I respond to this plea in different ways. First, I will point out that the “doing nothing” that’s happening in a workshop or on a teleconference call can’t be compared with inactivity. I may say, “It’s true that in Timeless Wisdom workshops we aren’t playing sport, surfing the internet, engrossed in a movie, negotiating airport security, or visiting our parents, but the “this” we are doing—that’s happening here—is ultimately unrelated to being still, or inaction. At the very least we can see how, right now, it’s possible to abide in awareness—and talk, listen, make notes, stand up, sit down, and move around.

It’s true that, as beginners, it’s easier for us to enter awareness when the environment is simple, stable and undemanding. But, it’s also important not to make a connection and think that “this”—being here—is doing nothing. We aren’t doing nothing in the way we typically use that phrase. We aren’t sitting around aimlessly, watching things go by. We are resting in a pristine state of being: a state where we could rest, fully aware, without a flicker of boredom or distress, for eternity. This is completely different from “hanging around, letting time pass by, doing nothing, until something comes along.”

In fact, I question the belief that we really want to spend more time resting in awareness? I think that, if we really wanted to spend more time “here”, somehow we’d figure out how to do it. The Buddha worked it out—how to be permanently free—as have hundreds of thousands of other sages. What’s clear is that there is a fundamental change in priorities. For the Buddha, the priority wasn’t having a roof over his head, or knowing where his next meal was coming from. Something completely different was going on. So different that he didn’t need a roof over his head, money in his pocket, or fallible human company. It’s easy to say, “Ah, but he could renounce all those things because he was enlightened.” But this is a cop out. For the Buddha, the only thing was abiding in liberating awareness, needing nothing, rejecting nothing, and letting his life unfold with no concern or preoccupation about tomorrow, or the next minute. His power and influence as the founder of a new religion came precisely from his capacity to encounter everything that came his way: scorching heat, drenching rain, an empty stomach, ridicule, unrestrained adoration, assassination attempts, numerous smear campaigns, without any of these producing the slightest mental or emotional disturbance. Such was the power of his unconditioned love and nondual wisdom.

If the same priority was alive in us, we wouldn’t be who we are. It’s very simple; we’d be a completely different person, someone so different from who we are, we couldn’t even recognize ourselves. We would see a clone of our body, but the speech, functioning, gait, comportment, lifestyle, network of friends and colleagues and career (if we could still call it that) would be completely different: like someone from a different planet. For a start, we wouldn’t be saying, “I don’t have enough time to rest in awareness. My life is too busy. I have too many other commitments.”

There is nothing to be gained in thinking, “I don’t have enough time for this work.” We rest in awareness for us long as we can. If we could do more of “this” we would. I have no doubt about this.

I invite you to be honest and realistic about how you are with this. Complaining about our time being limited and committed, and wishing it were otherwise–that there wasn’t so much to do, there weren’t so many responsibilities–merely fosters conflict. No one ever entered (or re-entered) this state by thinking, “I wish I could do more of this.” Unless, of course, in thinking like this we see that there is no “this” to want more of! No one has ever entered buddhamind wishing that their life was different. In this work we embrace what is, aware of our deepest longings and our present choices, acknowledging where we are with love and understanding.

The Bhagavad-Gita speaks about the practice of desireless action (nishkama-karma). When time is available, we sense that there’s nothing we need to do, and so we do exactly that. We find a quiet place and abide in unconditioned awareness. In the rush of getting things done we may forget the possibility of being “here,” but not entirely. Unconditioned awareness is always here, silently in the background, needing and expecting nothing but somehow drawing us into it. Knowing that the ever-present possibility can shine through at any moment, we grow in our capacity to find the time for abiding. We remember how sweet, peaceful, spacious and free this space is, and we receive it as the sourceless gift of the universe. We find a few minutes each day, and each week, to rest in nondual awareness, and we plan ahead for a retreat so we can dwell more deeply and uninterruptedly in timeless presence.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2012

Peter Fenner, Ph.D. is a spiritual leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy, he created the Radiant Mind Course® and the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training. Peter runs courses, trainings, retreats and satsang telecalls and offers individual coaching sessions. His students and clients include Buddhist psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, Zen masters, Sufi masters, Vipassana and Mindfulness teachers, Yoga teachers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, hospice workers, students of Tibetan Buddhism, followers of Advaita, artists and spiritual seekers worldwide.

Peter was a celibate monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 9 years and has a Ph.D. in the philosophical psychology of Mahayana Buddhism. Over a period of 40 years Peter Fenner has distilled the essence of traditions like Zen, Dzogchen and the Buddhist Middle Way, and adapted them to suit creatively our post-modern culture. He is the Director of Education of Timeless Wisdom.

The Radiant Mind Course (www.radiantmind.net) is taught in North America, Australia, and Europe, as well as the Natural Awakening Training, (www.nondualtraining.com.) Peter also offers retreats on 5 continents.  He has presented his work at leading universities and institutions including Columbia, Stanford, CIIS and Naropa.

Peter Fenner has written extensively on Buddhist nondual traditions. His books and CDs include:

• “Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Awareness” (Sounds True, 2007) translated in French: “L’Esprit Lumineux” (Almora, 2010) and in German: “Reines Gewahrsein”;
• “The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy” (ed. with John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal, 2003).
• “The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path” (2002) translated in French: “Le Fil de la Certitude, Dilemmes de la voie bouddhiste” (du Relié, 2001).

Stay in touch with Peter Fenner

• Subscribe to Timeless Wisdom newsletter (in English mainly)
• Join Peter Fenner’s network on LinkedIn
• Receive the latest news by “liking” Peter Fenner’s page on Facebook
• Follow Peter Fenner on Twitter
• Visit Timeless Wisdom’s website

The buddhas teach that there is a self, that there is no self, and that there is neither a self nor the absence of a self.

Nagarjuna

The flower’s perfume has no form, but it pervades space.  Likewise, through a spiral of mandalas formless reality is known.

Saraha

When we inquire into the reality of the “being within us” who seems to experience everything that we sense, feel and think, we can never find the experiencer.  If we find something—like the sense of a center, a feeling of “me” in the head, heart or anything—this would be something that’s being “experienced.”  We still wouldn’t have found “who” is experiencing this.

These days many people are finding their way into “selflessness” or “centerlessness”—the state of being without there being a center or separate experiencer.  People realize this state through self-inquiry, using questions like “Who or what is experiencing this moment?” People may struggle for a few minutes thinking that the word “me” is the experiencer, but after a few affirmations, most people who engage in this type of inquiry can see that, yes, the idea of “me” or “I” is a particular idea that’s also being experienced.  Some people find it easy to discover selflessness using the perceptual doorways made famous by Douglas Harding’s “experiments.”  We point one of our fingers at our face and see that we can never see, never find, what our finger is pointing at.  The finger points at a space, a clearing, that is the centerless universe that circumscribes our reality.

No “non-self” either

Moreover, if we try to find the “absence of a center,” or a “self,” or “me,” we can’t find what’s not there.  So, contrary to what some people conclude, we can’t say that there is “no self,” or “no experiencer,” either.  We are left speechless, seeing that we neither exist nor don’t exist.

Sometimes people get nervous when they first encounter the realization that there is no findable “me” that sits in our head, or stands behind everything out there. People fear that the bottom of their lives might fall out.  But, if we look at what really happens, nothing changes at all.  Our fear is baseless because, while we can’t find ourselves, equally we can’t conclude that we don’t exist.  We have no basis at all for saying “Who we aren’t!”  If we look at things, we are here—you and I—and  everyone else is exactly where they are.  And yet we are all unfindable!

At this point you might be thinking, “I can’t think about ‘this’.”  And, yes, that’s precisely the case. We can’t think about “this.”  We are beyond dualistic concepts. We can’t even say, “we are beyond.”  Nothing whatsoever changes when we realize selflessness because a self was never there in the first place.  We might think that something goes away (the self) but it doesn’t.  There is nothing to disappear!

Liberated in the here-and-now

This realization is wonderful because it creates a sense of open, unbounded, freedom that’s completely fused with the infinitely complex mandala of our unique, empirical existence.  This realization allows us to be totally free in the same moment that we are, effectively, trapped in the particulars of our moment-by-moment experience.  Think about it, in this moment, nothing can be different.  The thought we are thinking displaces every other thought, if we are inhaling we can’t be exhaling.  The word you are reading right now can’t be another word, because this is the one that’s here.  Your body can’t be in a different location in this very moment, because it is where it is.  Every square centimeter of our life-world is filled to the limits with a panoramic display of colors, shapes, sensations and thought-forms.  We are engulfed in a seamless and totalizing sea of sensations and cognition that has no ruptures or interruptions.

If you’re like me, your capacity for resting in the ground of being is highly conditioned. The external circumstances and state of my body-mind need to be “just right” if I’m to have any chance of resting in awareness.  Even when things are just right, I can still be distracted by my “important” projects or necessary interests, like thinking that I really need to know the current updates in world news.  It takes just a small discomfort to wish that “things were different.”  Frustrations, anxieties, fears, annoyances, boredoms, and vulnerabilities abound.

Gradual evolution

The path for many people is gradual.  Moments of selfless awareness arise within the larger context of our life—all the events that happen from our birth, initial awakening, on into death and beyond.  The first recognition of pure, primordial awareness may occur as a child, or the serene setting of a contemplative dialogue with a nondual master, after years of meditation practice, while taking in a sunset, or in dokusan with a Zen roshi.  Or, perhaps we are introduced to the nature of mind by watching a YouTube video or informally in a café when a friend who knows this space shares the unfindable “this.”  Sometimes the first recognition happens spontaneously without any obvious precondition.  One day, everything drops away and we find ourselves in a space that’s like the open sky: beyond all concepts and feelings.  Or, perhaps this realization creeps up on us, and we can’t say exactly when we first become aware of the fact that we can’t find ourselves.

Having tasted the goal, the path consists of incrementally expanding and deepening our capacity to abide more continuously and reliably in selfless awareness as we engage the full range of experiences that are delivered to us by our karmically conditioned body-mind.  The scope for integrating what’s possible within the extremes of nirvana and samsara are enormous. Perhaps it has no limit.

Universal awakening: limitless integration

In Mahayana Buddhism the scope for our evolution is said to be inconceivably vast.  Quantum physics leads to the conclusion: “If it can happen, it will.”  Mahayana takes this further saying, “Everything can happen, and already is.”

The scope for deepening and expanding the embodied realization of selflessness is limitless.  According to the Mahayana, there is no conceivable event or experience that can disturb the vast, open-minded equanimity of a buddha. For a buddha, violent emotional invasions are received as whispered teachings of “perfect wisdom.”  Mental energies that would otherwise be experienced as psychological anguish and torment auto-liberate into a continuous stream of meditative quietude.  Physical pain is instantly and continuously transmuted by buddhamind into super-sensory pleasure.  For buddhas, energy in any form is the currency of bliss—exchangeable like dollars and euros for whatever we wish.  They live continuously in a “heaven on earth.”

One of my teachers, Lama Thubten Yeshe, often used the example of atomic power.  Awakened beings radiate a fusion-energy field.  They live in a matrix, a holographic mandala, that penetrates other people’s psyche and transforms any environment they inhabit.  The realization of buddhas is contagious, like a chain reaction.  Lama Yeshe embodied this capacity himself.  In the space of one or two minutes he would do a complete make-over of people’s limited conception of themselves.  They would arrive at his doorstep feeling very miserable about themselves, and leave a few minutes later with a life-changing experience of their spiritual potential.

