How To Get Out Of Your Head: Joseph Goldstein and Sam Harris on Nirvana, Non-Clinging, Non-Duality, and the Best Way to Meditate

34:11Maybe an analogy would help here. So there's this classic analogy, and I'm not even sure it's Buddhist. It may just be Indian, but this classic analogy in the Dharma of mistaking a coiled rope for a snake, right? You see a coiled object in the corner of a room, you glance at it, and you think it's a snake, and then on further inspection, you realize it's a rope. Let's just, for the purposes of this analogy, let's have that realization, that cutting through illusion. That's the duality, non-duality illusion. So it's duality to think it's a snake, and you recognize non-duality when you recognize that it's a rope.

34:43Wait, wait, wait, wait. How does that follow? It's not a perfect analogy. Just go with me for a second here. It's possible to practice in such a way that you still think there's a snake over there, but you have achieved real equanimity about there being a snake over there, right? You're no longer experiencing aversion. You're no longer experiencing desire to get away. You really have a balanced mind, and yet you are still taken in by this underlying illusion that you're in the presence of a snake. and I would say that the same can be done with dualistic mindfulness where you feel like there's this subtle division between subject and object consciousness is arising spontaneously and totally unencumbered by aversion or desire you're noticing impermanence and yet there's this snake again not a perfect analogy but the snake that is present here is this sense of subject object separation The reason why this matters is that it can seem to be self-confirming, right?

35:43And you can maintain this orbit for quite some time, at least in my experience. And yet the clinging is gone. What we're calling clinging in this case is the desire for experience to be any other way than it is, right? You're not pushing the unpleasantness away. You're not grasping at the pleasantness. The emotional tone of what I'm calling clinging, the contraction in the face of unpleasantness and the graspiness in the place of pleasantness, that has been relaxed and yet duality remains. That, in my view, is a problem, a serious problem. The first claim is just that that is possible. Okay. I should have been taking notes because then I could go point by point, but I wasn't.

36:29So, first to say that a lot of what you said I agree with, I don't see actually that much difference with some of the things you said and some of the others not. So there are a few points that I'm remembering from the beginning in terms of your example of, yeah, of course the Buddha is living in the world, right? And seeing, hearing, smelling. So contrasting that to the Theravada view is missing one point of the different ways nirvana is described in Theravada. So one meaning of it is the cessation of the defilement. So the Pali word for defilement or unwholesome states is kalesa. So it's called kalesa nirvana because it's the eradication of the defilement.

37:24The other expression or manifestation of Nibbana is within the tradition, the Theravada tradition, is that experience where the very aggregates of existence are no longer there, which is, in that understanding, is what happens at the death of an Ahant. And so, there is the complete acknowledgement that the enlightened mind, living in the world, can live in the world in nirvana, so to speak, because it's referring to kalesin nirvana. There are no longer any causes in the mind to cause suffering. And so, I'm in total agreement with you that of course the enlightened mind can live freely, completely freely, in the world of conditioned phenomena.

38:19And nirvana just has those two different meanings. So in terms of nirvana and samsara being the same or different, with kalesa nirvana, it's the same in terms of being free, because all the kalesas are absent. But they're not the same in terms of the Skanda nirvana, which is the cessation of all the aggregates. And that's where the big distinction is. But the distinction is with respect to methodology. So in your view, or in the Theravada view, it is necessary to keep experiencing Skanda nirvana in order to ultimately get to Kalesa nirvana. No, no, just the opposite. Exactly the opposite. Well, it actually goes both ways.

39:11But in your view, you need to have the lights-out experience repeatedly in order to uproot the Kalesas so that you can experience Kalesa Nirvana. And the way to get to the lights-out experience is to rest in such equanimity, the mind can enter into it in the first place. Yeah, to rest in equanimity. But this goes to another point of the collapse of the subject-object dichotomy. There are many examples of that aspect of non-duality, that collapse of subject-object distinction within Theravada, both classically and in modern times. So classically, the Bahaya Sutta really expresses it in the scene, just the scene, in the herd, just the herd, in the smells, known just for known.

40:08And it's pointing to the absence of any subject there, of any self as subject. And so it's a very non-dualistic expression of understanding and of the path, of a path of practice. In more modern teachings, a la Joseph, there's one practice which I came to in my own practice, which really was transforming, and you've probably heard me give this little rap, on the passive voice construction. And so, because the way we language things definitely conditions how we experience things. So, if we're languaging things to ourself in the active voice, I'm knowing a sound. the I is built right into there, right?

