Spectrum of Ecstasy

A proportion of this material was previously published in 1986 by Element Books as Rainbow of Liberated Energy.

The personal vision and style that are characteristic of Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen are very vivid and full of energy. Words can be judged by the energy with which they convey the essence of the teaching, and increasingly people want to get to the essence to solve their problems rather than taking up different cultural conventions.

Ultimately, through embracing our emotions as the path, we can attain the most subtle level of the essence of the five elements – the luminous rainbow-body.

Opening Our being is a brilliant pattern of energies, a spectrum of possibilities. At every moment we have the capacity to experience the open dimension of what we are.

For anyone who has come to rely on such methods, the idea of embracing emotions as the path could appear quite horrific. If we find the vivid display of our feelings somewhat inconvenient, then the idea of opening ourselves to the free-flowing quality of our emotions may seem too dangerous – especially if the texture of our lives is rather raw. We may not want to rip ourselves open just to experiment with what it feels like to be a gutted fish.

The whole idea could start to seem a trifle terrible. In the face of this, it might seem better to be ‘sensible’.

We find it necessary to exercise an emotional discipline that turns life into a tight-rope walk with a tight-lipped stoicism. We cannot sympathise with anyone because we expect the same constrictive behaviour from others.

By this means, we gain the dubious benefits of experiential impotence; or at best, some form of pseudo-spiritual emotional sterility.

and to be oblivious to our loss – because, after all, who needs emotional depth in the stratosphere? From this neutered position we might well begin to find the body an encumbrance – we would prefer to fly away to some other realm where pastel-coloured beings are constantly smiling… However, we could be conspicuously unattracted by the timidity and shallowness of this type of control. We might feel that living by whim and wild impetuosity are what life is really about. So we could abandon ourselves to our impulses, and see where that led.

We could be said to be relating to life through intensity, as if intensity held some kind of meaning in itself. We might view the tangles of our emotions – the giddy highs and the heavy devastating lows – as ‘the rich tapestry of life’. But this cliché is little more than a way of looking back at pain in order that it appears to have been to our advantage. When we are actually experiencing pain, our ‘rich tapestry’ more often reveals itself as mere flaccid verbiage.

When we abandon ourselves to impulse in search of intensity, life can become very earthy indeed. We may have experiences of the earth in which we collide with it a little too heavily. The more we throw ourselves at life in an attempt to feel real, the more pain we tend to inflict on ourselves.

But with either extreme – controlling our emotions or abandoning ourselves to intensity – what we are avoiding is direct and naked confrontation with the real nature of our energy. With either extreme we never actually experience ourselves. We never taste the texture of our world. We never touch the qualities of our own being in their incredible fullness and variety. We never make real contact with the totality of our being or our sphere of perception.

It is important to experience our emotional energies simply and directly. Our emotions are a spectrum of fluid and fluent energies, and experiencing their energy fields is the purpose of our exploration.

You could even imagine that ‘spiritual people’ are somehow intrinsically different, as if they had specialised spiritual organs that you lack. Ideas have proliferated in most societies that practices for realisation are for ‘advanced beings’.

These ideas miss the point completely. They fail to recognise the unique qualification of all human beings – that we are all beginninglessly enlightened.

it is important to allow ourselves to be open to the idea that we could well have more potential than we ever dreamed.

One of the most enlivening, exciting, and fulfilling discoveries we can make as human beings is finding that our emotions are actually reflections of our awakened enlightened potentialities. The complete unexpurgated range of what we feel is a spectrum of ecstasy.

Are you saying that this view is always a crutch of some sort, in order to make things seem meaningful? Ngak’chang Rinpoche1    Yes. That’s the short answer… The longer answer is that it rather depends on whether you are living the view as a practitioner, or living in the best way you can as a regular citizen; as a real mensch…2

From the perspective of Tantra, any method of looking back at pain in a codified way in order that it appears to have been an advantage, is problematic. We have to see things as they are – not as we would like them to be. We have to taste bitterness and sweetness – totally – rather than entering into any kind of prosaic logic about what bitterness and sweetness may mean.

Khandro Déchen    That would seem to be the reason. Tantrikas allow intensity – they don’t reject it, but they don’t cultivate it either.

Intensity is a natural by-product of being complete in your actions, associations, and participation – but actually seeking intensity is merely neurotic. There is a subtle, yet quite enormous difference.

NR    You see… there are no formulæ that can be applied. It’s not that you should change and give in to superficial whims or childish desires for comfort. You can stay as you are – you just need to let go of the compulsion to act in any particular way.

KD    The most important thing is that there is no rule apart from awareness and kindness. Any emotional rule you stick to just becomes a reference point, a means of substantiating your identity.

NR    Why not? It’s worth considering everything. We should not be cut off or closed-minded about psychological findings. I think that some people are attracted to Buddhism as an escape from the modern world, but that is quite antithetical to the actual spirit of Buddhism.

1 Rainbow of Liberated Energy

We would become aware of spatial interrelationships and the patterns we saw would develop qualities of rhythm. We would experience some sense of the entire company as a unitary organism. If we were to shoot the same action in slow motion, the patterns of movement observed in terms of conventional time would cease to be apparent.

Every view and every method of understanding reality is simultaneously spontaneously present. There is no point at all at which one could say: “This is the actual reality, the others are distortions”.

This individuated space of origination is the first of the three spheres of being: the sphere of unconditioned potentiality. This is the primary sphere – which is empty, but from which the energetic and material aspects of being arise. Emptiness is the essence of being. It is this emptiness which allows us to manifest. Emptiness is the most salient quality of what we are – it is the ground of being. Energetic being…

powerful source of endless manifestations. It is especially difficult for this understanding to be a lived experience – outside the emptiness discovered within the practice of shi-nè – silent sitting meditation. We need to realise this emptiness experientially as the ground of…

Shi-nè is a way of allowing ourselves the space to experience and actually know emptiness. There is something…

In order to comprehend this vastness, we have to let go of the experiential agoraphobia that cripples the free dimension of our being. There is no dipping your toes in to see if the temperature is comfortable; because, from the point of view of duality, the temperature is never quite right. There is no shallow end in which to linger tentatively – this space demands immediate and total immersion. The water of the experience of emptiness is so startlingly brilliant, clear, and sparkling; that it demands our complete participation. If we relax, and let go completely, we…

With sustained practice of shi-nè it is impossible to avoid making a certain important discovery – duality has to commit suicide at some point. This is an odd sensation, because it was duality (at least in part) that talked us into Buddhist practice in the first place. This is when shi-nè becomes ever so slightly treacherous; but this is also when it becomes interesting. It is treacherous because we realise that duality wants to watch itself become enlightened. Dualism wants to get as close to the liberated state as possible without surrendering its…

This becomes interesting as we realise that it is actually the sparkling through of our beginningless…

From the point of view of duality, emptiness evokes terror. From the view of liberated-being, emptiness evokes delight. Emptiness is the inexhaustible source of phenomena. It generates energy as its primary display, in the form of the five coloured lights. This display is known as the sphere of intangible appearance, the sphere of energy, the visionary sphere. This is the sphere of primal creativity, the sphere of energy, of light and sound. This sphere of…

Light and sound are the most subtle aspects of our perception, but we should not take the words ‘light’ and ‘sound’ too literally. Light and sound simply equate to a level of experience, and to a…

Light and sound have a connection with space and time; and the knowledge that exists in their non-dual expression. This is the non-ordinary reality of the tantrika. The sphere of intangible appearance is where the Tantric practitioner…

We see, hear, smell, taste and touch the phenomenal world and filter it all through our thinking.

The sphere of unconditioned potentiality is emptiness, or creative space. The sphere of intangible appearance is the primary display of energy, appearing as sound and light – as the symbolic images of the visionary world. The sphere of realised manifestation is the non-dual aspect of reality available to our unfiltered sense faculties. The sphere of realised manifestation is the self-perfected, evident, substance of the world.

Real symbolism is not arbitrary. We cannot simply say: “This is a symbol for that” – there must be some real connection.

Discovery of a symbol is concomitant with direct awareness of ‘that’ which is symbolised, and contains the motivation to communicate it as a method of liberation.

A symbol is a means of causing the compassionate expansiveness of reality to manifest at the level of vision. If we invent symbols through the process of intellect, they are not really symbols, as Tantra understands symbols.

