The void which cannot be fathomed or measured | What Mind actually is (Live Satsang)

NSo there's been a word we've been using a bit flippantly. The word "mind". So, let's talk about what is mind. Because if you get to the bottom of that one word, that's actually enough.

To really understand what is mind. Because you start with the... There's three key categories. There's me, there's the mind, there's the world.

If you start questioning any of them and you observe, you investigate, you inquire, you start to enter this spiral. And then you're heading towards that... actually all these distinctions were wrong. You're heading towards the Singularity. So, let's pick "mind". What is mind?

So, the thing that initially feels most personal is your feelings, your thoughts. Like nobody else has access to these. That feels like okay, that is "my mind." That is "my mind" and the world seems to be shared.

There's a separate shared world and then there's "my mind". Then you look at that shared world and... say... let's pick peanut butter. What color is peanut butter? It's brown. Peanut butter is brown.

But what if there's color blindness to red? Then peanut butter is green. It's... the world which we took to be shared, to be like that's an objective world, is again entirely subjective. So, that is mind.

So, the feelings were mind, thought is mind. What you see in colors are mind, shapes are mind. When you hear the sound, there's a distance from that where the source originated — where the sound originates, sorry — and where you seem to be. There's a distance.

But those two points, if one of them is "outside mind" then it cannot be experienced. So, those two points, which seems to be where I am, which is actually just the placeholder for where the body seems to be, and where the sound originates, that's also mind. So, when we talk about space... and space is like it already seems to be infinite — infinite space. But is the mind at a point in space, or is all the points of space that you've ever observed, you can imagine, inside mind.

It's actually the other way around as you see it. The dream space appears in the mind. The waking space appears in the mind again. So, you stir it up a bit and question the mind.

You end up with it's just an all-consuming category. Mind. And then you get to that point where like Master Huineng said, "All things in the universe are the Essence of Mind itself." There's no other thing. Like how Master Huang Po said it, "All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are the One Mind and nothing else. Besides which nothing exists."

So, often you know you go from one word to the next, and next concept and so on. But the mind itself is just so powerful when you investigate. I'm going to paraphrase Huang Po here.

So, he said the mind is like a void which cannot be fathomed or measured. It's neither green nor yellow, nor long or short. It's all true. It's about this mind.

It's what you see before you. But as soon as you think about it, you enter, you go into error. That's what the Zen Master would say. As soon as you reason, you're going into error. But all the Buddhas, all the sentient beings; you, are the One Mind and nothing else.

All right, let's start from there.

QJust real quick, when you say in this context the mind is the same as Consciousness, Sentience?

NYeah. It just becomes all-encompassing. We are starting because what we're doing is we're taking a concept which is there, picking it apart. Now it's grown into—

QYes.

NThere's nothing else. That is it.

QYes.

NThe essence of mind is Sentience. The essence of mind — like if the very basis before any other thing which could be called mind can be there, experience, colors, whatever — all that stuff, the very basis must be Sentience or Awareness or Consciousness, however we call it. So that's the essence of mind which also brings it very close home, because you are what is sentient, what is aware. So again it's not me and the mind — you, the Buddha, all sentient entities are the One Mind and there's no other Buddha and no other minds except this.

QSo I still can't quite understand or get the difference between Consciousness, Awareness and mind.

NThen there's no difference. It's all the same.

QYeah.

NBecause we're starting with — it's just we're picking apart the different distinctions that were there. And we might end up with a favorite word. But actually nonduality means there are no distinctions. No dualities. So if we start with mind and we question deeply, we arrive at nonduality. We start with the world.

We question deeply. Nonduality. Question the I. What is the self? Same point you reach. And when you look at Zen, they just do it very simply. That's why I often return to those teachings — like they just use the word mind. Why do you need to create new words? Like I created Sentience. You wouldn't have heard it in the context of spirituality before. It's just it hit me that way. Because often you've used up all the words. Consciousness is the one I use the least because you've used it a lot. It's become hollow.

QYeah.

NThere's no — it doesn't hit you. It doesn't invoke what we're trying to invoke. We're pointing back to what is real, what is true. But in the end, yeah, it's all the same.

Because if you don't have Consciousness, is there any point? Like what are we talking about when we say mind? So that's the core. The core is there must be Sentience. But if there's only Sentience and no experience, well there's nothing to talk—

Then you get experience. Then you can start to make distinctions.

But still nothing new has been born. Because if you go from no experience to experience, has anything been born? Nothing new got created.