41:05And so it's going to be reflective very often in how things are experienced, unless there's some counter practice for that. What I found was relanguaging to myself in how I'm experiencing things in the passive voice, which would be sounds being known. In the passive voice, there's no selfish subject. And in fact, I asked ChatGPT, what is the subject in the passive voice? If the eye is not the subject, then what is the subject? And it was really interesting, and it confirmed my understanding. It said that basically the object becomes the subject. So sounds being known, sounds becomes the subject, not the object.

42:01And so when we're experiencing things with that frame, that duality of separate subject and object disappears, and it's just things being known. And the knowing and what's being known are inseparable, and there's no I apart from it. And so the very thing you're talking about, I think, is also found within the Theravada teaching. okay i'm just gonna jump in again because first of all the passive voice practice has been massive for me personally but i want you to articulate exactly why that non-dual experience that one can have by using the passive voice in practice matters well yeah it matters for a lot of the reasons kind of sam mentioned first it's effortless once i frame things in that way it was totally effortless.

42:59I started doing it in walking, but then it could be with anything. And as soon as I got my mind into that linguistic frame, and at first I had to remind myself of it, but at this point it's just automatic, things are being known effortlessly, spontaneously. Sounds, thoughts, and whatever is arising in being known, which metaphysics aside seems to me very resonant with the Dzogchen practice. It doesn't feel that different to me. That's one point. Another point, going to your question or exploring a little bit more your question of why does this matter, for an ordinary practitioner, what's the importance of this?

43:48I think it's important to ask, what is the cause of suffering that non-duality teachings, in the way you're describing, Sam, addresses? Because, okay, I'm going to throw this in. It's something, somebody just told me this. And I've come across it in different writings by Kensei Rinpoche also, who's a great Tibetan master. But Sokny Rinpoche, who's a contemporary Sokny Rinpoche, who's a contemporary Sokny Rinpoche, teacher, he was giving the retreat. I wasn't at the retreat, so this is somebody who was there told me about this exchange. This is either better or worse than Chachi-PT in terms of its authenticity.

44:33If it was just that, I might have that degree of skepticism, but it reinforced what I've read very often. In fact, I think I sent this to you, sir. Although I have one email in my draft folder that I never sent to you. So what I'm about to say might be in that email I never sent, where Kenzi Rinpoche says, in awareness, there's no clinging. And if there's clinging, it's not awareness. And so what Sokni Rinpoche said, as I heard it, you know, secondhand, he was asking the student on the retreat, well, why is Rikpa important? That would be a reasonable question. and they gave various answers and he ended up saying no it's none of what you're saying it's because in rikpa there's non-clinging and so i think it has a more essential part of the zhōchen teachings than you give credit for sam before you get into whatever ancient tit for tat you're tempted to get into.

45:40I will get back to it, but I want to stay with the why does this matter for a second? Because Joseph, I don't think you really answered the question. On a very basic level, the ability to be aware of whatever's arising in our mind, especially if it's provoking unhappiness or suffering, without claiming it as ours, or even claiming the awareness of the thing as ours, is inherently and deeply freeing. Am I going in the right direction? And if so, can you just say a little bit more about that before I let Sam come in and do whatever violence he's going to do? Okay. So one of the problems may be, I mean, one thing I have to thank you for, Sam, is all your comments do inspire a lot of reflection.

46:29Makes me think about these things more than I probably would otherwise. So in some way, we're talking, or I've been talking about clinging as the cause of suffering, and therefore it's experiences of non-clinging, which is the end of suffering. However, in a technical sense, clinging has one very kind of specific connotation. There are other qualities in the mind that also are creative of suffering, that express a slightly different aspect. So, for a few examples, the quality in the mind of, in Pali, the term used is mana, it's translated as conceit. But conceit in this sense, the fundamental meaning of it is the feeling or sense of I am.

47:25In a wide variety, we could think of it as I am over time. You know, I was this in the past, I'll be doing this in the future. If there's some sense of an I am in there, that's conceit and that's a contraction. That's a source of suffering. So technically, conceit and clinging are two different things. But when I refer to non-clinging, I'm really talking about it not so much in the technical Abhidama definition, which is a very specific way of relating to things. I'm including in it things like clinging, desire, grasping, conceit to anything. but conceit is the I am wrong view is the belief in a self craving is the sense of this belongs to me I think we can add one more piece which seems to be related here I mean you can talk about it separately but it does seem to be attached to the same erroneous cognition which is identification with thought the sense that this thought is me so Joseph you've just stumbled upon I think the core truth of Dzogchen, which in my view, the only real difference between clinging and non-clinging that you need to consider is the difference between duality and non-duality, right?

