Cultivating Naked Awareness
Cultivating Naked Awareness
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audio CD as long as you do not alter them in a way that changes the
meaning and as long as you do not sell them for a profit.
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Contents
Preface......................................................................................................1
Introduction To Dogzen .......................................................................5
A Short Course In Naked Awareness ................................................9
Awareness .............................................................................................10
More About Awareness......................................................................14
Pure Awareness ...................................................................................18
Naked Awareness................................................................................21
Overlays.................................................................................................24
Some Practical Things About Dogzen .............................................28
On Emptiness From the Start.............................................................30
Going To The Base...............................................................................33
Standing Outside of the Realm of Description...............................37
Figmentalization of the Dynamic Cosmic Energy .........................41
The Preparation for Contemplation .................................................44
Dogzen Dyads ......................................................................................49
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Preface
In early 2000, I was co-leading a 6-day Enlightenment Intensive
at Nechung Dorje Drayang Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist temple on
the Big Island in Hawaii with a long-time associate, Osha
Reader. It so happened that my birthday was on the 5th day of
the Intensive. When Osha found out, she enthusiastically said,
“Edrid, I want to buy you a present! Go into the Temple Store
and pick out something.” There was a little shop attached to
the temple where you could buy Tibetan crafts, gongs, books,
incense, and so forth.
During a break, I went in and looked around. Frankly, I didn’t
really need anything, but Osha encouraged me, and suggested
a book, The Golden Letters, a translation of Tshig gsum gnad du
brdeg-pa, or The Three Statements That Strike The Essential Points
by Garab Dorje. I did not know it at the time, but this book
presents the essence of the Dzogchen teachings, said to be the
highest (9th) vehicle of Buddhism. The book also includes
commentaries by H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche and Patrul
Rinpoche, as well as excellent commentary by the translator,
John Myrdhin Reynolds (Vajranatha).
I was in a very opened-up state because it was the 5th day of an
Enlightenment Intensive. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the
Enlightenment Intensive (EI), but it is a very potent practice
that leads to deep spiritual experiences. From being in
contemplation for five days, I was in a very clear, aware,
present, and luminous state at the time.
During a break, I retired to my quarters and thumbed through
the new book. As I read Garab Dorje’s three essential points,
the short commentary by Dudjom Rinpoche, and the more
detailed description by Patrul Rinpoche, I became more and
more excited and amazed. The teachings in the book were
perfect. They matched my understanding exactly. I can’t tell
you how wonderful it is to be in union with such great masters.
It was all perfect! It was like finding dear old friends and
recollecting our great times we had together. No, it was better
than that. I can’t explain it.
Over the next year, I became absorbed in the Dzogchen
teachings. They were clear articulation of what I knew to be
true of the self, of life, and of awareness. They validated and
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made accessible what I knew from the deepest spiritual
experiences I had at Enlightenment Intensives.
Sometime later, in 2002, a Tibetan Bön master, Tenzin Wangyal
Rinpoche, began coming to Northern California to teach the
Bön view of Dzogchen as presented in the secret teachings of
the zhang zhung nyan gyud. I attended these teachings, which
stretched out over a 2 1/2 year period. During that time I did
practices and read just about everything I could get my hands
on about both Bön and Buddhist Dzogchen.
I wanted to share my newfound vision with my friends, so I
began to hold evening practices and short workshops.
Although I was not officially empowered to teach Dzogchen,
since I wasn’t formally trained and wasn’t a part of any
particular lineage, I knew in my heart that I understood the
teachings and felt I could easily communicate at least
something about them to others. The classes were informal and
I explored the various ways to help the participants directly
experience the Dzogchen view. During this time, I was
surprised to realize that these truths I had taken to so quickly
weren’t all that accessible to others. I began to innovate simple
practices and invent various lecture themes, borrowing
liberally from the Dzogchen teachings, to see if I could get the
material across to my friends who attended the practice
sessions.
At one session, a dear friend of many years jokingly called
what we were doing “Dogzen,” a play on the Dzogchen name.
As soon as I heard it, I realized it was going to stick, and sure
enough, we were doing Dogzen from that point on.
I wrote a series of newsletters to share the Dogzen unfoldment
with people I’ve known who attended EIs. I have been an EI
master for over 30 years and have accumulated an email
mailing list of a few hundred names. I would put out a
newsletter every month or so, though that would vary as I
would back off from time to time to go through successive
levels of integration of the Dzogchen teachings. People
responded to the newsletters and pretty soon we had a nice
dialog going with a number of people. Several people did “get
it” during this time, which was very satisfying to me and gave
me great impetus to continue.
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All long, my wife, Anatta, shared Dogzen with me. We would
go on long walks and discuss it. We’d “go to the base” together
and walk along silently, experiencing naked awareness. She
reviewed and edited the Dogzen newsletters and contributed
greatly to their clarity.
After the initial set of newsletters, which were sort of like an
historical record of an energetic opening for me, I began to
seriously formulate what I wanted to share with others, trying
to put it in some sensible order so it would be easy to
understand and practice (while also trying to allow for some
humor and a lightness of being). After some more incubation, I
started a second series of email newsletters. In these
newsletters I attempted to write as if I were writing a sutra or
essential text. I wanted to write it down as simply as I could
and to put the material in order so anyone could just read
through it and get it without being stopped by missing pieces. I
know I didn’t actually achieve that goal, but what we have
now is worth reading in my estimation. The newsletters from
this second series are the sources for the lessons in this booklet.