Even though we are just scratching the surface of these buddha-like capacities, it’s inspiring to see that we have everything that’s needed to follow the same path to universal awakening (mahabodhi).  We are aware, and more over, we can see that we can be free in the moment without anything needing to change at all.

Pure perception

Within the vision of universal awakening, a gap between where we are now and the irreversible liberation of all mind-streams, is creatively and lovingly bridged by visioning the ideal spaces within which people can wake up and be constantly suffused and infused with the nectar of selfless awareness.  This is called “pure perception.”

“Pure perception” arises naturally when we see that there is no end to the dimensions and realities that can be touched and transformed by the liberating field of selfless awareness.  Ultimately, there is no other work to do.  We learn to how to think, feel and live at the result-level.  The type of visioning I’m talking about here comes to us effortlessly as we tune into precisely what people need in the moment in order to abide in the primordial state.

As the Buddha says in the Prajnaparamita Sutra:

Bodhisattvas are ceaselessly inspired by the conviction that the infinitely diverse structures of relativity, far from being some dangerous disease, are actually a healing medicine. Why?  Because in their intrinsically selfless nature, interdependent structures perfectly express the mystery and transmit the spiritual energy of universal companionship.  Not just awakened sages but all structures of relativity are dwellers in the boundlessness which constitutes all-embracing love, selfless compassion, sympathetic joy and blissful equanimity.

The wonderful thing about “pure perception” is that we can taste it now.  By definition, this is the nature of pure perception.  Pure perception is never something that happens in the future.  The idea that “pure perception” can only happen in the future, degrades the very quality of this experience itself.  In pure perception we bring an exalted appreciation to our experience of the world, including our own physical form.  We see the intrinsic harmony within and between all phenomena.  We experience the seamless, unimpeded flow of everything that arises and dissolves within the reality-sphere that is the mandala of our own existence.  Nothing is out of place; everything gives unique expression to an infinite network of conditions that are implicated in every manifestation from the most miniscule to the most cosmic, from the most insignificant to the most magnificent.   Everything is revealed as an expression of the unfindable vastness.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2012

Peter Fenner, Ph.D. is a spiritual leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy, he created the Radiant Mind Course® and the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training. Peter runs courses, trainings, retreats and satsang telecalls and offers individual coaching sessions. His students and clients include Buddhist psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, Zen masters, Sufi masters, Vipassana and Mindfulness teachers, Yoga teachers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, hospice workers, students of Tibetan Buddhism, followers of Advaita, artists and spiritual seekers worldwide.

Peter was a celibate monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 9 years and has a Ph.D. in the philosophical psychology of Mahayana Buddhism. Over a period of 40 years Peter Fenner has distilled the essence of traditions like Zen, Dzogchen and the Buddhist Middle Way, and adapted them to suit creatively our post-modern culture. He is the Director of Education of Timeless Wisdom.

The Radiant Mind Course (www.radiantmind.net) is taught in North America, Australia, and Europe, as well as the Natural Awakening Training, (www.nondualtraining.com.) Peter also offers retreats on 5 continents.  He has presented his work at leading universities and institutions including Columbia, Stanford, CIIS and Naropa.

Peter Fenner has written extensively on Buddhist nondual traditions. His books and CDs include:

• “Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Awareness” (Sounds True, 2007) translated in French: “L’Esprit Lumineux” (Almora, 2010) and in German: “Reines Gewahrsein”;
• “The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy” (ed. with John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal, 2003).
• “The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path” (2002) translated in French: “Le Fil de la Certitude, Dilemmes de la voie bouddhiste” (du Relié, 2001).

Stay in touch with Peter Fenner

• Subscribe to Timeless Wisdom newsletter (in English mainly)
• Join Peter Fenner’s network on LinkedIn
• Receive the latest news by “liking” Peter Fenner’s page on Facebook
• Follow Peter Fenner on Twitter
• Visit Timeless Wisdom’s website

However, as soon as people are fully engaged with nonduality, we can’t promise anything. There are two reasons for this. First, the focus of our work is on nondual awareness. If we give attention to change at the conditioned level this throws us into time and casualty. This attention doesn’t create an entry point into nondual awareness. In fact, it distracts us from the unbounded panorama of pure awareness.

We can’t know how the infusion of nondual awareness within a mindstream will influence someone’s evolutionary path. Even here, in saying that nondual awareness influences how we think, feel and perceive, I am telling a story. I am moving away from the language of the unconditioned where there’s nothing to say, nothing to describe, where the nondual can’t influence anything because it isn’t a force or power or energy. It is nothing. I acknowledge that I am no longer talking from the nondual. I’m aware that what I am about to say can easily raise as many questions as it seems to answer. I preempt this by saying “I’ll give you my thoughts on this but it will be quite brief because this is just the way that I try to make sense of things.”

Wonderful things do happen when we engage in nondual work. People experience super-deep, super-smooth and totally effortless sessions of natural meditation. They are able to feel totally complete, even blissful, in the midst of illness, irresolution or environmental threats. My approach is to acknowledge these “side effects,” but not dwell on them. They don’t become a focus of the work. In fact, these types of effects arise more consistently and comprehensively when we don’t give them any attention.

People often attribute these changes to the work they are doing. It can be tempting to agree with them and to interpret positive change to the work they are doing. I listen to these reports with pure listening. I don’t reject them or accept them. I’ll say that’s great, but I don’t make a link between the nondual program and the positive changes that are happening.

It’s a trap to attribute such changes to spending more time in nondual awareness. We then begin to assess the effectiveness of nondual work in terms of changes that are happening at the conditioned level. But the unconditioned isn’t ongoingly revealed and presenced when we are anticipating and tracking changes at the conditioned level. When we anticipate and track changes, we are no longer engaged in nondual transmission.

The second reason I don’t make promises that people’s lives will improve is that I don’t know what will happen for someone, tomorrow, next week or next year. While I’m sure that nondual awareness only serves people positively, it’s impossible to know what’s going to happen in a person’s life. We can’t know what those challenges will be. Someone’s life may move from being peaceful and easy to becoming demanding and stressful overnight. This happens all the time. Everyday thousands of people are losing their jobs, needing to sell their home, welcoming a newborn child into their family, and dealing with the news of a terminal illness. The stresses involved in some of these experiences can last for months or years.

Engaging in nonduality doesn’t provide insurance against relationship problems, financial loss, illness or death. All we can confidently say is that the more time we spend in nondual awareness, the better we will be able to handle life’s challenges, no matter what they are. Once we’ve experienced unconditioned awareness, this healing experience percolates through the layers of our conditioning. There is a natural and effortless process, which is different for each complex being, and it happens in its own time. At times, this deconditioning can happen quickly, and then we might regress and find ourselves confronting something that has been deeply held within our conditioning. At other times, deconditioning happens slowly and steadily. The entire process may take more than a lifetime. We might never reside permanently in unconditioned awareness. We have no concern for this. We can simply let the process happen in its own way.

An excerpt from Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training Manual written by Peter Fenner

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2009-2012

Peter Fenner, Ph.D. is a spiritual leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy, he created the Radiant Mind Course® and the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training. Peter runs courses, trainings, retreats and satsang telecalls and offers individual coaching sessions. His students and clients include Buddhist psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, Zen masters, Sufi masters, Vipassana and Mindfulness teachers, Yoga teachers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, hospice workers, students of Tibetan Buddhism, followers of Advaita, artists and spiritual seekers worldwide.

Peter was a celibate monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 9 years and has a Ph.D. in the philosophical psychology of Mahayana Buddhism. Over a period of 40 years Peter Fenner has distilled the essence of traditions like Zen, Dzogchen and the Buddhist Middle Way, and adapted them to suit creatively our post-modern culture. He is the Director of Education of Timeless Wisdom.

The Radiant Mind Course (www.radiantmind.net) is taught in North America, Australia, and Europe, as well as the Natural Awakening Training, (www.nondualtraining.com.) Peter also offers retreats on 5 continents.  He has presented his work at leading universities and institutions including Columbia, Stanford, CIIS and Naropa.

Peter Fenner has written extensively on Buddhist nondual traditions. His books and CDs include:

• “Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Awareness” (Sounds True, 2007) translated in French: “L’Esprit Lumineux” (Almora, 2010) and in German: “Reines Gewahrsein”;
• “The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy” (ed. with John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal, 2003).
• “The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path” (2002) translated in French: “Le Fil de la Certitude, Dilemmes de la voie bouddhiste” (du Relié, 2001).

Stay in touch with Peter Fenner

• Subscribe to Timeless Wisdom newsletter (in English mainly)
• Join Peter Fenner’s network on LinkedIn
• Receive the latest news by “liking” Peter Fenner’s page on Facebook
• Follow Peter Fenner on Twitter
• Visit Timeless Wisdom’s website

Peter Fenner, Ph.D.
Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011

Introduction

In this article I’d like to layout the way in which I introduce people to nondual awareness, particularly in terms of how I initially differentiate the nondual state from our empirical experience.  There are different ways in which I invite people to “leap into” nondual awareness, as it were.  Having made that leap, I then dissolve the dualistic construction that the nondual can be different from our everyday experience.  If people then reduce the nondual to the flux of their conditioned experience, which often happens, I redistinguish the nondual as a space that is radically different from anything we can possibly “experience.”  I cycle through a process of collapsing the difference, redistinguishing the nondual, dissolving the difference again, until there is a more consistent presencing of the nondual within the context of our embodied, everyday life—our thought-world, feelings, relationships and activities.

I’ve arrived at this process by seeing what seems to work best “on the spot” in terms of introducing people to the basic state of nondual awareness, while being open, receptive and responsive to whatever arises in the inner and outer environments.

I’ll explain what’s behind some of the moves I make as we progress through this article.  I should say at the outset that most of the work I do is with groups from 10 – 100 people.  When I work with a group I work with the material that people bring up individually.  But I do so in a way that’s intended to keep everyone fully engaged. When I’m interacting with someone, I do so in a way that doesn’t place other participants in the role of being mere witnesses or passive observers of a journey that is happening for someone else. I privilege neither the individual nor the group.

I also work one-on-one as a supervisor for coaches, therapists and facilitators who are working with the nondual dimension.  I do this mainly by telephone.  The process I’ll describe in this article also applies to individual work, especially when it’s clearly focused on the recognition of, and familiarization with, nondual awareness. The process I describe shouldn’t be viewed as a roadmap.  While I hope it makes pedagogical sense, it shouldn’t be viewed a series of steps that are systematically followed.  The actual process is organic, free-form and dynamic.

Is the nondual an experience, state or space?

Before beginning I’d like to say just a few words about my use of the term “nondual awareness.”  There is some discussion these days about the best term through which point to the nondual state.  What we are looking for is a term that doesn’t let us create differentiations.  This is why many people object to talking about the nondual experience.  There are many different types of experiences and also in an experience there are objects that are experienced and a seeming experiencer.  So experience isn’t the ideal term.  This leads some people to prefer the phrase “nondual state.”  But this isn’t perfect either because there are different types of states and the nondual state is neither the same as, nor different from other states.