48:53I mean, it's cutting through dualistic clinging. It's cutting through dualistic fixation, to use the common Dzogchen phrase, that unties all these knots. This is what Kenshin Rinpoche was saying. If he did in fact say that, if it's awareness, there's no clinging. If there's clinging, this non-awareness, meaning Rigpa, meaning non-dual awareness. If you're cutting through the knot of dualism, untangles all these things, and I'm glad you brought in mana, conceit, because that's just another shading of the same illusion, which is the sense of, I am the same subject that was here a moment ago or last year.

49:30This is why it's a little question begging to say it's all a matter of clinging without really defining what you mean by clinging. From the Dzogchen side, the root clinging really is in this subject-object dichotomy that is cut through in recognizing Rigpa. And then all of this is resolved. And it is from that view and in that experience, an experience of what you're calling Kalesa Nibbana. This is where some of the paradoxes of the Vajrayana view also come in. And that's true even in the presence of Kalesa, right? So let's say you feel a moment of anger, right? Or aversion, which testifies to your own enlightenment, certainly from the Theravada view.

50:17But that moment of anger recognized becomes the same non-dual openness and emptiness and great perfection. and the crucial bit is that that's true even before the physiology of anger has dissipated. You know, these weird tantric phrases you meet in Vajrayana teaching, like, you know, anger dawns as wisdom. How is that anything other than just weird PR for this hierarchical view? It's empirically true when you can experience it, when your mindfulness is such that you're recognizing anger as a mere expression of the totality of emptiness from a non-dual point of view. What I would argue, and this is why it matters, Dan, is that it's possible to practice in a dualistic way such that you're noticing anger mindfully, and your mindfulness then appears to be this sort of remedial, provisional, gradually cultivating practice, which is not revealing to you in that moment the utter freedom that is compatible with emptiness and non-dual recognition.

51:30What it's revealing to you is this sort of, this yet another moment of kind of balanced mediocrity. It's a vigil. The vigil continues. You're still waiting to get somewhere. even as you're balancing the factors of equanimity. And this is the crucial bit for me, Joseph, is that either a moment of mindfulness is good enough or it isn't, right? And you can't fake it. You can hope it's good enough. You can wish it was good enough. But the question is, is it really good enough? Is it really a moment of freedom? Or are you still waiting on some subtle level for your experience to change, to become enlightened?

52:13to get somewhere. And so my question to you is, why isn't Kalesa Nibbana good enough? Like if Kalesa Nibbana is really available in the next moment, I mean, you might doubt whether it is, but if you agree that it is, if your passive voice gets you to a recognizable experience of Kalesa Nibbana, wherein you don't find the evidence of your unenlightenment, even in the presence of anger that just arose the moment before, and now it's just this inscrutably empty display of energy, why isn't it good enough to experience Kalesa Nibbana in that next moment? Can you summarize that question, Dan? I think what he's saying is that most of us practice mindfulness, or many of us practice mindfulness in a way where anger might arise and we feel like the subject, the point of awareness witnessing this anger separate from us in our consciousness in some way.

53:11And we might be able to reduce our suffering by breaking or by putting the anger through a cheese grater, you know, like seeing that it manifests as rumbling in the chest, redness in the ears, starburst of self-righteous thoughts. And no longer being identified with the thoughts that were making you angry correct but that is missing a crucial non-dual piece which is to see that by separating yourself out and viewing it dualistically you are missing an aspect of freedom that is not available in the way he's saying you teach joseph as opposed to the way he teaches how'd i do sam I wouldn't have put that final invidious flourish on it, but you could take that as implied.

54:00Yeah. The only other thing I would add is that you're condemned for that to be so. I mean, everyone has to start where they start, right? And basically everyone starts from a dualistic place where they feel like they're a subject having to learn to meditate and they want to get somewhere and they're suffering. And so the dualism and the seeking and the distance of the goal is all implied by the very structure of the practice in the beginning, the unique capacity of a non-dual insight is that it obviates all of that, then you can then practice the goal. So there's no distance between you and the goal.

54:34And if there is a distance, if there's a seeming distance between you and the goal, that's just the way things seem. And then you are condemned to feel that way about each moment of awareness.

54:47Coming up, Joseph and Sam talk about the Bahia Sutta and what it means to really see and hear without a knee behind the experience, whether freedom is something you can touch right now or only after years of practice, and why different Buddhist traditions disagree on what the ultimate goal even is.

