THE DALAI LAMA

LOPON TENZIN NAMDAK

LOPON THEKCHOKE
 THE HEALTHY MIND
INTERVIEWS

THE DALAI LAMA

LOPON TENZIN NAMDAK
LOPON THEKCHOKE

Henry M. Vyner, M.D.

Vajra Publications
Kathmandu, Nepal
Published by:
Vajra Publications
Jyatha, Kathmandu
e-mail: [email protected]

© 2007, Henry M. Vyner, M.D. The contents

of this book may not be reproduced, stored
or copied in any form -- printed, electronic,
phtotcopied or otherwise -- except for
excerpts used in reviews, without the written
permission of the author.

ISBN 978-99946-788-8-4

Printed in Nepal
 FOR
PEPPER
&
THE PEOPLE OF
THE INDEPENDENT NATION OF
TIBET
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would once again like to thank Bidur

Dongol of Vajra Books for the idea of doing
the Healthy Mind Interview Series. It has
turned out to be a wonderful way to present
the research we are doing at the Healthy
Mind Institute.
Thank you as well to Shanti and Ram
Krishna Dongol at Dongol Printers for both
their good nature and their collaboration in
designing these books. Thank you to all of
the proofreaders: Robbi Kunkel, Bronwyn
and Kelsang South, Arthur Eaton and Louise
Todd Cope. The book would not have been
right without your help.
Thank you in a very big way to
Yungdrung Gyamtso and Tsewang at the
 * 8 *
Triten Norbutse Bon Monastery, and to
Nyima Woser at the Bon Dialectic School of
the Menri Monastery for providing the cover
photo and for sparing absolutely no effort in
getting the original photo into my hands. A
photo of Lopon Thekchoke does not appear
on the cover of either this volume of The
Healthy Mind Interviews because Lopon
prefers, in the spirit of egolessness, that there
not be a picture of himself on the cover.
Thank you to the folks at Namo Buddha
Pal Thrangu Tashi Choling for providing an
elegant and natural retreat space in which to
finish the writing of this volume.
Most of all, thank you to the three lamas
whose interviews appear in this volume. I
hope everyone learns as much from them as
I have.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Healthy Mind Interviews

21
II. His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Introduction
37
The Dalai Lama Interview:
Compassion, Positive Ego and
The Healthy Mind
47
III. Lopon Tenzin Namdak
Introduction
93
The Trekcho Interview
103
The Self Liberation Interview
135
 * 10 *

IV. Lopon Tegchoke

Introduction
163
A. Nondual Meanings
175
Inner Appearances
Nondual Awareness and Inner Appearances
Predual Meanings: Gzhi Nang
Nondual Meanings: Primordial Wisdom
Pure Appearances
Clarity
B. Nondual Awareness
239
Delusion and Nondual Awareness
The Functions of Rigpa
Rigpa and Identity
Rigpa and Mandala
The Progressive Realization of the
Emptiness of One’s Own Mind
LINGUISTIC NOTES
 LINGUISTIC NOTES

1. The interviews with the Dalai Lama and

Lopon Tenzin Namdak were done in
English, and both of them speak English
that is a bit idiosyncratic. Nonetheless, I
have left their interviews in their original
spoken form because I want you to have
the opportunity to hear their voices as I
heard them. I did, however, make a few
changes where I felt it was necessary to do
so to make a passage readable.
2. All of the spellings of the Tibetan terms in
this volume of The Healthy Mind Interviews
are phonetic spellings. They are not, and
are not meant to be, transliterations of
their Tibetan spellings.
 * 14 *
3. The Tibetan term “yeshe” has a history, in
English translation, of being rendered, for
the most part, as “primordial wisdom.” In
this volume, yeshe is being translated as
“timeless awareness,” which is a
rendering I first found in Richard Bar-
ron’s translations.
At the same time, there are several
different types of yeshe. One of them,
“rangjung yeshe” is being translated here
as “self appearing timeless awareness.” A
second type, day khona nyid togpai yeshe, is
will be translated here as “primordial
wisdom.” Our apologies for any con-
fusion this might cause, but to us it seems
more accurate this way.
4. Gzhi Nang: Gzhi nang is a technical term
in DzogChen mind science, and it is
usually translated into English as an
“appearance of the base.” Gzhi, itself,
which is almost always translated as
 * 15 *
“base,” is usually explained as a
philosophical notion – as the ground of all
existence. As the ground of existence, it
the ground from which all of the
phenomena of samsara and nirvana arise.
Empirically, gzhi is the self awareness
that is the ground from which all of the
phenomena of dual mind (samsara) and
nondual mind (nirvana) arise. When
rigpa is aware of itself as a gzhi nang, it
can have either dual or nondual
awareness of that gzhi nang. Dual self
awareness causes the phenomena of dual
mind to appear, and nondual self
awareness causes the appearance of
nondual mind.
Here is a brief passage from an interview
with Penor Rinpoche, who was until
recently the head lama of the Nyingma
tradtion, in which we discuss several
Buddhist theories of self awareness:
 * 16 *
HMV: It seems to me that there are
three main theories of self awareness in
the history of Buddhist ideas, and I’d
like to ask you some questions about
those theories.
PR: Ok.
HMV: First of all there is the Abhi-
dharma theory of self awareness that
says that self awareness occurs when
one thought remembers a previous
thought. Is this a correct understanding
of the Hinayana Abhidarmic theory of
self awareness?
PR: Yes. But every individual yana has
its own explanation.
HMV: Yes. As I understand it, the
Mahayana theory of self awareness is
the Yogacara theory, which says that
self awareness occurs when a single
shespa, or moment of consciousness, is
aware of itself.
 * 17 *
PR: Yes that’s correct.
HMV: And the third theory of self
awareness would be the DzogChen
theory of the gzhi-nang.
PR: Oh yes.
HMV: Would it correct, then, to say that
this theory of the gzhi-nang is a theory
of self awareness?
PR: If the self awareness recognizes the
gzhi-nang, then it is ok.
HMV: Longchenpa, in his presentation
of the gzhi-nang, says that there are two
types of self awareness. One type of self
awareness occurs when rigpa recog-
nizes a gzhi nang as an appearance of
itself. This would be nondual self
awareness. The second type of self
awareness occurs when rigpa does not
recognize a gzhi nang as a self appear-
ance, and as a result sees it as an appear-
ance of something other than itself. That
 * 18 *
would be dual self awareness. Is this a
correct understanding of Longchenpa?
PR: Yes.
HMV: It seems, then, that in this theory
of the gzhi-nang that nondual self
awareness is aware of appearances. It is
aware of the nature of the gzhi nang. Is
this a correct understanding?
PR: Yes. The appearance of the gzhi-
nang, which is unelaborated in nature,
appears. And that is what appears to
self awareness. It depends upon
whether it is pure or impure.
In this volume, gzhi nang will be
translated in three different ways,
depending upon context: appearance of
the base, predual appearance and
primordial appearance. For a thorough
discussion of the nature of a gzhi nang,
and the reasons for these three different
translations, please see the interviews
 * 19 *
with Lopon Thekchoke in section III of
this volume.
5. Rang Rig: The Tibetan term “rang rig” is
usually translated into English as “self
awareness.” But it has also been rendered
in other ways, e.g. “self cognition” and
“reflexivity.”
The term rang rig, in my experience with
Buddhist mind science, is almost always a
theory laden term. It is theory laden in the
sense that the term is always used to refer
to different Buddhist theories of self
awareness, as opposed to using the term
to refer to the simple empirical fact of self
awareness itself. For example, chapter
nine of “A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of
Life” is a discussion and refutation of the
Cittamatran theory of self awareness. It is
not a refutation of the empirical occur-
rence of self awareness, itself.
In these volumes of “The Healthy Mind
Interviews” the term rang rig will always
 * 20 *
be used empirically. It is used here to refer
to refer to the simple fact of the mind’s
experience of itself. More specifically, it is
used here to refer to any experience in
which the mind’s awareness, or watcher,
knows the dual, nondual and predual
phenomena that appear in its stream of
consciousness.

Footnote
1 Interview with Penor Rinpoche at
Namdroling Monastery in March 2006.
Khenpo Tsewang Gyatso was translating.
 THE
HEALTHY MIND
INTERVIEWS
 THE HEALTHY MIND
INTERVIEWS

“Self Awareness is always bliss.”