These amazingly rich and incredibly detailed symbols exist in astonishing variety in the Tantric systems, but their essence is actually profoundly simple. It is the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and space.

This fundamental structure emerges from the nature of the elements themselves. The elements are the basis of the buddha families. The elements are the origin of the khandros and pawos.

Ngak’chang Rinpoche    Because the enlightened state is terminally seductive. Khandro Déchen    Because we are beginninglessly enlightened, so our enlightened nature will continually sparkle through our neurotic condition.

It’s very tricky stuff. It’s incredibly sneaky – duality is alarmingly clever. Aversion wants to stay alive – which is also why it wants to commit suicide in enlightenment. Enlightenment beckons like some tremendous height from which we might fall.

We’re hypnotised by the interplay of mortality and immortality – of existence and non-existence. Attraction wants to dissolve into a subtle objectification of the enlightened state, in order to achieve immortality.

Silent sitting meditation is actually the only answer. Q    Are there any other ways of getting used to emptiness besides practising shi-nè?

KD    The best and easiest answer is ‘no’. There are other answers, which involve taking life experiences as reflections of emptiness. But viewing personality disintegration and other life-crises as a practice would involve extended discussion. And anyway, this practice, although quite a good idea, also requires experience of shi-nè meditation. So we come back to the same answer: no.

Q    What did you mean by total commitment to emptiness? NR    Yes, emptiness demands our total commitment. There can be no wallflowers at this party. You’re either in there, with the experience, or you’re outside in the rain. We’re continually invited to reciprocate the innate dignity of this ocean8 by experiencing it fully – that is to say: the oceanic nature of existence continually beckons us by offering reflections of our own oceanic condition.

nature – if we dissolve our experience of ourselves into the experience of emptiness, we can reappear in a different form. We can step into the telephone box of emptiness and step out as Superman, or Superwoman; or, as Padmasambhava or Yeshé Tsogyel. KD    Transmutation is only possible because of the experience of emptiness. I can’t become Yeshé Tsogyel until I can let go of being whoever it is that I currently feel I might be.

The filtering system we’ve developed is fantastically elaborate, because it also has to vet itself – it can’t filter out every sign of non-dual experience, or we’d die of boredom. You see, there’s a lot of excitement connected with our inherent non-dual condition, and our filtering system has to allow some aspect of that through. That’s both a problem, and our one great chance.

Can we come to understand how the filtering system works and dismantle it? KD    [laughs] No. That would be impossible. We’d have to try to use the filtering system to examine itself… All we can do is sit. All we can do is sit and allow the filtering system to dismantle itself – then, as it’s dismantling itself, we’ll see what it is, and understand how it works.

2 Hall of Mirrors Every thought, every feeling, every sensation or action is enlightenment; but we do not realise it… We are never separated from it. There is no need to look for enlightenment in any other place than where we are. It is there, unrecognised, in every moment.

In the language of Buddhism, to wake up means to realise that our painful or confused emotions are merely the nightmares of duality. To wake up, means to realise that our dreams, however pleasant they may seem, are only dreams. Whether dreams are enjoyable, fearful or instantly forgettable melodrama, they are not actually happening in the way in which we experience them within the dream state.

In a similar way, the style of our constricted energy is dynamically linked to the unrestricted display of our liberated energies. Every state of being is open to liberation because every state of being is…

Every state of mind, no matter how confused, in its free condition3 is none other than the liberated state. ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ do not exist as separate fields of energy. This means that no one is…

You simply need to be curious – to be intrigued by the possibility that you are actually quite well…

Every ‘negative’ state of mind contains something of the quality of our naturally liberated state. Every thought, every feeling, every sensation or action is…

We are never separated from it. There is no need to look for enlightenment in any other place than where we are. It is there, unrecognised, in every moment. So, why do we constrict our energies? What prevents us from recognising…

When we suppress our emotions, clearly a quality of balance is being sought. When we risk abandonment to the heights and depths of our feelings, a quality of openness is clearly present. This is definitely not a matter for intellectual speculation. Thinking…

In order to understand what we are, in order to realise our unconditioned nature, we need to become simpler in our approach. We need to discover space. Space is the quality of experience in which there is no clinging to the content of Mind through the process of attempting to establish reference points: ‘this and that’ are ‘there’, therefore ‘I’ am ‘here’, in distinction to ‘this and that’. Space is the dimension of our existence in which there is no attempt to…

As soon as the idea of space is discussed, paradox arises. This is unavoidable. However, there is no need to be too perplexed by extraordinary definitions. At this point it would be better to envisage space…

It could be equated with a feeling of being completely relaxed in all aspects of our being; yet very awake and alive – a sense of having all the time and room we need to do or be anything in any moment, without fear or confusion. You could say that space was simply feeling natural and happy in your…

Exercise just sit where you are / feel what it is like to be you / try not to put words to what you feel / just sit with what you feel, and see what happens / see if you can find what is there beyond the desire to attach words and ideas to what the feeling is like / see if you can see, hear, smell, taste or touch what you are /…

The living quality of experience exists only in the…

These things are not available in terms of archival research on emotions. That belongs to the…

Perception and field of perception are inseparable, and when we attempt to separate experience into distinct fields, we lose our ‘knowing’ and end up ‘knowing about’.

Enlightened Mind is divisionless.

In spite of our compulsion to distance ourselves from the texture of our experience, we do also value the qualities of immediacy and spontaneity. Most people can remember moments of magic in their lives; moments when their consciousness was naturally expansive. There will have been moments when there was a feeling of spaciousness – when everything unfolded with a sense of wonder and ease. This is possible when we have unguarded moments – moments when we forget to mix in our pre-structured concepts with what we perceive. The first throes of being in love can have this effect. Everything seems to be happening effortlessly and a sense of ‘natural perfection’ holds sway. Our enlightenment is ever-present and sparkles through at the most unlikely junctures. It is not something that has to be artificially constructed – it is simply there to be discovered.

Yet almost always, emotions manifest as distorted reflections of those energies. These distorted reflections arise as a result of the way in which we constrict the natural display of the mirror of Mind with our compulsive intellectual contrivances.

Realised experience is total. Realised experience is what it is. Realised experience is all-pervasive and immediate. It is infinite in nature. It cannot be added to, or subtracted from, without straying into falsification or indirect experience.

too many connotations to be of any real use in a Buddhist context; so, instead, we will use the term ‘distracted-being’ for ‘ego’; and ‘liberated-being’ for the even more confusing term ‘egolessness’.

This is what is known as illusion or indirect experience – living in a waking dream world that is loosely based on direct experience.

We have trapped ourselves in a web of concepts, and cling to our trap as if our existence depended upon it.

The problem with intellect is that we use it to distract ourselves from direct experience.

All freshness of experience is lost. It is a bit like living on week-old crusts and trying to enjoy them – unsatisfying. You can splash them with water, toast them; and maybe, with enough jam or honey, they might pass for food. But you know you would be better off eating fresh bread.

a result of this, our reactions, interactions and relationships can become severely distorted. There is no real experience, no real perception, no real response, and no real world. In order to allow space for experience to be precisely what it is, we need to stop grasping at the phenomena we perceive. We need to loosen our obsession with relating to phenomena as a series of possible reference points.

We understand the world in terms of our previous experience of the world. But our previous experience was based on prior knowledge.

This search for consistency is a feverishly sophisticated game; resplendent with exquisitely tortuous devices for ensuring our continued distraction. It is also a surreptitious process. It runs at twenty-four frames per second, like a movie – fast enough that the individual pictures cannot be clearly seen, encouraging the illusion that it is natural and unfabricated.

The kind of sense our world makes is immediate. It is spontaneously apparent. We can embrace it. We can be embraced by it. We can dance – but only if we let go of our obsessional pre-ordained systems of sense-making. Our world is not static.

Why is it that we want to reconstitute life according to some stale set of conceptual constructs inherited from the past?

Why do we need to squeeze phenomena through numerous filters of our own devising?

You might find that the more you question, the more you discover about the nature of distracted-being. It is actually rather bizarre to be talking about discovering the nature of distracted-being.

The structure of thought, the convoluted geography of our personalities, the world of ideas is far more complex and subtle than the articulation of limbs. If we put ourselves in the position of thinking about the way we think, we have a tricky situation on our hands, to say the least.

