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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