The Sixteenth Karmapa1

This book is the fourth volume in a series

of books that we are calling “The Healthy
Mind Interviews.” The interviews contained
in these volumes describe the characteristics
of the healthy and happy human mind as
they have been known and experienced by
Tibetan lamas. In these interviews, the lamas
talk about the nature of the healthy mind,
and they also talk about how one goes about
the task of developing a healthy mind.
The most exciting thing about these
interviews is that they are not, for the most
 * 24 *
part, abstract, philosophical or neuro-
biological discussions of the mind. The crux
of these interviews is that they focus on
presenting direct descriptions of the natural
processes of the healthy mind. The lamas
describe their own experiences of the healthy
mind, and they do so by referring to easily
recognized experiences that we all have of
the mind in meditation and introspection.
For fourteen years now, I have been
systematically interviewing Tibetan lamas
about their experiences of their own mind in
meditation for the purposes of:
(1) Developing a descriptive science
of the stream of consciousness, and
(2) Using that descriptive science to
construct a scientifically valid
theory of the defining charac-
teristics of the healthy human
mind.
 * 25 *
Each of the first three volumes of “The
Healthy Mind Interviews” was a collection of
interviews that had been done with one and
only one lama.
The volume you hold in your hands
departs, a bit, from this tradition. It is
presenting interviews that have been done
with three different lamas, all of whom are
DzogChen practitioners: His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, Lopon Tenzin Namdak2 – the
head lama of the Bon tradition, and Lopon
Thekchoke – a Nyingma lama who lives in
both Bhutan and Sikkim. Lopon Tegchoke3 is
the gongma, or head teacher, at Dodrupchen
Rinpoche’s Deorali Chorten Monastery in
Gangtok, Sikkim.
The interviews collected in this volume
are being presented together because each of
them concisely describes crucial aspects of
the healthy, or egoless, mind. His Holiness
the Dalai Lama, for example, focuses on
discussing why the egoless mind must be a
 * 26 *
mind that has both genuine compassion and
an ego. Lopon Tenzin Namdak describes the
nature of the totally open awareness that is
the egoless mind, and he also discusses the
essence of trekcho – the DzogChen
meditation technique that is used to cultivate
total openness. Lopon Thekchoke, in his
turn, describes the attributes of egoless
awareness, or rigpa, and he describes the
inner appearances,4 or meanings, of which
rigpa is aware.
These last fourteen years of doing lama
interviews have been interesting. One of the
reasons for taking up the work of doing these
interviews was that we live in a world that
misunderstands the nature of the healthy
mind. Almost all societies operate on the
mistaken assumption that a healthy mind is a
mind with a strong ego. As a result, we are
taught to suffer, to fight with ourselves and
to fight with other human beings.
 * 27 *
The Tibetans, in contrast, believe that a
healthy mind is a mind with no ego – given
the paradox that you have to have an identity
to be egoless, and they actually possess an
eleven centuries old science of the stream of
consciousness that empirically demonstrates
that their position is correct.5
Traditionally, meditation has always been
used, in Buddhist settings, to do two
fundamental things. First and foremost,
meditation has been the primary tool that
Buddhists use to cultivate egoless, or
nondual, mind. Secondly, but also
importantly, meditation has been the instru-
ment that Buddhists use to empirically study
the workings of the mind.
Meditation is a perfect tool for
scientifically studying the mind. Why?
Because it creates a situation in which the
mind is able to know and observe itself.
Think about it for a moment. There are
 * 28 *
literally hundreds of different kinds of
meditation techniques, but no matter what
technique you use, when you meditate, your
mind becomes aware of itself. The mind is
both the subject and object of the experiences
created by meditation.
When the mind knows itself in this dual
mode of self awareness,6 it seems as though
there are actually two different minds
present within that experience. There is one
mind, the stream of consciousness, that
presents meanings to the mind’s awareness,
and then there is a second mind – the
awareness that knows and responds to those
meanings.7
The basic dynamic of the stream of
consciousness is that it presents meanings to
the watcher in the form of thoughts, images,
feelings and emotions, and then the watcher,
in turn, can and does respond to these
meanings in a number of different ways. For
 * 29 *
example, the watcher might repress an
emotion, hold onto a thought or do
absolutely nothing at all.
Every single response that the watcher
makes to a given meaning initiates a causal
sequence that determines the fate of that
meaning. Different responses cause different
things to occur. For example, when the
watcher represses or attaches an emotion,
that emotion will remain present in
awareness as a mood. When the watcher
judges an individual moment of con-
sciousness, it will have dual, as opposed to
non-dual, awareness of that moment of
consciousness. And so forth.
Meditation makes it possible to observe
all of these processes. Over the centuries,
meditation has been the microscope that
Buddhists have used to make systematic
observations of the phenomena and
processes that appear in the stream of
 * 30 *
consciousness. These observations have been
made for the very real purpose of developing
a body of knowledge that could be used to
both understand the mind and guide the
practice of meditation. After all, Buddhists
practice meditation for the very real and
serious purpose of changing the way their
mind works.
The DzogChen traditions of Tibet8 have,
more than any other tradition, focused on
making systematic observations of the
processes by which the mind knows and
controls itself. These observations, and the
theory that they have generated, have
become, over the centuries, a comprehensive
body of knowledge. This body of knowledge
contains understandings of the mind that our
modern scientific psychology simply does
not yet possess.
Amongst many other things, this
DzogChen science of the mind seems to have
 * 31 *
empirically understood two fundamental
things:
(1) The defining characteristics, or
nature, of the healthy human
mind.
(2) How to best cultivate a healthy
human mind.
Let me just say briefly that this Tibetan
mind science is not, at first glance, a science
in our modern sense of the scientific
endeavor. For one, the Tibetans who
developed this mind science did not think of
themselves as scientists. Nor were they
familiar with our notions of either science or
the scientific method. Furthermore, their
observations of the mind were and are often
presented in symbolic religious language.
Nonetheless, they were scientists.
They were scientists in the sense that they
made systematic observations of a group of
 * 32 *
phenomena, and then derived, from those
observations, explanatory theories about
those phenomena. They used the sixth sense,
which is called the mental consciousness in
Buddhist psychology and the mind’s eye in
our own parlance, to make observations of
the phenomena that appear in and as the
stream of consciousness. They then used
these observations to construct systematic
theories of the nature of the healthy and
unhealthy human mind.
In the lama interviews that I have been
fortunate enough to do over these last
fourteen years, the lamas and I have been
discussing this DzogChen science of the
mind at great length. We have talked about
what they experience in their own minds,
and we have talked about the conclusions
that they have drawn from that experience.
In having these discussions, we have
actually been developing a descriptive and
 * 33 *
theoretical science of the processes by which
the mind knows and transforms itself. This
science has existed for centuries in the
DzogChen traditions of Tibet, and in our
interviews we are simply putting this
knowledge into a more modern scientific
form.
As such, the interviews being presented
in this series of books are both scientific and
spiritual documents. They are scientific
documents in the sense that they contain an
immense amount of empirical knowledge
about the mind. They are spiritual
documents in the sense that they contain
knowledge that will help you understand
your own mind and cultivate an egoless
mind.
Ultimately, the information in these
interviews should lead the thoughtful reader
to the understanding that one practices
meditation for the paradoxical purpose of
 * 34 *
trying to cultivate a state of mind in which
one does nothing. Ultimately, it is not even a
matter of trying to do nothing. You just
simply do nothing. The egoless mind is a
mind that leaves itself in its natural state.
 * 35 *
Footnotes
1 Terhune, L. 2005. Karmapa: The Politics of Reincar-
nation. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pg. 180.
2 For a biography of Lopon Tenzin Namdak,
please see Lopon Tenzin Namdak and John
Reynolds (Translator). 2006. Bonpo DzogChen
Teachings. Kathmandu: Vajra Publications.
3 For a biography of Lopon Thekchoke, please see
Volume III of The Healthy Mind Interviews, 2005,
Kathmandu: Vajra Books.
4 The term “inner appearance” will be used
throughout this volume to refer to all of the
different types of phenomena – dual, nondual
and predual – that appear within the stream of
consciousness. Some terms, for example the
word thought, refer to only dual appearances.
Other terms, as we will be seeing, refer to only
nondual appearances. When we use the term
“inner appearances,” which is a translation of
the Tibetan term “nang gyi nangwa,” we do so
because it is a single term that can be used to
refer to all of the dual, nondual and predual
appearances of the mind.
 * 36 *
5 The working hypothesis of our research has
become the theory that a healthy mind is an
egoless mind, given the paradox that you have
to have an ego to be egoless. The data we have
collected to date confirms this hypothesis, but it
is also clear to us that it will be necessary to
collect and publish more data before the larger
scientific community accepts its validity.
6 The mind can have both dual and nondual
awareness of itself.
7 By meaning, I mean any construct that the mind
creates, in response to its sensory experience,
that generates intention, or the will to act.
Meanings appear in the stream of consciousness
as thoughts, emotions, feelings, nondual
meanings and predual meanings.
8 There are two primary DzogChen traditions in
Tibet. One is found in the Nyingma lineage of
Tibetan Buddhism, and the other one is found in
the Bön religion – the indigenous religion of the
Tibetan plateau. It is often said that the content
of the two traditions is the same, but that they
have different lineages, or sources.
 HIS HOLINESS
THE DALAI LAMA
 INTRODUCTION