The discovery of space begins with shi-nè.5 Shi-nè is the practice of letting go of our addiction to the thought process.

In a relative sense you could say that our being is distracted from be-ing. Our sense of what and how we are wanders interminably in a miasma of cross-referencing fictions.

This conceptual bureaucracy sets itself up in order to maintain the illusion of duality, and it does this through continually seeking assurances from the world – assurances that we really exist.

They know they exist; and what is more, they are annoyed and insulted by the apparent stupidity of this kind of question. But from the Buddhist perspective, this is not a completely honest response – it is a response based on fear. If people are so convinced of their existence, why do they continually seek assurances and proofs of it?

It could be said that insecurity is the only real security. This might seem a singularly unappealing concept until we consider that pain and misery also cannot be established as unchanging. The phenomenal world is unreliable, if reliability requires stasis.

We cannot rely on the phenomenal world to provide either continuous pleasure or continuous pain. We can be surprised: good friends can turn against us, and generous support can be forthcoming from unlikely quarters.

This is a crucial idea to understand if you seek to experience a happy life, let alone to seek liberation from duality.

There is something suspect about our inability to enjoy anything unless we can define it as lasting forever. In actuality nothing lasts forever, and yet we act as if some things do – in order that we can enjoy them.

We can say that ‘nothing’ lasts forever, and that no ‘thing’ lasts forever. Nothing is emptiness, which has no beginning or end.

If we understand that ownership of form only exists in the moment of appreciation, then we automatically own the entire universe of form.

These form-criteria for evaluating ourselves arise out of the nature of the dualistic elements: Solidity is the form quality of the earth element. Permanence is the form quality of the water element. Separateness is the form quality of the fire element. Continuity is the form quality of the air element. Definition is the form quality of the space element.

Insubstantiality is the emptiness quality of the earth element. Impermanence is the emptiness quality of the water element. Inseparability is the emptiness quality of the fire element. Discontinuity is the emptiness quality of the air element. Undefinability is the emptiness quality of the space element.

When we engage in this strategy, we subvert the brilliant immediacy of our experience with our endless attempts to establish reference points.

Even if we encounter phenomena that outlive us, we lose them when we die. At the time of our deaths we lose everything anyway; and we in turn are lost to our companions, family, friends and lovers.

Making ourselves feel solid, permanent, separate, continuous and defined – by constantly scanning the phenomenal horizon for reference points which substantiate these criteria – is a convoluted process. The phenomena of our perception will only serve us temporarily in this capacity. So if we take this course, we sentence ourselves to the continuous activity of establishing and replacing reference points.

Attraction, aversion and indifference are usually referred to, in the translations of Buddhist texts, as lust (desire or attachment); hatred (anger or aggression); and ignorance.

Buddhism does not really deal with the concept of ‘sin’ – it simply deals with the mechanisms of confusion, and the means of liberation. There is no guilt attached to being confused, and no sense of deliberate ‘wickedness’. The terms ‘attraction’, ‘aversion’ and ‘indifference’ have been chosen because they are mechanistic rather than emotive – they describe the machinery of dualistic perception.

If we encounter anything that seems to substantiate our fictions of solidity, permanence, separateness, continuity, and definition – we are attracted, we reach out for it. If we encounter anything that threatens these fictions – we are averse, we push it away. If we encounter anything that neither substantiates nor threatens these fictions – we are indifferent. What we cannot manipulate, we ignore. But what is left of our responses if these three fictions dissolve?

If attraction, aversion, and indifference dissolve, what remains is not any ‘kind of experience’; it is simply experience – experience as such. In terms of experience as such; we are completely present, open, and free in the experience of whatever arises as a perception.

In this totally spacious condition there is neither attachment, manipulation nor insensitivity. We are discussing straight experience here, in more or less the same way that we might discuss a straight drink. We are describing an undiluted shot of single malt, rather than some fancy cocktail, overloaded with tinned fruit, and decorated with a paper parasol. We are concerning ourselves with the essence – the undiluted experience of our own intrinsic condition.

We have a vested interest in establishing reference points – attempting to prove that we are solid, permanent, separate, continuous and defined. We are either nervous about our situation, or we throw caution to the wind. Both are methods of attempting to manipulate the world referentially. Caution is calculated manipulation. Throwing caution to the wind is desperate manipulation. It may seem difficult to imagine recklessness as a form of manipulation, but we are only ever reckless as a last-ditch stand – the ‘make-or-break’ method of securing reference points.

People never seem to want to play with us without changing the rules to their advantage. When we forget that we are playing a game of distancing ourselves from what is actually happening, something ludicrous occurs. We begin to think that ‘this’ is reality.

It would appear that we would rather climb imaginary mountains than stroll in the garden.

We cling to pain as desperately as we cling to pleasure. We seek security in intensity, as well as in safety. We turn pain into a reference point and use it to prove that we exist: ‘I hurt therefore I am’. If ‘I’ am in emotional pain at least it pin-points me as ‘someone in a state of trauma’. We tend our pain meticulously, and cultivate it through the process of thinking about it. The more we think around our emotional pain, the more we cripple ourselves with the artificial intensity of it. We create conceptual scaffolding to ensure that our pain will not collapse.

We could allow it to dissolve into the sky-like openness of direct experience; but somehow we feel more secure with our pain as a definition of being. It seems to substantiate something about us, to make us feel more solid, more permanent, separate, continuous, and defined.

We are actually terrified at the possibility of liberation. We feel more at home with restrictions – with our miasma of constricted energy.

Question and answer commentary

Q    What about the idea that we are all the dream of Brahma? KD    It’s a charming idea but not particularly useful, because it creates a fatalistic approach to life, and to one’s spiritual practice. If you simply have to wait for Brahma to wake up, then there’s nothing that’s worth doing. He’ll just wake up in his own good time. If there were something you could do to help him wake up, then somehow you’d be on par with him.

Q    Could you explain how abandonment to the heights and depths of feelings could be ‘constrictive’? NR    Well, it’s constrictive because more often than not, it’s manipulative. It’s a strategy of intensity rather than simple self-existent intensity. There’s no real abandonment.

There’s no sense of expansiveness in terms of the ground in which heights and depths exist as ornaments.

Emotional heights and depths exist as ornaments, in the sense that ornaments don’t alter the basic nature of the person who wears them. You can wear joy, and you can wear sorrow. When you have the experience of joy or sorrow, you can have the sense that you are not actually totally defined by either.

in which stillness and change are experienced as ornaments of mind.

that the state of no-thought and the movement of thoughts, are both ornaments of the state of rigpa?

When those two experiences are recognised as having one taste, they become ornaments of rigpa – or the enlightened state. But that’s a vast and difficult discussion.

KD    Real abandonment would have no investment in hope or fear. NR    Real abandonment would not objectify focuses of intensity into reference points.

NR    So you buy the hyped book: attraction. Then you start to read it and it turns out to be recycled nonsense: indifference. Then you feel a bit conned by the whole thing and want to throw the ‘timeless classic’ into the bin: aversion. These three happen all the time – it’s called samsara.

Q    So… you mean we don’t actually succeed in controlling them? KD    No [laughs], it would be like trying to control an orgasm!

NR    Then, why do we do it? Q    Yes, what do we get out of doing that? KD    We have the feeling that we might succeed.

We see it as a gamble, but we’re gamblers on a very definite losing streak. If you gamble on duality giving you a good deal, then you’re in for a big let-down. In the end you’re going to lose your shirt and your underwear – even if the cards you’ve been dealt look like a sure thing.

Q    But the gambler does have occasional wins. KD    Yes. And so does the duality gambler. But what is a ‘win’? A win is a temporary illusion before losing again. Q    Or losing is a temporary illusion before winning again? NR    That’s what the gambler hopes [laughs]. Maybe it’s what you’re hoping.

He said hopelessness was the essential basis for the practice of Tantra. Without a sense of duality being ‘the hopeless hand that we deal ourselves’ – the idea of being a tantrika is actually fatuous. Let’s not be under any illusions at all about this.

NR    There is no distinction between your emptiness and my emptiness. At the level of form we are separate. But form is emptiness and emptiness is form. This is the teaching of the Heart Sutra – it’s very, very important, and absolutely crucial to the understanding of Tantra.

But this essential non-separateness is not separate from our sense of separation. When we take the statement ‘form is emptiness’, and apply it to the issue of separateness, it means that we are separate.