QYeah.

NJust experience appears. Just like you were sleeping, a dream appears. Nothing new gets created. You're molding what's there into whatever that experience is. It can be molded into sound and shape and feeling and whatever. The whole — that is the infinity of the mind. That is why it is the void — like the void which cannot be fathomed or measured. Then he goes on this list of it's not long and short — it cannot — it's not in the category of things that exist or not exist, because those are all phenomena that would appear and disappear in the mind. So it's all these ways we are defining what is infinity. It's the infinity of infinities. And if you talk of infinite space, and space still needs an infinity in which it exists.

Yes, I see some hands raised. Zakina.

QSo you kind of answered some of the questions that — so mind is just essence, sentient essence, and from it experience, everything arises.

NCorrect. Yes. Yes. So it could be anything, anything, and at the same time everything that arises is still a dream.

See when—

QYeah.

NSo if you observe how a dream appears — if you just close your eyes and you just watch that space, something will appear. How did that appear?

Not — it didn't — there was no new creation. I think nothing new got created, but the vision you see with eyes closed, it's there. You can't deny it. In the moment it's there. A second later you'll wonder, because you know we like, oh it's not a physical thing, what did I see — but you did see something, a pattern or whatever image. So what is that image made of? Nothing. There's no substance. But the substance, if you're going to call it that, is mind, because as you investigate there's nothing else, or everything falls into mind.

QSo Sentience, Awareness, and void — same.

NYeah. It's just pointing out different aspects. Because Reality is simple, but it also has these different ways you could try to express it. You can express the magnificence of it, the infinity of it. Like so when we say Sentience or Awareness, we're trying to point out it's not dead. That's what being alive means. There's a possibility of perception. There's the capacity for experience — something to appear. That is first of all that must be there, otherwise you can't get going. You're stuck at nothing. There can never be anything. So even if the model of the universe where there's a big bang and the universe gets created and all that, you would never get to life. There would never be experience. So it's the same as nothing. If there's no experience, it's the same as nothing. But this nothing—

QSorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.

NSorry. No, you ask.

QSo this nothing is full potential. Full potential of whatever.

NYes. Yeah. And what we — it's not just as an abstract idea, because when we say Awareness, everyone here knows what Awareness means, because you are what is aware. And because it's taken in the thinking mind, aware — being aware is taken for granted, sure, yeah, to be alive is to be aware, whatever — but there's so many people who are aware and all that kind of thinking goes on, so the essence is being missed. When we say Awareness now, it's about this infinite void.

Yeah, we'll get to void. But this infinite capacity and that is aware. It's not there's separate things that are aware. The capacity — the basis of the capacity is what we can say is aware, and that's why the capacity is called Awareness. It's just something very fundamental to this infinity in which things appear. That first you must have that quality of being aware.

Then why call it the void? The void sounds like, oh there's nothing there. Nothing there. But there is — it is a void.

QYeah.

NBecause for anything to appear you start from — and there's something very core to a human mind as well, that there must be nothing and then something appears. When you're born, before that you were nothing. And then there's also after this life ends there's nothing. So that belief is already there. And when the scientists describe things they also find evidence for that. So the void is just — it's these hints of truth already in the human psyche. You can't have something first. Something appears later. You start from zero then you have one. But is there one? If you started from zero, actually what's happened is you add up all the things, they always end up as zero. But they've appeared within a void. So the void is — if you try to look at it, then it's a void. It's Emptiness. It's nothing there. If you try look within then it's Awareness itself. So these again different aspects of the same Reality which is actually nondual, but because we now describing different aspects it again feels like is it a void, is it Awareness, what is it — you wanted to say something?

QYeah, I first of all thank you so much for what you're doing.

NThank you.

QYeah I actually I have some question but following the previous discussion I mean maybe what is a bit confusing me like in the terms at least. So there is you know this notion of Awareness like this pure — that we can feel intuitively and recognize very deeply in ourself versus the different mental activities of the mind — thoughts, conditioned, you know, behavior — and in my intuitive experience like there is intuitive feeling that you know there is kind of separation between the two. This is not the one that is the deep aware entity kind of, and different experiences which is kind of a mental or mind activities. So this is a bit confusing me and of course I guess that whatever we try to grasp it's a mind, we cannot really grasp the Reality, but still can you please speak a bit about this — like in my feeling there is a separation but eventually everything is one, in my mind I guess cannot really grasp it.

