The nyam of non-duality

Our general stance is dualistic. We perceive the world by projecting it onto oppositions. Is this long or short? Inside or outside…

Our general stance is dualistic. We perceive the world by projecting it onto oppositions. Is this long or short? Inside or outside? Pleasure or pain? Space or content? Body or mind? Good or bad? We sift our experience through this dualising sieve and once we are done labelling it we believe that we know it. Experiences that we can’t easily label may make us feel uncomfortable, but sometimes excited. The meditators community is not immune to this either. You can often hear that one should think less and feel more or stay in the body and not in the head. Good advice in certain contexts, but is this “not this, but that” dance the only way to experience reality and know the world?

In this note I will be talking about nyi-med meditation, which stabs at the heart of duality by looking at the core opposition in the way the mind attends to the world. Think of attention as the form of the flow of experience. If your experience is like water, is it a still lake or a roaring whirlpool, maybe two whirlpools rotating in the opposite directions? I have written in my previous post about two nyams (special meditation states): ne-pa and gYo-Wa. They are the extreme opposites of how to attend to experience. Ne-pa is expansive and still, while gYo-Wa is warpy and dynamic.

The nyi-med meditation asks–what is the difference between ne-pa and gYo-Wa? The instruction for the practice is the following — the meditator is to alternate between the two nyams. During that alteration, they should find awareness in the dimension of nyams. Other ways to phrase it include instructions like: notice what is the same about them; compare them like transparencies; be present in both at once; find the nature of them. If you want a bit more detail, there is a description of the practice in [1], but I would like to also draw your attention to a chapter on stage 9 in TMI [2], where a very similar practice called “meditation on the mind” is described. I don’t wish to argue that this is exactly the same practice (although I do think so), but looking at both descriptions was helpful for me.

Non-duality is a very tricky subject to engage with through language, because language is dualistic by its nature. But as all I have here is words, to describe the practice I’ll try to use analogy and metaphor rather than reason and concepts. I highly encourage you to find a teacher if you want to learn this yourself. I don’t think I would be able to learn it outside the relationship with my teacher Rin’dzin Pamo. The next 3 sections are slightly different ways of painting the picture of the experience of the practice. Since the topic is so subtle, I thought I’ll give more than one intuition for what’s going on, to maximise the chance that it will resonate with the reader. I will also use quotes from one of my favourite books of all times — Tao Te Ching in Stephen Mitchell’s translation. This is a beautiful book that points to the non-dual state and its implications in the most poetic way.

Double not doing

Being in ne-pa and gYo-Wa at the same time seems paradoxical, that’s how different the practices are. This is only paradoxical if we view meditation as doing something and doing two things at once is a tough call. However, not doing two things at once is a much simpler task. What I’m inviting you to do is to adopt a view, where ne-pa and gYo-Wa are not about doing something, but about not doing.

In this verse from Tao Te Ching, we see how an act of, seemingly, doing something is framed as allowing something opposite of it to happen. Similarly here, nyams turn out to be a place you allow yourself to end up in. During my practice, I felt as if for each nyam there was a muscle that had to be relaxed to enter it. When I relaxed one, allowing the attention to concentrate and contract, it would eventually expand and settle and I was in ne-pa. Relaxing another and allowing the space to expand and grow would lead to appearances arising in that space and I was in gYo-Wa. Nyi-med is about relaxing both muscles at the same time. It is, of course, easier said than done.

Effortlessness

We tend to associate absence of effort and relaxation with dullness and inactivity. You can think of them as the dualised versions of relaxation, which have to stand in opposition to effort. In nyi-med the relaxation is happening with and into the intensity of experience. As you yield to the arising appearance (form), you relax the effort of holding it back, which in turn releases energy and increases the intensity. The absence of effort is in fact energising. The counterpart of this story is relaxing with expanding space and the fading of the form. As you let the appearances go, you release the energy that was used to hold on to them. You allow the appearance to dissipate. Viewed as such, the practice on nyi-med is about letting go of all the effort of trying to manipulate the flow of your experience. You let each moment arise fully in its appearance and then let it go completely.

