2026 Summer Online Day 2 Talk Edited — Transcript

Exploration of spiritual insight, non-dual realization, and the distorting nature of thought and perception in consciousness.

Key Takeaways

Thought and perception distort direct experience and cause suffering.
Spiritual awakening requires integrating insight without reliance on external pointers.
The urge to fix or control experience is a fundamental source of distortion.
Deeper realization makes subtle mental fixations more apparent but harder to see oneself.
Grace, community, and self-honesty are essential for breakthrough and transformation.

Summary

The video discusses the early stages of spiritual insight and recognizing dissatisfaction with self-identity.
It emphasizes the distorting nature of thought and perception as central to spiritual awakening.
The speaker highlights the importance of integrating direct experience beyond conceptual thought.
Different personalities and spiritual orientations experience these insights uniquely but share common patterns.
A critical belief causing distortion is the urge to fix or do something about perceived problems.
The talk explains how deeper realization reveals subtle fixations that can still cause suffering.
The concept of fetters from Buddhist teachings is used to describe mental obstacles.
The speaker stresses the necessity of grace and relational mirroring in breaking through mind identification.
Transformation involves embracing presence and letting go of control and self-fixation.
The video concludes with reflections on interconnectedness, presence, and the natural state of consciousness.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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From the early stages of insight, just starting to recognize that there is a path, starting to recognize that there's a prompting, that there's another way, that what we've taken ourselves to be isn't satisfying and it's not the whole picture.

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All the way through to deeper insights, non-dual realization, Anatta, and beyond. This is always about recognizing the distorting nature of thought and perception.

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It pretty much always comes back to that. That's what I find. And this conclusion really comes from what I observe in others' process, and I've worked with many types of people, many types of personalities, different ages, different backgrounds, different

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interests, different spiritual orientations, traditionalists, non-traditional people who move very much in the feminine, people who move very much in the masculine, and I find that to be, uh, true, that statement to be true in essentially all cases.

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So having some innate knowledge, or I should say, so having some, um, accumulating some wisdom about the, the nature of the distorting nature of thought and perception, uh, with this process, it becomes important, I think.

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A simple way of saying it is the basics remain important throughout. The basic [clears throat] pointers that I use frequently, uh, the pointer to non-conceptuality, the pointer to the recognition that a lot of what thought does, a lot of what

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the distorting nature of perception that I'm talking about, what it does is avoids direct experience. It, it avoids feeling directly.

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These simple statements, these simple pointers, they come up in talks like this. They also come up very frequently in question and answer sessions, interactions with people.

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Um, I think it's, it's really important at some point to really integrate that, to fully understand that in yourself without needing me or anyone else to point it out again.

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To really, um, integrate that truth. That the ways in which we can interact with consciousness, especially polarized consciousness, consciousness set up as a subject and object, that standing wave of doership and desire and aversion and so forth.

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Um, understanding how that functions, when it functions, what triggers it for you, which is similar to what triggers it for most people, but we're all hooked up a little differently. We all have different tendencies and different timings.

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So understanding how that correlates to your own experience as well is really important. And the deeper insi- uh, deeper realization goes, the clearer the insight gets, the more important it is because what I find is when we're thought-identified, grossly thought-

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identified, before any shift has occurred, there's so much perception operating, there's so much thought operating, and we're so identified with it that any given thought or perception is just a drop in this, this giant bucket of, you know, fluctuating thoughts within

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consciousness. And it's very easy to overlook the, the cumulative effect of that until it's not, until we really come to terms with the fact that we're suffering.

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But on the other end of the spectrum, in deeper realization, when things get clearer, when the mind gets quieter, when our access to direct experience is more ongoing, when we're experiencing the totality of presence more frequently, that's actually when I find that a

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single belief can be surprisingly distorting for someone. A single overlooked perception, or I should say misperception, a single overlooked tendency to avoid through a certain mechanism, a habit, or even overlooking the tendency to avoid a certain experience, like a certain emotion, for instance.

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That becomes really fixating. The good news in that space, that or in that setting, is that when there's a lot of clarity, it kind of stands out like a sore thumb, or it can.

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But strangely, because of the nature of identity or the tendency to form identity or the tendency to use that internal world to avoid,

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Um, you can be the last one that it's obvious to you, strangely. So it can be, it can still be helpful to have some relational mirroring even in deeper realization.

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And the good news in this community is there are a lot of very awake people.

