Unconditioned awareness or nonduality – Video

Peter Fenner interviewed at Conscious TV

Download the PDF transcription of this dialogue


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Peter: Unconditioned awareness is awareness. In a way we don’t have to say that awareness itself is unconditioned because it’s already unconditioned. Awareness itself is different from the contents of awareness; what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling, what we’re perceiving. These are conditioned and they change but awareness itself, that capacity to receive everything is unconditioned, it’s not something that changes. It’s ever-present, it can’t be found, in a way its sole capacity or function is to receive things as they are.

Iain: So it’s what we call the never changing?

Peter: Yes.

Iain: Is it personal?

Peter: It is and it isn’t because we can be here ‘presencing’ unconditioned awareness so it’s personal it that way. We can both be in the same state channelling it in a certain way through our body-mind but it has nothing to do with us. So, it’s impersonal. If you’re presencing pure awareness and I’m presencing it, it’s the same state that’s being 'presenced.’ It’s the same experience, the same state that’s being 'presenced' by hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of masters throughout history.

Iain: So you were saying it’s always there, so it’s a question of in a way, our availability?

Peter: Yes, but there’s nothing we have to do to be available to this because it’s not a thing, it’s not functioning in a subject-object relationship, so when we say ‘it’s here,’ or ‘it’s everywhere,’ we’re not really saying a lot because it’s not here in a location. The great thing is we don’t have to do anything to be here in this pure way—in a way that takes us beyond suffering—because when we’re in this moment, in this way, it’s not possible for us to suffer. We go beyond suffering, and the very possibility of suffering. This is the place that’s at the end of the search, at the end of the spiritual path. This is the end of the path because when we’re here there’s nowhere further to go: there’s nothing more to achieve. A question I sometimes ask is; ‘Can we enhance this space in some way, can we make this better?’ We can’t because this is not a thing, it’s not a material, it’s not a medium, it’s not even a state of consciousness so we can’t tweak it and make it better. ‘Can we degrade this, can we move away from this?’ No we can’t because it’s not a thing.
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Download the PDF transcription of this dialogue

About Peter

Peter Fenner, PH.D. is spiritual teacher and a leader in the adaption and transmission of Asian nondual wisdom worldwide. He offers training programs and individual coaching and meditation entrainment sessions over the phone. Pioneer in the development of nondual therapy and creator of the Radiant Mind Course® http://www.radiantmind.net and Natural Awakening: Advanced Nondual Training: https://www.nondualtraining.com, he 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 our post-modern culture.
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