The last effort of telling apart

My breakthrough with the practice was during a short solitary retreat. On the main day I got into it and the nyams were happening smoothly. As I went between them, I was looking for their boundary, the definition of their difference. A question arose: “how do I actually know if I’m in one or the other?”. What I noticed then was that my mind was making a slight effort, I was actually doing the difference between them. That tiny effort that made the difference between them was the effort that was holding up the opposition between the nyams. Becoming aware of the effort, you can see through the duality between the nyams and let it go.

Nyam-nyid

The fruit of the practice is nyam-nyid. It is described as a state, in which ne-pa and gYo-Wa become a variation of the same experience — acquire “the same taste”. You could also say that you become able to be in both nyams at the same time. It is hard to describe it and also unnecessary. Like with most nyams, you’ll know it when you get there and if you are not sure that you are there — you are not. Famously, in Zen, “explaining it” was preferred to speaking in riddles and performing random acts of violence. The most important discovery that lies in the nyam-nyid is the first-hand experience of how dualities work and what is their nature.

It might seem that nyam-nyid is the end station, the terminus. Excitingly, it is not! Realising non-duality in the dimension of attention creates a perfect base to explore different modalities of our experience. It is like an ability to change one’s optics, put on existential binoculars of sorts. Below I will briefly talk about emotion, knowing and action from the non-dual view. The metaphor I will be using is the following — when we look at a particular aspect of our experience from the non-dual position we see it as a union of three non-separable, but distinct aspects. It is the triumvirate of the emptiness-energy-form. To my understanding, the classic expression of this is the term trikaya or three bodies of Buddha: dharmakaya — sambhogakaya — nirmanakaya.

I will use this trikaya metaphor to describe several aspects of experience that I have investigated so far. I will start with the base — the empty aspect — and then go through the energetic aspect to form. It is important to keep in mind that there is no temporal or sequential aspect here. This is simply an artefact of linguistic representation. Neither the emotion, action and knowing are clearly separate or constitute conventional parts of an experience that is their sum. These are all metaphors and lossy projections of something indivisible. Whenever we venture deep into nyams, there is no way of telling the story in absolutely clear and universal terms. Take these descriptions as a kind of psychonautic trip-reports–with a pinch of salt and “your experience may differ” disclaimer.

Non-dual emotion

The trikaya is meaninglessness/despair — freedom — compassion/love.

Connecting with the emptiness of all phenomena, their impermanence and indefinition emotionally feels one with the void, a kind of deep existential despair and longing. Letting the longing fully into your being, relaxing into it, accepting it generates the energy that can be recognised as freedom. The world without meaning is the world of genuine freedom, where a genuine creative act is available. The form that is born out of that freedom manifests as compassion or love. This love becomes the fabric of the phenomenal world, freedom is its texture and it is solidly grounded in longing.

Not-knowing

The trikaya is indefinition/confusion — curiosity — beauty.

The dualistic way is to know the world by labelling it. This is left and this is right, this is friend and this is foe. What I call not-knowing is a way of mentally engaging with the phenomena that leaves the ambiguity, the nebulosity and indefinition of it and refrains from labels. Connecting with the emptiness of the phenomena mentally exposes the world as conventionally unknowable and leaves us with confusion. There is a sense of vertigo to the experience. Out of that confusion curiosity arises as the energy and with that curiosity the form manifests as beauty. This beauty is universal and can be found in conventionally disgusting objects and experiences — a dead possum, taste of a fish’s guts and so on. In the lives of Mahassiddhas [4] (Vajrayana saints) there are many references to discovering pleasure and beauty in conventionally repulsive objects.

Agency and no-action

The trikaya is goallessness — sensitivity — spontaneous action.

