The Art of Awareness

From “Mind Beyond Death” – Dzogchen Ponlop

Our Awareness of the Present “Now”

What is awareness? It is simply a state of mind that is not distracted from the present moment.

Regardless of our outer circumstances or inner state of mind, if we are present within the very experience of nowness, if we are fully experiencing the moment, then that is nondistraction. That is awareness. That is meditation. Thus, awareness, nondistraction and meditation are one and the same.

What we call “life” and “death” are simply concepts—relative designations that are attributed to a continuous state of being, an indestructible awareness that is birthless and deathless.

From one perspective, bardo is an experience of a certain duration of time, marked by a clear beginning, a sense of continuity and distinct end. The duration of that interval may be as short as a finger snap, or it may be much longer, such as the duration of time between birth and death, or between birth and the achievement of enlightenment. Therefore, bardo refers to a moment of experience—no matter how long that moment is.

The essence of bardo is discovered in the experience of nowness, in the gap between the cessation of one moment and the arising of the next. That essence is nothing other than the self-aware wisdom that is the fundamental nature of our own mind. 

Every living being possesses this naked awareness of the present moment. It is naturally present within the mindstreams of all beings. To experience this nature of mind, you do not need to fulfill any prerequisites. You do not need any special training. You do not need to be initiated into any form of religion. You do not need to be a scholar, a great meditator, a great logician or philosopher. The pure awareness that is the essence of the present moment of our consciousness is free from all such labels and concepts—whether philosophical or religious. There is no question of whether or not we possess this awareness. The question is simply, do we recognize it?

If we can simply watch our minds and observe the arising of our thoughts and emotions, then recognition of the nature of mind will arise naturally.

Our Minds exist Not in the Future, Nor in the Past

If our thoughts dwell incessantly on the future, it is like cooking meal after meal but never eating a single dish. It is as though our hunger and thirst are so great that we are driven by fear to stockpile food and drink. We put bottles of soda in the refrigerator and cans of food on our shelves, but we never eat or drink because these supplies are for our future hunger, our future thirst. 

But if we dwell a lot on the past, and try to relive a former experience, we are not actually reliving the same event. Each time we recall it, it is a slightly different experience. Why? Each experience differs because the environment of our mind is always different. Our experience is affected by the thought that we had immediately before, as well as by the thought that is going to arise next. Thus, our recollection of the past is necessarily distorted.

If you think about it, why do we call memories “the past”? After all, each thought occurs in the present. What we are experiencing now is new.

We have emerged from the past and we have not yet projected the future. When we can relate directly to the present moment in this way, it is a very subtle, profound and powerful experience. From this point of view, death is taking place in every moment. Every moment ceases, and that is the death of that moment. Another moment arises, and that is the birth of the next moment.

That is how we understand the bardo. We feel that we are neither here nor there, neither in the past nor in the future. We have the experience of being nowhere. There is a sense of groundlessness, of having no solid ground on which to stand; yet there we are. Being in that space is a somewhat mysterious experience. It is also the experience of bardo.

When we speak about nowness, we are not talking about anything external, so we should not look for it outside. We should look directly at the space of our immediate experience, which is always right in front of us—the space that is neither yours nor mine, neither theirs nor ours. That “in-between” space is the bardo.

It’s OK to be Different and Learn Your Own Way. Everbody Already Has.

When we look back into the history of the Buddhist lineage, all of the teachers of the past give us this message. They all practiced individually, and had extremely different styles and personalities, yet they all achieved the same enlightenment. Why can’t we achieve the same goal by doing it our own way in this century? 

We are the ones who have to keep looking at our thoughts, looking for the nature of our mind. There is no guru, deity, buddha or bodhisattva out there to look for it for us. Although they would happily do this, it would not help us; it would only help them. We have to do it for ourselves. That is the key point.