From the Bön Dzogchen teachings and other sources, I cobbled
together a simple guided meditation that is included on the
accompanying CD. This meditation has become a standard
feature of our evening Dogzen practices. We do it at the
beginning of the practice session to help everyone get into a
state of contemplation or naked awareness. I have also
introduced a variant of it into the EI. I’ve found that it helps
people contemplate, reducing the number of stories and mental
digressions that often prevent them from going deep with their
meditations.
I recommend that you practice the Preparation for
Contemplation twice a day, for example, once in the morning
and once in the evening, for a few weeks, and see if it helps you
gain access to a state of naked awareness. Perhaps not
everyone will get it in such a short time, of course, but I believe
some will. It only takes about twenty minutes to do, and it
leaves you in a great place.
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Introduction To Dogzen
The purpose of Dogzen is to make the enlightened state more
available in our daily lives. What this means for each
individual can vary. It could support a more grounded sense of
yourself, or an emptied-out ego, free of encrusted binding
elements that limit your options. It could help to dissolve away
your sense of separation and duality, or help to create a fresh,
open awareness, like Zen “new mind.” It could diminish the
fear you have, and help to open your heart towards others. It
could help to free you from your reactivity and being at the
effect of situations. It could help you have a vivid connection to
the truth, to ultimate reality, to the absolute, or to God. It could
take you out of your false identifications. It could blow your
mind with joy, rapture, and enthralling beauty. It will certainly
eliminate some unnecessary suffering. It could give you a clear,
open connection to your creative abilities if that is where you
are headed. It can wake you up from your waking dream and
can help you to live in the present, vividly aware in the
moment.
These are some of the benefits that Dogzen could provide.
What you get out of it depends on a lot of factors that you carry
into it. Although our essence is the same, each of us is in a
unique condition. We will each get out of it what is right for us.
Through it all, Dogzen has an element of experimentation. We
engage in the practices and see where they take us.
Where to start? There is an entry point that is the same for all of
us. The entry point and the core activity of Dogzen is becoming
directly aware of awareness. By doing this, we develop access
to the very essence of our conscious experience, to life’s events
and meanings. We cultivate naked awareness so that pure,
here-and-now awareness becomes a familiar and accessible
part of our daily life.
Dogzen is inspired by Dzogchen, a deep enlightenment
tradition within Tibetan Buddhism and Bön. However, the
Dogzen practice has an extra element of experimentation and
grassroots discovery. It doesn’t necessarily look like traditional
Dzogchen, or any other school of Buddhism for that matter. We
are exploring naked awareness freshly and seeing what
unfolds.
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Entry Into the View
As we all know, we can be in many different states. With
Dogzen, there isn’t any particular state that we need to be in
before we begin. We simply become directly aware of
awareness as it is right now and increase that direct experience.
We make a distinction between what we are aware of at this
moment and the nature of awareness itself. It is easy to
understand that no matter what you are aware of and, no
matter what state you are in, the common denominator of all
experience is awareness itself. Traditional Dzogchen literature
sometimes calls this “intrinsic awareness” because awareness is
intrinsic to all experience.
One of our practices is “detaching awareness from what it is
aware of and becoming directly aware of awareness itself.”
People generally need a little support to get this started, so we
use meditation techniques, including solitary meditation,
guided group meditation, and a powerful two-person
contemplative art called the Dyad.
Dogzen practices all have a single focus: to continually deepen
awareness of awareness. The consciousness that evolves from
this becomes a touchstone or base from which you experience
your daily life. From being in touch with the base, you can
begin to perceive the events and meanings of daily life from
pure, naked awareness.
Viewing the world from a base of naked awareness strikes
directly at the tendency to become sucked into illusions and to
lose yourself in reactivity. As we become more and more
familiar with the way objects and meanings arise within the
field of awareness, many sufferings and upsets are revealed to
be unnecessary, and they dissolve without you having to do
anything about them. You don't have to believe in anything or
use force of will for this to take place. It is simply the
consequence of being grounded in the base. In addition,
insights into the nature of illusion and reactivity help you to
understand how and why others are acting the way they do.
From these insights, you can become more open, tolerant, and
helpful. It uncovers your natural compassion.
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Practice Sessions
At first we do the Dogzen practices in a group setting. After
some practice, you find you can access the base in your daily
life, at nearly any time you want. The goal is to steadily
increase your familiarity with naked awareness until,
eventually, you can access it effortlessly in any life situation, or
even become established in it permanently. This will dissolve
your illusions and reactivity.
Dogzen evening practice sessions typically meet for a couple of
hours every two weeks. There is a short subsidence-type
meditation that quiets the nervous system and helps you “go to
the base.” Then there is a short talk or discussion about
awareness and about the techniques or practices we will be
doing.
Following the meditation and talk, there is usually a Dyad that
lasts forty minutes. A Dyad is a two-person meditation
technique that combines contemplation with communication.
In the Dyad, one person is active, the other receptive. These
roles are reversed every five minutes, signaled by a bell or
gong. The active partner contemplates an aspect of awareness
and then communicates what comes up to the receptive
partner. The receptive partner listens and understands, keeping
open attention on the active partner. The receptive partner does
not judge or evaluate what the active partner says, or give any
feedback. We have found that this combination of
contemplation, communication, and open listening is very
effective in accessing naked awareness and other refined states.
