Ch.35 - A Complete Meditation on the Awakened Experience: Dependent Origination as the Creative Principle

Mountain, Lake, Sky

Seeing the Completeness of Our Experience is What reveals the Truth Embedded In It

There’s Nothing Lacking

The Symbol: Om, Ah, Hum

[A Discussion on how the awakened experience expresses itself within Meditation on the Three Aspects of Reality. It is referring to a meditation that Burgs teaches on the Three Kayas as Mountain, Lake, Sky – experiencing Dependent Origination and the Creative Principle.]

Mountain, Lake, Sky

Q: Having gone through this enormous systematic process of looking at mind and matter, practising vipassanā and so forth, how should we continue to approach our meditation, seeing as one of the problems is the conceptualisation of our experience, where we try to see the models that we have looked at, in our experience? Where should our meditation go from this point? You teach the meditation on Mountain, Lake, Sky and the perfection of the Three Kayas, and make the point that a different part of our mind to the analytical part needs to start to work. How should we approach this?

A: It’s more about the point at which the breaking down of the compactness of the experience and the investigation of states has served its purpose and then starts to be a hindrance to the awakened experience.

It’s important to point out that the purpose of investigating the body and breaking down its compactness and investigating the mind and breaking down its compactness is to break down the conventional attachments, the attachments that are formed around our conventional ideas about what we think we are experiencing.

So, it’s kind of the first step in breaking down the wrong view and dismantling the idea of self. The problem being that you are still breaking down your concepts into subtler concepts, breaking down the four elements into their characteristics and breaking down the mind into what appears to be the ultimate characteristics of the mind.

The problem is that while you are doing it, your mind is engaged in the process. And, while it serves to break the grosser attachments and to break down some of the wrong views and starts to see some of the fundamental truths, the nature of things, i.e. the impermanence, suffering and no-self, it doesn’t translate itself into an awakened experience. It translates into the breaking down of the wrong view that keeps us in an unawakened experience.

The problem being that we might fail to recognise that the mind itself is not what enters into or engages in the awakened experience itself. It is something more fundamental or a deeper part of our mind. So the part of our mind that is investigating according to the Abhidhamma is not the part of our mind that will experience awakening.

The part of our mind that is investigating the Abhidhamma is the part of our mind that is, shall we say, veiling or obscuring the awakened experience. For as long as we are engaged in that aspect of the mind, whether it is through unwise attention and not seeing things as they are and coming to wrong views about them, or whether through wise attention and seeing things as they are and coming to a more correct view of things, that very experience of that aspect of our mind is the very thing that separates us from that experience of awakening.

So while we are reviewing the Dhamma with our mind and reviewing the Abhidhamma with our mind, we will never know that the process of doing that masks the awakened experience. So there is a point when it has served its purpose. We are now convinced, from the experiences within our meditation, we are intellectually convinced. Our experience is enough to undermine our intellectual view, the wrong views that we might have clung to. We have now subscribed to the idea of anicca, dukkha, anatta so that we are starting to get a sense of no-self.

But the experience of no-self does not emerge completely while we are engaging that aspect of the mind to perform the function of investigating. And it is the experience of no-self that is both the awakened experience and that which cuts off the attachment to the unawakened states.

So there is a bit of a paradox. And, if that is not pointed out, one is stuck in this trying to see the world according to the Dhamma, or trying, basically, to see the Dhamma in the world. So we now have a spreadsheet of looking at things, we are starting to see Dependent Origination in things, we are starting to see arising and passing, we are starting to see the Four Noble Truths, we are starting to see nāma and rūpa. But if we continue to view things in the way that we have broken our experiences down, seeing according to the map that we have been given, it becomes just another habit pattern.

Seeing the Completeness of Our Experience is What reveals the Truth Embedded In It

And it still stands in the way of seeing the completeness of reality. And seeing the completeness of our experience is what reveals the truth embedded in it. And seeing the completeness of it is something that our lower mind doesn’t tend to do.

We need to understand that it is a deeper part of us that engages in the experience of awakening, because the lower mind itself has come to cessation in the moment of our awakening! And it is that deeper part of us that reveals the innate wisdom within our experience the moment that it is completely entered into. It is this that makes the experience complete within itself. This is the moment where truly there is nothing to add and nothing to take away from the experience.