There has been, over the last three

decades, an immense interest in
demonstrating that Buddhism is, in some
sense, a scientific body of thought. As His
Holiness the Dalai Lama, himself, says in the
coming interview, “Some scholars say that
Buddhism is a science of the mind.”
Over these last several decades, three
different approaches have been taken to
investigating and establishing the scientific
nature and merit of Buddhist thought. The
first approach was that of demonstrating that
there are significant similarities between the
worldviews of modern science and
Buddhism. This approach was both
popularized and epitomized by Fritjof
 * 40 *
Capra’s book “The Tao of Physics” – which
took a look at several of the parallels that
exist between the world view of modern
physics and the world views of the different
schools of Asian mysticism. Capra pointed
out, for example, that Buddhism and modern
science both take the position that: (1) there is
a unity and interdependence of all things in
the universe and that (2) there is no such
thing as absolute space and time.
The second basic approach that is being
used to evaluate the scientific authenticity of
Buddhist psychology is that of using the
methods of neurobiology and cognitive
science to investigate the effects of Buddhist
meditation. For example, decades of EEG
research have shown that meditation tends
to generate slow frequency EEG patterns –
either an increase in alpha rhythms or an
increase in theta rhythms. More recent
research is showing that the long term
 * 41 *
practice of loving kindness meditation
produces an increased activation of a
network of brain regions that is known to
produce positive emotions.1
The import of this type of research is that
it demonstrates, to the materialists of the
world, that measurable brain changes are
actually being produced by the practice of
meditation. Something real is going on here.
The evident shortcoming of this approach,
however, is that it does not actually address
or assess the findings and theory of Buddhist
psychology. It does not confirm, deny or
move forward any of the actual findings or
theory of Buddhist mind science.
The research that is being presented here
in “The Healthy Mind Interviews” takes yet a
third type of approach to exploring the
empirical validity of Buddhist mind science.
Our research is attempting to replicate the
findings of Tibetan Buddhist mind science,
 * 42 *
and we are doing so by empirically studying
the very same phenomena that Buddhist
practitioners and scholars have been
studying for centuries – the dual, nondual
and predual phenomena that appear in and
as the stream of consciousness.
The replication of scientific studies has
long been, of course, an accepted and
essential part of the process of establishing
the validity of scientific research. When a
scientist finds something new, important or
interesting, other scientists will often repeat,
i.e. replicate, that work to both see if its
findings are valid and to develop that work
further. This is the basic approach we are
taking in doing the healthy mind research.
We are repeating the fundamental research
of Buddhist mind science to see if its findings
are correct.
In embarking on this path, we are
consciously taking the position that the
 * 43 *
lamas being interviewed are scientists of the
mind. Which is exactly what they are. These
Tibetan lamas are part of a centuries old
tradition that has scientifically studied the
mind by: (1) making systematic observations
of the phenomena that appear in the stream
of consciousness and by (2) deriving theories
of both the healthy and unhealthy mind from
those observations.
The healthy mind research being
presented in these interviews is grounded in
the understanding that Buddhist and Tibetan
psychology is, in its essence, a descriptive
and theoretical science of the phenomena
that appear in the stream of consciousness.2
In contrast, our own scientific tradition has
taken, for the most part, the explicit position
that it is not possible to scientifically study
these phenomena.
This is not at all a trivial difference. It is, in
fact, a very important one. Tibetan mind
 * 44 *
science possesses a species of indispensable
mind knowledge that our own scientific
psychology has not yet explored. And it
possesses this knowledge precisely because it
is a science of the phenomena that appear in
the stream of consciousness.
The import of this difference lies in the
fact that if you want to empirically
understand the nature of the healthy human
mind, you have to scientifically study the
stream of consciousness.3 If you want to
scientifically understand the defining
characteristics of the healthy mind, and if, in
addition, you want to understand how to
best cultivate a healthy mind, it is imperative
that you understand and study the
phenomena that appear in the stream of
consciousness.
In the coming interview, His Holiness
wholeheartedly agrees with the notion that it
is possible to scientifically study the
 * 45 *
phenomena that appear within the mind. He
says that the Buddhist tradition has been
studying these phenomena for centuries, and
he then goes on to empirically discuss some
of these phenomena as the astute mind
scientist that he is. And he does so in the
most interesting of ways.
In discussing these phenomena, His
Holiness touches upon three substantive
topics of import for understanding the nature
of the healthy human mind. One, he makes it
clear that for him a healthy mind is a mind
that has developed what he calls true
compassion. Two, he talks about the
paradoxical nature of the healthy egoless
mind, and he does so by saying that the
egoless mind must have what he calls a
“positive ego.” Three, he describes and
discusses the nature of the nondual mind.
 * 46 *
Footnotes
1 Lutz, A., Dunne, J.P., Davidson, R.J. (In press;
2007) Meditation and the Neuroscience of
Consciousness: An Introduction. In (Eds.), P.
Zelazo, M. Moscovitch & E. Thompson. NY:
Cambridge University Press.
2 See Vyner, Henry. (2002) The Descriptive Mind
Science of Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and the
Nature of the Healthy Mind. Anthropology of
Consciousness, 13(2) pp 1-25 for a systematic
typology of the phenomena that appear in the
stream of consciousness.
3 Ibid.
THE DALAI LAMA
INTERVIEW1
COMPASSION, POSITIVE EGO AND
THE HEALTHY MIND

HMV: Your Holiness, I have been inter-

viewing lamas for a while now about their
experiences of their mind in meditation. Our
intention, in doing these interviews, is to
create a descriptive and theoretical science of
the phenomena that appear in the stream of
consciousness, and to ground that science in
observations of the mind that one can make
in meditation. As you probably know, as of
yet, there is no descriptive science of the
phenomena that appear in the stream of
consciousness in western science. We have
said that it is not possible to scientifically
study these phenomena.
 * 50 *
HHDL: We can not take measurement.
HMV: Yes. That is a part of the perceived
problem. My feeling, though, is that this
position is a mistake, a misunderstanding of
the nature of science, if you will. And I
wonder if you, too, think it might be possible
to scientifically study the stream of
consciousness. Science is not just a matter of
taking measurements. Science is defined as,
and always begins with, the process of
making observations of phenomena.
HHDL: That’s right. My observation is that
up until now science has developed on the
basis of observing external things. Something
you can see, you can touch, you can feel.
Within that context, mind seems to be
something outside science. But that does not
mean that mind is something outside science.
I think a new science can develop. Some
scholars say that Buddhism is a science of the
mind.
 * 51 *
HMV: That would be my position, too. I
think that it definitely is possible to develop
a valid descriptive science of the mind that is
grounded in observations of the stream of
consciousness that a person can make in
meditation. If you look at the Buddhist
literature, it becomes evident that this kind of
mind science has existed in Buddhism for
centuries. It is a literature that is full of
observations of the phenomena that appear
in the stream of consciousness.
HHDL: That’s right.
HMV: I have been interviewing lamas at
length about the experiences they have of
their mind when they meditate. I see the
lamas as people, scientists if you will, who
have had extensive experience observing and
describing the phenomena that appear
within the mind, and I have been
interviewing them as the scientists they are.
It is part of a process in which we are
 * 52 *
gathering data to develop a descriptive
science of the stream of consciousness and an
empirically valid theory of the healthy mind.
I would like to interview you in this same
way if that would be ok with you.
HHDL: Yes.
HMV: Thank you. One thing that we have
been trying to do is identify the different
types of phenomena that appear in the
stream of consciousness. I would like to
present to you some of the phenomena that
we have identified and see if you, yourself,
have experienced them as well.
HHDL: Yes.
HMV: Take, for example, the phenomenon
of the involuntary stream of consciousness.
The involuntary stream of consciousness is
the constant stream of thoughts and
emotions that are constantly going through a
person’s mind.
HHDL: Yes.
 * 53 *
HMV: How about the cessation of the
involuntary stream of consciousness
HHDL: What do you mean by cessation?
HMV: The stopping of the flow of thoughts
and emotions.
HHDL: Temporary?
HMV: Yes, temporary.
HHDL: Not permanent cessation.
HMV: No, not permanent cessation. As far
as you know, does anyone ever attain
permanent cessation?
HHDL: Should be.
HMV: It is possible.
HHDL: That is the goal. Amongst
practitioners, that is the goal. (Laughter)
HMV: Have you experienced that yourself,
Your Holiness?
HHDL: No.
HMV: Thank you for allowing me to ask you
this question.
 * 54 *
Annotation: There are many texts and
teachers in the Buddhist tradition that
take the position that it is desirable to
cultivate the permanent and complete
cessation of one’s thoughts. Take for
example, the nine dhyana formulation of
the stages of samatha meditation. It is
grounded in the notion that cultivating
the cessation of all inner appearances is a
good and healthy thing to do.1 In a
similar vein, many lamas and texts define
nondual awareness as the complete
cessation of all thoughts and emotions.
There are also traditions and teachers
that teach that this is not the case. The
present DzogChen Rinpoche once said to
me, “You have to have thoughts.”2
Lopon Tenzin Namdak, the presiding
head lama of the Bön religion, has taken
the position that, “Having no thoughts is
not the essential practice of DzogChen.
 * 55 *
There is nothing wrong with having
thoughts.”3 Longchenpa, himself, often
ridiculed the notion that the point of the
path was to cultivate the cessation of
thoughts, and in this following
quotation, he makes it clear that the
enlightened mind is not a mind that is
devoid of thoughts. He says that, “A
meditative experience of clarity4 is a clear
state of mind at rest, but the dharmakaya
is the unity of lucidity and awareness,
free of any sense of being at rest.”5
Here, in this interview, His Holiness is
saying that he, himself, has not achieved
the permanent cessation of thoughts. It is
tempting to conclude, from this one fact
alone, that the complete cessation of
thoughts is not necessarily a desirable
end to achieve.
But if this is true, then why do we have,
in the history of Buddhism, this definite
 * 56 *
strand of thought and practice that holds
that it is desirable to cultivate the
complete cessation of all thoughts?
Perhaps the point being made by this
tradition is that it is important to
cultivate the complete cessation of dual,
as opposed to nondual, thoughts.
Here, then, is an important and
seemingly unresolved empirical
question: Is the egoless mind a mind in
which there has been a complete
cessation of the appearance of thoughts?
Or, to put it another way, is it a healthy
thing to do to cultivate the complete
cessation of your thoughts? His Holiness
will touch upon these questions in a later
portion of this interview, and he will do
so in the process of describing the
experience of nondual awareness.
 * 57 *
HHDL: Then there is the Third Noble Truth.
The important thing here is that the
procedure for stopping rebirth is to first
bring about the cessation of certain negative
emotions. Usually, it is said that there is no
beginning with negative emotions, but that
there is an end. With the positive emotions,
there can be a beginning, but there is no end.
There is neither a beginning nor end of the
seeds of positive mind or emotion.
HMV: So there can be a cessation of negative
emotions.
HHDL: There is the belief, the conviction,
that this is the case.6
HMV: Thank you. Now I would like to turn
to a different subject and ask you some
questions about the phenomenon of dual
awareness. What meaning does the English
term dual awareness have for you?
HHDL: Non-dualistic and dualistic. I don’t
know.
 * 58 *
HMV: I am referring to subject-object duality
here.
HHDL: The term dualistic has many levels of
meaning in the context of Buddhism. It has
many many different levels of meaning.
HMV: The type of duality that I am asking
about here is one that is commonly
experienced in meditation. Sometimes, in
meditation, when your stream of
consciousness appears, it seems as though
there is a separation of subject and object. It
seems as though there is a subject, the
watcher, that is watching the stream of
thoughts, or objects, go by.
HHDL: Yes.
HMV: This is the experience of duality that I
am referring to here. And then sometimes
that duality collapses and only awareness is
present, and that might be one way of
describing non-dual awareness.
HHDL: Yes. What do you say during deep
 * 59 *
sleep? Certainly, there is some kind of
consciousness still there.
HMV: For sure.
HHDL: Do you think there is the conceptual
awareness of subject and object?
HMV: Well I think that perhaps we will
disagree here. I would say that dreaming is a
dual experience.
HHDL: No. Not dreaming. Deep sleep.
HMV: Oh. Deep sleep. I really haven’t
thought about that Your Holiness. What do
you think?
HHDL: No. It is not nondual.
HMV: Why not?
HHDL: Because it has the appearance of
conventional reality, conventional truth.
HMV: What is appearing in deep sleep?
When I think of deep sleep, I think of sleep
without any dreams.
HHDL: Yes. Without dreams. Without
feelings. The crucial point here is that even
 * 60 *
though in the deep sleep state things may not
appear, it is like the consciousness of a
fainted person. It is not the kind of non-dual
state attained through practice. So therefore
it is difficult to call the state of deep sleep a
nondual state. There is a distinction to be
made between the mere absence of thoughts
and the attainment of non-dual awareness
through practice.
HMV: When a single thought arises and
dissolves in front of your mind’s eye, would
you call that non-dual awareness? If a single
thought or feeling arises and dissolves in
front of a mental consciousness, would that
be a moment of non-dual awareness?
HHDL: No.
HMV: Why not?
HHDL: Well from a certain level perhaps I
think yes, but certainly it is not the meaning
that is being given in Buddhist texts about
the meaning of the non-dual state of mind.
 * 61 *
Because at that time still there is the
appearance of the conventional phenomena.7
HMV: How about after the conventional phe-
nomena disappear and only awareness is left?
HHDL: This dissolving of one thought is a
continuing process. One comes and it
dissolves, and another comes and it
dissolves. The genuine nondual experience
in a Buddhist context is that through training
you deliberately stop all of your thoughts,
and you remain absorbed in your ultimate
nature, ultimate reality.8 As long as you are
doing that meditation, the process of thought
can not function. That is non-dual.
HMV: It sounds as though you are saying
that the experience of non-dual mind is one
in which thought completely disappears and
you remain absorbed in that emptiness,
which is the absence of the appearance of
conventional phenomena.
HHDL: That’s right. That’s right.
 * 62 *
Annotation: His Holiness is presenting,
here, an empirical, or descriptive,
definition of the experience of nondual,
or empty, awareness. It is the first of two
different empirical definitions of nondual
awareness that His Holiness will be
presenting in this interview. This first
definition, to reiterate, is that the nondual
mind is a mind in which you deliberately
stop all of your thoughts and “remain
absorbed in your ultimate nature,
ultimate reality.”