From time to time, we hold a one-day practice. This is a day
devoted to cultivating naked awareness. It usually starts at
around 8:00 AM and goes to about 5:00 PM. We share a festive
potluck lunch, and there are breaks for snacks and
conversation. However, most of the day is spent doing the
Preparation for Contemplation meditation, Dyads, and
discussing the Dogzen principles.
So far we’ve never charged any money for practice sessions. It
doesn’t cost any more to get together for an evening to do the
practices than it does to sit at home and watch TV, so we don’t
charge anything. The one-day practices are potluck and people
bring all the food, snacks, and drinks we need, so they don’t
cost anything either. I suppose at some point there will be a
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situation where we’d have to charge something. That would be
OK, I suppose. It isn’t primarily a moneymaking activity,
though.
Everyone is welcome to try the Dogzen approach. There isn’t
any commitment and it isn’t about beliefs. You don’t have to
stop any other spiritual or personal growth activities to benefit
from Dogzen. It is such a basic process, it can improve the
effectiveness of any other spiritual practice.
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A Short Course In Naked Awareness
This is a brief, 10-lesson course intended to help you cultivate
naked awareness. Naked awareness is pure awareness,
uncluttered by extraneous thoughts, feelings, opinions,
memories, and other mental chaff. It’s just pure, open, here-
and-now presence, being-in-the-moment consciousness. As
you go through the course, the exact meaning and significance
of naked awareness will be made clear.
This course is supposed to be a “slow read.” Take your time
with each lesson.
Each lesson is mercifully short and to the point. Often there are
short practices that you can to do to develop a skill or achieve
an insight or realization. At the end of each lesson is a brief
summary of what is in the lesson.
Do the lessons in order. Each one builds on the previous one.
Try not to leap ahead to the next lesson out of curiosity. Chew
on each lesson until you are satisfied that you have
experienced what is discussed, even if only a little bit.
Try not to just read through the lessons and then think about
them with your intellect. The lessons are meant to support your
having direct spiritual experiences. We know it is a lot easier to
just intellectualize, but to really do it, you have to sit down and
contemplate until you directly know the inner experience the
lesson is teaching. Go slow and go deep.
You can do the practices alone, solo, by yourself, or you can do
them in a Dyad (see Appendix B for more about the Dyad). The
problem with the Dyad is that you need to have someone else
there with you, at the same time and place, who also wants to
do the practice and do it with you. Fortunately, it’s actually not
all that hard to find someone to do Dyads with. In fact, you can
develop a group and get together regularly. This provides all
sorts of added benefits, like friendship, caring, love, adventure,
shared food and so forth. You can do Dyads over the phone
too. It works pretty well, but it’s better to be in the same room.
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Lesson 1
Awareness
The first thing about Dogzen is "awareness of awareness." The
first thing you do is become a little more aware of your own
awareness.
A lot of people I've talked to don't quite get what it means to be
aware, at least at first. When I asked them, "Are you aware?"
some were not sure of what I was asking, so I hope to be very
clear about this.
First of all, I don't mean some high super-cosmic state or
anything like that. I mean your ordinary awareness that you
have right now and use every day while doing regular things.
We are aware when we are awake, aware when we are
daydreaming, and also aware when we are asleep and
dreaming. When we are awake, we are aware of the
information from our senses. We are also aware internally of
our thoughts and feelings. When we are daydreaming, we are
aware of pictures in our minds (and aren't very aware of the
world around us). When we are asleep, we are often aware of
dreams, as if we are in a different world.
If you are in the 4th stage of sleep (called "oblivion"), then
maybe you aren't aware. If you are really zonked-out with an
anesthetic during an operation and you have no sense of what
is happening around you and have no memory of what
happened while you were out, then that is generally thought of
as "not being aware." When you again become aware, it's like a
piece of the movie was cut out and the ends spliced together.
There’s a gap in which you were not aware.
If you sit with your eyes closed and think about what you had
for dinner, you are being aware of a memory in your mind.
When you are watching TV, you are being aware of the images
being presented on the screen. If your eyes are closed and you
just see black, then you are still aware. You are aware of a black
field. If there was no awareness, you wouldn’t have an
experience of an ongoing blackness. There would just be
nothing.
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If you sit there and decide that you are not aware and you
know you thought that thought, then you really are aware and
so your thought is just wrong.
Some people think that if you aren't in touch with important
things, then you aren't aware. For example, if you aren't
concerned about ecology or poverty or someone in trouble,
then you are unaware. Or maybe you think that if you aren't in
some high, cosmic consciousness state, you aren't aware. But
what that says is that you aren't being aware of something in
particular. That doesn't mean you aren't aware. Being aware of
junk is still being aware.
In Dogzen, awareness is not defined by what you are aware of,
but by the nature of awareness itself. This is a key distinction.
The common denominator of all your experience is awareness.
It is that basic faculty that illuminates sensory information and
inner states.
So now, do you know what I mean by awareness or being
aware? If you read this, and know you read this, that is you
being aware.
So the next big question is, "How do you know you are aware?"
If someone asked you, “Are you aware?” you could notice your
awareness and answer, “Yes.” You can tell by just noticing. We
could say it is self-evident. Noticing your own awareness is
called "awareness of awareness."
A Practice
Consider the question, “How do you know you are aware?”
See if you can dig into that. It is not so important that you get
an answer, but that you observe the process of becoming
more aware of your awareness.
Sit in meditation and see what comes up for you as you
inquire into this question: “What happens at the instant that
I become aware that I am aware?”
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Now I expect that a certain number of you are very clear about
awareness already and are quite aware of your own awareness.