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[clears throat] A lot of good facilitators. Um, a lot of good modalities and so forth.

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But yeah, it can be surprising to me still, uh, how fixating a simple belief can be.

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And perhaps the simplest belief of all, to go all the way to the end of this, and the, the belief that all other beliefs and perceptions and distortions and obstructions are really based on both, like on the conceptual side of things

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and on the perceptual side of things, the sort of non-conceptual mental frameworks that make reality feel divided up.

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That make it feel like struggle. That, that make it feel like unsatisfactoriness. Um, on both sides.

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Conceptual, non-conceptual. Pre-verbal. Perceptual. Um, all of that seems to really balance on one sort of critical belief.

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And I can state it a couple of different ways. But it's something along the lines of something I need to do something, um, essentially to make myself feel better.

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But another version of it is there's a problem that needs fixed and it, there's a problem that needs addressed.

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Another version of it is I need to figure out what to do about this.

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Without always looking closely at what this actually is. This can even arise when the, the self-structure is really seen through. Like thoroughly. It's like an urge. An urge to repair, an urge to fix, an urge ultimately to find relief.

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Can also come in a form of like something's wrong. And I don't even know what to do about it.

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It's not just the recognition of, it's not just the recognition of a state of things like something's wrong.

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It's that plus a, a feeling of like something needs to be done about it.

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That's really the key to it. Um, to put it in very plain terms, maybe even along the most purest Buddhist lines would be something feels unsatisfactory.

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That's not a problem. That's not what I'm talking about exactly. That's just, that's a statement of conditions.

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We're all going to have things that don't feel comfortable in this life. No matter how enlightened or unenlightened you are, it's going to happen.

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Some things are going to feel uncomfortable. But the next part is, and I need to know what to do about it.

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[clears throat] That's the part that's distorting. That's the fundamental belief. It's really the 10th fetter.

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Ignorance. Ignorance of the, the truth that even though some things are satisfactory, some things are unsatisfactory experientially.

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The truth that you don't have to do anything about it. Not only do you not have to do anything about it, you can't do anything about it anyway.

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Kind of like what I was saying I think yesterday in the talk. By the time it registers, it's a done deal.

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It's right now. The registration is right now. The registering of experiences right now. Now, that's not a problem.

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Until we imagine or perceive this impulse to do something about it. That rising up.

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That restlessness. That's how the 10th fetter becomes the ninth fetter. And there's really not much you can do about that except for just feel it.

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Until you imagine a separate self moving through time separate from other selves. Separate from objects.

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Now you can do a whole lot about it or it seems like you can.

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Right? And that self and time and space and all those come together in the higher fetters.

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It's all those assumptions. Fetters are assumptions. Those give you a vehicle. They give you, in quotes, a vehicle to try to do something about this fundamental problem that was never a problem.

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But it becomes a monster. The problem, when multiplied through that lens of duality, multiplicity, fractionation, becomes a true monster.

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Or maybe monster's like a dramatic word, but it becomes extremely complex, robust, self-sustaining, and it becomes confusing, distorting.

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This is why, you know, in the, the land of mind identification, you kind of need some grace to break through that.

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'Cause how, how can you see your way through that when you're so completely identified with that whol-

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Cuz how how can you see your way through that when you're so completely identified with that whole mechanism and it's so complex?

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So, I think all of us, most of us probably can relate that you had some moments of grace that broke you open and started allowing you to see that there's a path, that there's some other way, that there's a

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a Dharma wheel turning, perhaps. I remember the ones for me. I remember, you know, a handful of things that happened before the awakening that definitely opened things up, but it wasn't like they just kind I just kind of came upon

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them somehow. Maybe there was some really deep intuition sure. That looks different for all of us. For some people it's a psychedelic experience, for some people it's meeting a certain person, for some it's a a retreat with an experience that

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happened during the retreat. Some people have spontaneous shifts, like big spontaneous shifts out of literally out of nothingness or out of out of no cause that they can tell that they can discern.

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Although when I've seen that in people, I've said this before, the the occasions where I've seen people have like big big shifts, big awakenings that they said they weren't prepared for and had no spiritual background, I've asked them,

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a handful of people I can think of, I've asked them, "Did you ever at some point in your life ask for truth?

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Like did you pray for truth or some like you you ruthless wish uh to the universe for truth as it is. And they said yes.