HMV: And in a moment when a single

thought dissolves and disappears, could that
be looked upon as a simpler, or less
profound, moment of non-dual awareness?
HHDL: Again, this is not a process that has
taken place through a certain practice. Such a
process of change occurs because of being
impermanent.
 * 63 *
HMV: Thank you. Now it seems like there
are two basic things that can happen after a
thought or emotion arises. One is that it can
dissolve naturally, and that after it dissolves
nothing else will appear for a short moment.
The other basic possibility is that the mind
will hold onto that thought and it won’t
dissolve.
HHDL: Yes.
HMV: In addition, it seems as though there
are two different ways the mind can hold
onto, or grasp, a thought or emotion. One
way is by repressing it, or trying to push it
away from awareness. The other way is by
trying to hold onto it, which happens
because the mind likes that thought.9
Whenever the mind holds onto a thought, it
causes that thought, as well as related
thoughts, to keep appearing over and over
again within the mind.
 * 64 *
HHDL: That’s true. Even when you hold
onto yourself, momentary change is still
taking place, and in that momentary change,
holding on to the object also takes place.
HMV: So sometimes the mind holds onto an
object and sometimes it does not. Sometimes
the mind holds onto a thought and
sometimes the mind does not hold onto a
thought. Does that seem correct to you?
HHDL: You mean the mind holding onto the
mind?
HMV: Exactly. Suppose a thought arose in
my mind and I liked that thought. It was a
thought that said, “Gee, I am being a smart
man today.” And if I hold onto that thought
when it first arises, the same kind of thoughts
will come back and reappear over and over
again. And then it might appear like a
recurring thought film telling me that I am a
smart man. Perhaps it would be a film in
which I am talking to the Dalai Lama. Or it
 * 65 *
might be a film with a completely different
kind of theme. It seems to me that this is
what happens when a person holds onto a
thought. On the other hand, if you just let
your thoughts take their natural course, they
will dissolve and a thought film will not
appear.
HHDL: It depends upon being able to hold
the continuity or not; the continuity of the
mind.
HMV: I am not sure I understand what you
mean by that Your Holiness. What do you
mean by hold the continuity?
HHDL: In the case of the mind in which you
have some interesting thing, then you
deliberately prolong the continuity of the
thoughts.
HMV: Is that the same as the process I just
described in which you hold onto a thought?
HHDL: Yes.
 * 66 *
HMV: Is that an experience that you have?
HHDL: That is one type of meditation. You
just let out whatever thoughts come and go.
Whatever comes, let it come and let it go.
Never make an attempt to hold onto them.
Through that practice, thought automatically
becomes weaker, weaker, weaker. Then
eventually, there is some kind of cessation of
thought. That means the thoughtless state of
mind.
HMV: Right. Now in DzogChen that type of
meditation practice is called trekcho.10 Is that
correct?
HHDL: Yes. Yes. But trekcho is not only that.
HMV: Ok.
HHDL: The thoughtless state is something
like the goal of trekcho.
HMV: Ok.
HHDL: We have to go through that door.
The actual experience of trekcho is much
more than that.
 * 67 *
HMV: When you go through that door, what
happens?
HHDL: I have no experience. The actual
realization of rigpa11 is not the mere
thoughtless state of mind. It is not just the
awareness of the nature of mind. No. Rigpa
means that there is a special kind of
experience in which the mind is very clear.
Very sharp. At the same time it is an
awareness that remains completely neutral.
All the thoughts come and go. Come and go.
But your main mind remains completely
neutral, and it is never influenced by your
thoughts. Your main mind is very clear. It is
very sharp and very aware. Not only of the
process of your thoughts, but of external
things as well. The example that is usually
used is that of the hawk. You see, the hawk
comes out from its nest. That means it is very
active. Very clever. Very aware. Usually, in
the mere thoughtless state of mind, there is
 * 68 *
some kind of darkness. Some kind of
simplicity. So that is not rigpa.
HMV: So in rigpa, then, would it be fair to
say that thoughts still appear.
HHDL: Oh yes.
HMV: But you don’t accept them. You don’t
hold onto them.
HHDL: Yes.
HMV: You don’t reject them, or push them
away.
HHDL: Yes. That’s right.
HMV: You don’t believe them. You just
allow them to pass. You don’t care about
them.
HHDL: Yes. That’s right. (Very emphatic)
HMV: And as a result of that process they
become clearer and everything else becomes
clearer as well.
HHDL: Yes. And one way is dual and the
other way is nondual.
 * 69 *
HMV: And is nondual mind, Your Holiness,
that natural state of mind in which you don’t
accept, don’t reject and don’t believe?
HHDL: This is the pure or clear awareness.
That is rigpa. Not grasping. From that angle,
it is non-dual.
HMV: Thank you. And then because you are
not grasping, you are not attributing any
concepts to the appearances that arise.
HHDL: But at the same time, the appearance
is there. So it is dual.
HMV: So it is both dual and non-dual
simultaneously.
HHDL: Oh yes.
HMV: Thank you very much.
Annotation: Here, then, is His Holiness’
second descriptive definition of nondual
awareness. In the prior passage on page
69, His Holiness took the position that a
nondual mind is a mind in which all
thoughts have completely ceased to
 * 70 *
appear. In this passage, His Holiness
describes the experience of nonduality as
being one in which thoughts do appear,
but in which the mind’s awareness does
not grasp those thoughts.
His Holiness is not alone in thinking that
there are two different ways to under-
stand and describe the nature of the
nondual mind. In the course of doing
these interviews, it has been my
consistent experience that lamas describe
nondual awareness in two different
ways: they describe the experience of
nondual awareness in precisely the same
two ways that His Holiness has just
described them here.
There are many lamas who take the
position that a nondual mind is a mind in
which there has been a complete
cessation of all inner appearances.12
There are also many lamas who take the
 * 71 *
position that nondual awareness is a state
of mind in which inner appearances do
arise. In this definition of nondual
awareness, awareness does not grasp the
inner appearances that arise before it,
and as a result, it realizes the emptiness
of those appearances.
The import of nondual awareness is that
when you have nondual awareness of
your mind, you know your mind and self
as they really are moment to moment.
You know the meaning of the inner
appearances of your stream of
consciousness exactly as they are without
projecting any concepts, or constructs,
onto them.
In contrast, when you have dual
awareness of your mind, you do not
know your self as you are. The dual mind
projects egocentric constructs onto the
meanings that appear in your stream of
 * 72 *
consciousness, and as a result, you know
them as a mixture of meaning and
projected construct. For example, you
might experience a single primordial
meaning13 in tandem with either an
emotion or in tandem with a habitual
pattern of ego thought.14
The import of having an empirically
correct definition of the nondual mind is
that it will determine what kind of
healthy mind you choose to develop. If
you decide the first definition is correct,
then you will cultivate a state of mind in
which there is a complete cessation of
inner appearances. If you decide the
second definition is correct, then you will
leave your mind in its natural state.
It may well be that both of these positions
are correct. Perhaps a nondual mind is a
mind in which: (1) there is a complete
cessation of dual thoughts, but in which
 * 73 *
(2) awareness does not grasp the nondual
and predual thoughts that continue to
appear. This will not be the last time you
hear me say that whatever the answer
might be to this question, I would like to
think that this apparent contradiction can
be resolved empirically.