NYes, sure. So that's captured in that statement that it is what you see before you but if you begin to reason about it, you at once fall into error. What it's trying to say is that as soon as we use thought then we have different names for things, we have an understanding of how processes work and so on. So then these many distinctions — all those distinctions are based on this human instrument and how it perceives the world. You've got a certain kind of eyes and hearing and so on and how the language also affects how you think. So when we reason about it, we're breaking down what is the whole.

We're saying, okay, this we're going to call peanut butter and color brown and so on and so forth. But then to not reason about it and just observe the perception. Can you separate it from what is being called mind? That's what we started with — that as you go deeper, you question what is mind? You start with actually just my thinking and my feelings is mind. Then you look at colors and if you question it, you think about it a bit deeper. Even your thinking — it breaks them down because colors are not separate to mind.

QYeah, that part is clear — or is that? Yeah, I think so. Like you know intellectually like eventually there's no direct touch in this Reality. The Reality is ourselves, our mind — nothing else we can see, nothing else we can really touch. We can only experience ourself.

NYes, that's right. So what you're experiencing is the activity of a brain.

QYeah.

NLet's say we take that explanation. So when you experience all of the different categories and so on, that's what the brain has understood of the world — understood not in a sense that it is conscious but in a computational sense. It's understood. So you experience that. That does not change that what you experience. If we're questioning what is the essence of experience? What is a phenomena made of? And so there is one distinction that's helpful then — there's the phenomena and then there's the noumenon. If you've heard of that, the noumenon means the thing in itself. So there's a thing as it appears, but then what is the thing in Reality? What is it really? And that's what this inquiry is about. Not how it appears, but what is it really. And in philosophy, because this came from Western philosophy — noumenon and phenomena — it's just a hard problem. You're just stuck there because you can never tell what a thing is in itself unless you are that thing. But there is one avenue of inquiry and that is if you are such a thing you just inquire what am I? Then you will arrive at the noumenon, the thing in itself. So what is the thing in itself? When I see a bottle, yeah, I don't — I can't say what is the bottle in Reality, but I can say what am I?

And as you go into that then yes I am nothing except there's one quality which is undeniable — that I am aware. That is the quality of the phenomenon to be aware — it's not a quality of the phenomenon. The quality of the phenomena would be shapes and colors and textures and all that, but that is the quality of a phenomena — not the thing as it is but the thing as it appears.

QYeah. But my intellectual mind says I don't — I can't — I mean so I can know only myself. I don't — I can't really know the Reality because eventually —

NSo that's the way then. So let's go back to that statement from Huang Po — the Buddha and all sentient beings are the One Mind and nothing else — and he also says besides which nothing exists. So when you arrive at this is what the mind is, there's just no room left for me and someone else being something else. Because any something else would be phenomena and not the noumenon, but you've arrived at what the noumenon is. I am aware — that is the only quality that I can attribute to I. The rest is phenomenon.

QYeah.

NIt's subjective and phenomenal. It's not a quality of the noumenon. So if I am what is aware, now I imagine Sasha as a different person — the person is the phenomena, the parents and all that — but if I know who is Sasha really, you cannot be anything other than Awareness. You are the noumenon. Either you're a complete — I'm talking to a wall right now — there's no point because there's no Sentience on the other side, or you recognize that over there behind the phenomena the one that would hear these words is the noumenon. There cannot be two kinds of noumenons. There's no plural for it. And this noumenon is you or me. The same one.

QThis is like — yeah.

NSo when you — so that's right. If you try to imagine me as a separate person, how would you make that distinction?

QAppearance — the sound of my voice, some experience.

NYeah. The image, the voice.

QYeah. The phenomenon that I currently experience.

NSo all these are qualities of the phenomena but not of the noumenon, the thing in itself. So if you recognize that here — that you're talking where the words are coming from — there's also an experience of the words not as the listener but where the voice is coming from — two streams of experience and all these other streams of experience going on right now. What would it need for those streams to also be experienced? That would be the noumenon. There's no other — there's no alternatives. When that insight is said with such conviction — all the Buddhas and all sentient beings are the One Mind besides which nothing exists — you've arrived at that point with just there's no other possibility. All that is chopped off because now you have gotten to the essence of what the mind is, which is what I started with. If you get to the bottom of this one word, that's enough, because you've cut away everything off because those were just attributes of a particular specific phenomena but not of that which is aware. And if we have this conversation, you have already admitted that on this side who you're talking to is the noumenon.

QYeah.