Maybe you think that this is all very elementary and simple
minded or something like that. But just wait. We'll get into
some things that are really interesting pretty soon. However,
we have to start somewhere, and Dogzen starts with
identifying what we mean by awareness and becoming directly
aware of awareness.
Awareness of awareness is like a muscle, in that you can
exercise it and it gets bigger or stronger. If you become aware
of your awareness a little bit now and then every day for a
while, it becomes more apparent. It's like it gets bigger, or
thicker, or more solid or more apparent. Instead of being just a
fleeting wisp of an experience, it gets "more there." These
descriptions aren't literal, but some change does occur in your
ability to be aware of your own awareness and something
builds up. Dogzenners work on building this up.
So, to recapitulate:
• You are aware.
• You can be aware of your own awareness.
• The more you practice being aware of your own awareness,
the stronger the experience becomes.
Practice being aware of your awareness and see for yourself the
nature of awareness. Hopefully, these lessons will bring more
enlightenment into your life. To see if this is true, continue with
the next lesson.
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If you wish, take a moment now to dedicate any improvement
or benefit you got from this lesson to all beings. Do this with an
open heart.
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Lesson 2
Pure Awareness
At this moment, see if you can grasp the essence of awareness
that is independent of what you are currently aware of. This is
a core practice of Dogzen. We detach awareness from what it is
aware of and become aware of awareness itself.
A Practice
Go where you go to meditate. Put your attention on
something, like a small physical object. Keep your attention
steadily on the object for a minute or two, then detach your
attention from the object and see if you can put it on the
awareness itself.
Don’t analyze the object, or try to notice its attributes. Go for
being directly aware of awareness itself.
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When you do the awareness practices by yourself, begin with
short, relaxed contemplations. Just pick an object, focus on it,
and then see if you can isolate the awareness from what it is
aware of. You can try to do it for just a minute or two at a time,
or you can become absorbed in the process and do it longer.
However, in the beginning, it is more important to be able to
become aware of your awareness quickly and easily than to try
to go really deep (whatever that means).
Awareness that is just aware of itself is "pure awareness" since
it isn't about anything or of anything. It is empty of content. At
the instant awareness is aware only of itself, there is no
awareness of the world, or of the mind, or anything else. We
also call it "naked awareness" since it isn’t wearing any
concepts or other coverings. It is like space. It is clear. It is
luminous. It is free. It is filled with presence and a primordial
knowing. We practice being aware of awareness until we can
touch the nature of awareness directly. You shouldn’t just take
my word for what naked awareness is like!
In Dogzen, we don't usually have a goal to maintain a state of
pure awareness for long periods of time, but to have
knowledge of it and to have easy, ready access to that
emptiness. To develop this, it is sufficient to just have brief
experiences over and over. I think being able to be pretty stable
with it for a minute or two at a time is all we need to do at first.
Over time, it grows naturally into a "base" from which one can
experience all events and meanings.
Some people may want to go very deep with pure awareness of
awareness. This would mean going into a pure state in which
there is no consciousness of the world or anything else, just
awareness being aware of itself, and maintaining that for long
periods of time. In Yoga, this is called samadhi. You will know if
that calls to you. For most people, however, just having easy
access to that awareness is enough.
Attributes of Awareness
You can use your ability to discriminate to see the difference
between awareness itself and anything that you are currently
aware of. To do this, you have to let go of the connection with
what you are being aware of and reflect on the faculty of
awareness itself. You will realize that awareness itself is empty,
clear, vast, spacious, luminous, present, and knowing. When
pure enough, no self marks it. (We'll describe how to get these
experiences in subsequent lessons.)
Awareness is what gets filled with experiences. When
awareness is filled with experiences, the experiences usually
obscure the underlying pure field of awareness, which is what
makes experience possible. Because we are ignorant of this
base, we are likely to become totally wrapped up in the
experiences. We get so wrapped up and identified with these
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conditions, that we have no inkling of the awesome miracle of
awareness itself. Dogzen works to re-connect us with the
essence of awareness. In so doing, it helps us to be liberated
from the binding nature of phenomena.
Remember, though, that Dogzen is not really about these ideas,
about awareness and liberation, but about the direct
experiences. That is, it does us little good to just think about
this. We need to catch awareness itself in the act of being
aware.
So, in summary:
• Discriminate between awareness and what you are aware
of.
• You can develop the ability to experience pure awareness.
• Over time, pure awareness can become your base for
experiencing.
This completes the second lesson. We'll keep going, getting this
thing clearer and clearer and clearer.
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Lesson 3
Pure Awareness
Awareness itself is void-like. It isn’t any of the stuff that
appears in it. It is the faculty by which one has experience, but
it is, itself, blank. Think of awareness as the screen on which
the movie plays, or the mirror that reflects images but is not
those images.
Even though awareness is empty, we can assign a few
attributes to it:
It is "space-like." It is the space in which experiences occur.
Sometimes the Bönpo (practitioners of Bön Dzogchen) go up on
a hillside or out in the open to stare into the clear blue sky. This
is a meditation that gives them an impression of the nature of
mind—clear and empty space. Sometimes awareness is called
"the field of awareness" to emphasize its space-like nature.
It is "luminous." Awareness is a space with inner light. This is
the same light that illuminates the objects in your dreams.
When you are asleep, your body is lying there in the dark with
its eyes closed, but you see a lit-up stage on which your dream
unfolds. It can be fully convincing light, even though you are in
a pitch-black room. After some reflection, you can realize that
you only see inner light, whether in the waking state or asleep.