Prior to this we have always suffered with the feeling that our experience itself has been lacking in some way, and this sense of lacking is one of the reasons for the whole proliferation of egoic mind and sense of self. It is our vain efforts to fill the ‘sense of something lacking’ gap with the mind. It is this very quality of ‘nothing lacking’ within the awakened experience that allows the lower mind to truly be left behind. Like the Buddha says, “in the seeing there is only the seen”, and in the seeing, everything about the seeing is revealed. There is no question left to ask. You see? That is the complete nature of the experience that completes itself. Then there is no question left. Because when you have seen what you are seeing completely, there is nothing to ask about it. It is known. That is what wisdom is.

So the true wisdom, the deep wisdom, is not something that appears in the mind. Maybe we call that insight. But the real wisdom is that, “I have seen completely what it is that I am engaged with.” And the mind is only engaged with reviewing it, trying to fathom it, but not experiencing it completely.

So, a point comes where in order to enter into or engage that deeper, more fundamental aspect of us, we have to let the mind which has been performing that function of meditating, whether it has been performing the function of practising samatha or performing the function of reviewing states or performing the function of practising vipassanā, we have to let it go as it was only performing these functions for the purposes of breaking down its fixation with itself. While you still try to complete the process with that mechanism, that is the very thing that separates you, you end up chasing your tail.

So, there is that point. I guess that there will probably always come a point of pointing out from the teacher, or a spontaneous realisation that happens within the yogi as a result of previous work done, the truth does not lie in this, but this has led me to the truth. But without that point being reached, we are forever chasing our tail.

You have to drop the Dhamma, you drop the Abhidhamma, you drop all the ways of engaging the mind in your search for the truth, with a recognition that the truth reveals itself to a deeper aspect, that we are starting to glimpse, that has been pointed out to us, through teachings or through transmission, or we are starting to get some experience when we have had moments of no-self in our meditation.

But the quantum step, the quantum turning around of our reference point that leads to awakening itself, is where the mind drops, falls away, is gone and in its absence the awakened experience presents itself. And thereafter there is nothing further to investigate. All that is left is for us to enter more and more completely into that experience because the wisdom is contained within it. That is what I mean when I say that within the suchness of it, there is everything.

Everything that you have been trying to fathom, by reviewing it or by thinking it through with your mind, is right there before you when you touch it. And that is what awakening is. So, how far you have to go down the rabbit hole before you realise that it is just a rabbit hole, depends on how fixated on the mind you are.

Some people don’t have to go very far down the rabbit hole before they realise that it is a rabbit hole. Some people have to go all the way down to the bottom of it before they realise, “Gosh, there is no resolution to this in the mind”. But there is a certain amount of insight that needs to be reached in most people that would prompt the turning away from that mind that basically is the cause for this arising of the sense of self.

That is why we follow the map of breaking down the compactness of our experience of body and mind. Those are the things that we identify with. We turn to the things that we identify with, we break them down until we can’t find any grounds there, so the ideas that we have clung to are broken down, but the experience still remains of me as one thing and what I am experiencing as another. It doesn’t matter how far you break that experience down. While that remains the case, you haven’t ended that experience of separation.

The only thing is, there is probably some sort of deeper teachings about the nature of that experience and how the wisdom reveals itself within it. I think that that is kind of an important thing to point out.

Because if you simply make the statement, “In the seeing there is only the seen,” it doesn’t really hint that it is completely seen. Are you with me? It is like when I was talking yesterday about reading people’s dreams, when I said, “Well actually, I am reading your energy because while you’re telling me your dream, I am seeing you interpret it, even though you haven’t seen it yourself.”

Because your recounting of it is telling me exactly what it means. It’s like when you look at something the information is already there, when you can see it. We’re confused because we can’t see the information that is already there, so we try to extract it with our mind. But that deeper part of us completely knows. So the whole questioning process comes to an end, because there are no questions left.

There’s Nothing Lacking

What you look at, wherever you place your attention, the nature of what it is that you see, or experience, reveals itself. So that’s what we mean when we say that the wisdom is innate within the experience itself. It doesn’t have to be extracted as an understanding of the experience.