55:13Just to put a fine point out, the goal in this context is back to this Bahiya Sutta that Joseph referenced earlier, which is a classic, just for the listener who might not remember it, is something the Buddha is said to have said in a so-called sutta, which is a teaching of the Buddha in the classical texts, where some guy named Bahia asked him about the nature of freedom. And he said something like, in the seeing is just the seen, in the hearing is just the heard. So with the anger, it's just, there's no me witnessing my anger. It's just anger angering. And there's enormous amount of freedom in that because you don't need to take it so personally.

55:55Well, even anger, anger isn't even anger at that point, really. I mean, again, it's just a display of awareness or emptiness, depending on how you want to describe it. Let's not open the door to the crazy wisdom teachings and all the dysfunction that follows thereupon in Vajrayana Buddhism. I'm not recommending that people not view anger as something to be avoided or mitigated, etc. All of that's fine as a matter of practice. I'm just saying that either a moment of mindfulness really delivers the goods of freedom, no matter what's happening, or it doesn't. Or it's a method that you're applying to an otherwise problematic circumstance that is samsara.

56:37In my view, only non-dual mindfulness caches the check of samsara and nirvana are one. right otherwise you're just you might believe that but you're not experiencing that and there's no reason to say that okay so there's so much and so much heresy i hit you with buckets of heresy so that you with your thimble can just try to clean them up first i think it's really important to recognize that the goals are different. And so to use the frame of Dzogchen and non-duality as you're expressing it posits a certain understanding of what nirvana is. Well, it need not, Joseph, it actually need not. We could leave all of the metaphysics and the views aside, I'm just talking about certain experiences are available in the present moment, and you're either having them or not in the present moment.

57:40Yes. So, okay, I think it may have more important implications. I'll leave it aside for the moment. Just as in Dzogchen, where people are given the pointing out instructions and And so they're beginning to practice non-dual awareness. That does not mean that people are actually experiencing it. Again, I think it was Sopni or maybe somebody else, you fake it till you make it. You keep practicing in this way and that way until you finally land at what it really means. but it's not like that understanding is immediately available. There will be some people for whom it is, but I would suggest that it's much rarer than you may believe because it's possible to be approximating what's called Rigpa, but not really.

58:46Okay, so let me just translate that back into my language. So that doesn't really, that's not a counterpoint to anything I would want to say, because in my language, that's just to say that some significant percentage of people try to practice Dzogchen and they fail, or they might say they're practicing it, but they're not. There's an important difference there, and I would totally acknowledge that that's the case. But that's not Dzogchen practice. That's the failure mode of the Dzogchen teachings. Yeah, so I would say the same thing is true of the deeper understanding of mindfulness, and that what you're describing, that people can be practicing mindfulness in a dualistic way, in the way you're talking about, but when you really get down to what mindfulness in its fullness or in its depth means, many people are not practicing that.

59:47They're practicing mindfulness in the same way that people are practicing Dzogchen but haven't really quite landed yet at the essential element of it, and it's the same thing with mindfulness. So, just a few examples of this. People often conflate recognition and mindfulness. So, you're practicing, and to use your example, a moment of anger arises, and we recognize it. Yeah, we could name it, anger, and we're experiencing it in some way. But that recognition is not sufficient. It's necessary, but it's not sufficient. Mindfulness has a deeper dimension to it than just that. And one of the dimensions of it is the mind, in that moment, free of greed and hatred and delusion.

1:00:50So it's just to say that in both practices, there's kind of an entry, you know, a long runway to get to the place where we're actually practicing with the full experience of realization, either of what non-dual awareness is, using that phrase, or what mindfulness is. Because in my experience, mindfulness properly practiced in its fullness is a non-dual practice. Because the non-duality is the freedom from the subject-object dichotomy. That's one of the meanings of non-duality. And that comes at a certain point of understanding and development as expressed in the Baha Yisuta, as expressed in the passive voice construction.

1:01:52But Joseph, you're ignoring all of the dualistic constructions that are even more canonical. I mean, just the fact that consciousness is considered to be this separately arising, impermanent conditioned phenomenon that is known. Not separately arising. Dependently arising. No, dependently arising, but it's separate from the thing that is known, right? So there's the sight and the consciousness that is arising. No, no. Well, there's the object. Consciousness knows its object. Okay. Do you see this? I do. The pad of paper. What is it? This is like the flower for Mahakasapa. So what shape is this?