NAs you know, at some point we might be talking to robots who are not sentient and so on.

Yes. [unclear]

NNo, we can't hear you.

QMy name is Rachel. Rachel. This is my second session with you. All of this is taking me back to Emptiness is form and form is Emptiness. And so I have meditated on that a lot because my whole — my singular desire is to have right view instead of experiencing through memory and conditioning. So what you're saying about the mind goes back to those two phrases — form is Emptiness and Emptiness is form. So there's nothing but Emptiness and all comes from Emptiness which means that there is Emptiness in everything.

NYeah. It means everything is everything.

Yeah. Because if you start with nothing. Yeah. Let's just take water. You start with water and all you have is water. What are you going to get? You might get ice. Is ice not water? It just sounds like a cosmic joke. Really?

QIt's a—

NYeah. But when form is Emptiness, when you meditate on it, it helps to also bring it back to the body because the body is a form. This body itself is Emptiness.

Yeah. There's still a lot of conflict sometimes goes on and I still want to get rid of this or that — the mind or the body and so on — but every aspect of whatever is Emptiness because as soon — if there's two things — there's nothing and something, physical and mental, whatever — then that's duality. So is it — is it there's a duality in that Reality has a dualistic nature — which is just impossible once you see it. But yeah that's the inquiry is there — for it has appeared out of nothing and I'll go back to nothing.

QWell it's almost like the duality is just — it's like having a mirror. There's nothing in the mirror but — you, the eyes, because of the biology of the apparatus, there's the perception that something is being seen in the mirror and all that. This just goes back to memory and thought and memory and thought and memory and God, but there's nothing solid anywhere. It's all stories.

NWell, I don't quite see it that way. So, often it's said that like thought is — if you took away thought, then it's not that what you see is a void. You still see all this.

QYeah.

NIt's just you might not be able to name it. But this Emptiness is solid. The solidity of something. Even as you hit something hard, you feel that physical — what is called physical pain or a physical object.

What is that solidity? What thing is it that you could say that is the solid thing? Because we've already — this is after you've seen through that everything is mind. And then you hold something and okay, this is solid. I don't need to think about it. This is solid. That solidity is not an attribute of the object. It's showing you how real all this is. And all the Reality of all this — it cannot be attributed to an objective world, a physical world, because we already passed that. We've seen through that this is all not objective — this is all mind. So now you know there's this idea we're still looking for something — haven't realized or I would like to realize Emptiness or whatever — like everything is proving it. Because once you've again — if you've gone to the bottom of how all-encompassing this the mind is, then everything is showing you that infinity.

QI don't know but isn't physics showing us that nothing is really solid as it appears to be?

NYeah, so it's not solid in terms of as an objective thing.

QOkay.

NBut we are not going from that perspective in Reality.

QYeah.

NThere you come across solid objects.

QUhhuh.

NBut once you see that there are no objects — that everything is subjective — then you should question what is this solidity? The solidity is still there.

QYeah.

NYou don't need conviction when you understand what that solidity is. You don't need reminders. You don't need to remember.

See if we start from that point that everything is mind. Colors, shapes, sounds, objects are not outside mind. The world has now been consumed. Now there's only mind.

So now when something is solid that is Emptiness appearing as form — it is still Emptiness — and I touch something I am touching Emptiness.

QYeah.

NAnd having understood that I am not other than Emptiness — like there's a repurposing going on of what used to be the solidity of the ground or solidity of objects. Now this is the solidity of Reality. How Reality is the Reality of Reality. It's crazy. The words get stupid. But you've got to see it. Like you said, you're seeing it — the right view. This is the right view. Because once you've already seen everything is mind, then you go back to that presence of objects, the sensations, how real they are, the depth of emotion and all that is painting for you. It's a—

QSorry, I'm not being very good at explaining things today. Words don't do it justice. It's like my husband and I, we were having a conversation and we were talking about what can we really know when we're communicating. And communication is so difficult because you have a picture in your head and you're trying to use words to show me what that picture is. But my point of view — of my perspective and my conditioning — is different from yours. So the words you're using is triggering a totally different image in my memory because my memory and conditioning is different. So what you're trying to share for all of us, we're all interpreting what the words you're saying differently.

So there will always be confusion. But how can there be some clarity? How can there be some clarity?

NYeah. It just needs one thing to land. I'm not trying to pass an idea in my head into your head. No, that's not what's going on.

QYeah.