Now I am not sure if that is that easy to grasp but that is a very important point. Because even though we have let go our perceived need to understand and there is no questioning left, it is because there are no questions unanswered even though we never asked them. Do you understand what I am saying?

It’s kind of slightly paradoxical. But the awakened state is that. It’s being able to be completely with what you are with. That there is nothing lacking and nothing that needs to be added, so it can be left alone.

Were you then to ask the question, “What was it that I was experiencing?” certainly you could extract the information. But the information does not need to be extracted to complete the experience, which is what the mind seems to believe is necessary.

So that teaching that in the seeing there is only the seen is like, in the seeing there is only the seen and seeing is enough and seeing is everything. And so the mind is completely cool and the experience is complete in all its profound depth, should you choose to look at it enough. Often you don’t need to, you would just leave it as it is.

And that’s a function of, let’s call it the deeper part of your mind that is able to engage. There isn’t a separation, you see. While you are seeing or hearing what you are experiencing, and then your mind is reviewing it, there is a sense that what you are experiencing is one thing and that the experience is another. But from that awakened experience everything that you are experiencing is just an array of that experience expressing itself. It’s just the same thing expressing itself in myriad ways. There’s a unity, there is not a separateness. There is not a mind as one thing and what it is experiencing is another. It’s experiencing itself. And that is what you arrive at.

Now the mind will sit there and think, “Gosh, that sounds really deep,” but the bottom line is that it is just that. There is no depth to it, that is just where we end up. That is why everything becomes cool, because there is nothing more needed from the experience, there is nothing lacking in the experience.

The satisfaction that comes from fathoming it out in the mind, from seeing everything arise and pass, and even the satisfaction that comes from watching everything come to cessation, doesn’t itself translate into the awakened experience. The awakened experience is our capacity thereafter to leave everything alone so that we can completely be with it, so that it reveals itself endlessly.

That’s the cooling off. It’s like one who sees arising and passing, and passing away and cessation does not yet enter into that complete experience and will still feel that there is something more to be sought from the experience, something to be revealed that hasn’t been seen yet.

And there isn’t more understanding to be reached, there’s no more resolution in the mind. Though we might continue to seek it, there is only a deepening into the experience until there is an immersion into it, and in that immersion there is no self. That’s what no-self is and that is what waking up is. It’s just that. Yes?

The Symbol: Om, Ah, Hum

Q: So what does the symbol represent and how does it relate to the awakened experience?

A: Mmm, yes, the symbol. It is basically an expression of the three aspects of reality. So it’s prompting us on how to look. Once our meditation matures and we see Dependent Origination as the creative principle itself, we learn to engage in what we’re experiencing in terms of one or other of these three aspects, and these three aspects explain how the process is complete within itself.

So for example when you look at a tree, you take the experience and break down the experiencing of the tree and one aspect of the experience is the tree’s appearance. So we know it by its appearance and there it is, it’s just that, the tree, as it appears right before us. So to experience it as that, is to experience that aspect. So this is what we call Nirmanakaya; the manifest appearance of things, how things appear to be.

Now normally we’re fixed on the appearance of things, we only see the experience of things and we’re left rather baffled, thinking, “I wonder what that’s about, what is that?” We take it all for granted because we are surrounded by it, but when we start to ask ourself questions about what is it, how’s it there and why it’s there we tend to get in a bit of a muddle. We just take it for granted that it just happens to be there and perhaps we try to break it down scientifically, maybe with the view to try and fathom what it is.

So, the second aspect of what it is we’re experiencing, when we’re completely experiencing anything, is the process by which it happens to be there. It doesn’t just happen to be there, that tree doesn’t happen to be there. When you see the tree, when you really see the tree you also see that process by which it comes into being which is what we call Dependent Origination. So within the experience of the tree itself is the process by which things come into being and this we call Sambhogakaya. This is the creative principle expressing itself in all things.

And then when you experience the tree and you rest within that experience, or indeed any experience, say you rest within the experience of yourself, “Here I am resting within the experience of being here. When I rest upon the appearance of being here, I’m resting within Nirmanakaya.” So this is what I mean when I say “I’m resting effortlessly like a mountain.” There it is, it’s just the suchness of its own presence.