1:02:32All right. This is, it's a rectangle. Yeah. And it looks gray on your camera. Yeah, okay. Its grayness and its rectangleness are combined in the same. Exactly. They're inseparable. The color has a shape and the shape has a color, but they're inseparable. It's that understanding. If you're highlighting the color or the shape, it will seem dualistic. If you're highlighting the inseparability, it's non-dual. and same thing with consciousness the knowing and an object are inseparable the crucial difference from my point of view as just a matter of practice and a matter of kind of psychological well-being is is the experience of mindfulness drawn right out of the bahia sutta so in the scene just the scene and the herd just the herd and the cognize just the cognize right so that just this kind of radical evaporation of a sense that there is one who's doing anything or being mindful.

1:03:35Is that synonymous with every moment of mindfulness, even the off retreat in one's ordinary life? Or is that some sort of peak experience that one achieves only by virtue of real continuity and stability and equanimity along the progress of insight far out there, sort of on the map? Can I answer that one, Joseph, as your student? Yes. This I can say with a kind of definitive tone. The passive voice practice can be done anytime, anywhere, whether you're meditating or not, no matter how strong your concentration is. For context, Sam referenced this earlier, but one of his historical beefs with the way Joseph teaches is that there's an aspect of you have to do this hard work, as Sam said before, like schlep up from the base of the mountain to the peak, at which point maybe you have a nirvana experience where the lights go out.

1:04:33But the passive voice practice is something you can do right here, right now. And if it's frustrating because some people, it doesn't click. But just for me, for example, it was just immediately obvious. I'm walking down the hallway and things are being seen. Well, seen by what? And if you look for it, you won't find anything. And it's right there. It's immediate. It's not dependent upon spending seven days on retreat. Okay. Obviously, I'm not going to doubt any of that because consciousness simply is this way and can be recognized this way. And if the passive voice technique works for you, well, then great.

1:05:14But again, the sticking point for me is that the metaphysical view dictates a certain logic of the practice, right? And it is possible to practice by a certain logic and with a certain view. It might all be happening in the background all the time. It may never be explicit, but you don't wake up in the morning on your 17th day of a three-month retreat thinking again about the metaphysical view and thinking again about the, just being mindful. But the question is, what is available for you to notice in each moment of mindfulness? And if it's just non-dual suchness, then that's a certain experience.

1:05:52But if it's just more impermanence from this subtle point of view of kind of trying to build concentration and trying to get somewhere, it's a different experience. And it is a self-confirming experience. Again, you can have the experience where this is, that's all there is to notice. And what I'm saying is that that can extend to a very high level of concentration and continuity and real feelings of subjective freedom and equanimity. In my experience, what's unique about the non-dual approach is that, again, not everyone can practice it, not everyone has enough mindfulness to be successfully introduced to it, but if it works for you, what is revealed is that even in just the most ordinary moment of consciousness, the radical freedom of subject-object delusion is available.

1:06:44Nothing has to change. It doesn't matter what happened a moment ago. And I would grant you, yes, that once you've recognized that, the passive voice is as good an indication as any to recognize that again. But until you've recognized that, it's very easy to feel that samsara and nirvana are radically different. And you wouldn't even know what to make of the claim that they're the same thing. Okay. Okay. So, what is the basis of the subject-object distinction? The basis of it is an identification with consciousness as being self. It's identifying with consciousness, and that's what creates the that's what creates the separation.

1:07:35The practice of Vipassana, it obviously is taught in many different ways, but I just want to reiterate, kind of Dan's in my point, that there are ways of practicing mindfulness that brings you immediately to the non-identification with consciousness because of how we're conceiving it. And that's where the passive voice... But again, in your view, or in the Theravada view, consciousness isn't good enough, really. No, okay, so this is the second point I was going to make. And here's where the difference in the view of nirvana is important. It's not just a philosophic distinction. because in the Zhou Chen practice, as I understand it, we practice until this non-dual awareness is stabilized and that it's the recognition of the nature of that mind, which is the union of clarity and emptiness.

1:08:47so that just becomes the understanding of the fields in which life is taking place and that is seen as the end point but again there is a slight you have to hold that pretty lightly because it really is from the point of view of Dzogchen it's not as heavy-handed as the Advaita tradition with you people like you know Poonjooji or Nisargadatta Maharaj where they just castigate any efforts at meditation as being part of the illusion, right? I know also there's some Zen teachers who have done similar, but it goes halfway there, which is to say that you're not meditating on anything. I mean, that's why they call it non-meditation.