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[laughter] The ones I asked said yes. So, you know, Eckhart Tolle kind of describes that. He had a kind of three or two question inquiry when he was in the pits of despair, and that caused a major shift.

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So, yeah, sure there's this some impulse for truth must be in us that allows us to recognize those moments or perhaps the conditions help align those conditions for those moments, but sure feels like grace, you know.

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I didn't know there was a way out of suffering. I didn't I didn't imagine that there was a way out of suffering. I didn't suspect it at all until I had a, you know, a few breakthroughs or few openings.

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So, [clears throat] anyway, um there's a component of this that's definitely grace early on.

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But, I think it can be a bit of a mistake later on to kind of keep saying, "Well, I don't want to do anything.

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It should It should just come to me." When you have more clarity, when you have more experience, when you when you're more awake, more aware, then you can see that some of your or most of your delusion is sort of

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self-imposed now. Now, you can see it. Um and I think it's valuable at that point to take up uh at least the the sobriety to be willing to continue to do work in some way or another.

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Doesn't have to be seeking. It's not It's not work based on thought and imagination of something that's going to save you later.

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It's the work of clarity. It's the work of being honest with yourself about what's true and what's not true.

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Being honest with yourself um about what you use to go unconscious. And why. And how often and so forth.

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Not to beat yourself up. Just to be clear. To be honest. With yourself and with the universe. Yeah.

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So I find that as this unfolds um as I mentioned before this getting in touch with that sort of prajna wisdom that has been guiding this all along, that transcendent wisdom.

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Um that shows you more and more that yeah, the distorting nature of thought and perception is something you should always be aware of.

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Uh number one and number two that what starts to come along with this is this kind of sobriety.

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Um recognizing the cost of going unconscious purposely. Even when it's a coping mechanism and it usually is, right? Again, it's innocent.

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But the cost is higher than we had previously realized. And it's ultimately not worth it to go unconscious.

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Doesn't mean you can snap your fingers and never go unconscious again, right? Um this does also bring on bring you into alignment with a kind of patience.

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I do see I do see that as a challenge sometimes with with people is just impatience.

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Like you are inhabiting seemingly this conditioned body mind. And conditioning in the conventional sense doesn't go away overnight. Takes time. Takes work.

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Takes surrender. Takes vulnerability. All those things. So so being impatient or too impatient about it is not really helpful and it can kind of turn into almost like a self-violence when you're really really impatient.

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That can be Sometimes that's people's primary fixation I I see is this kind of insistence and impatience. It's control disguised as spiritual sincerity.

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So um So yeah. Surrender is a hard thing to define, but it it certainly has a component of patience.

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That's critical. You have plenty of time. You have more time than you realize. You have more space than you realize, more latitude.

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You have more allies than you realize. More wisdom than you realize. You have more capacity than you realize.

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Maybe that's the third component I want to point to is capacity. So, one of the things that will help break the spell of number one, that entanglement with thought and perception in a distorting way.

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Um one of the things that really starts to break that spell is realizing your capacity for experience. You have a tremendous capacity to feel.

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You have a tremendous capacity for the wild and wacky energetics that come along with this.

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You have a tremendous capacity for emotion. I don't want to make a point about this.

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What I'm saying is not that you you're superhuman, either. It's not a It's not like a It's not a superhero's um power or something.

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It's innate. It's natural. It's not a big deal. But the setup of the the sort of um friction between body and mind or body and body meaning the felt sense the capacity [snorts] and perception the belief structures the tendencies to

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dissociate. The friction's strong. And that makes it seem like you don't have capacity. Or you have very limited capacity to feel.

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Um but more and more as you experience more, feel more um become more patient more vulnerable, more open you start to realize that you have a depth [clears throat] that's available, a depth of capacity feeling um love for experience itself, love for

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yourself, love for others love for the world, love for experience. Um that you have access to this deep deep well.

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There's a nice analogy. I was talking to a friend yesterday and it came up, but it's a nice analogy that if you think of the the way the mind, our thoughts interpret reality, it turns interprets it in a

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very lateral way, like a horizontal way, like a timeline. Um and thinking in that way, perceiving in that way, can seem like there's a lot of latitude somehow. There's a lot of variety and complexity to thought.

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But what is notably missing is depth. Um and we talk about realization, when we talk about vulnerability, when we talk about doing shadow work in the moment, when we're circling or anything, anything that can go deep, we don't care about the latitude. We

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don't care about what happened before and after and thoughts and analysis. It's really about how deeply can you go into your experience right now.