I can also rest upon that process that brings me into being, it’s contained within my being here. I do not just happen to be here, it’s a conditioned process that brings this into being and that process is also explicit within the experiencing of it. It’s what we set out to understand when we first start to investigate things. The Dhamma points at this: dependent upon conditions, all formations appear and in the absence of conditions they do not appear. Dependent upon this, that arises, in the absence of this, that does not arise. This is the pith of the teaching of Dependent Origination, the square root of the Buddha’s Dhamma.

As far as the explanation of things goes, the more we have entered into that experience of Dependent Origination, the more we witness it in everything we behold. So I’m seeing that tree as dependently arisen, or I’m experiencing myself as dependently arisen. So that process is what we would call that kammic or creative process that brings it into being.

When we really see this within our experience we rest within the aspect we call Sambhogakaya. And everything you behold, you can rest within its conditionally arisen aspect, the sense of that conditioned process, that dance of energy that brings it into being.

This does not mean that we investigate everything with the mind seeking to unravel the causal chain the way we do when we practise vipassanā. This is merely a mental exercise to help our insight mature. I am talking here about a much deeper, more profound experience that becomes our way of abiding once we have let the mind and its grasping at concepts go. I am talking of a function of awareness itself to witness these things deeply within its experience.

So within any experience we can experience it from these different aspects. You are just experiencing a different aspect of the same thing, when you experience it as dependently arising rather than spontaneously present. So when I say you rest like a mountain lake, or like the vast ocean, really what I am pointing out is that when you leave everything alone, it tends naturally to stillness, and comes naturally to rest effortlessly within itself. Its nature is to rest effortlessly within itself until such time that it’s impinged upon by volition.

Volition is the impinging, is the kamma, is the cause for the arising of things – having willed, I act; it is that volition that is kamma. Dependent upon volition, all conditioned things arise. So it’s the witnessing of that causal process, the experience of it, as conditionally arisen, which is to enter into Sambhogakaya, that’s the second aspect of the symbol, the triangle.

The third aspect of the triangle, Dharmakaya, which is the circle, is to rest also within the experience of what you are beholding, resting upon the basic ground from which it is arising.

So I rest within the presence of myself, or the presence, of what’s around me, this is Nirmanakaya. I rest within the energetic process of its arising and passing, which is the creative process, Sambhogakaya. Or I rest upon the basic ground from which it is dependently arising, and this is to rest in Dharmakaya. So this very simple pointing out instruction that I give you, “to leave everything alone, to rest effortlessly within yourself and leave everything as it is”; in that process, of leaving everything to be, these three aspects are revealing themselves simultaneously.

There is no higher practice than this, and no experience more profound than this. It is complete within itself when we arrive at it. There is no mind that has to grapple with anything, there is no understanding to be reached. The wisdom is innate within the experience itself. That is the function of the awakened experience. It simply sees, as it is.

So where one chooses to rest is only a question of attention. Of course, before we reach that stage we might investigate things in terms of their appearance – four elements, nāma, rūpa, etc. Or we may investigate things in terms of their dependent arising, Dependent Origination. Or we might eventually come to the point of seeing the non-arising and recognise that things are not inherently there, they’re inherently not there. So that’s the investigation of things, but it is an exercise performed in the mind.

But once we have completed this process there comes a point where we now can enter into our experience completely and directly. Simply allowing itself to reveal itself in its suchness within the basic ground of awareness itself. We witness everything resting within itself. Even the process by which it comes into being rests within itself, because even if it’s presenting itself as friction or chaos, or apparent instability, there’s not friction in the process. It’s still Dependent Origination, it’s still a pure process and a perfect reflection of that process.

So the way in which things arise always rests within itself, it’s always a pure expression of its causes, it’s not an impure expression of causes or a partial expression of causes, everything is always a complete expression.

And then beyond that, Dharmakaya, the basic ground, always rests within itself, always undisturbed by that which arises out of it or within it.

So that’s briefly what the symbol really is pointing at. In the same way that the tree standing there expresses all of this deep, innate wisdom simply in its presence, so too the wisdom is contained within the symbol. That is the wisdom that needs to mature within us while we are working out what it is we’re engaged in in this experience of being alive. That is what we are working out – what this experience of being is.