Q    You were talking about rationality earlier, and it was weird to hear the process of rationality described as a ‘compulsion’.

But rationality is useless beyond the conceptual field. But because conceptuality and non-conceptuality are reflections of form and emptiness, in their natural condition, they’re not separate from each other.

The form of the non-rational is moving – the form of the non-rational is not constant – the form of the non-rational has no particular direction – the form of the non-rational is not linear or goal-oriented – the form of the non-rational only exists in the moment. Yes.

I also feel that they can be a way of remaining at the level of self-obsession, or of cultivated inadequacy. If you end up making a hobby of your pain, as I have seen many people do, then you just build yourself a different kind of prison.

KD    I know this might not be a popular view among those connected with therapy; but I’ve seen too many people who’ve made hobbies out of their real or imagined pain – aided and abetted by therapists.

NR    I’d also say that psychotherapy could be crucial for anyone entering into the vajra relationship of Tantra – because although Tantra can side-step the need for therapy, if you should slip from the perfect precipice of devotion – you’re back in the pit of your neuroses again, and they’re all wound full volume.

At the end of the day you either take refuge in therapy, or you take refuge in the teachings. That’s the difference between being a regular Joe with an interest in Tantra and actually being a tantrika.

but I can say something about vajra pride – in which one enters into the sense of actually being the yidam. NR    This is a very important aspect of the practice, because by this means we can let go of the concept that we are ‘poor little things’. You say to yourself: “My Root Teacher has told me that essentially I am Yeshé Tsogyel! Isn’t that amazing! Isn’t that fantastic! I’m not just the product of a dysfunctional family background – I’m Yeshé Tsogyel!”

You’ve got to have the strong devotion of a tantrika to cut through in this way. Otherwise it’s back to long-process.

How dare you split up and become less than you were? How dare you change your style? How dare you play electric rather than acoustic! Or in the case of a Lama: how dare you give up your robes and marry! How dare you drink sake! How dare you wear a suit! How dare you insult my fantasies of living in a Tibetan dream world! How dare you ridicule my working-class angry young man mentality!

Yeshé Tsogyel explains herself, because she is none other than the visionary code that unlocks your own enlightened state.

But if you concentrate too much on intellectual meanings, you lose the opportunity to discover that they are simply there as an intrinsic part of what you are.

Every aspect of our unenlightenment is close to our enlightened state.

KD    Reference points are aspects of our world that we attempt to freeze, because they seem to substantiate our existence. The main thing about reference points is that they’re not actually reference points at all. They’re temporary experiential coordinates – emptiness qualities of form manifesting as form qualities of emptiness.

KD    Yes. Unconstrained flux – that’s what the perceptual horizon is when we don’t attempt to convert it into a series of reference points.

NR    We lose it in order to function crisply. You see, with the divisive logic of our highly functional crispness, we create a kind of analytical distance from direct experience. Q    Yes! Now I see why perception and field of perception are what experience actually is: it’s their inseparability

Q    It really hit me when you said that people cling to pain as much as they cling to pleasure. Why is it that we’re so desperately avoiding our own enlightenment? It seems to me that we’re avoiding facing the demons in the shadows, death and pain, but you were saying that it’s not pain we avoid but emptiness. KD    Yes.

Q    It must be. It seems impossible to work anything out according to any kind of linear system – there’s always some kind of circle or closed loop that forms out of any direction I take in thinking about it. KD    That’s why it’s called samsara – going round in circles.

why is it so difficult to stop the existing samsaric pattern for even a few moments and try out emptiness and make an intelligent choice? NR    Because that’s what we want to do. KD    We might think we’re making an intelligent choice – but maybe we need to sit and let go of choices altogether.

Tirthika: philosophical extremist, i.e. people whose spiritual view was distorted by adherence to one, or any combination, of the Four Denials: monism, dualism, nihilism, and eternalism. Monism is a form of non-duality in which the God/not-God dichotomy is evaded by saying that ‘everything is one’, i.e. that multiplicity is an illusion. Dualism is the ongoing attempt to split emptiness and form. Nihilism is the denial of pattern or meaning (form). Eternalism is the denial of chaos or randomness (emptiness).

3 View, Meditation and Action Being is not attached to reference points. Being does not rely for its existence on any style of perceptual cross-referencing. Trying to pin-point being is like attempting to suspend time and movement – it is not possible, so we might as well simply be.

In order to realise ourselves, as we actually are, we need to gain some understanding of exactly how we have distanced ourselves from ourselves. We need to recognise the mechanisms by which we have distanced ourselves from our essential being. To do this, we need to explore the geography of duality.

We can develop our view. View in this sense has nothing to do with philosophy. View is the uncharacterised way in which we see ourselves and our surroundings. That is to say: it is not a constructed conceptualised way of seeing the world. It is simply seeing the world. It is intrinsically effortless and uncontrived. View involves our ceasing to employ preconceptions as part of the methodology with which we investigate our situation. View is the recognition that logical analysis is limited. It is the recognition that intellectual comprehension is no substitute for direct experience.

Action is the endless and spontaneous dance ignited by precise sensitivity to whatever happens. We flow harmoniously with what is, wherever we happen to find ourselves. Action is not a ‘way of acting’ – it is being: unrestricted, uncontrived, unconditioned, and unlimited. In the Tibetan tradition, the development of these three – tawa, gompa and chodpa – is the principle of the path.

So, we might as well simply be. Ironically, in order just to be, we need discipline. This is necessary because from our bizarre standpoint we apparently do not know how to be. We seem to have the idea that there is a special method involved in being; but being is methodless. However, the methodlessness of being is something that the limitations of our foggy faculties cannot encompass. Conventional perspectives cannot handle that principle; in fact most avenues of approach cannot cope with it at all.

Trying to be unrestricted, free and spontaneous whilst divorced from the experience of space is doomed to failure. The qualities of freedom and spontaneity can only be discovered within the condition of space. So trying to be free and spontaneous is like trying to hang-glide with a feather duster.

KD    Well, one simple example would be adopting a style in which the range of emotions was very subdued. You’d avoid all display of anything but an ever-present bland smile. This would be to deny any kind of strong feeling both positive and negative – because supposedly it’s not ‘enlightened behaviour’ to feel anything strongly. The problem with this is that it’s fundamentally sterile; but it does have an advantage as far as duality is concerned… It feels safe.

Why is that, Rinpoche? Isn’t it possible to arrive at a point of balance? NR    No [laughs], that’s the whole point; that’s why it’s called samsara, or khor-wa in Tibetan – it means ‘going round in circles’. The point of balance is unattainable because it’s a self-undermining point. When you arrive at this illusory point of balance it then becomes your ground or your security in some way. As soon as the point of balance becomes a point of security it starts to feel claustrophobic. It becomes form. The only real point of balance is what is there all the time… actually there is nothing but the point of balance, whatever is happening. There is nothing but the point of balance, because there is nothing other than the play of emptiness and form.

We were saying that this imitation was concerned with feeling safe, rather than with taking risks. But actually; it’s not even a matter of risk or safety, as we’ve discussed. It’s a matter of strategising

KD    There’s actually nothing at all wrong with imitating enlightenment, if what you’re doing is attempting to act with kindness. That is a really useful idea – simply being kind for the sake of kindness, because kindness is its own reward. NR    But if there’s any other motive in mind, the whole thing becomes diabolically complicated. If there’s some goal in mind beyond the kindness itself, then there’s some kind of tension – hope and fear. But in addition to this, I would say that the most noticeable problem with people attempting to imitate enlightenment is that they falsify themselves: they close down; they refuse to engage with the world; they try to ride the ups and downs of everyday existence with a fabricated calm, that is born out of the fear of being real.

Tantric terms that’s known as vajra hell; and intellectual academic prowess is one of the quickest routes to that sorry state that I can think of at the moment. Fundamentally, you have to be real in your neurosis if you want to be real in your realisation. If you defraud yourself by taking on the outer appearance of realisation, you merely become a ‘wisdom-cookie Buddha’.

It is the actual practice of Dzogchen, the practice in which everything is integrated with the non-dual state. This means that you stand up and get on with whatever there is to do next in terms of the life that you happen to be living. KD    It’s also called gommèd or non-meditation, according to the four levels of formless Mahamudra in the Kagyüd School.

