April 15, 2002 Monday, Private Session

Q&A on Pali Vijja vs. Tibetan Rigpa; Space Between Objects, Variety of Paths and Practices Toward Liberation

Barbara and Aaron with Ajahn S, Ajahn T and Venerable N

Barbara: Ajahn T showed me some questions and then you withdrew some. Aaron kind of chuckled and said anything you want to ask is fine, no problem. He’s not offended by any sincere question.

Q: Is Aaron here?

Barbara: I’d prefer he answer, but first, let me say just a little about the process of channeling…There are two different kinds of channeling: one is trance channeling in which the spirit is using the vocal chords and talking through the channel; it may sound like a different accent and a totally different voice. Second is what is called conscious channeling, which is what I do. Aaron hands me a thought. It’s hard to explain that phrase. It is not so much in language as a thought. It’s not just a visual image either. If I held up that (holding a blue glass of water) to you, offering it to you, and spoke a different language, I didn’t know the word in your language for blue, or bottle or water or give but I held it up – the whole image of it would convey the meaning. But it’s not just a visual image it’s beyond that. So I frame it into words as best I can. Mostly he’s satisfied with my choice of words. If he’s not, he says, “Please rephrase that.” Sometimes (laughing) I use a word like “stuff” and he says, “That was rather inelegant. Please rephrase it.” When I channel, I’m in a light trance state. I’m tuned into him, receive his thought and say it. I can also paraphrase him, where I am in a lighter trance, eyes open and able to see and lip-read also. The channeling may not be quite as clear then.

Aaron: I am Aaron. My greetings and deepest regards to each of you. It is an honor and joy to speak with you. You ask am I here? What is here? Are you asking me if I am present now in this time continuum? Time is an illusion. Space is an illusion. Where else would I be, but here? Where else is there?

Barbara: Aaron’s is laughing. Now I am paraphrasing him. He’s saying, yes, he’s here. He says right next to the ultimate level where he can ask, “Where else would I be?” Is the relative level in which his attention is drawn to this circle of this moment? So in that way he is here too.

My experience is of his constant presence, regardless of whether he’s speaking. It’s a very non-invasive presence. It’s much like sitting in a room with a friend. Each of you is reading a book. You feel your friend’s energy across the room. You never talk to each other. You don’t need to intrude on the other but there is a sense that the other is present. Then if a question comes up, I can reach out and ask it. Very seldom he intrudes his own thoughts but almost never unless I ask.

Ajahn S: We had a question concerning pure awareness, talking with Barbara and Aj. T yesterday. We were looking at where the word rigpa is used and we were trying to find in the Pali Sutras something that would correspond to that word. We found the word vijja, but not a literal representation of rigpa. The way the word vijja occurs in the sutras seems to be different from the way rigpa is used. That is, rigpa is something that one can rest in, is always present. Vijja seems to occur as a breakthrough, as suddenly, a realization occurs, something associated with an ariyan realization rather than a place one can rest in. It seems to be more like a moment of insight into the Four Noble Truths. So our question is around this. We’d like to hear any thoughts or advice Aaron has on this particular point.

Aaron: I think you are right; they’re different. Different languages give people the ability to articulate things that are not present in other languages. For example, in English – we have different words for heart and mind. But in many Asian languages there is just one word for heart and mind, so people there don’t get into so much duality about heart and brain. They understand that the brain is simply an organ and that the heart and mind are one and the same. But in English, the language creates distinction and confusion.

Different traditions that have opened to the Dhamma have merged the Dhamma with their own particular language and way of saying things. In the Theravada tradition, so much of the focus is on presence and attention to the whole nature and process of arising and dissolution, the whole nature of the conditioned realm, seeing how it is impermanent and not self.

This is not quite like the “figure/ ground” model where one attends equally to both the conditioned and Unconditioned realms without creating any duality. An example: look at the fingers held in front of the face; wriggle them. One can watch the fingers forever and not see the space between them. The fingers can wriggle in front of your face and yet, if you switch your perspective, you can clearly see through them. The fingers don’t go away, they are still wriggling.

The Theravada model of practice and especially the model supported by the commentaries is one of observing the fingers until the fingers seem to dissolve and the background appears. There is clear awareness of the background and the ability to move into and investigate that background but at first not so much ability to see the relationship between the fingers and the background. That comes later. First one must lose the fingers. That relationship becomes clear only after one has deeply understood the nature of the background. Resting in the background, deeply aware of the Unconditioned, at first one forgets the fingers.