Another possibility is to talk about the “nondual space.”  This has some merit because at one level we can’t differentiate one space from another space.   There is nothing in space itself to let us do this.  Also, there is a connection with the conditioned.  We talk about the workshop space, or the space we are in.   In general, in this article I’ll use the term “nondual awareness” because it is in quite common usage.  I’ll also often use the term “this,” without spelling this out further.[2] When I use the term “nondual awareness” it like a code word for the basic or primordial state, what is also called ka dag or alpha purity (Longchenpa: 1998, 2001a, 2001b, 2006), or just the “A state.” When people are in the know—when they can directly recognize this state—it’s sufficient to use “just this.”   A phrase like “nondual awareness” is no longer necessary.[3]

Distinguishing the nondual: entering a different paradigm

I usually begin by presenting nondual awareness as being completely different from the mind that compares, differentiates and makes contrasts. I say that we will be giving our attention to the nature of awareness itself, in contrast to the “objects of awareness”—thoughts, feelings and sensations.  If we weren’t aware we couldn’t be aware of our thoughts, my words, or this room.  We are exploring “That which is aware, not what we are aware of.”  I point out that if we “knew” what awareness was, it would be an “object of our awareness”, not awareness itself.

I present “abiding as awareness” as something that is radically different from our usual mode of being in which “we are someone who is engaged with the world.”  I point to nondual awareness by saying that, unlike our conditioned experience, it can’t be known, isn’t a thing, etc.   Nondual awareness is indivisible, it is unconstructed, in contrast to conditioned experience which is composed of different elements; the different sense fields, feelings, and thoughts.[4]  This is important because we can return to the idea that “our experiences are constructed”; built out of different elements, when we begin to deconstruct limiting identifications.

When I begin a presentation I often say something like:

This evening we are here to explore contentlessness.  It’s easy to explore content, to get involved in ideas, viewpoints and opinions.  But, my invitation for us this evening is to explore—no, actually to access—a dimension of reality that’s been very well known to sages in the East and West, but which is relatively inaccessible in our modern, busy, highly distracting lives.  What I say “explore” it’s not really an exploration, because there is nothing to discover or reveal!

This dimension of reality has been called, “objectless awareness,” “centerless awareness,” “the mind itself,” buddhamind,” and so on.  This state is acausal—without a cause—or unproduced. We don’t need anything more than what we already have in order to be “here”. There is nothing we need to know or do.  This is effortless.[5] Nothing could be simpler.  Nothing needs to change in order to be here—resting in nondual awareness.

Our conditioned experience unfolds in time—it is always changing. We can touch, feel, sense, and think about it.  Nondual awareness, on the other hand, doesn’t have any of these characteristics.  It’s not a “thing”.  We can’t see it, we can’t even think about it because there is nothing to think about. Nondual awareness is completely unrelated to you and me as different embodied minds.  It’s unrelated to the circumstances of our lives or the condition of our bodies and minds.  We are born and we will die.  We have gender, age, race, etc.  Nondual awareness has none of these.  It is ahistorical, transpersonal and transcultural.

I make this radical departure from our usual way of “being someone in time and space” because (1) people come to me specifically for the nondual, and (2) nondual awareness is far less accessible to most people than our ordinary, everyday world of effort, struggles, thwarted ambitions and periodic accomplishments.  People have no difficulties accessing their conditioned existence.  It confronts us! Also, for people who have little or no idea of what this state is, it can be useful to initially present “this” as something completely different from what we “know.” When people are immersed in their conditioned minds, they need eased, or ejected, out of their identification with the contents of awareness, in order to recognize the nondual.

In the language of Buddhist hermeneutics this presentation of nondual awareness “as different from the contents of awareness” is provisional.[6]  It isn’t the most refined way of languaging the nondual.  When I present it in this way, I’m aware that we are en route to a more refined presencing of the nondual.  This way of distinguishing the nondual is a skillful process (upaya).  It isn’t the “truth.”  I know there is further to go. The language of “not this, not that (neti neti) is a pedagogical device that can be used to reveal a dimension of reality that is inaccessible to most people because it is invisible and nondual, i.e. beyond the categories of being and non-being.

Diagram One shows how I draw a line between awareness and the contents awareness.  It also lists some of the common names used in different traditions to identify the same state that I am calling nondual awareness in this article.

The nondual isn’t a subtle affective experience or meditational state

I also distinguish nondual awareness in a clear and precise way when people confuse this state with different types of subtlety conditioned experiences.  For example, people often think that nondual awareness is a state of bliss, or serenity or love.  These experiences can accompany the presencing of the nondual, but they aren’t nondual awareness itself.  They are conditioned experiences.  This is clear because they come and go in the conventional sense.[7]  They are refined experiences that arise as epiphenomena when people’s reactive responses settle down and the habitual need to understand and interpret slows down.  These experiences can be, in fact often are, confused with the nondual.

H.H. Dudjum Jigdral Yeshe Dorje (1904-1987) of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism is  clear about the potential distraction that such a confusion can cause when he writes:

Now while you are on the path, it will happen that this [rig pa = pure awareness] will become mixed with some form of the three temporary experiences–bliss, clarity, and no thought–so when that does happen rest without a whisker of the hope and fear that believes in and grasps at these as special attainments and just that will cut the possibility of the experience turning into a sidetrack.[8]

A significant focus in group facilitation is to ensure that people receive nondual awareness cleanly and purely.  This need is compounded these days because the terms nonduality and nondual awareness are being used quite loosely.  They are often used to refer to states that still have some content and structure to them.  If there is any association between feeling peaceful, clear or accepting, and nonduality, this isn’t nondual awareness.

There is often a lot of scope to purify an experience so it really becomes nondual, and stays that way.  A lot of the work in nondual transmission is “cleaning work.”   People can enter the nondual, but over time it can become sullied.  People begin to identify with the pleasant feelings, sensations and authenticity that naturally enter the nondual field.  Many people have a strong need to attribute some basic qualities to nondual awareness, for example, that is a state of profound intimacy, unconditional love, sourceless bliss or imperturbable serenity.

To assess the purity of a state of nondual awareness, we look for the existence of structures within the state. The structures I’m referring to are ideas, beliefs, feelings, interpretations, and reference points. An ordinary, conditioned state is densely structured. With increasing familiarity with nondual awareness, we also experience more lightly structured states of awareness. Structures still exist, but there is an overall sense of more immediacy and less interpretation. The structures become more and more transparent.

It’s as if there is a spectrum of states that have a progressively lighter structure along the way to a clean presencing of nondual awareness. The states that we experience can become increasingly pure or structure-free. Ultimately in the state of nondual or centerless awareness there is no structure; so it cannot be described as being positive or negative, ordinary or sublime, useful or useless, as nothing or something.  Unlike conditioned states of mind, nondual awareness cannot be lost or gained, because there is nothing to arise or disappear.

Foundations, bridges and resting places

When people enter a nondual workshop space they quite quickly feel that something different is happening.  As a facilitator I have nothing to communicate from my side.  My job is simply to clear away all the obstructions (viewpoints, ideas, fears, unmet expectations, etc.) as efficiently and effortlessly as possible. There are no themes, topics or any subject matter I wish to share.  This becomes obvious quite quickly.  Sometimes I ease people through the transition that’s happening by saying:

We are entering a different paradigm with this work.  The main way it’s different from our normal paradigm is that there’s nothing to understand and nothing you need to be doing.  I’m not asking anything from you.  There is no pressure here at all.  There is no need for you to be here.  We aren’t going anywhere.  I’m not looking for something to be happening.  “This” isn’t a happening.  A need brought you here.  But now that you’re here you don’t need that need.  In fact, we are exploring what it’s like to not to need anything: to be free of the need to learn, understand, gain resources, and so on.  We’re discovering how to be totally complete with things exactly as they are.

If this is too much I may go back a little bit and simply present our time together as an opportunity to give ourselves a break from trying to change things, fix things up, even if we only do this for a few minutes.  For a few minutes we give ourselves permission to accomplish nothing!  When I make this offer, many people will say, “Wow, what a relief. There’s no pressure.  That feels really great.”  After a few minutes this can even mature into great bliss.

I create a foundation for inquiry by bringing people into the present moment and slowing down their thinking by giving them nothing to think about.  This creates an atmosphere of ease and tranquility.[9]   This is a foundation upon which it’s possible to inquire into the reality of “this” as awareness and not be able to find anything that lies behind the term.  Nondual awareness is revealed through the unfindability form of inquiry that is integral to Advaita (Katz: 2007, Maharshi: 1988, 1989) and Mahayana (Nagarjuna: 2005, Chandrakirti, 2005).

If people still can’t connect with this radical presentation of the nondual we can always go back and talk about it as a state of effortless being, total equanimity, a space that’s free of attachment and aversion, and which connects us with ourselves in a totally natural and uncontrived way.  We can, in fact, use the epiphenomena that arise, such as feelings of deep peace, acceptance, love and connectness as resting places en route to presencing nondual awareness.

Starting at the end: working at the result level

Another way I help people to leap into the unconditioned dimension is by explaining that we will be working at the “result level.”  This means that the result (abiding as awareness) is the path.  In other words, we begin with the baseline position is that nothing is wrong or missing. Everything is complete just as it is. Everyone is complete. There are no problems, nothing to work out, no work to be done.  In the midst of everything that’s happening, “nothing is happening at the same time.”

I am quite up front in presenting this possibility.  Sometimes I’ll start a workshop by saying; “Well, let’s just start at the end. Let’s just skip straight ahead.  Let’s not waste time time.  Our objective in being here is to arrive at the end of the path; to find what we are looking for in terms of discovering deep contentment, beyond which there is nowhere further to go.” I introduce this possibility in a light way.  It’s a suggestion, but I’m absolutely serious about it at the same time.  I don’t want to waste people’s time.  If I’m being asked to think, I’m looking for traction in terms of how to take people beyond the mind.

The suggestion that we can begin a workshop at the place we might hope to be at the end, without needing to do any intermediate work, immediately throws people into inquiry. Some people will protest internally, or out loud, “But I’m here to learn how to get this. There is work to be done. It can’t be that simple!” Others will be enticed by the idea, but genuinely feel incomplete.  People start to play with the idea that “nothing is wrong or missing.”

We can see how this applies right now.  You might be reading this article hoping to gain some insights or additional resources for your work as a coach, therapist or facilitator.  It’s possible for me to be writing this thinking that I have some wisdom that could help you, that I need to explain my process clearly, and so on.  Yet, if we connect with primordial awareness in this moment, that is all that’s needed, now and at any time in the future.  If we are “here” we don’t need anything more, and this is what is communicated to those around us—friends, clients, partners and colleagues.  “This” becomes the fuel, the essence, of your work as a facilitator or therapist.

If you are “here” I don’t need to write anything more.  You have all the resources you could possibily need in terms of sharing nondual awareness with others.  Nondual awareness will come through you naturally and automatically.  You won’t be able to stop it!  You will activate this recognition in others through the way you listen without judgment, through the quality of your silence, through the way you don’t condition the space, through the precision of your questions and love that is shared because you don’t need anything for yourself (Fenner: 2003, 2006, 2007).

By introducing the possibility that we can be “here” in the ultimate way, without needing to do any psychological processing or make any corrections or additions to our intellectual understanding of the path and goal, we set a benchmark, as it were.  The benchmark we establish doesn’t preclude the processing of emotions or deepening our understanding of who we are.  But, it lets us see how easily we fall into the habit of thinking we need to do more work before we can truly rest and abide in our natural state.  With this benchmark in place we can easily see how we habitually create work for ourselves.  When someone says, “Yes, that sounds great, but, first I need to ….” they are (re-)creating a path.  They are effectively saying that something needs to happen before they can be complete.  Once we’ve shown people this pattern, we can continue to point it out, each time it occurs.  This is how we “take the result as the path.”