HHDL: As time goes on, that experience will

become more stable. More sound. More
forceful. Then the thoughts will auto-
matically become weaker, weaker, and
weaker. Then eventually, without having to
make some kind of special effort, you will
develop the conviction that all phenomena,
including one’s own thoughts or mind, are
all some kind of reflection of awareness.
Then eventually, somehow, all of the
reflections will disappear. They will dissolve
into the main awareness. That automatically
leads you to the awareness of sunya, or
emptiness.
 * 74 *
HMV: Thank you.
HHDL: Then it really becomes nondual.
HMV: Your Holiness, do you ever
experience this state of mind where all of
your thoughts just spontaneously dissolve
into your awareness?
HHDL: I don’t know. Sometimes in dream
time, quite rarely, occasionally, I have
experienced this. And then later I would ask
my DzogChen lama, Dilgo Khyentse
Rinpoche. I would describe my experiences
to him, and he would make very favorable
responses. But I don’t know.
HMV: Do you think it would be correct to
say that a mind with an ego is a mind that
accepts, rejects and believes its thoughts and
emotions, in the way that we have just
described it. And that an egoless mind, in
contrast, is a mind that allows its stream of
consciousness to remain in its natural state?
It does not accept. It does not reject. It does
 * 75 *
not believe its thoughts. Do you think that
this is a correct distinction?
HHDL: Those practitioners of DzogChen
who have correct experiences, those
experiences automatically increase their
compassion. That is the right sign. If certain
extraordinary experiences take place, but
that person does not find a positive effect on
compassion, then that experience of
awareness is not correct.
HMV: Are you saying that even if a person
is not accepting, not rejecting, not believing,
that if they don’t have increased compassion
it is not egoless.
HHDL: Yes. And the word ego has many
meanings. Many definitions. One ego is, “I
can do. I will serve humanity. I will serve
until all sentient beings reach Nirvana.” That
kind of determination is based on ego.
HMV: Ok.
 * 76 *
HHDL: But that kind of ego we need. That
kind of ego is constructive. Without that,
how can we develop self-confidence?
HMV: Or give direction to your life.
HHDL: We need will power. Will power
needs some basis: ego. But another type of
ego – a strong sense of self that rejects others’
rights, or does not hesitate to exploit others
or disregard their rights – that ego is a
negative ego.
HMV: And would you try to transcend that
negative ego on the Buddhist path?
HHDL: You try to remove it. When you have
the experience of trekcho, you develop a
deep awareness of the fundamental nature of
all phenomena. And then you also see that
other sentient beings are grasping those
phenomena in a mistaken way. Because you
have this awareness, it naturally brings
concern for those other sentient beings. The
person who has developed the trekcho
 * 77 *
experience sees that all phenomena are a
mere reflection of that nature, of that
ultimate reality. So on the ultimate level,
there is no positive, no negative.
HMV: So samsara and nirvana become, in
fact, the same thing.15
HHDL: That’s right. So because you now
have this deep awareness, you develop some
kind of concern, compassion. Now you see
that there is an alternative. And you see how
suffering comes. Because you’ve had true
experience, you develop an awareness of all
these things, and it automatically brings
compassion. That’s the way. During
meditation, itself, you are not moved to
generate compassion because compassion is
a kind of thought. Your mind is clear.
HMV: One more question Your Holiness. It
seems to me that as people become more
egoless...
 * 78 *
HHDL: Egoless means removing the
negative ego.
HMV: Yes. And that as people become more
egoless in that sense, they are less likely to
fight other people, less likely to destroy the
environment, and they are less likely to be
unhappy.
HHDL: That’s right.
HMV: Do you think that egolessness, or
emptiness, could be the basis of a psychology
of peace?
HHDL: Oh yes.
HMV: How do you know that this is true?
Why do you think that this is the case?
HHDL: My little experience is that the sense
of egolessness comes through training in
compassion, love and compassion. Now here
compassion means unbiased compassion.
Usually what we describe as compassion is
biased. Actually, you see, it is attachment. So
first we have to make a distinction. Genuine
 * 79 *
compassion is unbiased. It includes you and
me. That compassion reduces negative ego
feeling. The work goes like this. First you
develop a sense of concern for others. It
doesn’t come through emotion. It comes
through analytical meditation. You see that
your self and others are the same sentient
being. I have the right to be a happy person.
They also have the right. They are
numberless. I am just one. They are much
more. Then you develop some sort of
genuine conviction that you must have some
kind of genuine compassion towards them.
Usually what happens is that when
something negative happens to you, you
think only of yourself. As a result, a really
strong emotion develops that destroys your
peace of mind. When you develop concern
for others, and others means all of the
limitless numbers of people, huge, then
when something happens to you, oh, then
 * 80 *
you do not have any bother. This is so tiny.
When we think only of ourselves, then the
whole world is wrong. If you think only of
yourself, then when small things happen, oh,
you can not bear them. Compassion brings a
sense of respect; a sense of concern.
HMV: Does compassion give you a sense of
strength as well?
HHDL: Oh yes.
HMV: How does it give you a sense of
strength?
HHDL: Once you develop a sense of concern
for others, it automatically brings some kind
of desire to do something. That increases
your inner strength. Previously, one thinks
only of one’s self. Then after training in
compassion, you think of others.
Automatically, your mental attitude is much
changed. Your ego is much increased now.
Previously, you carried on your shoulders
only your own responsibility. Very small.
 * 81 *
But deep inside there was fear, there was
doubt, there was a sense of insecurity. When
you take responsibility for all sentient beings,
then ego becomes a big ego. A positive ego.
HMV: So you have to have an ego to be
egoless.
HHDL: (A lot of laughter)
HMV: Thank you very much.
HHDL: Thank you.
Annotation: At the time of this interview,
His Holiness was more than a little
concerned about the possibility that some
western students of Buddhism might be
misunderstanding the nature of the
egoless mind. He said as much both
before and during the interview. His
concern was that some people might be
adhering to the mistaken notion that an
egoless person is a person who has no
identity, no goals and thus no sense of
purpose.
 * 82 *
His Holiness’ view of the egoless mind
seems to be quite different than this. He
has said here that the process of
developing an egoless mind is one in
which a person actually cultivates a
“positive ego” and abandons a “negative
ego.” This was one of the major themes of
this interview, and it came up over and
again in a number of different ways.
In taking this position, His Holiness is
simultaneously making two empirical
assertions about the nature of the egoless
mind. They are as follows:

