 minute discussion, the core of which was something like, “Ken, when there’s no duality, there’s no experiencer and there’s no experience.”

I said, “Oh, are you out cold?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you out cold? Are you unconscious when you’re experiencing non-dual truth?”

“No.”

“Oh! So, there’s some awareness of some kind. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, awareness is an experience.”

He went, “Hmm, okay.”

“And how can I tell whether the experience you’re having of non-dual truth is the same as the experience I’m having of non-dual truth? We can’t even tell whether the experience of the strawberry pie you were eating and the experience I’m having when I’m eating strawberry pie, is the same experience. We can’t even know that. How can we tell whether our experience of non-dual truth is the same?”

So, there is no way—there is absolutely no way—of determining whether the experience one Buddhist is having is the same as the experience another Buddhist is having, or if the experience you’re having is the same as the experience Chuck is having, etc. There’s absolutely no way of knowing that.

Claire: Well, then what does that mean? What does this mean that it is the “seed of everything?”

Ken: Okay. Now this goes back to something that we discussed in the first class. What is the one thing you know?

Claire: That I’m aware.

Ken: Exactly. Yes, that’s the only thing. Now in your world, in the world which is illuminated by your awareness, which is not the world of stuff—it’s the world of your experience—how are things? How are things in your world?

Claire: My world is a good world.

Ken: Why are you here?

Claire: Why am I here?

Ken: So it’s basically a good world, but there’s something that gnaws at you, right?

Claire: [Pause] I think you’re a good teacher.

Ken: [Laughter] Why is that important to you?

Claire: The reason that I’m here, I think, is rather serious. And it has to do with this question. I would love to find something to believe in, because I don’t believe in nirvana, and I don’t believe in samsara. I don’t believe.

Ken: Why would you like to—or love to, as you put it—find something? Why would you love to find something to believe in? If you found something to believe in, what difference would that make?

Claire: Well, it really wouldn’t make any difference at this point in my life, but it would be interesting for me to know that, yes, there is a basis for all the things that I do. My awareness is what it is, my insight, the clarity which I nurture and have had experiences of—

Ken: That there’s some basis for that. What difference would it make knowing that there was some basis for it?

Claire: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Ken: But it gnaws at you, doesn’t it? Yeah. Okay. That’s all I wanted; that it gnaws at you. Okay. So by this, what I’m trying to point out here is we know we’re aware; we’re aware of our world. And as we’ve talked about before, that world consists of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. And there’s something out of balance.

Claire: There’s something out of balance?

Ken: Yes. And the reason I can say that is there’s something that is gnawing at you. Okay? So, you’re here out of an interest in finding a way to address an imbalance that you experience.

Claire: Yeah. Perhaps. It’s better said than I’ve said it. [Laughter]

Ken: I think that was an agreement, don’t you? Okay. I’ll take that as a yes. That is why we study and practice Buddhism. Each of us has come here, and each of us undertakes this, because there’s something in each of us, and it may or may not be the same thing. That’s all conjecture. It’s something that gnaws; it disturbs. Sometimes it’s something that we can feel as being really upsetting and we’re really out of balance. And other times it’s just this little thing that keeps pushing at us or keeps us from resting. But it’s all the same reason. Now, what do you do about that?

Claire: Are you asking me?

Ken: Yes.

Claire: Sit.

Ken: Why?

Claire: Why? Because it’s the only thing that …

Ken: What does sitting do?

Claire: Because sometimes when I sit, or after I’ve sat, I have an insight into something that’s bothering me or gnawing at me. But this thing that I’m talking about now is much deeper than any of these others.

Ken: Yeah. But because of your experience with sitting—that has helped you to understand and to know things differently so that imbalances are addressed—you suspect that if you—

Claire: There may be an answer.

Ken: Okay, may. Fine. And so you’re willing to engage that path just on that basis, and that’s about it. Now, here’s the important point. Would believing in something actually help you in this?

Claire: [Pause] No. No, it wouldn’t. [Laughter]

Because what I do believe in is the ambiguity of not knowing.

Ken: Yeah. The not knowing provides a path, doesn’t it?

Claire: Yeah. But it gets rocky sometimes.

Ken: Oh, it does get rocky, you know. It also gets muddy, and sometimes it gets very, very narrow. Okay. Now, Chuck, your question: Is there one or many or something like that?

Chuck: Yeah.

Ken: Okay.

Chuck: “The single mind is the seed of everything.”

Ken: Now, does that mean the seed of everything in my world of experience, or the seed of everything in everybody’s world of experience? Is that your question?

Chuck: Yes, I think it should say for each individual.