The Tibetan practices note the relationship between the fingers and the background – between the object and the space – thus they have not created a separate object of the space. I understand that in dzogchen the space can also become a separate object but this, of course, is incorrect practice. One notes the totality of the conditioned object and the space out of which it arises and into which it dissolves, and sees the impermanence and permanence, the conditioned and Unconditioned, simultaneously. If the space becomes a separate object, one must look to the space around the space, finally coming to the realization of “no-thingness” or “suchness”.

The Tibetan system has emphasized the relationship between these conditioned objects that arise and fall away, arise and fall away, until the separation between ground and figure disappears. So one comes to the experience of resting in rigpa, and while resting in rigpa the whole conditioned world is there at play. It doesn’t create any ripple of disturbance in the energy field – there is nothing there but the Unconditioned expressing itself as object and then the object falling away.

So I don’t think there is any clear word in Pali. We can see that vijja still is mundane citta whereas pure awareness is the point at which the lokuttara citta are open. Of course any citta, mundane or lokuttara must still have an object. The object of the lokuttara citta is Nibbana, but just because the lokuttara citta are open does not mean that one is yet holding Nibbana as object. There can still be subtle disturbances in the field. It’s not that Nibbana is anywhere else but here, but one has not yet fully recognized it so both conditions must be met to realize Nibbana: the lokuttara citta be open and one must realize and connect with Nibbana. Perhaps this is a sufficient answer. I would be happy to talk further if you wish.

Barbara: Filled in later, during review: I was looking at this question further and talking to Aaron about it, trying to get at the experiential differences between access concentration, rigpa, and vijja. He says above that vijja is mundane citta but it almost feels like rupa, whereas rigpa is supramundane citta. We discussed the way vijja can be consciousness or object, can be used in either way. Just mentioning it because I find it interesting. Pure awareness cannot be an object. Resting in pure awareness, one can observe vijja and avijja as conditioned rupa.

Ajahn S: It’s very interesting and I would love to explore more, but I have to also take in what you said in order to find if I can formulate another question. I suppose I might say that in the Pali suttas there is so much instruction on handling conditions and this is said to be the Buddha’s teachings—it seems there is a very strong emphasis on handling the conditions. (Laughing) —We go back to handling the conditioned realm.

Aaron: Yes. (Also laughing)

Ajahn S: The emphasis in the suttas seems to be on handling conditions and the Buddha refers to Unconditioned, Nibbana as deathless, but the main emphasis is on the various conditioned elements to be handled and the dharma structures that handle them, such as mindfulness or rapture, so that in the suttas that seems to be the main mode of practice. One hears phrases such as “striving to maintain” very much as holding and developing and pushing away. Then I find a contrast between all that and a teaching that emphasizes spaciousness, no striving, simple presence.

Barbara: Do you find a contrast or a conflict?

Ajahn S: A contrast and a conflict in terms of Upaya (skillful means).

Aaron: The Buddha had a very precise focus, to teach people a path to liberation from suffering. He was not at all interested in metaphysics. He was not interested in beliefs. He was not trying to help people establish some religion. People were suffering. What are the roots of that suffering? Where is freedom to be found? When the defilements arise, there is a fabrication upon the direct experience; then there is some kind of contraction—a whole mind and body dance. Old conditioning arises. There is an experience and the contraction around that experience. We see the arising of grasping, anger, fear, greed, jealousy, and pride. Often there is an increase of these states in the “I shoulds”, “I shouldn’ts”. Judging mind arises; views arise and take hold. Aversion or grasping increase. So his focus was on relating skillfully to these conditioned objects, developing wisdom about the nature of these conditioned objects, together with the deepening of wisdom and of compassion, and to have all of the foundations of spiritual growth, such as sila and concentration, in place and use these as foundation to see where freedom lay.

One first sees that there are certain kinds of mind and body contact. One sees the relationship of mind and body. One sees how one gets pulled into agitation, believing in a solid self, and how suffering grows. And one sees where freedom lies, at least gets a glimpse of that.

When contact and consciousness arise, one sees that with understanding the nature of this arising as conditioned, the mind can even enter into some relationship with that consciousness and yet knows it’s just a thought. The energy doesn’t go out to it, doesn’t create a self around experience. Instead there is simply more compassion—compassion for the being who is angry or afraid—be it this one we call the self or somebody else. At that point there is a degree of freedom in the conditioned realm. The defilements still arise because they are results and the conditions from which they arise have not been resolved, but there is no ripple of disturbance around them when they arise. Wisdom deepens here.