NBecause this is called the transmission of mind but it is not the transmission of a personal mind or personal thought or concept of the world to another mind. Now okay — this is the transmission of mind as in understood by Huang Po. Why can I transmit it? Because I know on the other side I'm not talking to another person — that's not who I'm talking to. If the words are being heard, if there's an understanding of the words that is being perceived by the noumenon. So when we speak, we understand English. So I can use words which are common.

QYeah.

NTo transmit the truth and the truth can be transmitted because it's only pointing out what you are.

QOkay?

NIt's not pointing to a phenomena which are subjective. And then you know we could have an argument that whether peanut butter is brown or green but we're not talking about the phenomena. That is why clarity can be transmitted.

QOkay. Oh, thank you for that.

NSo when I say solid, there's no confusion. It's just you're still not — you need to maybe look at it again. When we say solid, it's quite clear what solid means.

QYes.

NAny confusion?

QNo. The ground is solid. You agree?

NYeah. Yeah. The ground can hold the glass.

QYes. Yes.

NWhen the ground is solid. Yeah. If you look at the physics, you can't touch the ground, because the electrons in your feet is going to push the electrons in the ground — is never going to touch.

QMhm.

NBut we associate solidity with touch.

QYes. I'm touching something.

NYou're not touching anything. The neurons, the nerve cells send information to the brain. You feel that. So what is that solidity? That is the solidity of Awareness. It is not the solidity of the thing. So I'm taking a concept you already have — an experience you have — and I'm showing you what it means in the right view which you already have seen. So now there's the right view and there's still the old view and the old view will be taken over by the right view because all the old view concepts — they're based on the right view but they were overlaid with other things like solidity got hijacked by I'm touching a solid object. Well, now there's no solid objects. The solidity is still there. What is it telling you?

Or is there still a solid object, do you think?

QNo. Yeah, because if everything is — but I understand what you're saying, but in this mind, in this mind, in this perception, I should say, in this perception, what I'm hearing is it's all going back to the original Emptiness.

NYeah.

QAnd so whatever is being said is about — so my view of the pointing is it goes back to the original Emptiness and that original Emptiness is the Sentience. It is nothing and everything. It is nothing and the source of everything.

NIt's not the source because everything is that. There's no source and second coming or creation. Actually, there's never been any creation, which is what we think. If you start with nothing, you can never have anything else.

QYeah.

NSo, you start with Emptiness, it's always Emptiness. So, there's no — the idea of creation —

QYeah.

N— is again not the right view because it's taken the idea of a beginning of time and step by step things getting created and saying that is Reality. It's a story that is a secondary view. It is not the right view. It's not the original right view. And Emptiness — it's a kind of — it's a word which doesn't quite resonate.

QYeah.

NIt's — sure in a way it's a wonderful word because it's describing there's this capacity — there's an infinite capacity — Emptiness is the capacity to contain anything, sure — but the other view I came from is Advaita Vedanta and Emptiness can never be thought of or seen as something related to I. It's very hard.

QYeah.

NEventually you might see it.

QYeah.

NLike — but the Self as you go into the Self is not empty. It's full.

QYeah.

NIt's fullness. So again there like I'm not a — I'm not a dead thing. I'm not a — you're not an empty shell. So you will — because Emptiness is a transformation — you will see it in a way that it's just — the word sounds like, oh why did we choose that word in English?

QMhm.

NAnd then in my language there's a word which resonated with me. So the word for this is shunyata — and Emptiness actually there's no maybe no relation, maybe there's a relation — but there's a word I know of called sannata. Sannata is in Urdu — is in perfect silence, perfect silence — but in that word is the assumption that within the silence there's listening. It's silence but also listening and there's no sound — and that's when Emptiness started to resonate here. Sannata — perfect silence, no sound to listen to, but the listening is still there.

So there's the possibility that if there's a sound it will be heard — that is Emptiness — and in there there's already a listening. The only thing missing is there's no movement yet in an infinite Emptiness outside of time. Like it's not even an infinity of time. It's just perpetually — there's the possibility of anything to appear. Space time has appeared.

QMhm. I can't say I comprehend this because I don't. My limitation in my own education makes it quite challenging to openly receive what you're transmitting.

NIt's quite probably because I get too carried away. The main point was very simple.

QNo, no, you didn't. You explained it very well. But one of the things I've become aware of listening to different teachers is not being totally open to what is being transmitted. There's still a resistance and that resistance makes the comprehension murky. So when looking at the process of this one that is something I've become very aware of and I don't know how to move beyond that.