Undoing the path

Another way I introduce the idea of working at the result level is by pointing out that for as long as we are “on the path” we can’t be at the destination.  So the work we will be doing consists of dissolving the path. In a sense we are always on a path, moving (forwards or backwards), resting for a while, or just waiting for something to happen. When we’re on a path we are sometimes entertained, having fun, feeling a sense of accomplishment because we are making progress. But often we feel there is a gap between where we are and where we’d like to be. In the spiritual arena we are on an explicit path. Often it is well laid out with stages or levels. People enter nondual work because they are on a path.

Working at the result level involves undoing the path. It consists of identifying and taking away the reference points on which a path is constructed in someone’s mind. When there is no path, there is no goal, just pure awareness. Nondual inquiry dismantles the path, and keeps dismantling it whenever it begins to reconstruct through the habit of believing that things could be different from what they are. Sometimes the path begins to be reconstructed through the simple thought, “Now what?” We notice such moves and take them away. “There is no what. There is just this.”

We are talking about “This”!

Often I initiate inquiry through an explore of “this.”  I dispense with terms like “nondual awareness” about which people can have different ideas.  I begin by saying, “What we are sharing together is ‘this’.” This is particularly effective in phone work because there is no shared “this” at the visual level.  If we don’t elaborate on what “this” is, or say, “’This,’ right now, in this second,” the “this” must be something different than our physical environment.  It’s not clear what “this” is referring to, and that is the intention.  We’ve made a break within the stream of conditioned experience and we can use this lack of clarity to distinguish the unconditioned.

The powerful thing about inquiring into “this” is that is gives us a lot of freedom in how we move. We can use the word “this” to point to this as “contentless awareness,” or as the undifferentiable co-arising of contentlessness and everything that is arising in the moment.[10]

For example, in relationship to this moment right now, when I say I am talking about “this,” I’m not talking about what you are reading right now. I am not talking about your awareness of your computer screen, or printed words on a piece of paper in front of you.  When I say I’m talking about “this,” I’m pointing to awareness itself which has no content or location.  We can’t even say “this” is here, because we don’t know what it is that we would be saying is here, or not here.  We can’t say that “this” is or is not, because we don’t know what it is that we would be saying exists or does not exist.

The very fact that we can’t say what it is that we talking about means that we are talking about the nondual.  If we “knew” what we were talking about, it wouldn’t be the nondual.  It would be something we could know or not know.  By the way, the language I am using now is definitive, because there is nothing to misinterpret: there is nothing to get right or wrong.

Paradox and nonduality

You will notice that in order to talk about “this” we have been compelled to move beyond the language of negation and into the structure of paradoxes (Fenner: 2007). The paradox right now is that the words that I am writing and that you are reading are unrelated to nondual awareness.  They are just symbolic images that have a semantic reference appearing on a screen or paper.  Yet, these words allow us to be right here, presencing the nondual as a state that is totally inexpressible because it has no characteristics.  In fact, we can’t even say that “this” has no characteristics because we don’t know what it is that we are characterizing in this way!

At this point unstructured, nondual awareness ceases to be something different from our ordinary, everyday consciousness, because we simply don’t know what “it” is that we are saying is different (or the same for that matter).

The nondual is a totally transcending state, but at the same time it isn’t rarified, disembodied or in anyway disconnected from the rich and complex worlds in which we live. This becomes palpably clear when we are in this state: “it” is neither the same as the dualistic mind, nor in any way different from it.

Collapsing the distinction

To summarize, then, my approach is to distinguish the unconditioned as being radically different and keep doing this until someone says, “But it can’t be different. It’s right here.”  I then bring this realization into the foreground.  It cannot be different from this very moment because the unconditioned is not a thing. It’s inseparable and indistinguishable from the conditioned experience.  In Buddhism this is called co-emergent wisdom (sahaja-jnana).

I then, move between these two, at times differentiating the unconditioned from the conditioned, and at other times collapsing the distinction, explaining that the distinction or identification of the two is only made by the thinking, dualistic mind.  When there is an over-identification with the conditioned—with thoughts and feelings—we re-distinguish the unconditioned. When the unconditioned is reified as something that is intrinsically different from our moment-by-moment embodied experience, I dissolve the possibility that they can be different.[11]  Diagram Two captures the indivisibility and lack of a boundary between the conditioned and unconditioned domains.

The progressive presencing of co-emergent wisdom

Diagram Three shows how the presencing of co-emergent wisdom can occur in time.  The horizontal straight line is a time axis moving from left to right.  It also represents the point where someone is resting in nondual awareness at the same time that we are thinking, perceiving, communicating, etc.  In this respect it is like the previous diagram. The positions and angles of incline and decline of the blue line show how people can move from presencing of the nondual in a way in which they are relatively disengaged with the complexities of life, towards a presencing in which the unconditioned and conditioned experience co-arise.

The notes I will make below are like a time-line summary of the process I have been describing above.

A.    This initial upward incline indicates how we move from a place where we are identified with conditioned experience—our feelings, fears, aspirations, beliefs, perceptions, and preferences—through to a clear recognition of nondual awareness as something that is pristine and unstructured.  In order to produce a clear recognition of that which hasn’t yet been seen, or which has been lost sight of, the nondual is distinguished as being contentless, a non-event, a clearing, without a center or periphery.  It is an absence (med pa).

The rate of the incline is significant here.  It indicates how quickly and definitively we reveal the nondual as a radically different reality.  As a facilitator, if you move too fast you lose people.  They get left behind.  The space and language in particular becomes too weird.  People become confused and disoriented to the point that they’d prefer to be somewhere else.  On the other hand, if you aren’t willing to leave some people behind: if you feel compelled to make sure that everyone makes it to the end of the journey, you might not even bring one person through to a clear recognition of nondual awareness.

B.    Here we rest or abide in nondual awareness for some time appreciating centerless awareness, with little active involvement in what’s happening within and outside of us.  The nondual may be being presenced while in a deeply interiorized state; a natural samadhi with very little happening in thought and feelings.  Whatever is arising liberates by itself (rang grol). Thoughts dissolve at the very instant they begin to form.  Or, the nondual may be being presenced with eyes and other senses fully open, receiving everyone and everything in the environment, but in a state of total equanimity that’s free of preferences and judgments. However, at some point one of three things can happen.

a.    People can begin to add qualities to awareness such as bliss, serenity, intimacy, etc. This is not to say that such feelings aren’t arising.  But people begin to think that awareness is a state of tranquility or interconnectedness.  There is a strong impulse to make the “nothing” into something.  If this happens we point out that these are conditioned experiences and not awareness itself, as a way of inviting people back into the nondual state.

b.    A second possibility is that a thought, memory, feelings, anticipation, etc. arises in awareness and distracts someone from continuing to abide in awareness itself.  In this case we create space around what’s happening.  We may invite the person to let things be as they are, without interference or judgment.  Or we might engage in an inquiry that dissolves the distraction by seeing that it (the distracting event) can’t be found when we look for it using the wisdom mind of nondual inquiry.  Or, we can point out that nothing can get in the way of nondual awareness.  As a “non thing” nothing can obstruct it.

c.    A third possibility is that people can reify nondual awareness as a reality in its own right.  They begin to think that nondual awareness is “nothing,” is “contentless,” is “unrelated to the personal,” etc.  We can sense this by listening to the way that people are listening to themselves when they talk about the nondual.  People acquire the via negativa language of nonduality and begin to listen to their own thinking and words as though they were really saying something when they are talking about the nondual.

C.    If and when the nondual becomes reified I point out that “this” can’t be different from everything that’s arising because the nondual isn’t a “thing” that can be the same or different from anything else.  When we say “this” is different, we don’t know what it is that we are saying is different, so we can’t say that “this” is different from the thoughts, feelings and appearances that are arising moment-by-moment. This is how I collapse the difference.  Usually, the idea that nondual awareness and the dualistic mind are different, collapses in an instant, like a deflating ballon.  For some time, I may let people think that contentless awareness and the objects of awareness are the same, even though they are neither the same nor different.

D.    Here we rest in the co-arising of emptiness and appearances.  If people start to think that there are two things that are actually co-arising we can point out that “this” goes beyond even notions of co-arising or union (lhan cig).  Clearly there aren’t two different things, so it’s impossible to talk about “union” or “inseparability.”

E.    While presencing the nondual in the context of being aware of our body and surroundings, at some point a thought, feeling or sensation arises that pulls us out of nondual awareness into an identification with the conditioned event that arises.  Typically people become involved in their thoughts (carried away by a story), caught by a sensation (a sound, image of a person, etc.), or overtaken by a feeling (a pain, some fear, excitement, and so on).  A conditioned event comes into the foreground, reactions of attraction and aversion come into play, until at some point we recall nondual awareness.  We think, “Ah yes, wow, I just become engrossed in worrying about my future!”

F.    How we move on at this point depends on how deeply we’ve become involved with a conditioned event and our familiarity with the primordial state.  If we’re very familiar with nondual awareness; if we’ve made the journey many times from begin caught up in a fear or worry through to being totally complete without any change in our conditioned circumstances, it might be as simple as thinking, “I’ve lost my connection to the nondual.  But what is it that I’ve lost.  Ah, yes!  I remember. It’s “this,” this thing that I can’t lose or hold onto.  Wow, that is simple.  Here I am back in the place where I can’t say what it is.  How wonderful!”  We retrace a journey we’ve made many times.  In fact, often the journey happens automatically.  It is like being in a dark basement, in the underground carpark, hitting the elevator button, and presto, within a few seconds we are in the lookout tower, enjoying our lives from a totally different perspective.  (This is why the incline back to the nondual is steeper here.)

If our clients or workshop participants are new to nondual work they may need some support in the form of unfindability inquiry that let’s them dismantle the construction that creates a feeling of lack and contraction.  We will help them identify a core construction in their narrative, for example, “I am worried that I won’t be able to retain this experience when I’m at home with my family.” We will inquiry into this construction.  We could look for the “I”, the “worry” or the “experience that will be lost” and not be able to find any of them.  We only need to “see through” one of these concepts for the entire construction to dissolve and allow for a re-presencing of the nondual.

G.    Over time we presence the nondual while retaining a more intimate involvement and connection with ever changing flow of conditioned experience.  Ever-present awareness begins to pervade our spiritual life, our work and relationships. Nevertheless, we are still prone to reify awareness, perhaps by creating some theory about how it relates to emotions, relationships, or psychotherapy, or politics.  Or, we might feel that the nondual is love or bliss, i.e. something that is conditioned and which can arise and dissipate.  So at some point we again see that nondual awareness isn’t a conditioned experience, but nor is it different from the experiences that are delivered to us through our mind and senses.

H.    Even though we may be quite familiar with nondual awareness and able to easily access this space in satsang, on a Dzogchen retreat, or with a nondual therapist, in most people’s lives events arise that effectively block access to our primordial state.  Perhaps our marriage starts to break apart, our children go off the rails, a parent suddenly needs fulltime care, our guru dies, or we become seriously ill.  Even for people who are very familiar with the nondual it’s easy to go on a family vacation for two weeks and the nondual takes leave as well!