(1) An egoless mind is a mind that has

an ego, or at least, perhaps, an
identity.16
(2) The positive attributes of the egoless
mind, for example wisdom and
compassion, are attributes that have
to be actively created and cultivated.
 * 83 *
If His Holiness’ first assertion is
empirically correct, and the egoless mind
does have an ego, or identity, what then
would be the difference between the
egoless and egocentric mind? This is an
interesting and important question, and
it is one that we will return to over and
again in the present and forthcoming
volumes of The Healthy Mind Interviews.17
As for the second assertion, I would
just like to note, at this point, that there is,
within Tibetan Buddhism, a second basic
approach to the task of developing the
positive attributes of the egoless mind.
This other path works on the premise
that the positive qualities of the egoless
mind are already present within the
nature of the mind, and that as a result, it
is not necessary to actually create or
actively cultivate those positive qualities.
In this analysis, the only thing you need
 * 84 *
to do to cultivate the positive qualities of
the nondual mind is realize and abide in
the nature of the mind. In the words of
the late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, “The
infinite inexpressible qualities of
primordial awareness are inherent in
Mind. It is therefore not necessary to try
to create them or attempt to manufacture
something.” Lopon Tenzin Namdak
takes precisely the same position when
he says, “You don’t need to try to be a
bodhisattva. Just keep to the nature.
Bodhisattva, bodhicitta are there. The
best way to practice with bodhicitta is
keep to the natural state.”
 * 85 *
Footnotes
1 The nine dhyanas are a description of the nine
different states of mind through which a person
progresses on the way to developing samatha –
a calm mind in which there has been a complete
cessation of all inner appearances. See, for
example, B. Alan Wallace and Gen Lamrimpa.
(1992) Calming the Mind. Ithaca: Snow Lion
Publications.
2 Private conversation at DzogChen Monastery in
March of 1993.
3 Lopon Tenzin Namdak and John Reynolds
(Translator). 2006. Bonpo DzogChen Teachings.
Kathmandu: Vajra Publications. Pg.146.
4 “Meditative experience of clarity” is a
translation of the Tibetan term “gsal-wa’i
nyams,” which is a technical term in DzogChen
mind science. DzogChen mind science
recognizes the existence of three different types
of nyams, or moments of nondual experience.
DzogChen is very careful to point out that the
nyams are not an experience of the nature of
 * 86 *
mind, but that nonetheless, they can be a sign
that a practitioner is progressing. Please see the
section entitled “Useful Thoughts” in Volume I
of The Healthy Mind Interviews for Khenpo
Nyima Wangyal’s empirical discussion of the
nature of the nyams.
5 Barron, Richard. 2001. A Treasure Trove of
Scriptural Transmission. Junction City,
California: Padma Publishing, pg. 178.
6 His Holiness seems to be saying here that even
if it is not possible to attain the permanent
cessation of thoughts, that there is another type
of cessation – the cessation of negative emotions
– that might actually be attainable.
7 In this passage, His Holiness’ is using the term
“conventional phenomena” to refer to any and
all of the several different types of inner
appearances that can and do arise within the
mind. His Holiness’ implied philosophical
position, here, is that all appearances are only
conventional truths, as opposed to being the
ultimate truth of emptiness. But once again,
despite the fact that everyone agrees with this
 * 87 *
defination of relative truth, there are different
positions, within the Tibetan tradition, as to
whether or not it is desirable to cultivate the
complete cessation of thoughts, or inner
appearances.
8 By ultimate nature, His Holiness means, here,
the ultimate nature of the mind. The “nature of
the mind” is a technical term in Buddhist
psychology, and it refers to a specific state of
awareness that is the natural state of the mind.
In the context of DzogChen mind science, the
natural state of the mind is an awareness that is
empty, nondual, joyous and like space. It is the
ultimate truth, and it is the empty awareness
that realizes the emptiness of the mind itself.
9 Actually, in the final analysis, there are three
fundamental ways in which the egocentric mind
grasps, or holds onto, a thought – rejecting,
accepting and following.
10 Trekcho is a meditation technique that is one of
two techniques that is unique to the DzogChen
tradition.
 * 88 *
11 The Tibetan term rigpa means different things
in different contexts. His Holiness is using the
word rigpa here as it is used in a DzogChen
setting. Empirically, rigpa is nondual egoless
awareness, and it is the state of mind cultivated
by trekcho.
12 Once again, the term “inner appearance” is
being used here to refer to both the dual,
predual and nondual phenomena that appear
within the mind. Dual appearances would
include thoughts, emotions and recurring
patterns of ego thought. Nondual appearances
would include primordial meanings and
moments of timeless wisdom. Please see
Volume III of The Healthy Mind Interviews for
a somewhat more thorough empirical
discussion of the nature of the predual and
nondual inner appearances.
13 Please see the chapter entitled “Predual
Meanings: Gzhi Nang” in Lopon Thekchoke’s
section of this volume for a discussion of gzhi
nang as primordial meaning.
 * 89 *
14 “Habitual pattern of ego thought” is a
translation of the Tibetan term “bakchaks.”
Please see Volume II, pp. 55-60, of The Healthy
Mind Interviews for: (1) an empirical and
theoretical discussion of the place of the
bakchaks in Buddhist psychology and (2) its
relationship to western psychology.
15 The formulation that samsara and nirvana are
the same is an important and oft heard
statement in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. It
has many different levels of meaning. Here the
intended meaning is that samsaric and egoless
mind are ontologically the same, but
epistemologically different. They are the same
phenomena looked at in different ways.
Ultimately, samsara is the dual awareness of
phenomena, and nirvana, or egoless mind, is the
nondual awareness of phenomena.
16 The Tibetan term that is usually translated as
the English word “ego” is “dag-dzin.” This term
reveals the two components of the Tibetan
conception of ego. “Dag” means identity, or self
 * 90 *
concept. “Dzin” means grasping. An egocentric
mind is a mind that: (1) thinks it has an identity
and that (2) grasps that identity. In other words,
in a Tibetan context, ego and identity are not
equivalent terms. “Identity” refers to a self
concept that a mind attributes to itself, and
“ego” refers to a mind that grasps its identity.
17 See, for example, the chapter entitled “Rigpa
and Identity” in Lopon Thekchoke’s section of
this volume.
LOPON TENZIN NAMDAK
 INTRODUCTION

Flying in the face of what would seem to

be, at first glance, the most dearly held
conception of what it means to be a Buddhist,
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has just said
quite clearly, that the egoless mind is a mind
that has an ego. If it turns out that His
Holiness’ position is empirically correct,
what, then, is the difference between the
egocentric and the egoless mind? After all, if
the egoless mind has an ego, how would it be
different than the egocentric mind?
Our working hypothesis is that the
defining difference between these two types
of mind is that each of them has a different
mode of self awareness. The egoless mind
has an egoless mode of self awareness, and
 * 94 *
the egocentric mind has an egocentric mode
of self awareness.
The egocentric mode of self awareness is a
Sisyphean dynamic in which the mind is
caught up in an endless struggle to preserve
its sense of identity. The egocentric mind
condemns itself to the constant task of
maintaining the identity it thinks it has, and
it carries out this work by altering, in every
single moment, the content of the thoughts
and emotions that appear in its stream of
consciousness.
The egoless mind, however, is different. It
is not at all interested in preserving a sense of
identity, and as a result, it is a mode of self
awareness in which the mind leaves its
stream of consciousness in its natural state.
But I am getting ahead of myself here. Let’s
back up for a moment.
First of all, what is self awareness? Self
awareness is, in this context, any experience
 * 95 *
in which the mind knows itself. It is a matter
of looking inward at your own mind, and
knowing the dual and nondual meanings
that appear within your stream of
consciousness.
Meditation is an experience in which the
mind is constantly aware of itself. The basic
structure of the mind’s experience of itself, as
it is known in meditation, is a situation in
which awareness, or the watcher, watches
the appearance and disappearance of the
dual and nondual phenomena that arise
within its stream of consciousness. It is much
the same experience as standing by the side
of a river and watching that river flow by.
Given that this is the basic structure of the
mind’s experience of itself, what then does it
mean to say that the human mind has two
different modes of self awareness? It means
this: the watcher has two fundamentally
different ways of responding to, and as a
 * 96 *
result two fundamentally different ways of
knowing, the meanings that appear in its
stream of consciousness.
Each of the two modes of self awareness
has three defining characteristics: (1) a
defining purpose (2) a distinctive repertoire
of responses that the watcher makes to the
meanings that appear in its stream of
consciousness and (3) the distinctive type of
awareness that its watcher has of those
meanings.
For example, the purpose of egocentric
self awareness is to maintain the mind’s
sense of identity. The egocentric watcher
maintains that identity by taking, at different
times, three distinctive types of action to
preserve the delusion that it has the identity
it thinks it has:
(a) It represses, or rejects, thoughts and
emotions that are inconsistent with
its identity.
 * 97 *
(b) It attaches, or accepts, thoughts and
emotions that support its identity, and
(c) It lives in recurring thought narra-
tives that create realities that are
congruent with its sense of identity.1
These are the defining behaviors of the
egocentric watcher, and when the watcher
takes any of these actions, it causes itself to
have dual, and thus distorted, awareness of
the meanings that appear in its stream of
consciousness. As a result, the egocentric
mind does not know itself as it is.
The egoless mind, in contrast, does know
itself as it is. The egoless watcher is a totally
open nondual awareness that behaves like a
space. It does not repress, attach or follow the
meanings that appear in its stream of
consciousness, and as a result, it has nondual
awareness of those meanings and it knows
them as they are. The purpose of egoless self
awareness is self realization.
 * 98 *
In the series of interviews that are being
presented in this next section, Lopon Tenzin
Namdak discusses at length two key aspects
of this spacelike mode of egoless self
awareness. In the first interview he discusses
the meditative technique that the DzogChen
tradition uses to cultivate the totally open
awareness, or rigpa, that is the egoless mind.
In the second interview, Lopon describes
several important aspects of the state of mind
that is cultivated by that technique. Lopon is
known for being an astoundingly direct and
open teacher, and it is an understatement to
say that the interviews presented here follow
in that tradition.
Finally, it should be said that even though
meditation is an applied science that is used
to cultivate the egoless mode of self
awareness, you can not try to cultivate the
egoless mind. It doesn’t work like that. The
transition from egocentric to egoless self
 * 99 *
awareness is not a transition that can be
brought about by effort.
If the egoless mind is a mind that makes
no effort to change itself, the only way to
cultivate an egoless mind is to abide in a state
of awareness in which you allow your mind
to remain in its natural state by doing
nothing at all.
Abandon the malady of striving,
for one has already acquired it all.
One leaves it as it is with spontaneity.
The Cuckoo of Awareness2
 * 100 *
Footnotes
1 This is called “following,” or jay-soo-drong, in
DzogChen mind science. Whenever the mind
represses or attaches a thought or emotion, it
causes an inner narrative, or habitual pattern of
ego thought, to appear within the mind. The
egocentric mind believes and lives in those
narratives. Please see Volume II of The Healthy
Mind Interviews, pp. 55-60, for a thorough
discussion of the place of the habitual patterns
of ego thought in the egocentric mind.
2 Samten Gyaltsen Karmay. (1988). The Great
Completion. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
THE INTERVIEWS
 THE TREKCHO INTERVIEW1