The only way to touch the conditions and resolve them is with full presence, wisdom and compassion. As the sutta says, “In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate; only love dispels hate…” As long as we turn against these arisings, to vilify and objectify them and ourselves, we only increase separation, delusion and suffering.

That degree of equanimity grounded deeply in compassion, in which there is not a ripple of disturbance around arising mind and body states, just presence and attendance, is necessary for access concentration. Here we may take another step toward liberation, toward that place where the defilements cease to arise.

As you have noted, in the Pali canons the Buddha does not talk about the space between objects. He doesn’t say there is no such space. He simply does not point out the space, I think, because it becomes obvious as one moves along. One bumps into the space. I think, as you pointed out during the weekend, he was using what people were already acquainted with and not asking them to be someplace else. The spiritual practices of the time were jhana practice and mindfulness practice (not to the degree of Vipassana but as presence). In that time, people were accustomed to creating an artificial space—a space both of jhana and of a devotion that took them out of the mundane level experience and into something similar to jhana citta through prayer and devotion. So the Buddha’s primary teaching was to come back to his body and mind—not to go out of the body and go someplace else. That’s not where liberation is found. Hence the focus on this here and now, of mind body experience that arose between the spaces people already knew to some extent.

So you’re right—there’s a contrast but I don’t think a contradiction, in these pure awareness teachings. Remember that all of you have matured since those karmic ancestors of 2,500 and more years ago. It’s not that this is a more mature teaching, just a logical progression. I don’t think there is anything necessary but Vipassana. What we are calling pure awareness practice is a progression of vipassana; it just takes a wider range of objects and notes from a deeper space of center. For the people of today’s world, this look into the space between object—first as another object and then breaking through the objectness of it into objectlessness, just resting in the objectlessness—this seems to be helpful to people. It’s vipassana, with a difference of object. If one only saw the background, one must also learn to see the foreground. If one only sees the foreground, one must become aware of the background. Then the difference between the two falls away. This is the needed balance, to rest stably in both places, and then bring them together. As practice deepens in this way, that which we call “pure awareness” or “rigpa” supercedes the prior observer, and duality of subject/ object dissolves. This brings forth the opening of the lokuttara cittas.

First mundane consciousness takes mundane objects. One may move through and discard jhanacitta. As mind settles down and begins to focus on supramundane objects, or at least objects that are expressions of the supramundane, this invites the opening of the lokuttara cittas. I will not go into details here but will be glad to share some previously transcribed thoughts.

So it’s not a matter of right path or wrong path, or even different path, but focus within the path. The basics are still sati, sila, the open heart, and courage as the willingness to stay present with things as they are but also the willingness to let go of that small bit of control that wants to hold an object rather than moving out into the spaciousness of objectless rigpa. This courage is the fruit of right, or balanced effort, motivated by sila and wisdom.

Ajahn S: Thank you. I have no problem with the practices. It’s a matter of trying to line up the differences in the explanations

Aaron: People in India of the Buddha’s day were involved in a devotional practice which allowed a certain degree of letting go—a deepening of the heart. There was a lot more faith. I find people of your culture are very tight in their lives; there is a lot of control, a lot of fear. There are places where people don’t really like to go, especially any place that asks release of control, or spaciousness. People avoid space! This learning to see the space between the objects and rest there while still present with the objects, this can bring a lot of stability, peace and joy without needing to go into jhana.

I agree with you that jhana is not necessary; not only unnecessary, I find, but can be dangerous. People can get very lost in it. People can get lost in rigpa also, but only very briefly, because as soon as you get lost in it, you are no longer there; unlike jhana, where you go deeper and deeper. The awareness that we call resting in rigpa, if it starts grasping at all, you’re no longer there. So, coming to understand pure awareness, to simply rest there, this brings a lot of joy and energy, and also a sense of spaciousness and non-grasping. Only the non-grasping mind can rest in rigpa. It brings the texture of mind that is useful.

There is another reason I teach resting in pure awareness. Let me explain it in this way. When people begin to experience strong dissolution of body and ego, there is often a lot of fear born of the desire to be safe, desire to be control. As you phrased it this weekend, fear’s old conditioning is in the cellular structure of the body. You don’t yet know anything else.

Let us pretend you came from inland and had never seen the sea. We traveled in a helicopter and landed in a fog on the top of a cliff, and I took you to the edge of the cliff where you could hear the surf sounding against the rocks below but you didn’t know what was there. You couldn’t see it—just clouds, misty air—and I said, “Jump.” Can you see the terror of the unknown?