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How deeply can you go into your experience right now? And there's actually no um there's no limit to that.

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There's nothing actually limiting that other than habit. But the the wisdom is in depth.

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The transformation is in the depth. And I mean the transformation in all axes. Axes?

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The transformation, pure transformation, that magician energy, sorceress energy, the magician archetype. That's the transformational energy. It's what this is all about. This whole crazy awakening project, whatever it is.

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It's all pure transformation, yeah? And you find that in depth. When something turns the mind off for a minute, something shuts it off or minds it up or stops it.

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Could be inquiry. Could be a psychedelic experience. Again, it could be a deeply, profoundly emotional experience. A lot of times it's a tragedy.

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Um a just a human tragedy. Loss of somebody, a loved one, a health crisis, these are some of the best uh most auspicious moments to go into depth. Yeah.

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That depth of transformation, which when we talk about depth in terms of that magician archetype, it's when all contexts are destroyed.

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Like I talked about this in the talk yesterday. When contexts just don't function, you can't have them anymore.

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The context that people just live forever, the my loved ones are never going to die.

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We don't even know we hold that belief. We're so scared to even consider that anything other than that until it happens.

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And then you just can't have that context anymore. You can It's not a mental thing, it's a physical thing.

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Like you can't have that anymore, and it's terrible. It feels like it's just being stripped away from you until you let go.

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Until you let go, and then it's like, oh. So it's miraculous, right, when you finally let go.

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And again, that can happen through a medicine that affects your nervous system right? Plant medicines and all.

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Can definitely happen through inquiry, through sustained meditation, one-pointed approach, a breakthrough coan. All of these things can drive us into depths um in in terms of that transformative energy such that we don't have the contexts anymore, the mental

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context, that latitude of the way I am, the way the world is, the way I think this is, what the problems are, what the solutions are, all the things we think we know. We don't know any of that. We just think we

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do. We just use all those contexts. So when they're just not available, that drives you into the depths of transformation.

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And it can happen so fast. That's the beauty of this. This happens now. Right now.

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Mhm. And in depth in terms of the warrior archetype. It's about boundaries, stamina, anger is the portal emotion.

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Frustration comes along these lines. Rebellion, that was I think I had that. I turned my rebellion inward toward thought and toward the mind cuz I could see it was fooling me. I didn't like that.

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[snorts] The willingness to fight for your own truth somehow. Not externally, not going to war with the world. I mean, um being a truth warrior.

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That that depth to me at least is felt in a very physical way. It's a physicality thing.

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The elements that create this body, this physical body so you can move through the world, defend yourself, reproduce eat find resources, life, physical life, yeah?

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It's the urge to be coming through a physical form. It's a felt deep felt sense.

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This may not resonate with some people, but some people it definitely resonates with. There I know some very warrior oriented warrior energy oriented people who are very awake, transmit very powerfully.

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And the depth in terms of that lover archetype, compassion, bhakti, that deep deep deep connection to the beloved.

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That may come in form of a being, a human, a guru, a god. It may be a sort of disembodied or impersonal truth that you feel this love for, love for truth.

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Love for the Dharma. That's a heart. It's a very open, expansive warm all-inclusive heart, um energetic in my experience.

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That's the depth. The depth is in the warmth, the all-inclusiveness the interconnectedness. It's That's a surrender as well.

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Different kind of surrender. And since we're doing archetypes, the sovereign archetype. In this space, to me that's represented by the archetype of the the monastic, the sage, the renunciate.

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Another of way of saying if if you're not a a monastic, that's okay. Another way of saying it is service to truth, service to the Dharma.

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However that looks for you. It doesn't mean you have to be a spiritual teacher.

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It can come forth in how you trim your flowers, how you breathe, how you raise your children.

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How does it come forth for you? How does that sovereign mature spiritual um energy come forth for you?

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Certainly everyone has access to it here you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't take five days out of your life to do this.

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You have access to it. It's powerful. It's really powerful. In fact, it can be so powerful for a long time we may actually be scared of it.

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Our own sovereign. Our own sovereign energy. And sovereign just meaning ability to stand completely congruent and aligned in your own skin.

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With your own conditions. Your own talents. No false modesty. But also no I guess this is pretty important to say no um no arrogance.

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Not using it. In some way. Some self-centered way. Service. It's service. I know people that exemplify this. It's beautiful.