1:09:28I mean, they're very alert to the problem of trying to make it a practice, which is a natural way of misunderstanding what there is to notice, right? So you're not cultivating this thing. You're not trying to improve it. You're not using it as a tool. It's not a method. The path thereafter is not to overlook the way things already are, right? Like leave it as it is, right? So - I understand all that. And that's not the point I'm making. Okay, but 99.9 % of ordinary mindfulness practitioners, I would say don't understand all that. Okay, well, I'm in the exalted 1%. That's my point. Yes, I know you to be.

1:10:09So, but that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that the end goal is different. And because it's different... What do you mean the end goal? Arhanship versus Buddhahood, or what are you talking about? What I'm talking about is Rigpan, the union, the inseparability of clarity, which is awareness and emptiness, that is the endpoint. What's the other endpoint and why have another endpoint is my question to you. Because the endpoint from the Theravada perspective, they would see that as still conditioned phenomena. And I'm not arguing for one or the other. I'm just saying they are different understandings of the endpoint.

1:10:59And for Zhou Chen, that's the endpoint. And for Theravada understanding of the endpoint, it's the cessation of all of awareness itself. This brings us back to where we started, because what is the pragmatic difference if you're resting in the non-dual condition of mindfulness without clinging to anything, including the sense of self? why isn't that a sufficient even from the Theravada point of view if it's just conditioned phenomenon why isn't that a sufficient holding pattern awaiting the Skanda Nibbana that you still subtly hope is going to happen at some point in the future because that I mean it's equanimity right it's non-distraction and it's equanimity what is lacking from your point of view as a matter of practice.

1:11:52Let's say Mahasi Saida is right about everything, and you've got to rub two sticks together fervently to make fire. Why isn't just resting in non-dual awareness of everything as it arises without clinging this mindfulness sufficient unto the path of the progress of insight? It could be, but it depends on the understanding one has. And I think here, kind of the metaphysical basis has some relevance. If one has the view that this is the ultimate reality, then there's no either interest or elements in the mind which will be open to the cessation of it all. and this is borne out in the different practitioners in the different traditions.

1:12:53What do you mean? Say more about that. What do you mean it's borne out? Well, I think for Tibetan practitioners, cessation of it all is not even on the table. I mean, they think it's delusion, you know, and they think it's a dead end and a black hole. And I mean, they don't talk about it at all. It's not even... Well, that's why I feel like this matters. The metaphysics matters because it is self-confirming. But on both sides, it's self-confirming. Yeah, but from the other side, I think it's possible to practice in the kind of Mahasi way and have your repeated cessation experiences and still not know how to practice Dzogchen.

1:13:33That's the problem I see, right? Non-dual mindfulness is still not available even after stream entry or it's intermittently available, right? No, I think it's as available to one of those practitioners as to Dzogchen practice. Well, no, it's not because Dzogchen is synonymous with non-dual mindfulness. If you're not practicing non-dual mindfulness, you're not practicing Dzogchen. I'm saying that from the Theravada side, obviously you can practice mindfulness, not really emphasizing the non-duality of it because all the language, all the concepts, just what you did to Dzogchen, you said it's obvious that cessation is not important to these guys because they don't talk about it.

1:14:12And when you ask them about it, they roll their eyes and say, get off that. There's more important things to talk about. I'll grant you that that's the view. But conversely, within the Theravada tradition, certainly within the Burmese tradition of Theravada, there's a resolutely dualistic view if you want to find one. And what you've added to it with passive voice, etc., and other kind of Zen and Dzogchen vibe shifts is great for your students, but it does not discount the fact that it's possible to be a pure Theravada practitioner for whom all this non-duality talk doesn't make a lot of sense.

1:14:52If one acknowledges that the endpoints are different, with respect to the Theravada view, there are many ways to the endpoint. And non-dual awareness, which I think comes automatically in the course of practice, and you may disagree with that, but it's my sense of that understanding because that non-duality is really just an expression of non-self. There's no self as subject, and that insight reveals itself very clearly at a certain point in vocabularies in practice and is there. But within the Theravada tradition, there are other means for reaching the final goal than emphasizing specifically non-duality.

1:15:49And that's why I think that there is a commonality up to a certain point, and then there's a divergence because the endpoints are different. In Dzogchen, there's a very direct pointing to and experience of the endpoint. In Theravada, it's not that. So there's a real difference there. The difference is because the endpoint is different. And so it's just, again, not to claim one is better or worse or superior or not. it's to see, okay, what's the end point and what is one's own aspiration? And people will have different aspirations. And so then they connect with the practice that supports whatever final goal they're aspiring to.