NR    Actually, our non-liberation or non-enlightenment is something of a joke – it’s as real as having a drink when you’re no longer having a drink. Where or what is ‘having a drink’ when you’re no longer having a drink? You can’t find it except by having another drink. We can’t even compare the ‘having a drink’ that is happening now, and the ‘having a drink’ that happened before.

As soon as we attempt to locate or describe being, we distract ourselves from being. But being is simply being. It cannot be confined to ‘this kind of being’ or ‘that kind of being’. It cannot be defined as ‘being this’ or ‘being that’.

having it be terrifying for you to consider life without method, is something of an advantage. It sounds like quite a real statement. It’s better to know the nature of your fear than to romanticise about a Tantric fantasy world in which you are some great non-dual heroine.

NR    Actually, yes. In reality view, meditation and action are simultaneous.

Q    So then how does view relate to emptiness? NR    View is emptiness. KD    Emptiness equates to wisdom, and view is the manifestation of wisdom – so view is emptiness and active-compassion is form.

4 Discovering Space Awareness is the uncontrived, unattached recognition of the experience of movement – the movement of the arising and dissolving of thoughts in the continuum of Mind, the appearance and disappearance of phenomena in the vastness of intrinsic space. There is only the sheer exquisiteness of this movement. This is what we actually are.

To be real is to relax; to rest with non-referentiality. To be real, we need to discover ourselves in actual experience.

However, if you feel compelled to sit cross-legged, get yourself a piece of dense industrial foam that raises your buttocks high enough off the ground for your knees to hang comfortably below the level of your hips. Sitting in this way will ensure two things: first that you don’t get ‘pins and needles’; and second that your spine will settle in to its natural position.

If you have to strain to keep your back vertical, you are in the wrong position! The spine is not actually straight but vaguely S-shaped, so attempts to straighten it, for whatever purpose, are not part of the practice of shi-nè. All straining and stiffness should be avoided.

At first you should simply find the presence of your awareness in the inward and outward movement of your breath. If thoughts arise do not try to block them. Just let them be. If thoughts drift away do not detain them or grasp at them. Just let them

The practice of shi-nè is one in which you make the commitment for set periods of time not to become involved with thoughts. You do not examine the content of your thoughts. You just let your thoughts come and go.

In this context of no-context our being is characterised by direct contact and immediacy. There is no longer any need to evaluate experience within the framework of referentiality. Awareness is present and flowing with whatever arises in the field of our perception. Phenomena and awareness of phenomena are an instantaneous occurrence.

You experience straight pleasure and straight pain. It is not a complex or elaborate affair. There is no need to embroider your sensations. You do not underpin your image of yourself with quite as much justification. You do not feel so compelled to rummage through the cumbersome baggage of past experience in every new situation. You discover a sense of real spontaneity, and are a little less menaced or lured by anticipation.

The more actively we try to establish reference points, the more problems we create. We create these problems when we refuse to accept our world as it is. We respond to what is happening to us in too extreme a way. Acceptance of what is happening does not constitute some sort of social irresponsibility or political impotence. This is a commonly-held misinterpretation, and one that it is important not to make.

Seeking liberation is not a devious authoritarian conspiracy designed to keep people quiet. It is about opening ourselves. It is about losing our limitations. It is about taking action with awareness, freedom and personal responsibility.

It is a fantastically fertile field of learning but we have to find the experiential space in which we can pursue plans very lightly; and, with a pronounced sense of humour. We need to accept the success or failure of whatever we do with a sense of wryness. We need to treat these two impostors just the same – or at least to begin to have a sense of how that could feel. And that is not as far away as it may seem. With the discovery of experiential space we can let go of the emotional investment we put into all our plans and efforts. Things actually become easier when we allow ourselves to play with our situation, rather than having to take it totally seriously. The lightness of this approach is a manifestation of our developing clarity.

We cannot be responsible for many things. But we are all responsible for how we feel about the things that happen to us. To embrace our emotions as the path, we must take responsibility for the style of our responses. If your lover walks out the door with someone new – you are responsible for how you feel about that. You can’t say, “You have broken my heart! You are responsible for the misery that I am feeling”. We are sad because we are sad. We are sad because we don’t want our lives to change. Your father and mother may not have loved you enough, but you cannot spend the rest of your life bemoaning that.

In a situation where you are feeling very hurt, it would be helpful to tell yourself that: ‘No one has done anything to me – someone has merely done what they wanted to do; because they wanted to be happy’. The fact that the thing that makes another happy makes you miserable, is a theme that runs throughout the history of human beings on this planet.

Accepting sole ownership of our emotions can make an enormous difference to our lives. Unless we accept the responsibility of owning whatever we feel, we will not be able to embrace our emotions as the path. As soon as we accept that we cannot actually justify our feelings, we can start to approach our feelings openly.

With some sense of space, we can begin to experience our emotions as they are; rather than as if we had rehearsed them.

is helpful to avoid involvement in the ‘unfairness game’. If you say: “This is unfair! I don’t deserve this!” you only succeed in increasing your pain. It would be better to side-step this frustration and confusion, simply by saying: “This is what is happening”. There is no consumer-protection society in the sky to whom you can appeal. There is no life-dissatisfaction appeals tribunal where you can demand: “Life isn’t what I expected, I want my money back!” This is it. This is what we have.

is the texture of your experience, and you cannot disown it. You can only try to disown it, by creating a more complex level of confusion around it.

We are highly skilled at making our situations worse. These contrived emotional additions to our situations are the computer software of distracted-being, and we have infinite megabytes on the hard disk.

You cannot hang on any longer because the repair van could be arriving at any minute. You rush back to the car. It is impossible to relax as you sit there; you are just too wound up. Even the book that you found so fascinating this morning is incapable of holding your attention. So you just sit there and drum your fingers on the dashboard. You brood on the ruination of your evening. The repair van is a long time coming. You start to become really agitated. Should you go back to the telephone box and ring again? Maybe you could give the restaurant another try… You start to get out of the car but there is an awful feeling inhibiting you: if you run to the phone, the van is bound to turn up as soon as you are out of sight. You realise after a while that you have smoked all your cigarettes and now you seem to want one quite desperately. Maybe you could just call a taxi and leave the car there… You continue to drum your fingers on the dashboard as idea after idea chase their tails through your tormented consciousness. Now you are really quite angry. You could have been back and forth to the telephone box several times by now.

This story could be as long as anybody’s life – a long tale of irritation, anxiety, frustration, nervousness, fear and anger. We need to learn to relax with whatever is happening. We need to develop a sense of humour through discovering a sense of space.

Real humour only arises with the development of space. Space enables us to recognise the ridiculousness of our own problems.

Once we start to see these frantic manipulative strategies as something artificial, they begin to lose their hold on us. Once we see them as something we have deliberately constructed in order to make us feel real, it is no longer possible to take them entirely seriously. Seeing the patterns of distracted-being, and recognising them as such, is the beginning of clarity.

When failure and success are simply the colours and textures of particular moments in time, they don’t actually have to mean anything. Or rather, from the non-dual perspective, we are not making them mean anything.

KD    Does it have to make you either happy or sad? Maybe in a game you can laugh… maybe… But what if you’re not a good sport? What if you’re a sore loser? I guess most of us are sore losers at some level, and when it comes to life we all ‘lose’. We lose our youth. We lose our innocence. We lose our virginity. We lose our parents. We lose our range of choices. We lose our independence. And then, finally, we die. We view the loss of life as a very serious loss [laughs]. Do you see that?

NR    From the Tantric perspective, it’s rather more subtle than saying: “I cut attachment and then failure and success are transcended! I’m now beyond enjoying or regretting the outcome of events”. That view is a trifle simplistic, if you’ll excuse my saying so. There is always the tendency to look at the enlightened state as removed from all aspects of everyday existence. But this idea comes from a misinterpretation of the Sutric concept of non-attachment. KD    Non-attachment doesn’t mean that you become disconnected, and enter into a position from which nothing matters. Non-attachment means non-attachment to reference points – not manipulating reality in order to substantiate your existence. NR    If your sense of existence doesn’t depend upon anything, then failure and success can be simple failure and simple success. When failure doesn’t threaten you, then it’s just failure.

NR    But that’s exactly it. ‘But’ is exactly why samsara comes into being… and, as Khandro Déchen advised, you could try simply sitting on your butt… KD    [laughs] You see, our desires, aversions, and indifferences are always changing. They have to change all the time, because if they didn’t change, then we’d get what we wanted. And if we got what we wanted, we’d be frightened that there was nothing else we could project our hopes onto.