The dualistic view casts agency as a goal-oriented activity: “I’m doing this to achieve that”. Connecting with the emptiness of goals and achievements leaves us without a reference point for our activity. This includes other conventional principles for action like morality (the notion of good and bad) as it is empty as well. There is no formal principle that can guide our actions, nothing that can be written out in language, said or established out of the context of a particular situation. We are naked in front of the world, completely responsible for our every second. From here the energy arises as sensitivity. This sensitivity to the phenomenal world right here and now. Opening to all its details, not looking away. From this sensitivity the form manifests as spontaneous, direct action. It is spontaneous not in a sense of being random, without a plan, unexpected. Spontaneity here stands for congruence with exactly what is present right now. In this way one’s actions become the most honest expressions of the moment.

Other aspects of the experience to investigate from the non-dual view are vision, hearing, (linguistic) thought, body, sex, food, work. The list though is practically endless. The point of practice from here on, as I understand it, is to bring the non-dual view into all aspects of your life.

Rigpa

In Tibetan, the term for the non-dual state is rigpa. Rigpa means knowledge, short for knowledge of the ground. Another term is “the natural state” or “the nature of mind”. Nyam-nyid is rigpa in the context of formal sitting. So what nyi-med meditation does is introduce one to rigpa in this one specific context.

In this blog I describe my own experience and although I often contextualise my practice in traditional Buddhist Dharma, I try to stay away from making any definitive statements about it. I do use Tibetan and Sanskrit names and terms since that was the way I learnt it from books and teachers. But is this particular state exactly the state that someone referred to two and a half thousand years ago? I think so, but I can’t be sure. I’m not a Bhuddist scholar and my meditation training is taking place, mostly, in a very modern context. I don’t think it matters much, to be honest, but I feel it is good to be careful especially, when it comes to discussing attainments and everything related to “enlightenment”. The term is often heavily loaded and you see people projecting all sorts of things on it. It can be folk-psychological superpowers like full control of emotions or some truly mystical beliefs like being able to read minds and see the future. In most cases the perception is that it is some finalised state after which no growth is neither needed or possible.

In my experience, this is not a helpful view. Vajrayana is not about reaching a state from which we can somehow “check-out”. Vajrayana is an art of living. Not in a lifestyle sense (although lifestyle is part of it), but in an all-encompassing sense of the way (Tao). The way to engage with the world. Rigpa is a dynamic, living dance of emptiness and form — it is not some static place. The metaphors for rigpa are all very dynamic — dance, intercourse, sex, birth and death. Vajrayana is not about withdrawing from the world, it is about living your experience. Every moment, whatever that moment is, fully and honestly. Feeling exactly what you are feeling — good or bad, pleasant or disgusting, sad or happy. It also pulls one out of trying to know the world through language and mental constructs instead of knowing it by living it. Instead of giving us the correct and final ethical principle it forces us to come to terms with the fact that there isn’t one. Instead of releasing us from having strong and difficult emotions it teaches us to fully engage with them. Instead of giving us the sense of safety and security it makes us confident in the world where security and safety are never a possibility. In the end, even Dharma (the teaching) and the “emptiness” itself are empty — conventionals objects with no essence and ultimate reality (a good take on this can be found in MMK [5]).

Yes, rigpa is “it” in a sense that it is the fruit of the path, but the journey is never over. The core of Vajrayana is that samsara is nirvana. Your experience right here, right now is the real deal, the heaven (or hell) on earth. So don’t worry about being in the right state or “reaching enlightenment”. Live your experience. There is nothing that is lacking in it.

References

1. “Shock Amazement.” by Ngakpa Chogyam, Khandro Dechen

2. “The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness.” by Culadasa, Matthew Immergut

3. “Tao Te Ching” translated by Joseph Mitchell

4. “Legends of Mahasiddhas” translated by Keith Downman

5. “The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika” commentary by Jay L. Garfield. Chapter XXIV “Examination of the Four Noble Truths”