The "luminousness" of physical light (from the sun, lamps, and
so forth) is created only within the field of awareness, though
few people realize this. Any light you see right now is inner
light. The light "out there" doesn’t shine except by virtue of
your awareness.
A Practice
Visualize something in your mind, a simple object like a
chair or a cup. When you can see it in your mind’s eye, study
the light that illuminates the object. Realize that this is the
light that is created within the mind, within the field of
awareness. This is the “inner light” we’re talking about.
A Practice
Just gaze at an object for a while and see if you can sense
your knowing your awareness of that object. You might not
know anything about it, but you know it. Don’t mentally
take it apart, analyze it, or compare it to anything, and don’t
engage in having any particular thought or idea about it. Just
know it. Just be present with the object. Some people
characterize this as being in “union” with the object.
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Lesson 4
Naked Awareness
What exactly is this "naked awareness" and how do you
develop it? One way to get at it is to talk about what makes
awareness not naked.
Let's start with the five senses and their effect on awareness.
[Aside: some people define more than the familiar five senses.
Some people have accounts of over 20. In any case, we can stick
with the basic five for our purposes here.]
Your eyes produce what the Buddhists call "eye consciousness"
(vision). Your ears produce what they call ear consciousness
(sounds). The others are tongue consciousness, nose
consciousness, and touch consciousness. Each one affects
awareness in its own way, but in one sense, they are the same:
they all give rise to experiences in the field of awareness.
Let's stick with one channel, eye consciousness, and follow it
through. It's more or less the same for any of the five
consciousnesses.
Your eye consciousness contains the raw, immediate
impression from your eyes. By raw, I mean that you're getting
pure information, raw data, just what is coming in through
your nervous system.
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brain with the image. There's just the raw TV picture. See if you
can experience this for yourself.
A Practice
OK! Right now stop reading this and see if you can look at
something and tune in to the raw experience of eye
consciousness. Just sit still and stare at something until you
get it. It’s not that hard, really.
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In summary:
• The five senses give us the five sense consciousnesses.
• The sixth consciousness is mind consciousness.
• The sixth consciousness "puts the captions on the pictures."
• You can directly perceive without mind consciousness.
• Practicing pure sense consciousness makes the sixth
consciousness fade away.
There is a bunch more to understand about the six
consciousnesses. Stay tuned and something really wonderful
will unfold in your life.
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Lesson 5
Overlays
[A reminder: these lessons are meant to be slow reads. You
want to experience the things talked about, not just store neat
new ideas in the mind.]
In the last lesson, we focused on the awareness through the
senses, mainly eye consciousness. This lesson, Lesson 5,
suggests you, again, try to "just see" without engaging the sixth
consciousness (the part that thinks, evaluates, judges,
complains, labels, remembers, and so forth). Practice this a bit
until you are personally satisfied that you can see without
automatically adding material from the sixth consciousness, or
at least be able to tell when the sixth consciousness adds
something.
A Practice
For most people, practicing with ear consciousness is more
difficult than eye consciousness. It’s worth a try, though.
One way to start is to repeat the same word over and over
again until it loses its meaning. Try “star craving”, repeating
it over and over. It will morph into “stark raving” and then
turn into just pure sounds.
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be waving his arms trying to brush away the birds flying too
close to his head, but no one else sees the birds. His actions are
exactly appropriate for his experience because he perceives the
birds. They are real to him. We all do that to some degree, but
most of the time the distortions aren't as extreme.
For most people, overlays are added automatically and
unconsciously. We don't realize that it is happening, and so we
are at the effect of them. With knowledge of overlays, we can
practice naked awareness and notice how that improves our
connection with reality.
Our overlays play an important role in our relationships with
others. When we have overlays in common, we feel more
connected. The negative is also true. When our overlays
conflict, we feel like we are in separate realities. Shared
opinions make a shared reality. The shared reality is a
powerful component of our sense of belonging or being a part
of a group.
When you start to let go of overlays, you might feel conflicted
because it seems as if you are dropping out of the reality that
binds you to others. These reactions can be a barrier to
becoming nakedly aware. Be careful not to get caught by them.
Synopsis:
• Experiencing life from pure sense perception is a form of
naked awareness.
• Pure perception is often obscured by creations from the
sixth consciousness.
• We usually don't notice when the sixth consciousness
overlays perceptions.
• People often feel connected with others when they share
the same overlays, or separate when their overlays don’t
match.
• People are often reluctant to drop their overlays because it
can make them feel separate from others.
There is a bunch more to understand about the six
consciousnesses, overlays, and naked awareness. Carry on!
26
Dedication to All Beings
If you wish, take a moment now to dedicate any improvement
or benefit you got from this lesson to all beings. Do this with an
open heart.
27
Lesson 6
28
out to get just a little taste of the pure states of stillness, silence,
and non-conceptual mind. If you can't get the actual things,
you can just imagine getting them. Over time, it will get easier.
You relax into emptiness, not struggle for it.
Dogzen stays focused on the direct experience of the essence of
mind. We keep doing more or less the same thing, going for
awareness of awareness and the base. We learn as much as we
can about that core topic, becoming more and more familiar
with it. We don't chase after things that come up in the mind as
a result of these efforts. We don't chase after memories. We
don't get into all of the philosophical or speculative issues that
it can bring up. We don’t try to ferret out mental hang-ups or
past upsets and try to resolve them. You can still do that, but
that’s a different practice. The practice of Dogzen is just a one-
pointed exploration of the deep essence of being sentient, what
is called in the literature "primordial awareness." We steadily
keep that focus.