1:16:45Well, first of all, I don't think most people or really virtually anyone is motivated by a abstract conception of an end point that may or may not be attractive to them. It's not that people are shopping for descriptions of the goal and then are finding a ton of motivation based on their favorite flavor of the goal as articulated by one tradition or another. It's much more the case that virtually everyone starts with this very compelling sense that they have a self and that that's a problem, right? And then the question is, what do you do from that starting point? And the immense power of Vipassana, Theravada Vipassana, is that you can offer that person, that confused and suffering person, a practice that is totally straightforward and non-paradoxical, and it's just, here, do this, right?

1:17:40I understand where you're stuck. I understand how things seem to you. there's a few things you should notice right now. Like for instance, you're just spending all your time lost in thought and you're so lost in thought you can't even notice that. So here, pay attention to the breath and see if you can do that. And notice how hard it is to do that. And now as you begin to train in that and begin to notice things, notice a few other things, notice impermanence and notice how everything's impermanent. Notice how you're getting a little more concentrated. And again, you can walk up from the bottom of the mountain here or seem to in a way that is not confusing.

1:18:13It's not easy. It can take years and years and years and can be very frustrating, et cetera, et cetera. But it's not paradoxical. It's not Zen. It's not Dzogchen. It's not Advaita. It's not you're already free. It's not samsara nirvana or one. It's not you can't polish a brick into a mirror. It's not show me your mind and I'll pacify it. It's none of that highfalutin bullshit. It's like going to the gym to get muscles, right? You got a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the wall. He did it. He's going to tell you how to do it. Just start lifting heavier objects, right? Eat more protein, lift heavy things, non-paradoxical.

1:18:50That is its immense strength, but that is also its weakness. The weakness is it can keep someone feeling like they've got a problem to solve. Now they know how to solve it. That can endure for a very, very long time. And what I'm saying is that, in my experience, there is a shift that is available in how one experiences mindfulness, where mindfulness no longer becomes a practice, no longer becomes a style of meditation, it no longer becomes a remedy for this apparent problem of clinging or selfhood or suffering, or it becomes a recognition of a prior condition, which is always already the case, which is just non-dual awareness or emptiness or whatever you want to call it.

1:19:39And it's available now, always already, and it need not be snuck up on by virtue of any other sustained practice. It can just be recognized as just the ordinary state of consciousness in any present moment. So advice to the listener is that this can be a very frustrating thing to hear and trying to make your experience of mindfulness non-dual can be frustrating. And all the teachings around that, many of which can be found over the Waking Up app or in Dzogchen teaching or Vita teaching, I mean, there's different flavors of methodology in talking around this liminal moment of how dualistic mindfulness becomes non-dualistic mindfulness.

1:20:24There is a difference there to be discovered. And on some level, I would say you shouldn't be satisfied until you're satisfied. Use that frustration as a key to further inquiry. And I would say that that frustration bears witness to this predicament, which is it is possible to practice dualistically for a very long time. And the frustration of that occasion is built in to the circumstance because on some level, though you might want to encourage a very different vibe, the vibe is a kind of a superficial change in attitude. it doesn't really give you the freedom you're looking for until it does.

1:21:05It's perhaps a bitter pill to swallow, but I would counsel honesty around the frustration, honesty around the insufficiency of mindfulness if it feels insufficient. Everyone has to start somewhere. I'm not saying you don't start with dualistic mindfulness as virtually everyone does. Of course you do. It is the only preliminary practice to dualistic mindfulness. But I just think that it's appropriate to be frustrated if you still feel like you're working on a problem when you're meditating, when you're paying attention to the present moment. Joseph, just in closing here, let's go back to your passive voice.

1:21:48I have heard from so many people who show up at my events and their subscribers, you know, I often will teach, give you full credit, this practice of, you know, I'll do some sort of stabilization, concentration practice, like loving kindness or focus on the breath. And then I'll open up to open awareness with the passive voice in there. And I hear from a lot of people, like, I don't get it. And so I'm just curious, what's your advice to them? My advice generally is just keep knocking at the door generally, and you might see something interesting over time, but don't get too sweaty about it. Just keep trying it gingerly and persistently.