NSo whatever is murky or has any of those qualities would be the quality of a particular sound. But what you want to understand is the Emptiness which is not the sound. It is the silence and that silence itself — there's a listening.

QYeah.

NYou can't separate silence from listening. Otherwise there's no such thing as silence either. There's no such thing as listening either without —

QYeah.

NSo it's a combined word which I was of course lucky enough — it was there in my language, sannata — or maybe I understood the word wrong because I'm not good at my language either. But in my mind silent listening — silence and listening as one — fundamental basis for sound. So when you extend it to just all kinds of experience — anything where we say it's murky or so on and so forth — again inspecting it, putting a magnifying glass on one phenomena, one stream of thought — but what we want to turn towards is the fundamental basis of all phenomena which is the noumenon which is you, besides which there are no other Buddhas and no other minds.

QThank you.

NAnother.

QSo I like a practical advice I want to ask. So what should — like in practicing towards this — what should the attitude be towards Sentience itself? Meaning okay you know it's — you feel it — it's not a person that sees — I get that — and it's essential basically — so all these senses, all these experiences that we're having, but the Sentience itself is appearing — what should I — because you're acutely aware of those what you experience and that's a distraction. So I'm kind of stuck in like what should I — I get it — it's like the Sentience is not a person, it's Sentience itself, but what should be my attitude towards that? You see what I'm saying? Should I — like I heard somewhere like to shun the experience of the senses like poison — say is that the attitude? Like just draw your attention away from what you're sensing per se just the way you draw it away from the thought — is that should be the attitude or practice?

NSo that's a line from the Gita — to shun the senses like poison. There's a time to do that.

QOkay.

NBut I think I would do it — I did that during meditation.

QOkay.

NSo when you sit then you shun everything. Shun everything. Go back into the Emptiness. You're gone. There's no you. There's nothing. And then you notice experience appear and there's a demonstration of Emptiness — form — form is Emptiness, Emptiness form and all that. So that can be an instruction to see it clearly. However the other way is like — if you're already starting to see that Sentience is all there is — the experience is not separate to the Sentience. So just now when I was saying what is the solidity telling you — so every experience will have some dimension to it like light — what is this — like what is this brightness? What is it? It's the brightness of Sentience. It's not the brightness of the sun.

QYeah.

NYou don't have any — there's no access to the sun. That would be like you as a thing-object perceiving an object in the world. But we are past that. I think everyone who listens to my channel has gone past that so I don't start there. We're not starting there.

QOkay.

NYou have seen that the whole world is subjective so when you see the sun that is appearing in the mind — it is a phenomena in the mind — so then what is this light?

Yeah I also explain it through like — the light rays go into the eye. That's the end of the story of the light of physics. So the light you perceive is not the light of physics. What is it the light of? So anything you're experiencing, you can find a dimension to it which takes you away from the thinking — the wrong thinking — to the right view.

QYeah.

NSay I'm feeling sorrow. I'm feeling sorrow. It's considered a negative emotion.

QYeah.

NIt won't become a nice emotion. However, in the sorrow, you can find there's a dimension called depth. Yeah, I call it depth. And you look that direction. Don't look at sorrow as a thing to run away from.

QYeah.

NBut you look at the depth and you say, "Oh, if my heart is here, how deep does this emotion go? Where is it going? What is this dimension of?" You've discovered a new dimension to existing experience and each experience is now pointing you back to the right understanding which — the way I speak I assume you've all had taste of it or you wouldn't listen to me.

QYeah.

NYou would listen to other stuff. This is an odd channel. If it resonates, it means you have already understood the truth at some point and now my job is just to clear up the cobwebs.

QSo it's a little bit like extending the Self-inquiry — instead of saying to whom does this thought occur you basically say to whom does this experience occur? Basically whether whatever that is sensing — whatever that is that might be — and then that takes you to that depth that you're talking about.

NYes. And you should examine any experience from the right view. Because now you know what is the right view. The right view is that all things in the universe are the essence of mind itself. And the essence of mind is equal to Sentience, Awareness — your preferred term for Reality. The fundamental. So if everything is that there's no problem who has a problem — or the problem is only in this particular thought that appears right now that you can shun like poison — but you don't need to shun it like poison because even the thought is amazing — like where is it? What is it? It's incredible. It's like there's a symphony playing. Why are you aware of that symphony? Because the symphony is playing on you.