Becoming familiar with pure awareness and the base is best
accomplished by relaxing rather than willfully trying to
achieve something. That is why there is a general
recommendation to avoid "chasing after" experiences. In the
Bön tradition, one reads that Bönpos take a vow to give up
moving, speaking, and thinking. This doesn't mean that you sit
like a stone, silently, with a blank look on your face! It means
that when you try to directly experience pure awareness you
do not chase after the experiences of the body, speech, or mind
that can arise. You let all of that go.
To summarize:
• Dogzen is practiced many times throughout the day, not
just at special times.
• Do the easy steps first; do little things to deepen awareness.
• Develop pure awareness through relaxation and letting go.
• To experience pure awareness, don't chase after thoughts.
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Lesson 7
30
Having a view, opinion, attitude, or decision about anything
(including emptiness) isn't what we are after. Emptiness is a
primordial, original source state. You don't have to create
anything to experience this emptiness because it is already that
way (empty) from the start. In fact, if you think any thoughts or
create anything in your mind to understand this, you move
away from the empty state. The thoughts just fill the emptiness
with mind stuff and that is where your attention goes, so this is
not our intent.
Note that the original emptiness is not changed or harmed by
what fills it (perceptions, thoughts, and feelings). It is
completely untouched because awareness is just the potential
for new experiences and that is beyond the experience itself.
The emptiness is always allowing for continuous new
experience. For most of us, awareness just stays filled up with
stuff so we don't experience it in its native state very often.
A Practice
Ponder "emptiness from the start" and see if you can catch
the primordial emptiness that lies at the origin of all
experience. See for yourself what that is like.
Next, see if you can catch something "becoming from
emptiness." Don’t get discouraged. It may be a while before
this becomes evident to you. Try it when you are lying in
bed at night as you wait to go to sleep. Close your eyes, get
empty, and then observe when something “becomes from
emptiness.”
31
novelty**." It is an experience that you can get when awareness
rests in the base and then you perceive something. The vivid
novelty of the moment derives from this emptiness at the start,
as things freshly become from emptiness. Freshness of the now
is one of the rewards for experiencing from this base of
emptiness.
To summarize:
• The idea of emptiness and the experience of emptiness are
different.
• Attention usually goes to what arises in awareness, thus
obscuring the emptiness.
• All perceptions, thoughts, and feelings begin from
emptiness.
• Emptiness is not changed by what arises within it.
• Experiences are fresh with novelty when experienced from
emptiness.
*
A term coined by the late Terrence McKenna.
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Lesson 8
A Practice
At various times, think the thought, “Go to the base” and
then do that by detaching from what you are currently
aware of and being aware of the emptiness at the base of
awareness. See how quickly you can land in the base. See for
yourself what that is like.
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Dedication to All Beings
If you wish, take a moment now to dedicate any improvement
or benefit you got from this lesson to all beings. Do this with an
open heart.
36
Lesson 9
A Practice
Put your attention on an object and experience it outside of
the realm of description. Just be nakedly aware of it.
Close your eyes and remember a recent event. Mentally
experience the memory of the event as a pure image, with no
description.
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there are many people who aren't too familiar with being
aware while empty of thought. This practice is especially
beneficial to them.
This isn't something you do, it is something you stop doing.
You just let go of the automatic internal description of what
you are aware of. For example, often people judge themselves,
especially after they did something that they imagine is wrong
or stupid (which we all do at one time or another). To do this
practice, you would simply take a moment to consciously not
judge.
A Practice
Recall a time when you did something wrong or stupid,
something that has some “charge” on it. While recalling it,
let go of all 6th consciousness overlays so you are standing
outside of the realm of description in relation to that
memory. If you can do this, you will notice that the “charge”
on the event is gone.
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naked awareness, uncluttered by verbal mind. It takes a little
practice, that's all.
Your words don't make things what they are. Descriptions
aren't even true knowledge of what things are. Descriptions
and other overlays do have their place, but it is also good to be
able to stand outside of the entire realm of descriptions so that
you just nakedly experience what you are experiencing. As you
get used to doing this, your describing mind quiets down a bit
and there are moments of emptiness, which are refreshing and
help you to re-sync to the base.
We here in Buddha land want to be grounded in a state outside
of the process of describing things, at least part of the time.
This state should be easily accessible in any situation or
circumstance. When something "strong" comes along, we'd like
to be sort of transparent to it, letting the energy flow through
without getting stuck and causing distress. Not automatically
labeling goes a long way towards not getting stuck in things.
"But what about Dyads?" you might ask. When you do a Dyad,
you’re asked to describe what comes up in your mind. In the
Dyad, the first part is contemplation, so this is where you stand
outside the realm of description and just be open to
experiencing the truth directly. During that time, you do not
chase after thoughts about what is real and what isn't, or about
what is the true self and what isn't, or about what has occurred
that is you or not you. You stand outside of the whole realm of
description and just experience directly, without seeking the
concept or words that describe what you are experiencing.
Sometimes you have to intentionally hold off thinking for a
little while or you can't get into contemplation. The Kagyus
(one of the Tibetan Buddhist lineages) even recommend that
you tense up your body and kind of force your thoughts to
shut up. I've done this in Intensives and it works pretty well.