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Powerful. And it's all so simple. It's not a big deal. But the sub subjective, so to speak, experience of living that way um is everything.

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It's night and day from the usual way of moving through the world. That's the depth of the sovereign or the sage in this space.

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And every one of us has that for sure. You just can't direct it. It's It's a tricky one because it's a takes maturity and alignment and yeah, you can over you can overcorrect with it and try to direct it and not

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realize you're trying to direct it and realize that's not going to work. And then it just come comes forward.

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Asha told me a beautiful story yesterday and about something happened in monastery one time when she was going through training and it was like such an example example of this.

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Something comes forward in you. Everyone's had this in some form or another. Like you're literally just pushed out of the way. Or it's not that you're pushed out of the way. Sometimes it's just you realize you've come to the end of what

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you can do. You've come to the end of your with your own personal agendas, your own personal fears, your own personal concerns, your own personal everything, right?

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That self-obsessed way that the mind is always oriented. It just comes to the end of what it can do and yet the drive for that to come forward in service is stronger than you.

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And you have to give it over to it. You have to give yourself over to it.

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This will happen with everybody in in this realization process at some point. It has to.

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It's it's a major mark of maturity even if it doesn't align with an exact shift or an exact insight in terms of non-duality or whatever.

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But in the conventional spectrum in the personal and relative spectrum, it's a it's something that changes in people.

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It has to. It's like uh put in contemporary terms, like getting over yourself finally.

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Not just the arrogant part of yourself, but the immature part of yourself and the part of yourself that wants to hide and the part of yourself that wants to mess it up just to give yourself something to do instead of

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playing the bigger game or whatever, however you want to say it. Um service. Everyone here can affect the world in a way that is totally unique.

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Truly. In a remarkable way. For sure. You There most people Everyone here can affect the world in a way I can't.

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But you have talents I don't have. And you you have you have a combination of talents and skills and experience that no one has.

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For sure. It doesn't have to look like a big deal from from the outside, but you'll know it when you're in it. You'll know it when you're aligning with it.

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You'll know it when you're moving that way. And the beauty of this is this is not This could sound heady. For sure this could be interpreted in a heady way, but I'm not talking about anything heady.

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I'm talking about instinct coming online in realization. But the beauty of this is it'll it actually aligns very very well with insight practice.

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So by practicing um being full in presence, meaning in the felt just the felt and the heard just the heard and the seen just the seen, when that starts to come forward on its own, it's the same sort of thing.

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The thinking you and the practicing you that's all entangled in thoughts just kind of quiets down and this brilliant non-dual display just comes forward. It's like, "Whoa.

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This This is it? Like this is how I This is how it happens. It's so simple.

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It's not you. It's just everything. Everything happening. One doing. That's the insight um aspect of what I'm talking about.

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You know, relative and absolute, all that. So you don't have to think about all this stuff I'm saying necessarily. It's It's an attunement. And just by focusing on your own practice, which could just mean surrender to presence.

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Which just could mean one one sensation is every sensation. And one sound is every sound and on and on.

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That that can be it. Through that all of this will come forward. This maturity I'm talking about. This sovereign element in the relative world of you.

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Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes the temptation is to try to look like others. You know, try to be like you feel an inclination to teach or or even starts happening naturally, which is fine.

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Um but our mind will say, "Okay, now what is that supposed to look like?" And we'll look at other teachers or other facilitators or other coaches or whatever, right? We're up many people here in healing spaces and all that,

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which is great. Uh but I will just caution you to trust presence. Trust that you don't have to control it with your mind.

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With your perceptions. Let it keep coming forward in total innocence and naturalness. And it will feel different.

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It'll feel different than anything anyone else is doing. And it will transmit powerfully. When I see people, I know a lot of facilitators, I see people who work with others and they become so potent when this happens.

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When all contexts are dropping. And they just they just stay right in that moment-to-moment presence with no agendas at all.

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At all. Not The agenda isn't to be a teacher or to be sovereign or to be enlightened or to help people wake up.

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Like none of that none of those contexts actually exist. It's just this one moment. So simple.

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That's when all this comes forward. This that I'm talking about, this maturity service heart, transformation, and an innate knowledge of which one naturally expresses in this moment.