I.    In these cases it is easy become engrossed in ourselves for weeks or even months.  We either forget about nondual awareness completely, or “know that it’s there” but are unable to taste the ease and freedom of nondual awareness even for a few seconds.  The journey could be short or long.  Perhaps we are identified with a thought for just a few seconds.  Or the journey might take several weeks.  The challenge in these times is to take the journey we are on.  We might think, “I know there is no one making this journey.  I know (intellectually) that there is no one who suffers.”  But still we ache and suffer.  If the gateways to the nondual all seem closed we take on board the first noble truth of the Buddha.  Yes, we suffer.  If we have needs and preferences then yes, we are bound to suffer.  “Clearly, what’s happening for me now isn’t what I want to be happening.  That’s the problem. That’s why I’m suffering.  And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.”  So, we suffer.  We accept the inevitability that we will suffer for as long as we can’t accept things as they are.

But we also know that our suffering is a conditioned experience.  Our preferences aren’t being met at the moment.  But everything changes.  At some point our suffering will dissolve.  We don’t know when.  But, for sure, it will change.  We might suffer more before we suffer less.  But the sun will shine in.  At some point we will feel better.  That is great, but it is also an opportunity to recognize that “feeling better” is still just a conditioned state.  We are still in the cycle of pleasure and pain.

J.    Often, all that’s needed here is a code word like “centerlessness” or “just this” and instantly we are back here, where nothing is missing and it’s impossible for things to be better, because we’re in a domain where ideas of better and worse make no sense at all.  The sheer vertical movement of this line shows how we can move from a point where we are identified with a conditioned aspect of experience back into full recognition of awareness itself, in an instance.  It does occur, in an instant, the moment we recognize that “this” is beyond presence and absence, and hence can never be lost or gained: the moment we see that the gateway to the nondual is always exactly we were are.

K.    Here we are presencing the nondual with an increasing inclusion of conditioned experience.

L.    Here we abide in the nondual, with our senses fully open and actively engaged with the world.  We are a clearing—a centerless space—through which our unique life-world moves.  Whether we are in deep meditative absorption or actively engaged with the world, we receive everything that arises without any glitches—without any movements of attachment or rejection.  All thoughts, feelings, colors and sensations arises as the play of contentless awareness—like paintings in the sky.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011

NOTES

[1] This paper is a significant expansion of material that was first prepared for the Manual of the 10 month Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training I offer in North America and Europe.  See www.nondualtraining.com.  These notes are primarily for the benefit of therapists and facilitators who are familiar with Buddhist teachings. Back to [1]

[2] In this context the word “this” is the equivalent of “de nyid” in Tibetan: a term that means “just (nyid) this (de)”.  De nyid means thisness, not this as something in particular but “this” as “this” no matter who we are or what, or when “this” is happening. Back to [2]

[3] Some people object to the use of terms like “nondual,” “awareness” and “nondual awareness.” They correctly point out that “this” is not “nondual” in contast to the “dual”.  Also, “awareness” can’t be found or qualified so we can’t see “this” as awareness.  All this is true, and this is the precise meaning of these terms.   These terms have been used for thousands of years to point to the unfindability of the self, mind, awareness, ultimate reality, and so on.  It doesn’t make sense to reject the use of simple code words that have been used effectively for millennia.  This misses the critical recognition that there is nothing to reject!  The idea that a word—any word—could obscure “nothing” is itself misleading. We should heed Vimalakirti’s injunction to rely on the intention of whatever words are use to point to the nondual, and not on the specific words themselves.  See Robert Thurman. The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture. University Park: Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976. Back to [3]

[4] This is the exact meaning of the term samskrta in Buddhism.  Thoughts and empirical phenomena are samskrta-dharmas meaning they are composed, compounded, conditioned, or constructed. Back to [4]

[5] You may note that already I am talking about it as something that’s happening, not as a theoretical possibility.  This is where I am, and I am inviting people to join me “here.” Back to [5]

[6] In Buddhist hermeneutics, dharma transmissions are categorized as being either interpretable (neyartha) or definitive (nitartha).  I am using the distinction between definitive and interpretable teaching in my own way here, though it generally fits with the Prasangika Madhyamika understanding.  In fact, there is a great deal of disagreement between the Mahayana schools about “that which is definitive” and “that which is “interpretable.” (See Donald Lopez. Buddhist Hermeneutics. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993 and S. Thakchoe. The Two Truths Debate: Tsongkhapa and Gorampa on the Middle Way. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007.)

An interpretable transmission has content and meaning.  It is also contextual meaning that it’s value depends on the state and circumstances of the person who hears it.  It is univocal. A definitive transmission is unequivocal.  It is valid throughout time and space because there is nothing to interpret.  The definitive transmission is the direct realization of nondual awareness.  The distinction between these two types of transmission is extremely useful, especially for anyone who is facilitating nondual work. Back to [6]

[7] In my understanding the neti neti level of discourse is not definitive because it is “saying something”.  The dualistic mind tries to grasp the nondual by thinking, “Ah!  I get it.  It is not a thing.  It is unconditioned, nondual, etc.”  This is still a position.  Something is being said, hence it is open to (mis-)interpretation.

The state of nondual awareness also comes and goes but not in the conventional sense, because there is nothing in it to come or go.  It does not happen in any conventional sense of the word.  It isn’t an event. Back to [7]

[8] Tony Duff. trs. Alchemy of Accomplishment. Kathmandu: Padma Karpo Translation Committee, 2008. Back to [8]

[9] Mahayana hermeneutics recognizes four levels or ranges (chatushkoti) in terms of how we describe reality.  Reality can be describes with positive attributes (is), negative attributes (is not), through contradictions (is and is not) and double negations (neither is nor is not).  I often use first level language when I first introduce the nondual, especially in describing workshops.  I then move into second level expressions when I’m working with people face-to-face or by phone.  At some point we progress into the third and fourth ranges (Fenner: 2010). Back to [9]

[10] The third way we could understand “this” is in terms of the time and conditioned location we are in, but this is already given and not relevant in terms of revealing the nondual. Back to [10]

[11] In terms of Buddhist nondualism the process I use combines aspects of the Dzogchen-Mahamudra approach to realizing nondual awareness (rig pa or sems nyid) and more classical Mahayana methods for realizing emptiness (stong pa nyid) or selflessness (bdag med).  In Dzogchen and Mahamudra the two levels of reality, the ultimate and the relative aren’t highly differentiated at the level of practice (Brown: 2006 and Tashi Namgyal: 2001). The practices of natural mediation and the meditation of non-meditation dissolve a boundary between the unconditioned and conditioned.  Co-emergent wisdom is realized from the outset.

In classical Sutra Mahayana, two levels of reality are distinguished philosophically and at the level of practice.  Within the Madhyamika, for example, practitioners focus on realizing what is called a space-like, or non-residual emptiness. This is an experience of emptiness in which the arising of relativities (thoughts, feelings and sensations) have been highly attenuated.  Yogis engaging in deconstructive inquiry while in a highly concentrated and highly internalized meditative state.  The post-meditative practice consists of infusing the results of their formal contemplations on selflessness into the structure of their daily lives.  For a traditional account of Madhyamika praxis see Jeffrey Hopkins. Meditation on Emptiness. Boston, Wisdom Publications, 1996.

In some respects the way I initially distinguish the nondual by disconnecting our attention from our conditioned experience, corresponds to the Sutra Mahayana approach.  When I collapse the distinction between the awareness and the appearance which arise in awareness, this corresponds more closely to the Dzogchen-Mahamudra approach.

To simplify this further we could say that in Dzogchen-Mahamudra, “this” points to both awareness and appearances.  In Madhyamika, we could say that “this” points to the ultimate, unconditioned dimension when we are systemically engaged in the deconstructive contemplations that define its form of vipashyana meditation.  When we are functioning in the social world “this” point to our empirical experience.  Over time to two blend and in both systems, Dzogchen-Mahamudra and Classical Mahayana, one realizes a co-emergent wisdom. Back to [11]

Bibliography

• Brown, D. (2006). Pointing Out the Great Way: The Stages of Meditation in the Mahamudra Tradition. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
• Chandrakirti. (2005). Introduction to the Middle Way: Chandrakirti’s Madhyamakavatara with Commentary by Ju Mipham. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
• Duff, T. trs. (2008). Alchemy of Accomplishment. Kathmandu: Padma Karpo Translation Committee.
• Fenner, P. (2011). “In Hot Pursuit of Egolessness”, Paradoxica: Journal of Nondual Psychology, Vol. 4.
• Fenner, P. (2010). Nondual Teacher and Therapist Training. Palo Alto, California, Wisdom Editions.
• Fenner, P. (2007). Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness. Boulder: Colorado, Sounds True.
• Fenner, P. (2007). Radiant Mind: Teachings and Practices for Awakening Unconditioned Awareness. (7 audio CD set) Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True.
• Fenner, P. (2006). “Listening and Speaking from no-mind.” In Listening from the Heart of Silence (eds. John Prendergast and Ken Bradford), Paragon Press.
• Fenner, P. (2003). “Nonduality and Therapy: Awakening the Unconditioned Mind.”  In The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy (eds. John Prendergast, Peter Fenner and Sheila Krystal), Paragon Press.
• Hopkins, J. (1996). Meditation on Emptiness. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
• Katz, J. (2007). One: Essential Writings on Nonduality. Sentient Publications.
• Longchenpa. (2006). Radical Dzogchen: Old Man Basking in the Sun. Translation and Commentary of Longchen Rabjampa’s Treasury of Natural Perfection by Keith Dowman. Kathmandu, Nepal: Vajra Books.
• Longchenpa. (1998). The Precious Treasury of the Way of Abiding. Junction City, California: Padma Publishing.
• Longchenpa. (2001a). The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena, Junction City. California: Padma Publishing.
• Longchenpa. (2001b). A Treasury Trove of Spiritual Transmission. Junction City, California: Padma Publishing.
• Lopez, D. (1993). Buddhist Hermeneutics. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
• Maharshi, Ramana. (1988). The Spiritual Teaching of Ramana Maharshi, Boston: Shambhala.
• Maharshi, Ramana. (1989). Be as You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.  Edited by David Godman. Penguin; Reissue edition.
• Prendergast, J., Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal (eds.) Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom & Psychotherapy. St.Paul, MN: Paragon House Publishers, 2003.
• Prendergast, John J. and Ken Bradford (eds.). Listening from the Heart of Silence. St.Paul, MN: Paragon House Publishes, 2007.
• Nagarjuna. (2005). (Erik Hoogcarspel, trs.) The Central Philosophy: Basic Verses. Olive Press, Amsterdam.
• Thakchoe, S. (2007). The Two Truths Debate: Tsongkhapa and Gorampa on the Middle Way. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
• Tashi Namgyal, Dakpo. (2001) Clarifying the Natural State: A Principal Practice Guide for Mahamudra. Boudhanath, Nepal: Rangjung Yeshe.
• Thurman, R. (1976). The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture. University Park: Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Thurman, R. (1984). Tsong Khapa’s Speech of Gold in the Essence of True Eloquence: Reason and Enlightenment in the Central Philosophy of Tibet. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011

An Interview of Peter Fenner, Ph.D. by Alex Dijk for BewustZijn magazine

The Australian Peter Fenner (1949) lived nine years as a Tibetan monk, and then taught in the academic world. He is now regarded as an expert in applying and adapting Asian nondual wisdom through his programs, the “Radiant Mind Course” and the “Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training.”

“I am very fortunate in that what I do now with my life is essentially what I hope to be doing until I die. I try to live my life so that I suffer less at a personal level. I hope that this then increases my capacity to support other people. My path has been one of discovering, first, to take care of ‘me’ so that I’m less preoccupied with myself, and then having done that, freeing up my time and energy to begin to contribute to others.