1:22:27Would you agree with that? And what else would you add? I think that's good advice. And there are also a lot of other approaches. Everything we're discussing is really a skillful means. And just so that he kind of in my closing argument. So the teachings, the Theravada teachings, but I think this is true across all Buddhist traditions, or at least most of them, but certainly Dzogchen included. There's one sutta in which it says, nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine. Whoever understands this, realizes this, practices this, has realized all the teachings. So if we understand the I, an attachment to the I in one form or another, as being the basis of dualism, that separation of subject and object, right embedded in the Theravada teachings.

1:23:31It's just this very clear statement. In whatever way one is identified with awareness or knowing, that's a problem. And so nothing whatsoever is to be clung to or adhered to, as Ayuramun is just the essence of it all. What I'm suggesting is that there are many ways to come and realize that. And at different levels of realization, and just as Sam said, in Dzogchen and in Vipassana, There's a lot of practice one has to do to really fully embody that understanding. One thing that I think sometimes you don't acknowledge, Sam, is that even within classical Zocen teachings, there are a lot of different practices which are supportive for that non-dual awareness, you know, which is the essence of the pointing out, to not acknowledge that they are actually a necessary part of reaping the benefits of the non-dual awareness.

1:24:52Because unless there's the capacity in the mind, and its qualities like mindfulness and like concentration, how often somebody without any of that background, without any of those qualities of mind, I think it would be extremely rare for people to actually remain or even remember non-dual awareness in the busyness of their lives. One example, and this is something I love from Dujam Rinpoche, great Zhou Chen master, when he talked about the undercurrent of thoughts, not the big dramatic thoughts, but just kind of a pretty steady stream of very light thoughts going through the mind throughout the day that we are mostly unaware of.

1:25:53And he called these the thieves of meditation, the thieves of non-dual meditation. So for somebody who has not developed the capacity through mindfulness and some steadiness of mind, there is no way they're going to be aware of this undercurrent of thought. and it's very prevalent. And in all of those moments of undercurrent, which are not being recognized because they're very subtle, very light, people are not in non-dual awareness. They are lost in those thoughts. And so what I'm suggesting is that I have a tremendous appreciation for kind of the Zocan teachings, you know, and I benefit a lot from them.

1:26:44They don't exist independent of all these supportive practices which make that aspect possible for people to really integrate in their lives. And so in just the same way, a lot of the Vipassana practice, what we call Vipassana practice, in the beginning, and the beginning can be a while, it is the development of a lot of these supportive practices. And there's a Dzogchen, I think Tilka Orkhe talked about this, and it's probably in the Dzogchen texts, where they talk about fabricated and unfabricated mindfulness. And fabricated is kind of what you're suggesting, I think, characterizes Vipassana, where there has to be kind of some effort made.

1:27:39And unfabricated mindfulness, where it's just there. There's no effort required. Well, in Vipassana, there's also that move from fabricated to unfabricated mindfulness. Okay, so that's being said. then I agree with you that there can be subtle dualistic perceptions, just like the undercurrent of thought that mostly go unrecognized, whether one's practicing Dzogchen or Vipassana. There are some really subtle, they're called cognitive distortions, and they're really explained quite definitively, although it can be a little difficult to unpack, in the very first discourse of the Middle End Saints, where the Buddha is acknowledging and pointing out these very subtle cognitive distortions that may be unrecognized.

1:28:43So I agree with you that that can be there, but they are also addressed within the Theravada tradition, and one does have to penetrate through them. So I would suggest something to the listeners. Yeah. Acknowledging that we've been having these discussions for years, and sometimes with different flavors and this and that. What I would suggest is in whatever has been heard, any thread of any of it that seems of interest, just to pursue that thread. You don't have to kind of hold it all and try to figure out right and wrong. And if there's something in what was said that was helpful for the practice to relieve suffering in some way, go for it.

1:29:37I mean, just explore and see where it leads. I like that. Joseph and Sam, thank you both. Appreciate you. Thank you, Dan. Until next time, Joseph. Okay. My seconds will call on your seconds.

1:29:56Thanks again to Joseph and Sam. I hope you all found it useful. I certainly did. Although that was the first time I've ever in the recording of a podcast put my head down on my desk. Don't forget, you can get a companion meditation that comes with this podcast if you sign up over at DanHarris.com. Our Teacher of the Month, Christiana Wolf, has crafted a meditation all about urge surfing or not being owned by your urges, both on the cushion and off. If you sign up, you can also come to our weekly live meditation and Q &A sessions. We do them every Tuesday at 4. And as mentioned in the intro, I've got an IRL event coming up on November 23rd in the Hudson Valley.

1:30:37There's a link in the show notes. Finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.