NR    Samsara is dependent on our not getting what we want, but being able to hope that the possibility of getting what we want is not out of the question. You see, the important thing about trying to get what we want, is that it defines us as being in process toward some kind of goal. Once we arrive at the goal, the goal seems to make us feel non-existent. We can no longer account for what we’re doing with our time.

You see, the important thing about trying to get what we want, is that it defines us as being in process toward some kind of goal. Once we arrive at the goal, the goal seems to make us feel non-existent.

KD    That’s why some people travel continually – they’re always on their way to somewhere else. NR    It’s all a means of manipulating reality to prove that we exist.

Q    How can I tell the difference between my enlightened energy and my neurosis? NR    Not being able to tell the difference is a definition of samsara. Being able to tell the difference is a definition of a practitioner. There actually being no difference, is a definition of the enlightened state.

Q    Right. That’s the same as with the idea of pure and impure motivation, isn’t it? NR    Yes, exactly. It’s not worth analysing. In fact, I’d say that it is definitely very tricky to come to the conclusion that one’s motivation is actually pure – or, that some aspect of one’s being is the liberated energy. Q    I guess that would be as problematic as seeing all one’s motivation and patterns of energy as distorted… NR    Quite. KD    Both are problematic. It’s much simpler just to accept that every aspect of your being is mixed – unless you’re in the non-dual condition.

KD    Possibly… but how do you discharge a negative pattern – the cause of the feeling? What happens to the cause of the feeling? Q    Oh, I see: you can get rid of the feeling for a while, but you’re still stuck with the conceptual pattern. KD    Yes. NR    Possibly you can discharge energy in some way, but not patterning. You can’t get rid of the pattern by acting it out. Acting out is the pattern.

Q    And I guess that’s very far from being free… KD    Yes. That’s what’s called conditioning. NR    This type of emotional conditioning is not what Buddhists call freedom. This discharging business isn’t Tantra, it’s tantrum.

5 Reading the Fields of Energy

Our own eyes are all we need – our own senses are all that are required, but they have to be open to perceiving the world. Most people will have heard the word mandala. The Tibetan word for mandala is khyil-khor.

Even if you tried to eradicate your personal history in an attempt to become anonymous, it would be impossible to be free of your interconnections. Even when you die your friends and children remember you in their photograph albums as part of their khyil-khors. It is impossible not to leave a trace that ripples through eternity.

Khyil-khor manifests as empty centres – centres of unconditioned potentiality. These empty centres appear spontaneously on the luminous fringes of our perception. Khyil-khor is our experience. It is our sensation, or consciousness, of finding ourselves in our world. It is the rich and dynamic experience of finding ourselves in relation to symmetrically radiating sets of phenomena: conditions, locations, atmospheres, times, seasons, landscapes, environments and circumstances.

The five internal energy fields of the elements are known as the five khandros;3 the sky-goers. The magical appearance of the khandros reflects the spatial qualities of the elements.

The character and circumstances of our lives are symbolic of our enlightenment. They remain symbolic as long as we do not know we are enlightened. When we recognise that we are enlightened, symbolism disappears – or rather, the symbol and the enlightened state become indivisible. When symbolism and the state of enlightenment dissolve into each other, we recognise the primal purity of our own condition. The purpose of symbolism is to effect that dissolution.

When it is reality that is important, rather than a personally cherished version of reality, one can be open to everything.

NR    It’s an impression created by a flickering dance within a centreless centre.

NR    Personality is very important in manifesting compassion on an individual basis. You have to relate in terms of individuality in order to be seen and heard by individuals. If you had no personality, you would not be able to touch individuals.

KD    Yes. Infinite non-specific benevolence would have to be rather bland. That is why greater effectiveness is linked with wrathful awareness-beings than with peaceful ones. The more particular the detail, the greater the capacity to communicate in a direct and highly personal way.

Yellow Khandro-Pawo Display

Wealth and generosity go hand in hand because even if we have very little, we can be wealthy and attract wealth if we have the spirit of giving, which always enables us to find something to give.

Earth signifies the overt qualities of the material world, the ways in which we attempt to manipulate reality in order to solidify ourselves.

In order to camouflage our feeling of worthlessness, we attempt to own the phenomenal world.

There is a particular scenario with which most people will be familiar: the young man rejected in love goes off to becomes a very important person, just so that he can come back and say: “If you want me now, you’ll have to beg…”

It is not likely that this ever really happens in the actual world; it is largely a male earth-neurosis fantasy. If the young lady failed to be attracted to him in the first place, she is not likely to find him attractive later; unless she is considerably confused herself. The earth element’s distorted energy busies itself with concretisation of self-image. This has a lot to do with territorialism – and through that, with dominance, power, arrogance, prestige, and status. The earth element neurotic wants recognition and dominion, to establish security beyond any doubt – by accumulating and hoarding anything that is held to be of value.

The empire-building obsession can be seen in any aspect of life: acquisition of personal contacts in the art world, spiritual circles, commerce, and politics. Each of these fields is riddled with social-climbing manœuvres, and attempts to influence those in authority or privileged positions. Whether we are after another shirt, another skirt, another Rolls Royce, another empowerment, another very secret teaching from a very special and inaccessible master, another country estate, or another country makes little difference. These drives are based on an inner feeling of poverty and bankruptcy in terms of the experience of being.

Arrogance, for example, can be the silent smugness that refuses to open itself to other people. In this frame of mind one cannot be seen to allow anyone else their own field of experience.

Inability to admit lack of knowledge, and inappropriately assumed expertise merely puts us in a position where we learn very little. We merely increase our own sense of poverty. We cut ourselves off, and render ourselves unable to tap into the richness of the world. Experience cannot be shared as long as we use materialism to cover an underlying sense of poverty.

If we cooperate with the sparkling through of our beginningless enlightenment and experience the nature of the energy from which territorialism arises, we can release ourselves from the illusion of poverty. Pride is precarious because it depends on maintenance of the status quo. Territorialism depends on the possibility of success in the unlikely project of flying in the face of change.

In the world of mass-media popularity, people are often forgiven for a certain amount of arrogance – whilst they are on top. But once popularity is spent, arrogance is seen very differently – it seems hollow and pitiful; the object of derision, ridicule and censure.

It happens because of the extreme instability of the times, rather than through any significant fault on his part. He is just an impetuous young man with a love of life and its enjoyments, but eventually it all starts to feel a little hollow and empty.

In Tibetan terms, the young man chose the way of renunciation, but that is not the only method of working. It is also possible to choose the path of transformation and work with the patterns of life without attachment to failure or success. This is the path of Tibetan Tantra which we are discussing.

Territorialism is outraged by any disagreement or criticism – its brittle arrogance needs to see rebels and dissenters punished and publicly humiliated. Any hint of deviation from the established formulas is seen as unacceptable audacity.

The liberated field of energy of the earth element displays the glorious warmth and wealth of earth. This energy is inexhaustible and free to whomever needs it. Wealth and generosity go hand in hand – if they do not then we have neither.

The primacy of the ‘needy-greedy’ mentality creates hypersensitivity to loss of any kind. Yellow is associated with the richness of gold, the warm glow of amber and the lush treacling sunlight that sparkles on burnished wheat and barley.

Rinchen is the multi-faceted jewel that reflects light in all directions equally, showering the universe with a warm radiant glow.

White Khandro-Pawo Display

Non-dual anger is unconditioned clarity. It is displayed by the brilliance and calmness of water. The undisturbed surface of water perfectly mirrors the sky. The crystal clarity of undisturbed water seems incapable of bias or distortion. When water is clear it is barely visible – it seems to possess only the dimensionless reflective quality of its surface.

The spray of the water from these rocks was so violent that even a shutter speed setting of a two-thousandth of a second was not fast enough to freeze the froth on film. But in its rampant ferocity there was a clear, crisp and immaculate beauty that seemed completely pure – utterly unadulterated.

Water displays the attributes of anger in a variety of ways. We need only walk along the seashore to observe fragments of wreckage – the battered remains; the flotsam and jetsam of who-knows-what. But anger is not always so uninhibited – sometimes it can be icy, the cold bitter rage of calculating destructiveness. We may seem to be outwardly under control, while internally atomic war is in progress. Our every action is accurately and finely tuned to have some very specific hurtful effect.