I’ve been involved with Buddhist teachings for quite a long time. Buddhism captured my attention 40 years ago because the idea that our needs and preferences are the source of our suffering made immediate sense to me at an intellectual level. Having what we don’t want, and not having what we do want, is the recipe for all our pain, upset and dissatisfaction. If we can free ourselves from the ‘need’ for things to be different, or to stay the same, we have discovered a state of unconditional freedom. This is what is meant by the term ‘nirvana.’ It is the state where nothing needs to be different. So the path consists of gradually reducing our needs and loosening the restrictions of our preferences.”

Big demands

“More recently I’ve seen how this teaching and path offers the most efficient way for addressing the ecological imperatives which become more obvious day-by-day. The work of reducing the demands we place on external sources of pleasure and satisfaction is entirely relevant to the environmental discourse of today. It is the demands we make on planet earth that are rapidly degrading the quality of our environment, which in turn compound existing social and geopolitical pressures.

There are really two sets of demands that we make on the external world. There are the demands we make of other people, and the demands we make on the biosphere. The demands we make on others are the source of our interpersonal problems and conflicts: in couples, within families, within societies, between countries, races and religions. When we make demands, we place requirements on other people to be a particular way, and not be so in other ways.

Similarly we make tremendous demands on the environment because we believe that we need all sorts of things in order to be fulfilled. We are relatively incapable of ‘just being with ourselves,’ simply sitting and enjoying our connection and relationship with awareness itself. Instead we need to be entertained, amused, distracted or unconscious. The external resources that are required to keep us just marginally content are truly phenomenal. Just look at the funds involved in producing sporting events, luxury cars, technological gadgets, feature films, etc. If we decreased our demands on the external world by 10%, we would be living in a different world. It would be unrecognizable. Physically, tangibly, the world would be a different place.

Similarly, our relationships would transform if the source of our fulfilment was coming from within. The wonderful thing is we can make this change. We can train ourselves to rest peacefully in the nature of our own being, without needing to look outside for emotional pleasures and sensory stimulation. The greatest pleasure and peace comes from just being able to be completely fulfilled with things exactly as they are.”

Sustainable thinking

“We also set standards for our physical wellbeing that place a huge cost on the environment. We spend enormous amounts of money on our appearance: wearing the right clothes, trying to look young and attractive. In some weird way we want to be in optimum health, right up until the moment of our death! Globally, we expend vast amounts of energy and spend huge sums of money trying to retard the aging process and prolong life.

What a great asset it would be if we could just let ourselves age, for example, without holding on to some notion of agelessness or immortality. No one really believes that we can remain young forever, and still the illusion motivates us to spend enormous resources on trying to forestall the aging process.

The ecological alternative here is to discover how we already have everything that’s needed to be fulfilled in the most comprehensive way possible. This isn’t just a fanciful idea. There are hundreds of thousands of great spiritual masters throughout the ages that have shown us that this is possible. There are sages who lived in ‘great bliss’ in severe environments without any heating or air-conditioning, without the latest gadgets, and without the security of knowing that quality medical care was close at hand.

The ultimate benchmark that these sages offer us is the possibility of making the journey through aging and dying without losing a connection with the supernal bliss of unconditioned awareness. For these sages, death itself was a non-event. As the 16th Karmapa of Tibet said on his deathbed in 1981, ‘nothing happens.’”

Detachment

But more significantly, we can make our own experiment right now. Here we are. We’ve come together in this moment. How do we discover, first-hand, the very same reality that allowed the sages of the past and present to remain unperturbed in the face of the very same experiences that throw us into confusion, obsession, anger or fear.

The remarkable news is that nothing is needed in order to make this discovery. We don’t need ‘more time,’ to be somewhere else, to receive a superior teaching, or engage in a special practice. All that’s required is to see that we can be—that we are, in fact—already fulfilled. In this moment we don’t need anything more. We don’t need more money, a different body, a different partner—not in this very instant.

This moment—right now—is giving us everything we need just to be here; unassumingly, effortlessly, being ‘no one’ in particular, and with no need to be anywhere else. That’s the magic of this moment. This moment is perfect. Why? Because don’t need anything more. Here we are—you and me—in this tight, quite unique, perhaps slightly weird, but effortless conversation. We started with my observations about Buddhism and it’s relevance to ecology, and here we are, not asking for anything more. This moment is giving us everything we need just to be here, in the simplest way possible. We don’t need to be entertained, right now—enough is happening. We don’t need a flashy car—we’re not in it! In this moment, we don’t need a different standard of living, or a better return on our investments—we are clothed, fed and comfortable. We have everything we need, in order to rest with ‘what is.’

The beauty of this moment is that it’s effortless and uncontrived. The magic of this moment is that it’s ungraspable and ineffable. We can’t say what ‘this’ moment is. It leaves without a trace or history. In the very same moment that it arises, it disappears. We can’t say where it comes from, or where it goes. We can’t even say ‘where’ this is, except that ‘this’ is where it is: where ever that is! We can’t think about ‘this’ because there is nothing to think about. This is exactly what the sages mean when they say that ‘this’ is ineffable.

And now we can also see that if we are ‘here’ at the moment of our death, we have no fear. If we were to remain in this state, our death would be uneventful. The process of dying is nothing more than a continual letting go of everything at the conditioned level: our body, our friends, our possessions, our memories—in fact, the entire known world. At our death we say goodbye forever, to everything that we know and we never return. If we are here—resting in unconditioned awareness—everything can drop away with no grasping or attachment.”

Practicing no-practice

“So, how do we go about this? How do we stay connected with ‘present awareness,’ not just now but going into the future? How do we cultivate this way of being? In one way that’s simple, just by being ‘here,’ whenever we can. Right now we have an opportunity, and we are using it. We’re still in this conversation together, and it has taken us into ‘present-moment-awareness.’ And these opportunities will return, again and again.

Visiting this place, resting here, enables ‘this’ to come into the foreground. Over time this might even become the baseline state. But we should be reminded that there is no practice involved in doing this. You haven’t been practicing these last few minutes. Neither have I. We’ve come together in a resonant field that allows the quality of this present moment to emerge like bubbles floating to the surface of water. This is a matter of recognition rather than practice. We recognize when it’s possible to be ‘here,’ and then we recognize ‘this.’

And yes, our capacity to recognize this opportunity does produce a change in our objectives. Our objective swings away from being preoccupied with our body, our finances and our relationships. We see that in this moment, we don’t need more zeros to our investment account. The objective right now is to continue to be ‘here.’ Not here as a physical location, but here as a state of consciousness that simply precludes the possibility of feeling that anything is missing, or wrong, or even that things could be better.

Over time, the contrast becomes clear. If we had the option of resting ‘here’ for the rest of our lives, or accumulating more assets, or keeping ourselves young and beautiful, the choice is obvious. It’s a choice between unconditional contentment and the ups and downs of chasing after fleeting experiences.”

Nondual Ecology – Part 2

Peter Fenner, Ph.D.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011

Peter Fenner, Ph.D. is a spiritual leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy, he created the Radiant Mind Course® and the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training. Peter runs courses, trainings, retreats and satsang telecalls and offers individual coaching sessions. His students and clients include Buddhist psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, Zen masters, Sufi masters, Vipassana and Mindfulness teachers, Yoga teachers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, hospice workers, students of Tibetan Buddhism, followers of Advaita, artists and spiritual seekers worldwide.

Peter was a celibate monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 9 years and has a Ph.D. in the philosophical psychology of Mahayana Buddhism. Over a period of 40 years Peter Fenner has distilled the essence of traditions like Zen, Dzogchen and the Buddhist Middle Way, and adapted them to suit creatively our post-modern culture. He is the Director of Education of Timeless Wisdom.

The Radiant Mind Course (www.radiantmind.net) is taught in North America, Australia, and Europe, as well as the Natural Awakening Training, (www.nondualtraining.com.) Peter also offers retreats on 5 continents. He has presented his work at leading universities and institutions including Columbia, Stanford, CIIS and Naropa.

Peter Fenner has written extensively on Buddhist nondual traditions. His books and CDs include:

• “Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Awareness” (Sounds True, 2007) translated in French: “L’Esprit Lumineux” (Almora, 2010) and in German: “Reines Gewahrsein”;
• “The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy” (ed. with John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal, 2003).
• “The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path” (2002) translated in French: “Le Fil de la Certitude, Dilemmes de la voie bouddhiste” (du Relié, 2001).

Stay in touch with Peter Fenner

• Subscribe to Timeless Wisdom newsletter (in English mainly)
• Join Peter Fenner’s network on LinkedIn
• Receive the latest news by “liking” Peter Fenner’s page on Facebook
• Follow Peter Fenner on Twitter
• Visit Timeless Wisdom’s website

An Interview of Peter Fenner, Ph.D. by Alex Dijk for BewustZijn magazine

[...] Click here to read Nondual Ecology – Part 1

A shared experience

“The place we are exploring now is where we always are. It’s never a different place. We’re not talking about me sitting here in Amsterdam being interviewed, and you, wherever you are, reading this. It’s here where we meet, in a space where we access a state of consciousness that goes beyond our individual conditions, yet doesn’t deny them either. This is a transcendental state of consciousness, but not transcendental in a way that disconnects us from the reality of our lives. We are fully present, totally present to each other in this moment. At the same time, we are accessing a state of consciousness that has nothing to do with us that is timeless, that isn’t limited by our physical location.

This is the same state of consciousness that the great sages were familiar with and lived their lives from. And we’re here, touching it, learning how to connect with it, learning how to expand it. There have been people who have lived their entire lives from this place, but even if we’re unable to do that in this lifetime, still, just connecting this once, to know that this is possible, is the greatest blessing that can happen. Why? Because this gives us a new frame of reference that can really change our lives. We say: ‘Aha! So it’s not just about my career! It’s not just about getting the right partner! It’s not just about bringing up the right children, and being the perfect parent!’ Some of those things might be part of our lives, but living is also knowing how to access unconditioned, timeless awareness that is beyond cultures, beyond you and me.

This is the only state that we can truly share with each other, in which we both know exactly where the ‘other’ is. There’s no scope for misinterpretation here. I don’t have to ask you what you mean by ‘this.’ You don’t have to ask me what I mean – we know this is beyond our personal interpretations.”

What are we talking about?

“As a reader you now have two options. Either you are in the groove of where we’re moving, or you might be quite lost. It’s easy to get lost in this at some point, because that’s what happens when we’re still trying to ‘understand’ what ‘this’ is. The need to know, the need to understand, is sometimes like a mountain that we have to climb over or move through before we can rest here. We have a habit of needing to know and thinking that if we can’t know what this is, then we have no means of relating to it.

One of my guiding principles is to do whatever needs to be done in order to rest in this space, in order to be here. That’s not the same as doing nothing. If we do nothing, if we’re inactive, the world just demands our attention anyway, doesn’t it? It forces its way into our lives in the form of broken relationships, medical problems, financial difficulties, and so on. Things go wrong if we don’t take care of our career, our responsibilities to our parents, our children, our body and so on.

Our presencing of pure awareness make us more finely attuned to what’s happening at the conditioned level. It shows us how to do no more and no less than what’s required at the level of environment, body, money, and relationships in order to spend more time in this ultimate state, called buddhamind.”