Ken: Why?

Chuck: Because of what you were saying before; we have no idea whatever anybody else is thinking or what their world of experience is.

Ken: Is this okay with you?

Chuck: No.

Ken: No, it isn’t okay with you. What’s not okay about it? I think you said it earlier. It’s really lonely!

Chuck: Right. Yes. It’s one of these things that gnaw at you.

Ken: Okay. What experiences loneliness? [Pause] Or, may I go a step further? [Pause] Is what experiences loneliness, lonely?

Chuck: Not after it gets used to it. I mean, I’ve had times where I maybe go out on a long trip or something alone, and you start out, you feel a little bit alone.

Ken: Yeah. But I want you to look at—

Chuck: But then it clears up and—

Ken: But I want you to look a little deeper, okay? Let’s go back. What experiences loneliness?

Chuck: Well, this thing called “I,” I guess.

Ken: Is that what experiences loneliness?

Chuck: I think it’s a bodily experience and a mental experience, yes.

Ken: An emotional experience, yes. Okay. What experiences that? Now, this is important. [Pause] Go back to something that you and I messed around with many, many years ago. We did this a little bit the other day. So, just rub your hand on cloth. You experience texture, right? What experiences the texture?

Chuck: My awareness.

Ken: What experiences texture? Now, you look, right? What do you see?

Chuck: You don’t see anything.

Ken: Okay, so when you see nothing like this, you’re looking right at what experiences texture, right?

Chuck: Right. And that’s what experiences loneliness.

Ken: Yeah, but is it lonely?

Chuck: I don’t think so.

Ken: No. [Pause] Good. See what I’m pointing to?

Chuck: Yeah. On the exercise of capacity, I got to a point where I was looking at experience experiencing me. And then it’s all experience.

Ken: Yes. And what experiences that? Okay. And it becomes undefinable, right? That’s where you rest.

Chuck: I see.

Ken: You see. This may be revealing too much, but what the hell.

Student: We won’t get it anyway.

Ken: I hope somebody will get it. We have these questions. What is life? What am I? So forth and so forth. And our conditioning is such that we think there’s an answer; life is this and I am that … fill in the blank. And we further think that if we knew what filled in the blank, then everything would be fine. But this isn’t the case. It isn’t the case at all.

Just as Claire came to see in our little interchange that she started from the perspective, “I would love to believe,” but then saw that actually believing in something would be a hindrance in the very inquiry that she was engaged in. Any cognitive answer to these questions—I am … fill in the blank, life is … fill in the blank—is a stopping of awareness. It’s a block. It stops.

Well, this is very interesting. One of the genius aspects of Buddhism is that it encourages very, very explicitly, never stopping at anything. And it’s got all these tools; whatever you stop at, it blows it out, so that you can continue, just like the exchange I had with Claire. And that’s what all of that logic is about. It’s not about trying to prove anything. It’s about blowing up whatever’s blocking your path.

Chuck: I see. And then just looking.

Ken: And then you continue. What does this mean? It means that the answer to such questions as What am I? and What is life? is not a cognitive statement. It is the experience of awareness. That’s not the kind of answer we’re used to looking for. Do you follow? And what we’re doing in such practices as mahamudra, is developing the know-how, the capacity, and, hopefully, the willingness we have, to be able to engage that way. Because anything which says, “Okay, it is this,”—that’s a stopping point and everything dies right there.

So, when you’re reading these passages, don’t try to understand them intellectually or cognitively. I know this sounds a bit strange, and part of the problem is this was translated like 15, 20 years ago so the English is not as good as it could be. It’s not as clear as it could be, as you know. If you try to understand them intellectually or cognitively, it just ties you up or stops you. Rather, whenever you come across—and this is why I think your question here was very good—when you come across a phrase which throws something up in you, then move into that experience because something is waking you up there.

So open to that waking up, which is going to feel like, “I don’t know what the hell’s going on!” [Laughs] But that’s the sign that you’re waking up. Because there’s something there that has just removed, or undermined, or negated, or questioned, at least, something you actually believe in or want to believe in. And so here’s this statement which is saying … And that’s what all that jarring is, and confusion, and things like that. But that’s the waking up process.

Chuck: So just sit on it and meditate.

Ken: Yeah. And don’t meditate on it. Just be in the experience. And that’s essentially what we’re trying to do is learn how to be in the experience of whatever’s arising. This goes back to the point that I think Darren was raising last week or two weeks ago. When you’re awake, you don’t get to choose what you’re aware of. Someone could say, “That’s a real bummer.” But that’s just how it is.

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