When water freezes it can be the instrument of severe surgical mutilation. However anger manifests, it has the quality of ‘sharpening’ our presence. Anger can produce a state of almost one-pointedness. When we get angry about something in particular, all those aspects of life that we usually find irritating, awkward or embarrassing melt away into a blur on the outer margins of immediate emotional awareness.

Anger is a very direct communication. It is an intellectual energy which is only concerned with its relationship to the object of anger. When you are howling abuse at someone because of the pain you think they have caused you, some kind of tunnel vision of the senses takes over. You no longer hear, smell, touch or taste anything else – your sphere of thought is locked into this communication. In a sense this can be a little like living in ‘the now’, but being so on edge about the brittleness you perceive in yourself that you become increasingly weapon-like; shiny, sharp, and merciless.

These are qualities that it could be useful to realise in ourselves in their non-aggressive manifestation. Because anger is a distorted form of clarity, it will obviously still display certain qualities of clarity. These are not two entirely different energies, because anger and clarity are dynamically linked.

An old Norse saying runs: ‘For a hand, take an arm! For an arm, take a head!’ That seems to epitomise the water element neurosis. It is all rather barbaric – but, whether it is the barbarism of a Viking, a Mongol warlord, the sophisticated barbarism of a boardroom power-play, or the aggression of ‘spiritual’ intrigue makes little difference. When the energy of anger is functioning in its characteristic way, even the most dull and witless person will suddenly find they are equipped with unfamiliar skills. Incredible memory develops and can dredge up, instantly, all manner of pertinent past events which are guaranteed to cut the object of anger to the quick. The right words are chosen with unprecedented sarcastic precision. Remarks are parried with impeccable speed. Every comment is a rapier thrust that penetrates some vital organ. The more our intellectual faculties are developed, the more possible it is to hone the cutting edge of rage. But inevitably words run out; and when words fail, the energy carries through into physical violence. Anger and aggression are symptomatic of feelings of weakness and fear. When people resort to anger they are saying that they are afraid – they are saying that they are too timid to express honestly how they feel. Anger only arises when another person is perceived to be stronger and capable of menace. This may be a little hard to understand, especially for battered wives, but strength is perceived in many different ways.

One might be afraid that ‘they’ will have all the answers. It could be seen as useless to discuss the matter calmly – ‘they’ might get the upper hand.

These feelings might not quite match up to our cherished self-image of intellectual prowess or the dogged stamina of bloody-mindedness. We might feel that we would be ridiculed and humiliated if we expressed any weakness. So rather than risk the possibility of suffering disrespect, it could seem preferable to take the line that ‘attack is the best form of defence’.

It seems very difficult for us to recognise that one of our most immediate strengths lies in acknowledging weakness. Weakness only exists as such because it is kept locked in an emotional high-security vault, designed to preserve self-image and a sense of personal security. A realisation such as this could give us a new perspective on anger, and on the anger projected by others. The idea that angry people feel weak and fearful may seem to be a total contradiction to some – especially to those who fear anger. We feel this way because of what is reflected at the surface level. It could seem quite bizarre to consider that we were having to endure the projection of anger because someone feared our strength.

If we were to realise that anger is often projected at us, simply because strength is imputed to us – we might be able to be gentle with people who act in angry ways. If instead of protecting ourselves from anger, we were able to recognise our own strength as the ability to expose feelings of vulnerability, we might find that people who are angry at us become unable to maintain it.

As a transmuted energy, anger is mirror-wisdom – undistracted, undistorted clarity. But in order for us to find this clarity, to polish this mirror, we need to cut through the insidious process of justification. Justification is the authority we invoke to license our anger.

can also become aware that some people seem to have needs that we do not share. Most of us are aware of people in our lives who seem excessively ‘needy’ and yet have little or nothing to give to anyone else.

The Tantric path does not require that we ignore every emotional need. We can respect our own unique pattern of energy and learn to work with it in a creative open-ended manner.

This balancing act requires the experience of emptiness, because without it, we either indulge ourselves or brutalise ourselves. The experience of emptiness, in this sense, helps us to view our emotions with a degree of humour – with more sanity and true perspective. With this sense of space we can find ourselves adopting a very powerful stance – the stance of a practitioner. Then it is no longer possible to say: “You have made me angry!” All we can say is: “I have made myself angry in reaction to what I have perceived you to have done to me”. In this way we make ourselves completely responsible for what we feel. That is really wonderful, because from this perspective we stop laying this responsibility on other people. Taking responsibility for whatever we may happen to be feeling is what enables us to kill justification.

We become more relaxed, and more able to discover ourselves. Discovering the intrinsic space of our beginningless enlightenment is the source of kindness for others – for everyone and everything everywhere. This does not mean letting people walk all over us. It simply means taking responsibility for how we feel, so that we can be clear about how we respond.

We continually regenerate our painful emotions by intellectualising about them – rather than experiencing them at the non-conceptual level. The only way out is to let awareness find itself in the dimension of whatever emotion has arisen; and to experience it purely. When we are able to let go of justification we are no longer as involved in maintaining the integrity of our self-image. When this neurotic involvement is reduced, the energy of anger is no longer coloured by the need to prove our existence through the manifestation of aggression.

When the ‘subject-object dichotomy’ dissolves into space, anger can no longer exist as anger but transforms into total clarity. This clarity dispassionately reflects all that it sees. Nothing is left out. Nothing is added. We see the whole picture in all its vibrant detail. Non-dual anger is unconditioned clarity. It is displayed by the brilliance and calmness of water. The undisturbed surface of water perfectly mirrors the sky.

Although the mirror has reflections, they are not the mirror itself; neither do they define the mirror. The reflections only exist because the mirror has the capacity to reflect. But although the reflections are not the mirror, they cannot be divided from the mirror. We only see the mirror by virtue of the presence of the reflections. If there were no reflections, there would simply be empty space. We define the mirror as being the reflections we see in it, and rarely glimpse the empty mirror. The empty mirror is the fundamental creative capacity which allows reflections to arise. We see the mirror because of the reflections in it. Whether the reflections are beautiful or ugly, the mirror itself is unperturbed – it reflects everything equally, accurately, and without judgement.

8 Red Khandro-Pawo Display When the essential nature of the fire element is experienced beyond dualism, we realise that we do not have to seduce the world… Every activity becomes the consummation of the love affair with emptiness and form. We are free of reference points as objects of desire. We burn with the wisdom-fire of centrelessness and realise our capacity to extend our realisation to everyone.

we realise that we do not have to seduce the world… Every activity becomes the consummation of the love affair with emptiness and form. We are free of reference points as objects of desire. We burn with the wisdom-fire of centrelessness and realise our capacity to extend our realisation to everyone.

Red is the colour of the fire element. According to the dualistic vision of the fire element, experience of our spacious nature is perceived as isolation.

Fire is a vital passionate force that devours its own world. It is omnivorous: consuming everything with which it makes contact. Fire is a sensuous energy. We speak of ardour being kindled. We tell of burning passion, and of flames of desire.

When there is no room for the discriminatory faculties to function, obsession becomes increasingly rampant. There is no room left to actually appreciate objects of desire, because our perception is fettered by the increasingly intense claustrophobia of grasping. When the fire element neurosis is in full swing, people throw themselves into life and invariably overdo it: staying up too late; getting too drunk; going to too many parties; indulging in too many highs; and, attempting to squeeze every last drop of pleasure out of everything. Over-indulgence becomes a way of life.

Multiple activities suck the space out of every moment: talking to a friend on the phone; glancing at a picture book; smoking a cigarette; drinking a cup of coffee. Multi-media entertainment is required: a stereo system; watching television with the sound off; ‘channel-surfing’ on the remote to make sure of not missing out on more tempting images. Every moment-particle of space is saturated with entertainment or creative stress of some kind. The ‘wiring’ of the human frame is overloaded and the fuses eventually burn out.

Sensation has to be escalated, enhanced or boosted. Fantasy is a prime arena for installing turbo-drive into all permutations of possible gratification. “Wouldn’t it be great to make love to the most beautiful person in the world!” Various people come to mind.

lyrically incandescing with the fluttering wings of the music… It sounds wonderful, perhaps – and perhaps it is, if it is actually happening. But unfortunately this infatuation with ‘more’ tends to be rather sad: a daydream that denigrates your life, and the real person to whom you may be relating. It is denigrating because there is no appreciation of the amazing qualities of what is actually unfolding in the present moment. There is nothing right or wrong, good or bad about daydreams; but if they are not actually connected with our real life, how do we appreciate our real life?