Okay? Reality is aware. So if Reality is aware, if there's any movement, Reality will be aware of that movement. How it's aware of the movement is in this wonderful way.

Yeah. What in an instrument just looks like, oh there's this exchange of ions going on in this chemical mixture — to you that's music, that's colors, this emotional feelings. That's how Reality perceives its own functioning. When Nisargadatta was dying he got fed up by all the questions — I think the final few dialogues are just wonderful. Just devastating. He was just let loose. He said, "I am the total functioning. Do you know what sorrow is? Do you know what grief is?" He would ask, "I am the sorrow." Yeah. I am the suffering. I am the total functioning. No one is suffering. Reality is aware of all the suffering, all the joy. Because Reality is Awareness. It is aware. Even it is a stupid thing to say. It — no — Reality means Self. I. However, as soon as we reason in terms of me and others, then that just —

QYeah.

NThen we've done the wrong—

Anyone else would like to speak?

QSina. So just want to clarify — when I read Huang Po — so the One Mind that is spoken of is the same mind that I have — but my person — not my personal mind — there is no personal mind — it is talking — so then the only mind that I have is the same mind he is speaking of. Correct.

NYeah. But you don't have a mind. There's no — because that would be you and mind.

QOkay. So therefore the mind that — the thoughts, the memories, all this that was spoken of as the mind — is that really the mind?

NThat is the mind. Yes. But that is also you and that is also Reality. It's also just separation. So look when you say my mind — our personal mind — that's going against what Huang Po has told. He said all the Buddhas and all sentient beings — I think you should also have said you because that is what hits hardest — you, all the Buddhas and all sentient beings, all the people on this call are the One Mind and nothing but the One Mind.

QMhm.

NBesides which nothing exists. But then look at yourself after hearing that you are being equated to all the Buddhas, all the sentient beings.

QYeah.

NAll of that is the One Mind.

He's taking you to the essence of what the mind is. That is you. And the essence of mind is not male or female, human being or alien, long and short and all that. He's putting that aside and he's saying this is what a sentient being is in actual Reality. This is what a sentient being is. It's what you are. We cannot have two of those. We cannot have two of that. We can distinguish by talking about names and places, memories. But how are you different to what I am or vice versa? Like there's no criteria.

QYeah.

NThe criteria is false.

When you ask someone, who are you? A normal someone — this is my name. I was born here. This is what I do. None of that is who you are. That's happenstance. It's extra. It's the baggage.

QIt's the baggage indeed.

NIt's nice to meet you, Sina. You've been around for very long.

QThank you so much. You have really helped clarify a lot for me and it's — I mean I don't listen to you regularly anymore. I'm just being very honest because it's come to a point.

NYes.

QBut I really wanted to be here tonight and thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate everything that has—

NThank you. Thank you.

QMhm. And sannata. I resonate with sannata.

NSannata. Yes. Yes. Sannata.

Yeah. Eventually you will lose interest in all this and then—

QYes. That's what is coming to — I kind of feel that. I don't want to listen too much. I don't want to.

NYeah. It's just a natural happening I guess.

QBut you suggest just stay with it?

NWell, you can't do anything else. You can't do anything. There's no right and wrong there. No, it grips you. There's nothing else you can do.

QYeah. Yeah. Thank you.

NAll right. Any last questions or comments?

QYeah, I want to make a comment — like last few weeks ago I asked this question that I was stuck in like going from local Sentience to this idea of being global and all that back then — and then this question I asked today is kind of — and I realized it in hindsight came from the same thing — and it kind of tells me that while you are sensing — unless you do this inquiry about the depth of the sensing you can't really make that leap of going to the One Mind, let's say using today's language. The best way to do it is to recede back to Emptiness and then from there everything becomes obvious because now you're not sensing — now you're not distracted with this and that. I just wanted to share — see what you think about—

NYes, that can be very helpful to start from that nothing and then observe something appears and then there's no something. It's just — you see how something and nothing are just false distinctions. But if we are stuck in something that's very hard then nothing is a thing that was there before and it's not here now and it's opaque to the mind — the mind cannot go there and see — feels like that. But if we go the other way — when if you do it like let's say you're trying to observe — you're drifting off to sleep and you want to see what it's like to be completely asleep, deep sleep — you're trying to observe it. It doesn't work. The mind will see that thing and freak out. It'll see the Emptiness, the nothing, and because you took the wrong perspective — because the perspective was you are something and that is nothing and I am not that. However, when you wake up, you are the void. To the void the sensation appears or the sound appears and the void wakes up very blissfully and there's no fear because you are the void and over there is now perception bursting out of you. That can be very insightful.