This-ness

“Within the unconditioned state itself, there’s no activity. And yet, right now there’s also quite a lot of action. A lot is happening in our conversation while we’re resting in awareness. This is also highly creative because I don’t know what I’ll be saying from one minute to the next. I don’t know how you will be responding to me and vice versa, so it’s a dynamic state, but at the same time ‘nothing’ is happening at all. Communication and the silence of unperturbed awareness are happening at the same time. There are two dimensions to tune into. There’s the dimension of movement and activity, of words coming out of my mouth: the conditioned state. That’s obvious. And we also tune into the ‘field’ of awareness within which this is all happening.

This awareness is like a mirror: it reflects what’s happening, but isn’t changed by the activities themselves. The only hesitancy I have in using a word like ‘field,’ or any word really, is that it has associations for people. And so the ideal in pointing to the unconditioned dimension of this moment is to use words that have minimal associations. If the words we use have associations, they give us something to think about. This is why some traditions simply refer to this as ‘suchness’ or ‘this-ness.’ A word like ‘suchness’ is great because it points to ‘this’ without saying anything else.

This state has no structure. It’s completely unstructured; it’s contentless. That means we can never understand awareness. It’s not an object of knowledge. What we can understand, what we can study, what we can theorise about and write about are the objects of awareness: sense phenomena, thoughts and feelings. We can develop physical and psychological theories about the nature of reality at the objective level, which is the level of the objects of awareness, but awareness itself can not be known.”

Prajñāpāramitā

“Something unique is happening in this conversation. It’s moving differently than most conversations. We can feel how our minds are functioning differently. We can feel the energy moving in our bodies. We are aware of the different phenomena, the transformations that are happening at the conditioned level, the mental, emotional and physical impact this has on us. Exploring awareness in the way that we are can produce all sorts of wonderful feelings, including a sense of wonder and excitement. This is great. You can just let that happen. But we can also recognize that the excitement has nothing to do with ‘this.’ Excitement comes and goes. You can let it be here long as it is, know that at some point it will disappear. As the excitement matures, we can really tune into how this is different, because it can’t be lost. There is ‘nothing’ to lose. Here we are again, pointing to a dimension of reality that is generally inaccessible to most people.

Why are we doing this? We’re not doing anything. This transcendent dimension of being is just here again. It’s not a ‘thing,’ but still it’s here, and we are pointing at it, because we can. Most people miss this, because it’s invisible. We can’t hear it, we can’t touch it, or even think about it, so it’s very easy to miss. And still, nothing could be simpler than this. Nothing needs to change. We don’t have to do anything different. There’s no more work to be done.

When we read the writings from the great sages of thousands of years ago, we know that they knew ‘this.’ They were here, in this exact same space. This is what they were pointing to in their writings and teachings. They use different names like primordial awareness and the awakened mind. In Sanskrit, it’s called prajñāpāramitā which means ‘transcendental wisdom.’

If you look at it, everything we do is ultimately aimed at being here, because this is where the path stops. There’s no more path, and nowhere further to go. The work is over, the work is done. We’ve gained the ultimate state. We’re resting in the state that’s the ultimate goal of all human endeavours in every field. From conducting wars, to entering into relationship, to trying to make a billion dollars, whatever it is, it is all aimed at being here. It’s all aimed at getting to the point where the game is over, where we can truly and deeply say that everything has been accomplished. And here we are at that point, at least in this moment. We’re at the top of the mountain. There is nowhere further to go. And what’s so incredible is that it’s not even an accomplishment. We can say what it is, but we don’t need to.”

Incredible

“But at some point we won’t believe this. At some point we’ll think: ‘No, hang on, there are these other important things that need to happen.’ We’ll forget this, and there will be projects and things that we think we will have to put our effort and energy into. We’ll think that we’ve lost this state, when in fact there’s nothing to lose. This is beyond loss and gain, we haven’t gained any thing. We have and we haven’t. That’s the paradox.

There’s nothing to perpetuate, nothing to hang on to. If we get into the mindset of trying to perpetuate ‘this,’ it’s no longer ‘this,’ it’s something else. All we need to do right now is appreciate how this is happening by itself. If we think we need to do something to ‘stay here,’ we immediately see that there’s nothing to perpetuate. And that’s how this continues, by seeing that there’s nothing to perpetuate!

Thank you very much for this opportunity to share this time and space with you.”

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011

Peter Fenner, Ph.D. is a spiritual leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy, he created the Radiant Mind Course® and the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training. Peter runs courses, trainings, retreats and satsang telecalls and offers individual coaching sessions. His students and clients include Buddhist psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, Zen masters, Sufi masters, Vipassana and Mindfulness teachers, Yoga teachers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, hospice workers, students of Tibetan Buddhism, followers of Advaita, artists and spiritual seekers worldwide.

Peter was a celibate monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 9 years and has a Ph.D. in the philosophical psychology of Mahayana Buddhism. Over a period of 40 years Peter Fenner has distilled the essence of traditions like Zen, Dzogchen and the Buddhist Middle Way, and adapted them to suit creatively our post-modern culture. He is the Director of Education of Timeless Wisdom.

The Radiant Mind Course (www.radiantmind.net) is taught in North America, Australia, and Europe, as well as the Natural Awakening Training, (www.nondualtraining.com.) Peter also offers retreats on 5 continents. He has presented his work at leading universities and institutions including Columbia, Stanford, CIIS and Naropa.

Peter Fenner has written extensively on Buddhist nondual traditions. His books and CDs include:

• “Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Awareness” (Sounds True, 2007) translated in French: “L’Esprit Lumineux” (Almora, 2010) and in German: “Reines Gewahrsein”;
• “The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy” (ed. with John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal, 2003).
• “The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path” (2002) translated in French: “Le Fil de la Certitude, Dilemmes de la voie bouddhiste” (du Relié, 2001).

Stay in touch with Peter Fenner

• Subscribe to Timeless Wisdom newsletter (in English mainly)
• Join Peter Fenner’s network on LinkedIn
• Receive the latest news by “liking” Peter Fenner’s page on Facebook
• Follow Peter Fenner on Twitter
• Visit Timeless Wisdom’s website

Question: What is the difference between nondual therapy and nondual coaching?

Peter Fenner: Nondual therapy has emerged from within the field of psychotherapy. Nondual therapists are credentialed psychologists or psychotherapists who have easy access to nondual awareness, who recognize this as the ultimate state of being and are skillful in supporting their clients in resting as awareness when this can arise naturally and appropriately. They have received training within one or several therapeutic modalities such as transpersonal, humanistic, existential, eclectic, cognitive-behavioral or depth psychology. Nonetheless, nondual awareness sits in the foreground as an ever-present possibility in each clinical encounter.

The therapeutic context means that clients tend to approach a therapist feeling that some event or events in their life history negatively impact the quality of their present and future life. With this assumption, entry into the nondual is often preceded by the release of somatically embedded emotions and detachment from personal narratives prior to engaging with questions such as; “Who thinks that?” or, “Where are those feelings being received?”

In nondual therapy, nondual awareness itself is also used as an agent for clearing past traumas and for seeing that less work—or even no work—needs to be done in terms of processing the past in order to be totally complete and fully integrated with the present moment. Awareness is used as the ultimate healer. For the most part, nondual therapy augments other forms of therapy. Ultimately there’s no such thing as “nondual” therapy since there is “no one” in need of anything.

These days, many informed spiritual people specifically decide to work with therapists who have access to the nondual and can integrate this into their therapy. People recognize a need to work with their obsessions, fears, traumatic memories, shadow side, but want to do this in a way that doesn’t fortify the energy of their limitations, or conflict in any way with ever-present awareness.

Nondual coaching differs from nondual therapy in at least two ways. Firstly, nondual coaching can be a “stand alone” offer. People approach nondual coaches with the specific intention of discovering nondual awareness and learning how to become more and more familiar with this state. In contrast, people tend to engage nondual therapists with the dual objective of improving their emotional wellbeing and exploring pure awareness. The tacit or explicit agreement when people work with a nondual coach is that the coach will “speak from, and relate from, the space of awareness itself.”

This means that skilled coaches can operate more consistently at a “results level” in which there is little deviation into the stories and interpretation we have about our life and conditioned experience. The function of the coach is to continually reveal centerless awareness in ways that allow their clients to become more and more familiar with this space. When clients identify with their personal experience or begin to construct that they are resting or not resting in awareness, the coach observes this deviation into the dualistic mind.

I know many therapists who work with the nondual, who weave the nondual into their therapy in a very skillful way, but this is different from unfolding a session at the 100% results or acausal level. In fact, very few coaches unfold their sessions at a purely acausal level because no matter what people say, this isn’t what they want. In the same way that we say we don’t want to suffer, but nonetheless continue year after year with energizing the very experience that we complain about. It’s demanding on a client to function purely at the results level. When therapists and coaches sense that “coming purely from the nondual” is too much for their clients they shift into a causal paradigm and begin to look into their client’s personal stories. Sometimes this shift is a skillful means, but it can also come from a fear of losing clients.

Another significant difference between nondual therapy and nondual coaching is that therapists (and this includes nondual therapists) have a professional obligation to help people who come to them in need of support, even if this means referring people to other mental health professionals. From a nondual perspective “picking and choosing” clients can’t happen. The process of engaging with a nondual teacher arises through a self-selecting mechanism that goes beyond personal preferences or professional obligations.

Question: From what you are saying, from the nondual perspective, it is better to work with a nondual coach?

Peter: I haven’t said that. In the course of any session with a therapist or coach, most people can only rest in awareness for a few minutes at a time. The advantage of working with a licensed psychotherapist is that they have received many years of training and supervision in the art of caring for people’s emotional and mental wellbeing. Nondual therapists pace their introduction to centerless awareness to the intrinsic capacities of their clients. They also aren’t newcomers to the block. Many have spent 20, 30 or 40 years exploring nondual awareness. And there is an essential guarantee that psychotherapists treat their clients respectfully and practice in a way that clients needn’t be concerned about any relational intrusions or ethical transgressions. This is important to most people.

Coaching as a professional intervention is much younger than psychotherapy. While there are professional associations that aim to uphold the standards of their members, no professional training or license is needed to set up shop as a coach. In general, coaching focuses on the future, on creating and leveraging opportunities and on achieving specified outcomes.

It is misleading to think of nondual coaching as a specific form, for instance, of life coaching. Nondual awareness can be integrated into life coaching, career coaching, sports coaching, health or even financial counseling. Within this framework the coach takes on the future orientation of their clients, but also shows how none of our planning for a better future is needed if we rest in nondual awareness in the present moment. They may also show that the best thing to do to “secure the best future” is to presence awareness whenever this is possible. Nonetheless, a life coach who is using the nondual will continue to return to their clients’ agendas.

Nowadays, the term “nondual coaching” refers to the specific action of introducing people to the nature of mind. At its essence, nondual coaching is the same as “mind-to-mind” transmission in Zen or pointing out instructions in Mahamudra or Dzogchen. People work with a nondual coach with the very specific intention of discovering, resting and acting from centerless awareness. Of course, we know that this intention presupposes that presencing awareness isn’t happening in this moment. And this is precisely the type of assumption that a coach points out.

In the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training we don’t explicitly differentiate between nondual therapy and nondual coaching. We offer a process that’s equally applicable to both; that can be used by both coaches and therapists. If, for example, someone feels that a particular life event—a trauma or their upbringing—is an obstacle to presencing awareness, then the initial tack may seem to be therapeutic. On the other hand, if someone is seeking to improve their living circumstances—their financial wellbeing, finding a career that’s more consistent with their values, etc.—the initial conversation may look like life coaching. But very quickly the conversation will transform into an inquiry into what’s missing in the here and now.