And then, having had that experience where it’s known to us, we can stop pointing at the moon and just witness it for what it is. This teaching, the symbol, it’s a hint, a pointing out, of the way in which to witness or engage in that which appears, that which we’re experiencing, without interfering with the process while we engage in it. That’s what enlightened intent really is. It is our willingness to allow everything to be as it is and see the perfection within it. So you rest upon whichever aspect you rest upon and the other two aspects are innate within that. It’s just a way of abiding.

So when we’re resting effortlessly within ourselves and leaving everything as it is, these three qualities are innate within the experience itself, they are spontaneously present. All that remains is for us to recognise them and take any one of them as our attitude of abiding within our meditation. This is to take the innate awakened quality of reality as the object of meditation and to simply enter into that. If you like, it is a place to come to rest in the same way we come to rest upon the kasiṇa nimitta when we practice jhāna. But here the innate wisdom that we have realised with the culmination of the path is contained within our way of abiding. This is the way we unify our bliss of samādhi with the freedom our insight has brought us to, the union of bliss and emptiness if you like.

The Mountain expresses how everything is resting effortlessly within itself in a state of spontaneous presence. The deeply still and undisturbed nature of the Mountain Lake that is crystal clear and mirror like, expresses how everything comes naturally to a sublime state of peace on its own when it is left undisturbed. And the cloudless expanse of endless blue Sky expresses the vast spaciousness of awareness itself as it rests effortlessly, experiencing everything just as it is. These are the ineffable qualities of our awakening itself.

All that remains is for us to enter completely into it, embodying and coming to rest upon either one or all of these innate qualities. This is the complete meditation that finally comes to rest, leaving everything as it is, not merely in a state of equanimity but in a fully awake and expressed attitude of the wisdom contained within that awakening itself.

There we are. Those three aspects, you rest upon them or you rest upon all three of them at the same time. They are innate within your experience. When you see, “in the seeing there’s only the seen,” in the seen there is the symbol, these three aspects that is. The ground for its arising or the basic ground from which, conditioned by the creative principle itself, all of creation appears, then there is the creative principle itself (Sambhogakaya), and that which appears (Nirmanakaya).

So that’s it, there isn’t anything beyond it. Everything you experience everywhere and always is an expression of this process. So the symbol is complete, it’s the whole of reality, and when we enter into it we’re experiencing the whole of reality in its completeness, and then there’s nothing lacking, there’s nothing outside of our experience, it’s inclusive. And yet the mind that is experiencing it is completely empty whilst it’s experiencing, so that’s, I suppose, the final resolution. All that figuring out brought us to that point where it’s not only figured out, but now entered into and then fully engaged with. That is the awakened experience; the entering into this, to see all things in all things. The experience is both empty and yet it contains all things. It is complete within itself and doesn’t depend upon what it is we experience.

Q: So you hear about the Sambhogakaya as a radiant lucidity, in the Way of Abiding, the radiant lucidity of awareness as Sambhogakaya. So if you meditate on the Dharmakaya, how do you experience it?

A: It’s sky-like spaciousness,...

Q: But within that there’s a lucidity, and it is spoken of as the Sambhogakaya. How is that Sambhogakaya?

A: Okay. In this specific instance, the light or lucidity is an expression or display of pure Sambhogakaya, which depends upon the absence of volition. So when they talk about Sambhogakaya as a radiant lucidity they are talking about Sambhogakaya as an expression of Buddhahood, the purest of volition, which is no-volition. So this is the enlightened expression of the creative principle. But I am talking about the Sambhogakaya as volition, which is the cause of the manifestation of the display of everything in the universe, as the creative principle itself.

So, in the absence of any cause, Dharmakaya rests within itself and manifests nothing. And with the arising of volition as the cause, Dharmakaya rests within itself as that field of pure potentiality and manifests whatever the effect of that cause might be, which is Nirmanakaya. Out of emptiness, dependent upon conditions, all conditions arise. Out of emptiness, as those conditions become purified, the Buddha-Nature gets expressed.