What if we landed on the beach and I took you out swimming? You’re a good swimmer, or you have a life jacket. The surf is hitting the rocks, but not in a dangerous way. You swim out. You feel the swells of the water. You get a clear sense of what’s there. Then I lead you up to the top of the cliff. You can’t see the water where you’ve been, since the fog is still thick. Can you jump? It’s a lot easier isn’t it, when I remind you, “It’s no place but where you’ve been.”?

So resting in rigpa, establishing that—I don’t call it resting in rigpa,, when I teach, nor does Barbara, we just call it resting in awareness, but we differentiate that awareness from consciousness; resting in this pure awareness, resting in spaciousness, one becomes familiar with objectlessness, and by inference, subjectlessness. One understands that “no-self” does not mean awareness disappears! When, in vipassana practice, the ego dissolves, and further, when the lokuttara cittas open, instead of contracting in a fear that calls back the mundane cittas, the yogi can relax there and take the next step, looking around, taking the Unconditioned itself as object.

So there is a lot less fear for the yogi coming to that cliff edge of “emptiness” because there is some familiarity with it. They can watch that which wants to control, can watch fear. Fear is just another object. You see the spaciousness around fear. I am fond of saying, “That which is aware of fear is not afraid.” Be aware of the fear, work skillfully with the fear in the conditioned practices that you know, understand the nature of fear as an object, just sankhara. But also be aware of that which is aware of the fear—rest in that spaciousness simultaneously while you watch the mind and body react to fear. Both are real. So I find it a very helpful teaching for people. It avoids the jhanas. It provides energy, spaciousness, joy and clarity.

Q: Some of the teachers that inspire me are not of a Buddhist background. Do you understand Nibbana as being only accessible through Buddhist teachings, or can it be accessed also through other wisdom traditions?

Aaron: I want to be very careful here. My reply may seem to come dangerously close to the Catholic supposition that only one who is a faithful follower of the church can go to heaven. That is not my intent. And yet there are specific teaching offered through Buddhism that provide a very viable path to Nibbana and which are not nearly so defined in other traditions.

Yes, there certainly are other traditions that have discovered a related path, and there are beings that, because of their kamma, after many lifetimes as a Buddhist and much depth of practice, may take birth in another tradition and find realization. That which has deepened and born fruit in past lifetimes is not lost. To be a Buddha is simply to be awake. The Buddha was not a Buddhist. The Buddha was awake. The components that support such awakening deepen in many ways.

I do not think that one can come to Nibbana without the Eightfold Path, but this balance of sila, panna and samadhi are found in many traditions. The Buddha was the first to articulate it in such a precise way and to make it accessible. In some other traditions it’s more obscure or mystical. Does this answer your question?

Barbara: I’m paraphrasing Aaron. He says people go into various religions because there is something specific within that practice that they need to bring balance. He’s saying that perhaps the heart has been very closed and one moves into a tradition like the Sufi tradition where there is a great deal of joy and devotion, and that helps bring balance to the heart. Because of one’s past kamma, one may find realization and open to Nibbana with that balance established. Or one might bring that open-heartedness back in another birth with more balance in the Buddhist tradition and open to Nibbana and find liberation. But the condition that gave rise to that final result was the balance, however it came.

He says his own feeling is that whatever is helpful, whatever supports ones work, that’s fine. But one must be careful of so-called spiritual materialism and grasping. That can happen whether one stays in one tradition or touches on other traditions’ wisdom as well.

Ajahn T. I have a question. I have a lot of faith in his holiness, the Dalai Lama. He is very inspiring example of a good monk who has deep insight and realization and compassion. I feel some resonance with the Tibetan tradition, but there are a lot of areas within it that confuse me and I don’t understand. I don’t know if it is important, but when the Tibetan people talk about the Tantric teachings being hidden underwater by the Naga serpents during the lifetime of the Buddha, and it was only thousands of years later when someone was able to retrieve the teachings from the Naga serpents underwater, my mind boggles. I don’t know what to do with this information and how to be open to the teachings, when the source of how they have been discovered takes me so far away from the framework which I know in the Theravada school. When I don’t think about it, it’s not a problem. When I try and hold both together, I feel like mind boggles.

Aaron: Before I answer, let me speak of something related. Imagine if all three of you went for a walk with the intention of traveling west, and you came to a river. It’s not too big a river, a few hundred yards across. There is a moderate current. Let us say that it was imperative for you to get across; there’s a forest fire burning on your side of the river. Safety and liberation is on the other side. One of you doesn’t know how to swim at all but here is a good size plank of wood, very sturdy and light, floating on the surface. You see you could hold onto it and just kick and swim your way across. Another of you is a very good swimmer, a strong swimmer. Seeing your friend taking the plank of wood, you take up a second plank of wood and begin to swim across. But the current catches you and pushes you downstream away from your objective. You don’t need the plank of wood. You know how to swim. You let go of the plank and you begin to swim. It’s very simple. Halfway across the current gets heavier and you begin to tire; then you can pick up another stick of wood and rest on it for a while.