You can alternate it with being very relaxed and just resting in
emptiness a bit. That way, you don't get too rigid or get
blinded by the forcing.
After a few minutes of the contemplative state, in which you
stand empty of description, you then let the impression
generate a concept. You try to capture what it is you are
experiencing and then formulate how you would describe this
to your partner.
39
During the contemplation part, you don't enter the realm of
description, but then, during the communication part, you do.
You try to keep these separate. You want to avoid just thinking
thousands of thoughts without ever being silent enough to
catch pure awareness just being aware without a fog of mind-
stuff obscuring it. You can more easily experience awareness of
self (or whatever your contemplative target is) without
concepts getting in the way because the direct awareness of self
is not just having a clear idea or concept of self. It is the
fundamentally empty self-nature reflecting itself into
consciousness.
Once you have practiced this for a while, you will find that you
can remain in contemplation even while thinking thoughts.
You don't automatically lose contemplation while
communicating.
Summary:
• Cultivate the pure contemplative state that is not all about
describing, but is, instead, all about pure awareness directly
aware of truth.
• Incessant internal verbalizing and conceptualizing tend to
block the development of pure awareness states.
• If you are doing a Dyad, keep the contemplating and
communicating separate so your communication doesn't
obscure your contemplation.
Like all these Dogzen things, it gets easier with practice. Do the
practice! Spend some time outside of the realm of description,
just being nakedly aware.
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Lesson 10
41
being] brings forth the appearance of a vast and long tongue,
everywhere covering the three-thousand, great thousand
worlds.")
Our wanting, at least for a moment, to cast off the layers of
figmentalization and just directly experience truth takes us to
spiritual practices such as Dogzen. Here we clearly identify
how the mind is overlaying the moment with mental stuff, and
we detach awareness from what it is aware of and experience
pure awareness aware only of itself. We realize for ourselves
the nature of awareness (essence of mind, the Divine) by
clearly and directly experiencing awareness within a moment
of pure contemplation, a moment when there is no
figmentalizing going on. From that experience there emerges
an understanding of our nature and the nature of life, which
gives us clues about what we really want to do with our
precious time here.
It isn't all that easy, actually, because everything is defined by
the figments. Figments reinforce other figments. We fill our
relationships with our figments. We live and die for our
figments. We get afraid when we lose our figments.
To cease figmentalizing, one has to pull away from all figments
and experience essence of mind with essence of mind. No
figments. No thoughts. No concepts. No beliefs. We need to
have this present awareness, which is that intimate central
source, look directly at itself, purely, in this moment, without
any expectations of a really good figment resulting from doing
it. When the figments that create a separate self dissolve, the
separate self dissolves, and the space of pure luminous
knowing truth abides.
This whole lesson is a figment of my imagination. It is also a
figment of your imagination. Letting it dissolve from the mind,
there is just our contact.
Summary:
• We overlay the basic dynamic cosmic energy with figments
of our imagination.
• We react to these overlays as if they are real.
• We sometimes long for the simple, direct experience of
Truth, unobscured by the overlays.
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• When awareness becomes aware just of itself, the figments
dissolve.
This marks the end of the 10th and final lesson of this short
course. I don’t think anyone, when they get to this point,
would feel that they have gotten all that it has to offer. There
will always be more to realize, more to directly experience,
since the subjects covered here can go very deep.
This course is just a little survey of ideas and experiences
around the act of seeing with naked awareness and developing
access to the base. You can always deepen your experiences
and understanding of these things. If you find you are able to
take advantage of the states introduced in this course, you
might want to go back through the lessons to see if you can get
each experience more deeply. It’s entirely up to you, though.
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Appendix A
Introduction
The Preparation for Contemplation (PFC) is a subsidence type
of meditation. Subsidence practices calm the nervous system so
that the mind and emotions settle down. This promotes an
empty state that is good for contemplation.
This meditation also instructs us about the nature of the base.
You are at the base when you are present and the field of
awareness is empty. “Returning to the base” is a key practice of
Dogzen.
As with most guided meditations, the first time you try it
might seem awkward, but after you do it a few times, you will
get the knack of it and it will usually be quite enjoyable and
leave you in a wonderful state. I recommend you do the
meditation twice a day, morning and evening, for a week or
two, so you can experience for yourself where it can take you.
We do four short meditation practices in the PFC:
• Nekashum, a breathing exercise, followed by meditations
on
• Stillness,
• Silence, and
• Non-conceptual mind
Each practice follows immediately after the previous one. You
stay in the meditation as you move from one practice to the
next.
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We usually do these practices with our eyes closed, but it is not
a rule. “Whatever works” for you is the rule.
The spirit of this practice is very permissive. We try not to get
into the bad habit of trying too hard or forcing the mind to
obey our will. We allow our skills to grow at their own pace so
we can approach each practice in a relaxed frame of mind
without stressing about how well we do.
We don’t do each section very long. Two to three minutes for
each one is enough. The whole meditation lasts about eighteen
minutes, but you should allow a few extra minutes for
integration after it is over.
Sit in a comfortable meditation position, one that will keep
your body from being a distraction. It is best if you sit up, with
your back straight, and with your head balanced above your
spine. Stay relaxed and attentive.
Nekashum
The first practice is called Nekashum (nee-kah-shoom). It is a
simple breathing exercise that helps you detach awareness
from its involvement in the external world and settle in the
central channel of the body.
On the in-breath, let your awareness ride the flow of breath
into the central channel of the body. For our purposes, the
central channel is anything that, to you, seems like the central
channel. It is generally described as an energy channel that
runs inside the body, parallel to the spine.