So what’s pure intention, pure intention as pure Sambhogakaya? Well really, the purest intention is no intention that allows everything to just rest within the vast expanse of Dharmakaya. The luminosity we experience in this moment is the luminosity of awareness that is knowing it. The witnessing awareness produces the radiance. The mind produces light or radiance, dependent upon its qualities, as we have already seen. This reaches its most luminous in the awakened mind of the Buddha that rests effortlessly in the vast expanse of Dharmakaya itself.

But any mind produces some degree of light or luminosity. Short of the fully awakened experience our ordinary experience is conditioned by exactly the same principle. Out of emptiness, dependent upon the purity of intention, whatever you might say, pure love, pure compassion, pure appreciative joy, pure equanimity, the Buddha-Nature becomes expressed or manifest as Nirmanakaya, it comes into being.

So we talk of these three kayas of Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya as the three aspects of the Buddha. But they are also the three aspects of all of us, of everything. The creative principle that brings things into being is always the same, it is only what is expressed that changes as the causes themselves change. But the primordial ground itself (Dharmakaya) does not express itself as anything when Sambhogakaya comes to cessation. The purest of intention is no intention.

So what I’m saying is the symbol basically expresses, the ground (the circle), the cause (the triangle) and the appearance of things (the two parallel lines are a symbol for the Buddha in meditation). This is the Symbol as an expression of the enlightened experience itself.

But equally, when volition is impure, what expresses itself as Nirmanakaya is always a pure expression of that volition. This is why we say everything is perfect. It is always and everywhere a pure and perfect expression of this creative principle itself: literally not a hair out of place. And there is the non-arising of anything in the absence when Dharmakaya rests within itself as a vast field of pure potentiality with its potential to reflect remaining unmanifest.

Q: But it seems like when you meditate on Dharmakaya there is still a radiance within it which would still appear in the absence of the witness?

A: No. The luminosity is the witnessing awareness itself, Dharmakaya is the vast sky-like expanse. But you cannot testify as to whether it is existent or non-existent in the absence of the awareness that witnesses it. This is as far as the experience itself can go. Beyond that we are only arguing semantics and that is not what the Buddha asked us to do.

But the key point is that the process is always the same whether you end up with chaos and confusion and despair or a vast array of Buddha fields. It’s the same thing. It’s the same process and the luminosity is the luminosity of the witnessing awareness itself. In any mind of any kind volition produces some kind of luminosity, but its radiance is determined by the volition itself.

The purest of volition is the purest of luminosity, which becomes pristine clarity in the absence of all volition when only awareness itself remains. This is the Buddha, or the expression of Buddhahood. There you go, that’s it. And so maybe a Buddha arises sometimes, but actually even beyond that there’s no such thing as the Buddha. Everything is simply resting within its own suchness.

Whether you feel the need to go as far as expressing yourself as a Buddha or a vast Buddha field or whether you are just quite happy to stop in this moment and let go, it’s all the same. That flower out there, that rose, that bee, me sitting here is all a pure expression of the same creative principle, whatever it chooses to present itself as. So when they talk in the texts about Sambhogakaya as this vast, radiant luminosity, they are taking about that luminosity of Buddhahood, the luminosity of that enlightened intent, which actually is no intent, just pure potentiality itself.

So here they are talking about the expression of perfection. But the point is it’s all perfection. Even the raving lunatic is perfection, at one level of course it’s not perfection, he hasn’t perfected his capacity to express his Buddha-Nature, but the process by which he’s expressed is perfection. That’s really important to differentiate, that Buddhahood is the pure expression of being, but everything is a pure expression of being because the creative process is always expressed perfectly.

So you’ve got this symbol in three parts; the circle, the triangle, the two parallel lines, or maybe you should have two wavy lines as the expression of imperfect causes, the parallel lines as the expression of perfect causes (the Buddha). And you could have the circle, triangle, circle when everything is really left alone and it finally comes to cessation on it’s own. This is Dharmakaya resting within itself as pure, unexpressed potential. This it sometimes talked about as the Primordial Buddha, or the Primordial Ground. So that’s it, there’s nothing beyond that. There’s nothing beyond that. There it is. That’s the picture. This is the point that the path brings us to.

So now that you have asked all your questions. Now you feel you understand. Good. But have you entered into this experience yet? To understand and to know are not the same things are they? I suggest you continue to meditate so that you do not regret later that you didn’t.

Very good.