1– The Fundamental Certainties & The Path of Alignment
jalu (’ja ’lus) – rainbow body Earth is the nondual quality of solidity and intangibility. Water is the nondual quality of permanence and impermanence. Fire is the nondual quality of separateness and inseparability. Air is the nondual quality of continuity and discontinuity. Space is the nondual quality of definition and lack of definition. As soon as we attempt to split the qualities and to adhere only to the form qualities of
the elements, we create samsara. The form qualities of emptiness cannot be split from the emptiness qualities of form.
If we try to obtain the experiential qualities of tangibility, permanence, separateness, continuity, and definition; and reject obtaining the experiential qualities of intangibility, impermanence, inseperability, discontinuity, and non-definition or continuous re-definition – this is what is known as duality. In terms of duality we perpetually struggle to maintain the illusion that we exist as solid, permanent, separate, continuous, and defined beings – and our constant failure to establish this illusion, creates the fabric of the experience of unsatisfactoriness. It’s as if I were trying to prevent myself from drowning by adding more and more weights to my body – and I just cannot bring myself to believe that it is these very weights that are my problem.
I have the ingrained notion that if I let go of reference points for a moment, I would disappear without a trace. There is some truth in that however. This fear isn’t totally groundless. If I let go of my reference points ’I’ would disappear. That is to say, what I think I am would disappear and the nature of being14 would shine through.
Ego is the way in which we perceive. It is a process not a product. It is a style of being which evaporates into emptiness, as soon as we drop the use of that style.
I am therefore not going to use the word ’ego’ again in our discussion. Too many bizarre philosophies have grown up around the word for it to be of any use to us. I am therefore going to use the term distracted-being. In terms of liberation from that state of unsatisfactoriness – I’m going to use the term liberated-being.
Our awareness is unrestricted by the considerations of self-defensiveness. We cease maintaining reference points, or investing in securing territory. Our attention is naked and direct, and we become free in a relaxed manner. This totality of commitment without attachment is known as whole-hearted presence.
2 – Transcending causality
This is why some people think that Lamas can absorb their negative karma or take it on or whatever. This is impossible. If it were possible for you to take on the negative karma of a killer, you would become a killer. You would become a killer because the karma of a killer is the wish to kill.
According to the Buddhist view—in all schools—the only reason that we cannot lose ego is because ego does not exist. Ego is merely a style of being, a mannerism, a habit.
The ’legal system’ of karma has no jurisdiction in terms of nonduality. When we realise beginningless enlightenment, the law enforcement agencies of karma evaporate. They boil away into space – because they were our unenlightenment.
Where there is awareness and personal responsibility – there is no need for law. Where there is awareness and personal responsibility – there is no need for rules. Where there is awareness and personal responsibility – there is no need for moral or ethical values. Where there is a lack of awareness and personal responsibility, we rely on laws, rules, ethics, and morality.
Seeking the ideal and infinitely applicable moral philosophy is a fruitless quest. Morality is an expedient device which we employ skilfully – until we realise nondual awareness.
We will all agree—for example—that it is good to be truthful and that it is good to
be kind. I do not imagine many people here would wish to argue with that. It is however, not difficult to conjure circumstances where truth and kindness come into direct conflict. Say, for example, that my dear and significantly aged aunt asks me a question. Say we’re at a wedding of a mutual relative. What if she asks me, “Do you like my hat?” What do I say if I wish to be both truthful and kind? It may be impossible. If I opt for truth I might say, “Not really, unless you’re trying to look like Carmen Miranda on a bad day.” If I opt for kindness I’d say, “It’s lovely and you look splendid in it.”
Without awareness we are continually faced with moral dilemmas. It is impossible to construct the perfect moral philosophy applicable in all circumstances. The only perfect morality is awareness. The only perfect morality or ethical position is awareness, because all actions which spring from awareness are choiceless pure appropriateness.
Kindness is as close as we can ever come to a moral approximation of awareness. Having a good heart goes further than anything in terms of empathising with the nondual state. Intellectual elaborations are not important.
Kindness is something you feel – a warmth and expansiveness which flows from our growing openness. Kindness is our contact, our strongest link with the nondual state. So much for law and order.
Awareness means relinquishing the police state of karmic-vision and assuming personal responsibility. Karma is the sum total of our perception in all its excruciating intricacy.
3 – Kindness Mind: the power of the awakened-Mind warrior
So what do we mean when we use this term ’wrathful compassion’? Wrathful compassion is a course of nondual action which may seem uncompassionate to others – because they lack the clarity to see it as compassion.
There is the story of Milarépa2 and Marpa. Marpa nearly worked Milarépa to death as part of the teaching he gave him. Milarépa had to build and dismantle houses over and over again before Marpa would give him any formal meditation instruction. Every time Milarépa completed a new house, he’d ask Marpa to view it. Milarépa fervently hoped each of the eight times he built a house that it would prove acceptable to Marpa – and that he’d finally obtain the teachings he needed so badly.
The warrior lives with this presence – the felt-presence of death. The warrior knows that death can come at any moment – and lives in that knowledge. This knowledge is liberating. It enables us to be free to act in whatever way we need to act in order to protect others. The awakened-Mind warrior has the capacity to act without reference to personal safety. The awakened-Mind warrior has already given up all there is to give up. There’s nothing to defend – so nothing is a threat.
The Samurai of Japan compared the nature of their lives to cherry blossom. A pretty image isn’t it? Actually it’s quite blunt. Cherry blossom falls at the slightest gust of wind. It drops from the twig at the slightest touch – so the life of the Samurai is as precarious as cherry blossom. It takes a heroic sense of humour—a fearless whimsicality—to feel yourself balancing on that existential razor’s edge. It is however, the most solid unshakeable foundation for nondual action.
The circumstances which befall us in the world are—generally speaking—the random functioning of the universe. So merit is not what happens to us – but how we see what happens. If we have kindness-Mind we initiate kindness-action – and kindness becomes the way in which we perceive the world. We become imbued with kindness-vision. Our perception becomes impregnated by kindness-wisdom and we become increasingly open. For this reason, we generate kindness-Mind at the beginning of our practice.
4 – The Linguistics of Liberation: establishing confidence in actuality
As it is is actuality, and to ’take refuge’ means to establish confidence in actuality. As it is is not somewhere safe. It is not a place to escape or hide away. Taking refuge in the the three jewels1—Buddha, dharma and sangha—means to rely on the as it is-ness of the Buddha – the realised exemplar of actuality; the dharma – the expression of actuality; and the sangha – those who aspire to experience actuality.
The khandro is the mother of our experience and the vital nurturing energy that inspires our practice. The pawos are heroes who leap and stride through the battlefield of dualistic derangement in order to allow escape from the self-inflicted carnage of self-protectiveness.