QYes.

NBut it's not — it's one of the ways you can see the insight. It's not mandatory.

QThe other thing was you said — like there's still — there seemed to be a concept of this mind and the One Mind but there's only the One Mind.

NOkay. The One Mind is not the usual word mind that has been discarded now. There's no such thing as that kind of mind.

One Mind does not mean all of the possible experience should be simultaneously experienced — because what is experienced is a particular process. In the case of a human body, that process is very complex. It's very interconnected. There's lots of sensory equipment. And so you get a whole very rich one-world experience.

QYeah.

NThere's one world of experience for each human body. And all of those worlds are in the One Mind. They are the One Mind. But the One Mind does not mean all those worlds should merge and there should only be one possible experience, a stream of experience. That is taking the wrong idea of mind and multiplying it or making it bigger.

QYeah, that was my error and it still is to some extent but you kind of — glimpses — that was my error — a little fall away because there's no personal mind as you start to do this kind of inquiry. There's no personal mind — is mind — and you are not a person — if there's a personal mind and you're a person — so that's what we investigate.

NAll right. Hannah had a question I think. Do you want to read it? I can't see it.

QUm, I won't read it. I'll just try and — when you talk about depth that's like really intriguing and I'm just not really sure that I'm understanding what that means or if I already am. I'd really like to hear you talk more about that. But we are over time. But that was what my question was — was should I leave that question to next time. And I did — there was one other thing also — I can't remember which one of your talks it was in but it was you said something like — and I'm probably going to get this wrong but you'll recognize it. I think it was something about the experience of the self that we think we are that actually is the illusion. How confusing it can be when we hear that that's just another thought until we realize that it's a thought in a different scale of time.

NCorrect. Yep. Yes. So, yes, those are probably questions I'll address in the next call or so on.

QYeah.

NBecause they are — they're really good. The second one — it's about the insight which you all know is that there is no individual self. But there is still — all the problem is that there's still the idea of self. All these thoughts of self-concern of self. What is that? So there's no self but there's a process which we could call selfing.

There's a selfing process. Many parallel selfing processes are going on at the same time. And they're just chains of thinking. And we're not trying to stop it, not trying to permanently kill it off because that is a process that keeps the body functioning. If you've got a job that requires your intellect and so on, that's how it works. There's a selfing process. You have to think in terms of different entities and objects in the world and so on. But there's no self. And over time the selfing process — like when I was young there was a point where I was worried I have no personality — like I have no personality traits. All my friends they have these strong personality traits and I'm just — what's my personality — because there's a selfing process. Slowly it's building your personality. Your personality — it's building a personality. So there's a persona but no person. There's this process of selfing but no self. And all you do is you see it that way and you're free of it. It's not you. It's not your problem in terms of you're not responsible for it. And just by seeing it that way, there is a different relationship to the mind. This now — this we are using the wrong mind but let's just use it. There's a relationship between — there's this conflict within that process. Yeah, there's no one self. There's many voices. There's many opinions within the same stream of experience. There'll be a voice saying do this, the other one saying do that, the other one criticizing and all that. That's the selfing process. All those voices are part of that process. And over time, it's changing. It's growing. Things you care about drop off. The new things come. And if you could see it — and you can actually if you look back and see how much that process has generated different things and changed interests which were so close and so obsessive — all gone. People you thought you would never want to live away from ended up moving on and all that — and you see it and in that process you then see it as a process and not as the self or me. But anyway, I said we will talk about it next time, but then I talked about it.

The other question, yes, we will talk about next time. Depth. Like I said, it's about taking what your present experience is and seeing it from the right view. And one of those views is the dimension of depth. Length, breadth, height. These are dimensions of space. Depth is not a dimension of space yet you can find it in so many experiences — all experiences. And as you focus on that instead of the usual way of looking at things — and the truth is there. It's shining every experience. You don't need anything special. It's just because you know Reality is there. It's always the same. Just because you're having a dream doesn't mean Awareness is absent. Doesn't mean it has changed. And as you start looking at the experience the right way, that's the difference between sages and anyone else. The Buddha and the sentient beings are the One Mind. There's a different kind of view being applied to the experiences.

QThank you. Thank you.

NAnd nice to see you, too, Hannah. You finally decided to speak up.

All right, let's end it here for today. Thank you all for joining.

QThank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.