Nondual coaching and nondual therapy share a focus on “working in the here and now,” and both approaches use nondual dialogue, or unfindability inquiry to dissolve our constructions that anything is wrong or missing in the present moment. Whether the approach is more like therapy or coaching is determined, in part, by where people are coming from in terms of being located in a past or future concern, and whether the perceived obstacles to fulfillment are emotional or situational.

The outcomes of both nondual therapy and nondual coaching are the same. The endpoint can’t be different because the result—the embodied presencing of nondual awareness—goes beyond dualistic ideas of sameness and difference.

Question: So what would you recommend for a beginner?

Peter: For a real beginner I’d recommend gaining more familiarity with nondual awareness itself. At some point a particular direction will come to you, or it may not.

Question: I’m at the point where I’m familiar with this state. I rest here often, and I’m beginning to support others in terms of discovering how to be “here.” What would you recommend to me in terms of perhaps training as a psychologist, or beginning to tell people that I’m a nondual coach?

Peter: You don’t need to think about that right now. That question just gives you something to think about. The question of a direction will become obvious. This isn’t about becoming a therapist, a coach, or anything else. This is about being here, complete in this moment, and sharing this space through whatever structures and labels present themselves in the moment.

If you are to become a nondual coach, you don’t need to tell anyone about who you are. It will become obvious to other people that you can contribute to them in this way. People will start to talk about you as a nondual coach. If there is anything you “need” to do from your side, you won’t be doing nondual coaching or nondual therapy.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011

Peter Fenner, Ph.D. is a spiritual leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy, he created the Radiant Mind Course® and the Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training. Peter runs courses, trainings, retreats and satsang telecalls and offers individual coaching sessions. His students and clients include Buddhist psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, Zen masters, Sufi masters, Vipassana and Mindfulness teachers, Yoga teachers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, hospice workers, students of Tibetan Buddhism, followers of Advaita, artists and spiritual seekers worldwide.

Peter was a celibate monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 9 years and has a Ph.D. in the philosophical psychology of Mahayana Buddhism. Over a period of 40 years Peter Fenner has distilled the essence of traditions like Zen, Dzogchen and the Buddhist Middle Way, and adapted them to suit creatively our post-modern culture. He is the Director of Education of Timeless Wisdom.

The Radiant Mind Course (www.radiantmind.net) is taught in North America, Australia, and Europe, as well as the Natural Awakening Training, (www.nondualtraining.com.) Peter also offers retreats on 5 continents. He has presented his work at leading universities and institutions including Columbia, Stanford, CIIS and Naropa.

Peter Fenner has written extensively on Buddhist nondual traditions. His books and CDs include:

• “Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Awareness” (Sounds True, 2007) translated in French: “L’Esprit Lumineux” (Almora, 2010) and in German: “Reines Gewahrsein”;
• “The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy” (ed. with John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal, 2003).
• “The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path” (2002) translated in French: “Le Fil de la Certitude, Dilemmes de la voie bouddhiste” (du Relié, 2001).

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Nondual awareness—what is also called “buddhamind,” “suchness,” “just this,” “original wisdom” and many other names—is the most precious space that a person can realize. To rest and live in this space is the ultimate medicine because here there is no sense of lack or deficiency. No matter how things are; no matter what sensations are arising in the body, no matter what is being thought, or where we are in terms of health or material resources, nothing more is needed . We live from a space that can’t be enhanced or improved because “here” no one needs anything.

Nondual awareness is the most precious resource available to every human being and for humanity at large; especially as we negotiate our way through this critical phase of human history. There’s no question that the most efficient way to demand less from our delicate environment is to discover the space of authentic self-sufficiency, and live more thoroughly from a place where we’re nourished and fulfilled by awareness itself.

Every day, some people awake in a selfless recognition of their fundamental nature — a sphere of awareness through which life moves—without this being shown to them by a teacher. There are innumerable cases of spontaneous realization throughout human history. But in the majority of cases people come to this recognition through a connection with an Advaita master, Zen practice, the instructions of a Dzogchen lama, working with Western non-aligned teachers, nondual therapists, or timeless texts that directly point to awareness itself.

But don’t I need to be realized before sharing nondual awareness?

Some people feel that it’s impossible to learn how to cultivate and transmit nondual awareness. They hold that it arises without any causes. At one level this is true. Nothing can bring “this” into being, because “nothing” is being created. “This” is always, already here. Still, the wisdom of the “pristine self-sufficient purity of this moment” has also been consciously transmitted, at least from the time when the Buddha held up a flower and the great Kashyapa received a direct transmission of a contentless wisdom revealing the nature of consciousness itself.

Nondual awareness has been consciously revealed in the minds of hundreds of thousands of people through self inquiry, koans, clear seeing or vipashyana, pointing out events, and visionary meetings (darshan). These methods first entered the West 50 years or so ago. Today, half a century later, a significant number of Westerners are maturing as authentic agents for nondual transmission.

While the mind-to-mind transmission of pure awareness goes beyond all agency and contrivance, it’s possible to see how transmission happens, and use a broad palette of tools and sensitivities to awaken this in others. If someone has a clear recognition of the centerless space of nondual awareness and a natural impulse to share at this level, it’s definitely possible to refine the capacity for nondual transmission and extend the reach of the field in which this happens.

Many forms of nondual inquiry

There are many forms of nondual inquiry. Indian Mahayana, Zen, Advaita and Dzogchen all have their preferred methods. Some approaches are confrontational, others are gentle. Some are incremental, others are sudden. Some methods lend themselves to group entrainment, others are more suited to a one-on-one, dokusan-type of exchange. Some approaches build on a foundation of contemplative serenity, others cut through intellectualization in swift, robust dialogues.

Bringing your first-hand experience to the Nondual Training

The Nondual Training brings together a community of new and seasoned teachers, therapists or coaches who have a breadth and wealth of experience in nondual transmission and psychospiritual expertise, that is unparalleled. Together we share and explore the ins and outs of nondual inquiry and transmission. As a group we draw on more than 500 years of first-hand practical experience and accumulated wisdom derived from a very wide range of nondual lineages.

I know that some teachers strongly caution against stepping outside of a particular lineage of transmission, fearing that sharing the path with practitioners from other traditions, can dilute the integrity and authenticity of their teaching. My experience is quite the opposite. People who are clear and confident in presencing nondual awareness know that nothing can threaten this space because there’s nothing here: no beliefs, practices or values that can be distorted or destroyed.

In this case exposure to a variety of ways of sharing nonduality only serves to enrich, empower and bring clarity to our own unique way of embodying and sharing the nondual.

Demystifying transmission

The process of sharing our skills and expertise reveals the structures of effective transmission. We demystify events such as pointing-out instructions and Zen dokusan. The framework of the Training introduces a language and set of subtle distinctions through which participants share and understand the function and relevance of different ways for delivering the same contentless wisdom. These distinctions continues to be enriched as the Training unfolds. A set of core distinctions is offered in a comprehensive Manual that’s been specially written for the Training.

See a detailed description of the structure of the Natural Awakening Nondual Training

Listen to the audio recording of this interview of Peter Fenner by Tami Simon or click this link to download it on you computer.

Tami Simon: [...]  You mention people using the phrase “increasing awareness.” I hear that all the time: “The purpose of meditation is to expand awareness.” But really the person must be saying something different.

Peter Fenner: Sure. I think that what people are saying is that what’s expanding are the horizons of their conditioned experience. For example, if people are meditating, they’re opening themselves up to this perhaps infinite interior reality composed of thoughts, subtle feelings and sensations, meditative states. So people are expanding what’s in the field of awareness, but I don’t see that they are expanding awareness itself.

TS: That’s a really good point. Now, one of the things you talk about in your book Radiant Mind, that I’ve never heard anybody else introduce is this idea that we can track, in a certain way, how deeply we know, and can rest in unconditioned awareness by using these three different—I guess I might call them “measurements,” but you can correct me here if I’m misrepresenting anything. You talk about purity, depth, and duration. Would you say these are three qualities? How would you describe it? That we start relating, being as unconditioned awareness, that we can look at the purity, depth, and duration? Can you talk a bit about that, Peter?

Peter Fenner: Sure. Firstly, in a way, we can view this from how it is when we’re resting within awareness itself, or we can talk about this from how it is from the side of our conditioned existence. So when we’re resting within awareness itself, those three dimensions or parameters don’t apply, because awareness itself is even beyond notions of purity and impurity. There’s nothing that can be pure or impure. There’s nothing to prolong or nothing to shorten, so even the notion of duration doesn’t apply, because within awareness itself, it’s atemporal; we can’t measure time. Within awareness itself, there’s no deepening; we can’t have a more shallow or a deeper resting in this state when we’re viewing it from within awareness itself, but when we step back and see how resting in awareness plays out within our conditioned existence, then I feel that we can usefully make those distinctions, those three parameters.

For example, purity is just the way that sometimes, when people are resting in awareness, they still create that it’s some type of subtle experience. It’s what I call “experientializing the state.” People can say, “Wow, this is really blissful!” or “This is a really . . .” They can feel the palpability of the field, so they overlay onto the nothing of awareness some subtle fabric. That’s what I mean by introducing an impurity into the experience.

Then, with depth, to me that’s really important to acknowledge, because by depth, I mean the extent to which we can integrate the present thing of unconditioned awareness into our life. Because, at least in my experience, what happens is that I’m resting in awareness, and then something comes along that’s outside of my preferences, and then I’m triggered into a reaction of attraction and aversion, so then I lose the resting, because I become identified with what’s happening in my experience. I feel that this can be deepened. I think that this makes the difference, for example, between me and the great masters. Great masters are able to just include anything and everything within the field of awareness, without their being triggered into aversive or attractive reactions.

TS: So to see if I understand what you’re saying: you’re describing that, as a person, we visit or we touch or we rest for periods of time in unconditioned awareness. Would you say that?

Peter Fenner: Exactly! Exactly, but also I’m noting that when we are resting in awareness, while the awareness is unconditioned, our capacity to rest in awareness is conditioned. It’s conditioned by the ambient circumstances in the moment. For example, we have to be relatively free of physical pain. We have to be in, for most people, an environment that’s relatively settled. And our mind needs to be reasonably settled. If we’re in a really intense situation, it can be difficult to presence awareness.

TS: OK, I’m with you. And I think that, in terms of these three dimensions—depth, duration, and purity—I think duration seems pretty obvious to people: how long am I resting in unconditioned awareness before I start thinking about something or, as you say, pay attention to the pain in my back, or something like that. So duration seems obvious. Depth and purity, I’m not as clear on.

Peter Fenner: OK, so firstly, I’ll talk a little bit about purity. By purity, I’m really meaning that, when we’re resting in awareness in a pure way, there’s a clear recognition that this, as awareness, is not a thing. It’s no thing. It’s not a phenomenon. It has no structure to it. It has no directionality. We can’t talk about it—we can’t qualify it in any way, because there’s nothing to qualify, nothing to put any labels on.

What can happen is that, when people are resting in awareness, there can be a tendency to make the no thing into something. Why? Because often, really nice experiences come along in the slipstream of the presencing of awareness, things like clarity, bliss, feelings of intimacy and deep connection, and so then people can feel, “Ah! Those things, those secondary phenomena, are qualities of awareness itself!”[...]

Download the PDF transcription of this interview or listen to its recording.

Copyright © Peter Fenner, 2011