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What I mean by that is it's it's like skillful means. Um it's calibration. Like if I'm talking to someone and no matter who I talk to on a Q&A, I always just go down the bhakti path for instance,

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that's not skillful necessarily. It's going to work for some people. For others it's just not the right attunement.

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On the other hand, if I'm just like a battle ax or, you know, constantly trying to pull rugs and undermine somebody's immediate mental perception or something, that might work really great for some someone.

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And then if for other people that's not what they need, you know. So what I mean is those are all contexts. Those are those are those would be if I were if I were doing that, hopefully I don't,

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those would be me trying to find something that I'm comfortable being. I'm comfortable with that format. I'm comfortable with that way of coming forward.

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Um I have to be willing to be uncomfortable to not use any of that and meet you wherever you are fully.

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If you're confused, I'm confused. If you're lost, I'm lost. And there's no need to make that different.

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We just go where there is to go. Whatever appears appears. And however it appears appears perfectly.

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Like life without a context. Maybe that's becoming the theme of the retreat. Life without a context.

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Now, you can also fixate on that, by the way. Some people may need structure.

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I've bumped into people who they need structure in their life. They they have relative um even damn near chaos, like a lot of trauma, a lot of um instability in their lives, even addictions, things like that going on

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that are so they're so out front in their life that I'm more like don't worry about insight right now. You know, worry about stability for a while.

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Um So, yeah, when I say living without a context and so forth um don't solidify that, either.

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Take care of yourself. It's important to take care of yourself in the relative world.

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Take care of your health. Take care of your responsibilities, your family, and let them take care of you.

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All that stuff's important. Beauty of this is there's no reason to overlook the relative.

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There's no reason to overlook the conventional. A thorough understanding and um thorough insight realization, thorough realization of anatta does not say does not lead you to to negate anything in the relative world. It's not like that.

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If anything, it's a more of an embracing of it because you see that it's it's relative.

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Endlessly changing. Never solid. Always in flux. So, how does everything I'm talking about relate to the guided meditation this morning?

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Um Yeah, the guided meditation this morning was centered on consciousness. Sometimes I call it unbound consciousness.

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That type of practice, that type of sitting meditation. Um [clears throat] And I really recommend that if somebody's inclined to meditate, and I generally recommend meditation.

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Meditation doesn't equal awakening. Um but it's a very good practice. Really helps stabilize the mind.

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Helps calm the mind. I think it does augment any kind of inquiry or insight work.

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Um But it yeah, as far as meditation, I think the practice of unbound consciousness, learning and practicing that type of meditation, I find that to be very important.

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All the way through deep realization. No self-realization and beyond, for sure. I recommend it frequently.

Speaker A

Um And what it shows us is that this realization, this understanding of no context, um can be immediately here, deeply settled, centered, so to speak.

Speaker A

Can just feel like home. It's not some psychedelic journey. It's not some kind of intense inquiry, necessarily, although we can apply inquiry to it.

Speaker A

Um It can be this very natural state that consciousness probably started in. Like when I was When I first had this shift, these shifts, years ago, this was not obvious to me, but over time it became more obvious.

Speaker A

That when I was very, very, very young, maybe before I was forming any kind of thoughts or even a self-thought, there was this experience of consciousness that was just kind of pure.

Speaker A

Unbound, I suppose. As it felt very good, and it still does. And it doesn't have to take any particular form at all.

Speaker A

And it's it's wide. It's like a bath. It's It's warm. It's engulfing. And it doesn't feel sep- There's no separation in it, no sense of separation in it.

Speaker A

It's a pure sense of being. And when I meditate that way now, it's the same as that whenever it first came online.

Speaker A

And that's you have access to that. Um at the same time that baby, that even the toddler and young child, whatever, was not able to recognize when there were thoughts and when there weren't thoughts. They weren't were able to

Speaker A

recognize as the thoughts started to form and then identity started to form within and around those thoughts. That was not a That was not obvious at that time. But it is now. It's very obvious how thoughts function within consciousness through

Speaker A

this practice. Um and so I think that is a very important stabilizing practice in terms of all of this that I just said in this long lecture.

Speaker A

Um in terms of recognizing the complexity of the relative, which is thought, perception, view, and even refinement of views. Your views will become more and more refined. Your Your judgment will become better as as realization clarifies, as you do your

Speaker A

shadow work. Your judgment, your instincts, your intuition, your alignment will get better. For sure.

Speaker A

That's the relative aspect. And that's It's not because of thought, but it could come forward in the form of thought or communication to others and so forth.