On the out-breath, rest in the central channel. Remain within.
Let the breath go out without your awareness going out with it.
Breathe slowly and naturally. Just go in on the in-breath and
rest, within, during the out-breath.
Do this at your own pace for a few minutes. Just go in and in
and in.
Stillness
The next meditation is Stillness.
Now look around in your field of awareness and find
something that to you is stillness. Don’t try to get a strong
experience of stillness, or a perfect experience. Just get a little.
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If you can’t find any stillness, just imagine some stillness and
use that. That works just as well.
If you are distracted by any movement, just understand that
stillness is at the base and is sometimes obscured or covered
over by movement. Just reconnect with the stillness. Treat
stillness as the base of your awareness.
Next, we will challenge your connection with the stillness a
little. Hold your hands out in front of your body, elbows bent,
palms up. While staying in touch with the stillness, slowly raise
your hands over your head until the palms touch.
Keeping the palms touching, slowly lower your hands to about
where your heart is and let them rest there.
During this whole movement, stay in touch with the stillness,
even in the face of the motion of your hands. Try not to let the
movement obscure the underlying stillness.
As your hands come to rest in front of your heart, you can have
the stillness of your hands strengthen your sense of stillness.
If you lose touch with the stillness, stop and reconnect with it,
then continue.
[At the end] Finish the movement you are on and then just stay
with the stillness.
Silence
The next meditation is silence.
Look around in your field of awareness and find something
that to you is silence. Don’t try to get a strong experience of
silence, or a perfect experience of silence. Just get a little.
If you can’t find any silence, just imagine some silence and use
that. That works just as well.
Gently work with this for a few minutes. Become familiar with
the silence that lies at the base of awareness.
If you are distracted by any sounds, just understand that
silence is at the base and is sometimes obscured or covered-
over by sounds. Just reconnect with the silence. Treat silence as
the underlying base of awareness.
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If you find yourself struggling to make the silence stronger, just
give that up for now.
Now let’s challenge your connection with the silence a little.
We will say the syllable “Ah” while staying in touch with the
silence. “Ah” is one of the simplest and gentlest sounds, so it is
a good one for this practice.
When the bell rings, take a breath and say “Ahhhhhhhhhh”
while staying connected with the silence. Understand that
silence is at the base and that sounds can sometimes obscure
the base, hiding it from awareness.
If you lose touch with the silence while chanting, stop and
reconnect with it, then continue.
Chant “Ahs” with me for a few minutes.
Non-Conceptual Mind
The next meditation is non-conceptual mind.
Look around in your field of awareness and find something
that to you is non-conceptual mind. This is how the mind is
when it is not conceiving of something or thinking about
something. Find something that to you is non-conceptual mind.
Gently work with this for a few minutes. Become familiar with
not conceiving of anything - just being present.
If you are distracted by any thoughts or concepts, just
understand that non-conceptual mind is at the base and is
sometimes obscured or covered over by thoughts. Just
reconnect with non-conceptual mind. Treat this as the natural
base of your awareness.
Ending
Thank you. That completes the meditation. You can open your
eyes now. However, open them slowly and see the room with
fresh awareness. Notice if your state has changed and, if so,
how it has changed. Don’t be too hasty to re-engage with
movement, sounds, and concepts. Take a minute or two to be
nakedly aware, until the state loses its freshness naturally.
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Dedication to all Beings
Traditionally, when you finish a meditation, you dedicate any
improvement or benefit you got to everyone, to all sentient
beings. This prevents you from becoming too self-centered.
Also, it helps you realize that when you become clearer, others
will benefit from that because they will find you easier to relate
to. You won’t be as big a problem to them.
If you wish, take a moment now to dedicate any improvement
or benefit you got from this practice to all beings. Do this with
an open heart.
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Appendix B
Dogzen Dyads
This is a brief outline of the Dogzen Dyads. It describes the
basic rules of the Dyad and gives a few examples of Dyad
instructions you can use to increase awareness of awareness.
The Set Up
Since this is a two-person meditation technique, first find a
partner to work with. Sit down with the partner at a
comfortable distance apart, facing each other. You can sit on
chairs or sit on cushions on the floor. The partners should be at
the same height, though. Sit with your back straight and with
your head balanced above your spine. Keep your body relaxed
and your breathing free and easy.
At any point in time, one person is the active partner and the
other is the receptive partner. Arbitrarily choose who will be
active first. It changes every five minutes, so it really doesn’t
matter who starts.
Dyads are usually 40 minutes long, consisting of eight 5-
minute periods. At the end of each 5-minute period, a bell rings
and the partners change receptive and active roles. Each
person, therefore, gets four active periods and four receptive
periods.
49
the Dyad or even afterwards. If something about their partner
or what their partner said comes up while they are in the Dyad,
they just let it go and focus on their own process.
50
The active partner works on the same instruction (or set of
instructions) for the entire 40-minute Dyad.
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experience what occurs in consciousness when you set out to
become aware of awareness.
52
Instruction: “Get your awareness across to me.”
For this instruction to be effective, the active partner needs to
already have a clear experience of awareness itself. This
practice emphasizes getting the actuality of awareness across to
another. How do you do that? That’s what this is about. You
find out how to get awareness across to another by doing the
practice. The word “your” is optional. Some people object to it
because they are working on a “no self” model.
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The third instruction gives the active partner a chance to
communicate what came up when he did the practice.
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