“The wisdom of self awareness is

beyond speech and not an object
of conceptual mind.
Therefore, I, Tilopa have nothing
whatsoever to show you.
Know by yourself your own supreme
self awareness.”
Tilopa2

HMV: Usually when I ask questions about

trekcho I end up feeling that there is nothing
to learn. That it is somehow irrelevant to try
and learn anything about the method of
trekcho – if there is such a thing. Is there
anything to learn about doing the practice of
trekcho?
LTN: Oh yes. Very much.
 * 104 *
HMV: What kinds of things?
LTN: You must practice guru yoga. If you
practice guru yoga it makes you part of the
connection to the lineage. You must also
learn to allow all of the creations of the mind
to go back to the natural state. You must
learn how to find the natural state. You must
learn that when you think back to the source
of the mind, you can’t find anything.
HMV: But you do see thoughts, emotions,
feelings.
LTN: Yes. Everything. That’s the nature of
change, and they all return to the nature of the
mind. If you are trying to find their source,
you won’t find anything. Watcher and
watched, both of them disappear at the same
time.
“If what appears as perceived does not exist,
Then what appears as perceiver does not exist;
The nonexistence of duality is what
really exists.”
Maitreya3
 * 105 *
HMV: It seems though, like there is always
an awareness present.
LTN: No. There is nothing there, but it is not
the same condition as deep sleep or being
unconsciousness. At that moment, your
awareness is very bright and clear, but what
is there, you can’t speak of it.
HMV: What do you mean when you say it is
really bright?
LTN: Well it is clear...very bright and very
clear.
HMV: What do you actually experience in
that state of mind?
LTN: Well nothing.
HMV: Nothing. No thoughts.
LTN: No.
HMV: No emotions.
LTN: No. Nothing.
HMV: Awareness? Are you aware that you
are aware?
 * 106 *
LTN: Yes. Just aware, but what you are
aware of is unspeakable.
HMV: Are you saying that there is nothing
there to be aware of?
LTN: Awareness is there. That means you
can’t find anything. Awareness, itself, is
aware.
HMV: Is it just space?
LTN: Space and awareness. Awareness is
also space.
HMV: Awareness is space.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: So there is nothing there.
LTN: Nothing.
HMV: Nothing material is there, and there
are no phenomena of any kind. Is that what
you mean by nondual awareness?
LTN: Surely. That is the nature of mind.
When you are in this position, soon after,
when the thoughts start to arise without
 * 107 *
expectation, they go back to their source. The
source is the same as your nature.
HMV: How do you stay in the nature if the
thoughts arise?
LTN: Well that depends. If you are familiar
with the thoughts, then they will not take
you ... lead you.
HMV: In other words, you don’t believe
your thoughts.
LTN: Yes. That’s right.
HMV: You just let them go.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: And you don’t care about them.
LTN: Don’t care. Whatever comes.
HMV: In other words, just let them go. Don’t
believe them.
LTN: Nothing.
HMV: Don’t believe in anything.
LTN: Nothing.
 * 108 *
Annotation: Here Lopon is saying, first
of all, that thoughts can and do appear to
nondual awareness, or rigpa. He is also
saying that one of the defining
characteristics of rigpa, is that it does not
follow the thoughts that appear before it.
Nor does rigpa believe the content of the
stories those thoughts weave. Rigpa does
not even care about the thoughts that the
dual mind creates. This is the state of
mind that trekcho cultivates.
The dharmakaya is “a state of meditation that
is like the continuous flowing of a river, and
(in which one) remains, at all times, without
attempting to create or stop anything or
trying to develop thoughts or calm them
down.”
Patrul Rinpoche4

In contrast, the watcher, the subject of the

egocentric or dual mind, does follow its
 * 109 *
thoughts, and it does believe the stories
that those thoughts create. In so doing, it
creates ego and causes itself to suffer.

HMV: It sounds like this state of mind would

sort of be like watching a movie go by and
realizing it is just a movie and not real life.
LTN: Yes. You don’t need to care. If you
think something, thought side, then you are
already too distracted.
HMV: Ok. So the important thing to do is to
neither believe the thoughts nor think about
them.
LTN: Not at all.
HMV: And then if you don’t care about
them, they will just disappear.
LTN: Yes. And when they disappear, it is the
same as you keeping into the nature.
HMV: They come from emptiness and return
to emptiness.
LTN: Yes.
 * 110 *
HMV: How do you concentrate into the
natural state? On what do you focus your
awareness?
LTN: There is nothing to do. Just leave it to
itself. If you do something, if you try to do
anything, then you are not in the natural
state.
HMV: So there is no method.
LTN: No. Just keep the natural state
continuously.

If one rests in the natural state

without seeking anything,
Without any specific method
concerning how or when to rest,
that is meditation.
The All Creating Monarch5

HMV: How do you stabilize the natural

state?
LTN: Just do nothing.
 * 111 *
HMV: Just sit there with my eyes open?
LTN: No. That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t
matter whether your eyes are open or closed
or whether you lie down in your bed. If you
are familiar with keeping the natural state, if
you are quite advanced with this practice,
then you can talk, or you can do everything
without disturbing it.
HMV: But even when I do nothing, I am
doing something.

Annotation: There is a distinction to be

made here between trying to do nothing
and just simply doing nothing within
your mind. When you try to do nothing,
then you are doing something. Lopon is
saying here that in trekcho you cultivate
a state of mind in which you just simply
do nothing and, that when you really do
this, you are allowing your mind to
remain in its natural state.
 * 112 *
An important and related distinction is
the difference between allowing your
mind to remain in its natural state, and
the act of trying to cultivate a
predetermined state of mind. The
defining essence of the egocentric mind is
that it is a mind that tries to actualize a
predefined state of mind of one kind or
another. In the day to day life of the
socialized mind in which we all live, that
predefined state will usually be your
concept of self, or your identity. But there
are other forms of ego as well. For
example, you are creating a form of ego
in meditation whenever you try and
cultivate a state of mind that is blissful, or
a state of mind in which no thoughts
arise, or a state of mind in which you do
absolutely nothing.
The nature of mind, in contrast, is not in
any way a state of mind in which you try
 * 113 *
to cultivate a predetermined state of
some sort. It is the natural state of the
mind, and as such, it is egoless.
HMV: When you say you just don’t do
anything, would that be the same as saying
that you don’t reject your thoughts.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: You don’t accept your thoughts.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: You don’t follow your thoughts.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: That’s the same thing.
LTN: That’s the same thing.
HMV: It’s easy to stop following thoughts...
LTN: If you try to stop your thoughts...
HMV: Then you make another thought.
LTN: Yes. Then you are making more
thoughts. Don’t do anything. Just try to keep
in the natural state.
HMV: If you told me to pick up my helmet,
I’d say ok, there’s my helmet over there and
 * 114 *
then I’d go pick it up. If you told me to go
start my motorcycle, I’d walk down the hill,
put the key in my bike, turn the key on and
kick it over. There would be a discernable
method to starting the motorcycle; a
technique.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: If you told me to keep my mind in the
natural state, what would the technique be
for doing that?
LTN: That I told you. Just watch. Once your
thoughts come, just for a moment turn back
to the thoughts. Where do they come from?
How do they look like?
HMV: I guess that’s what I’m asking Lopon.
Can you describe that process? What is that
process like of turning back to the source?
LTN: Well, that is the method. But there is
no real method to use because it is
unspeakable. If you follow what I am saying,
words, then you won’t find the natural state
 * 115 *
at all. You are listening to the outside, and
you are just catching my words.
Annotation: This is really the crux of
what Lopon is saying here about the
technique of trekcho. Lopon’s point is
that one human being simply can not
give another human being instructions
on how to cultivate the natural state of
their mind. For one, there are no instruc-
tions because there is nothing to do.
But more importantly, if you try to follow
a set of instructions when you are
meditating, then you will no longer be
allowing your mind to rest in its natural
state. If you follow a set of instructions,
you will be making your mind do
something different than whatever it
would have been doing naturally. If you
follow a set of instructions, you will not
be allowing the natural process of your
mind to unfold as it is.
 * 116 *
The only instruction you can give is the
admonition to simply remain in the
natural state. Do not change the dynamic
of your mind in any way, unless, of course,
it changes itself naturally on its own.
The natural state of the mind has an
effortless quality to it. It is a state in
which you feel as though there is no need
to respond to or change the phenomena
that appear within your mind. Every-
thing is already perfect.
The import of leaving your mind in its
natural state is that it allows the thoughts
and emotions of the dual mind to self
liberate, or spontaneously transform
themselves, into nondual egoless mind.