Speaker A

Um at the same time, by this practice, through this practice of unbound consciousness, that absolute aspect, that wide open, always open, always accommodating, always still, not struggling, and always aware.

Speaker A

But it's aware through contact. It's aware through sameness. Um that does not have to be sacrificed.

Speaker A

It can stay here the whole time. It is here the whole time. So it's in that sense gate, we have five six sense gates, right?

Speaker A

Smell taste sight touch sound and cognition, consciousness. In that sense gate, having that balance of relative and absolute, of thought, perception, view, that can form and of course disform immediately right after and on and on and on.

Speaker A

Um that fluctuation, the the waves on the surface, and the the absolute nature of it, the oceanic nature of consciousness. For some it feels like the oceanic nature of I am, or like I am everything.

Speaker A

Um but not everyone would define it that way. That those can be um they can coexist all the time.

Speaker A

And if attention moves into that sense gate, and there's any sense of polarity, any sense of discord or dysphoria, we can immediately remind ourself, and I don't mean that conceptually, I mean through direct recognition of that oceanic nature of being.

Speaker A

And then anything can exist within the oceanic nature of being. So it's a very stabilizing practice, and it helps all of this stay in alignment, in my experience.

Speaker A

The realization, the unfolding of the realization, the refinement of views, and the complete empty nature of all of it.

Speaker A

And the interconnectedness of all of it. And the full nature of each appearance appearing on its own as its own, nothing else.

Speaker A

Pure. Full combustion. One sound. One breath. So, none of this has to be understood from the standpoint of this practice I'm talking about.

Speaker A

Just practice it. But, if you can, if you have time, and you find it valuable, it is the kind of thing that the more you practice it, the more obvious it gets how it works.

Speaker A

I also think natural meditation or Shikantaza is valuable, but this has a different quality. It's a very stabilizing quality in consciousness itself.

Speaker A

You can do both. You can practice different rounds of things. Um yeah. Also, if you're doing work in the in the sense gates, that sort of deeper non-dual work, seventh fetter, and beyond, um it really helps to stabilize

Speaker A

consciousness as as its own sense gate, because that again, non-dual nature of consciousness just is different than sound and sensation is in the in experientially, because it's a reflection. It's It has that reflective nature. It's It's less stable. But, it But, it is there. You

Speaker A

can recognize that non-dualistic nature, meaning the sense of I am, the sense of center, the sense of whatever is at the very center of your experience right now is not actually apart from any thought that appears.

Speaker A

Is not apart from any fluctuation in consciousness. It's not apart from the whole wide-open aperture of consciousness.

Speaker A

It's homogeneous in that way. And as your when your attention sort of groks that, let's say, when you move your attention into the visual field, you might instantly get that flavor of oh same.

Speaker A

Wide open. No parts. No center. It's clearer in the visual field. It's clearer in the sound field. It's clearer in the felt sense, for sure. Then in consciousness. Consciousness is it has that experience of being in it.

Speaker A

It has that flavor of being. Some people would call it I. So, it's it's a little different quality. Um, but the descriptors I'm using, you can recognize those in all sense fields.

Speaker A

And as the other five sense gates get clearer and clearer, then everything gets much more stable.

Speaker A

More equanimity. It's more empty. It's more full. More clear. More clean. Less need for any self-reflection.

Speaker A

No need for an inner world. No need to dissociate. No need to run away from experience.

Speaker A

No need to conceptualize experience. No need to reify anything. Including any spiritual aspect. [snorts] Freedom. That's freedom.

Speaker A

No trace enlightenment, as Dogen called it. [snorts] Okay. That's all I got for the day.

Topics:spiritual insightnon-dual realizationconsciousnessthought distortionperceptionBuddhist fettersmindfulnessawakeningpresenceself-identity

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main obstacle to spiritual awakening discussed in the video?

The main obstacle is the distorting nature of thought and perception, especially the urge to fix or do something about perceived problems, which creates suffering and blocks direct experience.

How does the speaker describe the role of community in spiritual realization?

The speaker emphasizes the importance of relational mirroring and having a community of awake people and good facilitators to help recognize subtle fixations and support deeper realization.

What is meant by 'the 10th fetter' in the context of this talk?

The 10th fetter refers to the fundamental ignorance or belief that something must be done to fix unsatisfactory experiences, which perpetuates suffering and the illusion of a separate self.

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