Beings have many different abilities, different tendencies, and different kamma. For some, the Tantric teachings are useful. They can use them to go across. For some, they are not useful. That doesn’t mean that the occasional piece of wood as a resting place isn’t helpful. For some the legends about the teachings are helpful. For others they are not helpful and so they can just let them go.

I think you are getting confused, here, thinking that you need to take it all or nothing. Take what’s useful. Ajahn S. spoke the other day of feeling that there was an intact system, that one could not select out of it. You noted they talk about the need for transmission from a Lama, that it is easy to deceive oneself and think that you understood something that is very complex and you don’t really understand it at all. Then you get yourself into a strong whirlpool in that river, get stuck and feel you will drown.

To a certain point, the practitioner must be cautious about this selection of practices seemingly out of context of the tradition, but beyond a certain point, when you understand your strength and your weaknesses, when you have learned to trust your practice, as you three certainly have, to trust your heart, you know what is skillful. If somebody hands you a piece of rotten food, you don’t need to take it into your mouth to find out it isn’t wholesome. Your whole body tells you immediately not to bite. Even if it is a good piece of food, if it is not nourishing for your body, you don’t take it. Why would you need to take Tantra or anything else in the Tibetan system just because it is offered? And yet to not take what is useful is like not taking the piece of wood floating down the river when you’ve reached the middle and you need a small support. To believe, “I said no to the water, so I cannot take this piece. I have committed myself to the path of swimming across,” means to make the passage more difficult than need be. Well, swim if you can. But if you need the wood for a support for a moment, take the wood. If it’s not good, let it go.

Students are arriving and Aaron stops talking.

Ajahn T: I was the one asking that question.

Barbara: He says he feels it is also a question for Aj. S. too.

Q: It’s good to hear.

I’m concerned about the time. It is nearly 7.

Thank you. It was very enjoyable.

Aaron: I have not finished but our time is ended.

I think you know a little of my history. My final liberation from this cycle of samsara was as a Buddhist monk, a Theravada monk in Thailand. When I say “my”, that means simply that energy stream, that being that I was. I don’t have any self-identity with that being. I recognize that this is not only a viable path but it seems to me to be the most viable path. I want to say how deeply I respect that path that you are following. How deep my gratitude is ,that there are still beings walking this path with so much love and care. I honor you, each of you, and thank you.

Barbara: He would like to say also, that if the question has arisen in your mind as to whether he is real, please don’t worry about it. He has no need to be real. If it feels to you like it’s just me, Barbara sitting here with eyes closed and with some delusion, no problem. He says, the question is simply, was anything he shared helpful to you? If it was helpful, use it. Don’t worry too much about where it came from. He says, that this is the kind of question the Buddha cautioned us against getting too caught up in. It doesn’t matter.

Ajahn S: Is any of this real? (Laughter)

Guests depart

While reviewing the transcript, Aaron has asked to complete the answer he began above. He is channeling that answer now as I type.

Aaron: To continue, Ajahn T, your question was about the myths that accompany some of the teachings of other traditions, and not just about the teachings themselves. A serpent had guarded the teaching and now, suddenly it is available, or so it is said. What does one do with that? It is no different than when I offer teaching and you ask, “Who is Aaron?” It does not matter. Is the teaching of value? If so, take it into yourself. If not, let it go.

You say, “The mind boggles.” Does it boggle more at serpent than at a disembodied spirit who speaks dhamma?

Remember that the Buddha offered teachings that were appropriate to his time and place and, while he knew much else, he did not offer that which would only create confusion. If those teachings are helpful now and are available, that is fine. Where they were hidden in the meantime is of no concern. Perhaps there is fear they are not authentic. Antibiotics were not known in the Buddha’s day, so he would not have suggested them as an antidote to illness. Does that mean one may not try them now to see if they assuage the fever? But if they don’t, then leave them be.

I would also be happy to speak to the questions Ajahn S and Venerable N first raised and then refrained from asking, for concern of being disrespectful. It is never disrespectful to ask those questions which arise with sincere interest in seeking truth and supporting wisdom. If you wish to ask these questions, I will be happy to reply.

I thank you again for this opportunity to share the dhamma.

With loving respect, Aaron