‘licked by flames’.

With the development of view, which is discovered through the practice of shi-nè, the experience of emptiness allows humour to develop. With humour as a function of the fabric of perception, it becomes possible to be childlike. We need to be able to play with the phenomenal world; through touching, hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting. We need to be able to appreciate phenomena in the fullest sense – but then; we need to be able to allow them their freedom. We need to be able to let go.

Suddenly he asked his friend: “Do you think it prudent for monks to have such close contact with ladies?” The other monk let out a great laugh and said: “I put the lady down back at the river but it looks as if you’re still carrying her!”

With the fire element, confrontation with intrinsic space is feared, because it exposes the sense of isolation. Fire element neurotics feel very alone in the world, so they need to possess and be possessed in order to cover this feeling of isolation.

They live for the orgiastic instant when they pass the money over the counter. They live for the point at which they can exultantly caress the new lover; play the new CD; drive the new car; shoot the new gun; put on the new coat; open the pages of the new book; slide into the new elk hide trousers; slip into the luxurious suede shirt; gaze into the lustrous surface of the period viola da gamba; get their fingers on the keyboard of the new computer… The new whatever, it does not matter, but it has to be: more, faster, bigger, better, smaller, lighter, heavier, more sensuous, more virile, more muscular, more voluptuous, more… just continuous new ‘more’.

We have the belief that it is actually possible to abolish our sense of isolation through achieving ecstatic union with any focus of our desire.

There is no cure for this emptiness in terms of filling it. There is no cure apart from staring into desire with non-conceptual attention. This liberates the boundless energy of desire into the desireless-desire of compassion.

The liberated field of energy of the fire element displays the discriminative quality of fire. This can be seen in terms of how fire helps us in specific ways.

The fire of passion moves beyond personalised or isolated/isolating passion. This can be called active-compassion or pure appropriateness. Indiscriminate grasping is liberated into the pure energy field of discriminating awareness. Discriminating awareness means being in tune.

The symbolism of the lotus is that it grows up out of the murky mud and slime of polluted water into dazzling sunlight. When it opens, its petals are pristine and unaffected by the stagnant sludge. Its petals have been pure from beginninglessness. The lotus remains pure through the illusion of renunciation, of apparent obfuscation, and the transmutation of apparent obscuration into clear light.

Cultivating real frivolity means abandoning the habit of taking one’s ‘self’ so seriously. Cutting through seriousness enables us to feel the sunshine. It enables us to climb out of the vast vat of porridge built of self-righteousness and sanctimonious attachment to a constipated sobriety. It enables us to feel the fine nourishing rain that refreshes the world and fills the sky with magical rainbows.

9 Green Khandro-Pawo Display The wisdom of self-fulfilling activity is free of all hindrances. We can pacify what needs to be pacified. We can enrich what needs to be enriched. We can magnetise what needs to be magnetised. We can destroy what needs to be destroyed. Our activities are self-accomplished; their completion is implicit in their inception.

The colour green is connected to the element of air, to the distorted energy of paranoia and to the liberated energy of self-fulfilling activity. Air flurries in all directions: touching everything; exploring each surface; examining all angles; investigating every crevice. It is always seeking but never finding. The wind has to press on; constantly searching, unable to rest.

We fear space as a militant nihilistic conspiracy. Hyperactive cowardice develops from this, in which any hint of possible sensory deprivation becomes the focus of paranoid projections. In the world of ideation there are paranoid projections of what stable shi-nè may call into form. In the visual world there are paranoid projections of what darkness may contain.

The earth element neurotic feels a total lack of territory. There is a lack of identification with solidity in terms of having any kind of coherent foot-hold of personal territory.

NR    The point is, that you have to remain with the sparkling through rather than taking refuge in the distortions – merely because they are known, and therefore feel safe.

Beyond yes and no. Yes and no are just polarised concepts. It is not ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It is not ‘both yes and no’. Nor is it ‘neither yes nor no’…

Gradual doesn’t really exist. Gradual is just a long run-up to non-gradual.

KD    Shyness is a secondary colour of the spectrum; like guilt. Guilt is an aspect of the interaction of the earth and air elements. So yes, shyness is an aspect of the earth element neurosis. But it’s like guilt – an interaction of earth and air.

But couldn’t you just get trapped in that? NR    Sure. You could get trapped in anything. You could also convert Buddhism into a trap if you wanted to. Some people do, especially scholars and academics [laughs].

about one’s spiritual path, and kindness is so much more important than some kind of self-centred grasping for the ultimate.

The elements are always equally present, in terms of the pure elements. It’s also not possible to divide them, because they are completely interdependent. They are indivisible.

On a practical level you would simply attempt to remain in the awareness of the view. You’d make a practice of attempting to remember the view whenever you recognised the pattern of justification colouring your perception. NR    That’s not particularly easy – but it is simple. You couldn’t get much more simple than that. Also… you have to make a practice of forgiving yourself for continually failing. That’s a valuable part of the process. It’s a practice simply to be a practitioner and, to keep that sense of recognition present.

KD    Anger is the most extreme manifestation of duality. When you’re trying to destroy anything that might threaten you, you’re not open to any form of communication.

NR    I am very fond of fire element neurotics. From my point of view, they have a great deal of spiritual potential. That gloriously rampant, over-the-top, audacious, devil-may-care lust for the intensity of life is wonderful.

NR    Sure. Wonderfully painful! Wonderfully pleasurable! Wonderfully fire and ice! Wonderfully there. You’re really wonderfully impelled to have to put yourself on the line almost continually. There’s a lot of wonderfully insane bravery and compassion in the fire element neurotic. Some would disagree, I’m sure… This is purely our perspective, you understand…

KD    The Three Terrible Oaths are: ‘Whatever happens – may it happen!’; ‘Whichever way it goes – may it go that way!’; and, ‘There is no purpose!’ This adds up to positively willing every situation to be exactly as it is.

the totality or completeness of our relationship with our situation, in which we let go of the urge to manufacture anything. It’s the ecstatic appreciation of every moment of experience, in which whatever happens has its own unique texture – and that texture, in itself, is the implicit meaning of the Mind-moment – [interrupted]

When each moment is fresh, and undiluted by the insipid rationalisations of constipated nervousness, the simple fact of experience is there just as it is. That is both very powerful and very ordinary. That is both terribly claustrophobic and fantastically liberating. KD    Yes. Simply to realise that you cannot help but be ‘trapped’ by what is, releases your capacity to embrace the energy of your own situation – and that’s called freedom. NR    Ecstatic appreciation of every moment of experience is simply what happens when we give up on our attempts to create reality according to the banal dictates of security. When I say that ‘the texture of whatever happens is, in itself, the implicit meaning of every Mind-moment’, there is the sense in which each Mind-moment is, in its nakedness, the state of enlightenment. If you live these Three Terrible Oaths it is impossible to doubt that.

But whatever it is; it’s complete. It’s undiluted. It’s direct. It’s unobstructed. It’s simply there: with no room for manœuvre; no cubby-hole of cold comfort; no cosy foot-warmer philosophy; no ancient wisdom from Atlantis; no pixie cards; no New Age crystals; no Tarot; no astrology or I Ching to which you could refer in moments of doubt. The moments of doubt are also simply there – raw and tingling; both absolutely and relatively real. Relentlessly real, as opposed to anal-retentively unreal.

KD    The yogis and yoginis seem to manage. This doesn’t contradict making plans – [interrupted] Q    But it doesn’t sound like a recipe for getting anything done. In fact it could sound fairly fatalistic if you misunderstood. KD    Yes, I think this is often misunderstood… NR    People misunderstand this as a stand-alone attitude or a self-sufficient raison d’être. Actually it’s an attitude that flows with whatever direction and purpose may happen to be there. KD    It is actually being alive and responding to the world in a real and vital way. But ‘getting things done’ is not a goal for the yogi or yogini – even though they are quite capable of getting things done – they often get a great deal done! What we’re really talking about here is the capacity not to attempt to manufacture the context in which we get things done.