“The nature of mind does not change;

were the nature of mind
to seek to realize itself it could not succeed.”
Supreme Source6
 * 117 *
Suppose anger comes. You just watch, for
that moment, the angry thoughts. You can’t
see anything. The anger itself will disappear
if you don’t follow the angry thoughts.
HMV: Suppose the anger doesn’t disappear.
LTN: Well it does. If you have anger for a
long time, that means that you are following
it. Supporting it. If you don’t support it,
surely it will disappear.
HMV: So if I stay angry at someone for six
hours, that means that I am still following the
angry thoughts and emotions.
LTN: Oh surely. Yes. Yes. Look how many
people fight wars. So just look back to your
thoughts. See where their source is and
where they are coming from. What do they
look like? Then you can’t find anything. When
you don’t find anything, then you have
already found the nature. This is the nature.
HMV: If I don’t find anything, that is
trekcho.
 * 118 *
LTN: This is the trekcho. There is nothing
else to do. Trekcho means that you are not
following any of your thoughts. You are not
following. Everything dissolves and goes
back to the source. If something comes, don’t
follow it.
Annotation: Lopon is saying here that if
you allow your mind to remain in its
natural state, it will spontaneously show
you the source, the empty awareness,
from which your thoughts come and to
which they return.
HMV: Well then, let’s go back to the original
question: Is there anything to learn about the
trekcho?
LTN: Oh yes.
HMV: What do you have to learn?
LTN: Well ... that depends. If you are
advanced, and if you are practicing
continuously without any disturbance, then
you have to learn the phenomena.
 * 119 *
HMV: What phenomena do you have to
learn? The phenomena of the mind?
LTN: The phenomena of your mind. All the
visible things. The worldly life. Everything.
HMV: What do you mean by learn the
phenomena of your mind?
LTN: Well learning the phenomena means,
for example, take one person. His wife
thinks, “He is my husband.” His mother
thinks, “This is my son.” This is one person.
Other people think this is my friend, or my
enemy or something.
HMV: They all have different concepts of
who that person is.
LTN: Yes. On his side, what exists in reality
is nothing. Everything is created by your
thoughts. It is the same situation for
everything. All the good things. All the bad
things. Even the universe. All of the universe
comes from the thoughts. The creator of the
universe is your thoughts. Once you realize
 * 120 *
that the thoughts are the creator, then all of
the created universe goes completely into
being delusion. It is made by thoughts, but
on its own side, nothing exists, like that man.
You have to learn that.
HMV: That the delusions are delusions.
LTN: Yes. And the delusions are presented
by your own thoughts.
HMV: Are you saying then, that to
experience the nature of mind, that you have
to really genuinely believe that all of your
thoughts are delusions?
LTN: Do not try to believe anything. You just
have to become familiar with the natural state.
If you are familiar with the natural state, then
you are absolutely into the natural state.
HMV: And to be familiar with the natural
state, does that mean that you just naturally
stop following your thoughts? That you train
yourself, you allow yourself, to stop
following them.
LTN: Yes. Surely.
 * 121 *
HMV: And that is the practice.
LTN: Yes. Surely. Then you will realize that
everything is projected and delusion. That
will teach you very much. Much more than
science ever will. The scientist always has to
face to the outside.
Annotation: Lopon is saying here that all
of your dual, or grasping, thoughts are
delusions. They create the delusion that
all of the things in the universe really exist
and have a self. He is also saying here that
there is no need, when you meditate, to
try to convince your self that your
thoughts are delusions. To do so, would
be a departure from the natural state, and
that would create, once again, a form of
ego. It turns out, he says, that if you
simply stop following your thoughts, the
realization that they are all delusory will
eventually arise spontaneously.
The virtue of realizing that the thoughts
that are your habitual patterns of ego
 * 122 *
thought are delusory is that: (1) you will
stop living in the stories they create (2)
you will stop trying to change them and
as a result (3) they will dissolve into and
become nondual awareness.

HMV: But is it not true that the talk we’re

having right now is science.
LTN: Oh yes. Surely.
HMV: We are talking about observable
things.
LTN: But as much as you follow your
thoughts, you won’t find anything; always
more and more will be coming.
HMV: When you follow them, the same
thoughts keep arising.
LTN: Surely. Always rising; one after the
other.
HMV: Why does following your thoughts
make more of them arise?
LTN: There is no limit. The human mind has
no root. It is rootless. Everything in this
 * 123 *
world is destroyed by the elements: fire or
wind or water. But mind never disappears.
And science is completely a matter of
following the thoughts. If you don’t go back
to the source, then the thoughts will not be
limited at all.
HMV: How do you go back to the source?
LTN: Just watch the thoughts.
HMV: Just let them go.
LTN: Yes. That is the key. If you try to do
something, then you will never achieve the
natural state at all.
HMV: Why does it seem like there must be
something more to learn than this?
LTN: You have to practice. Then you will get
more and more into the natural state. If you
don’t practice it, it’s all theory. Talking. And
then you will never achieve it. You can talk
and get some idea of what it looks like, but
the complete explanation will never come to
you.
 * 124 *
HMV: Thank you. What is the difference
between Vipassana and Trekcho?
LTN: Well there is a lot of difference.
HMV: What is the difference?
LTN: In Vipassana, you have to focus in a
particular way. In Trekcho, there is no focus
at all.
HMV: Whatever happens, happens.
LTN: Yes. I told you. Awareness is empty.
Empty awareness. But in Vipassana you
must have some target or focus.
HMV: How do you know when you are in
the natural state?
LTN: Well that depends on my thoughts,
how I control them, and whether or not I
follow them. When the thoughts come, I
know whether or not I am following them.
HMV: How do you know that you are not
following your thoughts?
LTN: Well that is by yourself; knowing your
empty awareness.
 * 125 *
HMV: In trekcho, do you focus on the gaps –
the gaps that appear in the stream of
consciousness?
LTN: No. Not at all.
HMV: So you don’t focus on anything.
LTN: Nothing. Just completely leave it.
HMV: Thank you. I’d like to present to you a
conclusion that I’ve reached as a result of my
own experience, and I’d like to know what
do you think about it.
LTN: Ok.
HMV: The conclusion is this: The way in
which your mind responds to its own
thoughts and emotions will determine
whether or not you realize non-dual
awareness. For example, you have just now
said that you should just let your thoughts
go. Don’t care about them. This is one
specific way of responding to, or relating to,
your own mind. It is one particular way of
relating to your own thoughts.
 * 126 *
LTN: Oh yes.
HMV: It sounds like you are saying that the
way the mind relates to its thoughts will
determine whether or not you realize non-
dual mind.
LTN: Oh yes. Surely.
HMV: That’s true?
LTN: Yes. The thoughts are very much for
the temporary. Like clouds. So they are
coming and going. We don’t need to follow
or care about them. If you let them come,
they will stay awhile and disappear. But if
you follow them, then more and more will
come. If you don’t follow them, then they
themselves disappear.
“The wind blows through the sky and
flies over continents without
settling anywhere. It traverses space
and leaves no trace. Thus should
thoughts pass through our mind.”
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche7
 * 127 *
The thoughts themselves are very much
temporary. Nothing to do with the nature.
The natural state is the nature of all existence,
not only the mind. One thought can show
you the real nature, but that nature, that
emptiness, is the same quality of the whole
universe. Not only your one thought. You
don’t need to do anything with those
thoughts.
HMV: Just allow them to remain in their
natural state.
LTN: Everything is in there. You don’t need
to follow your good thoughts. You don’t
even need to watch them. Or the bad
thoughts. They are all the same thought.
They all have the same quality. The same
nature. This is the complete truth.
HMV: So if you follow your thoughts, they
will keep coming, and your mind will remain
dual.
LTN: Oh surely.
 * 128 *
HMV: If on the other hand, you don’t follow
your thoughts, they will dissolve and dis-
appear, and you will realize non-dual mind.
LTN: Yes.
Annotation: Unbeknownst to himself,
Lopon is being an astute and discerning
mind scientist here. He is saying that in
his experience with the mind, the
following group of observations are
empirically correct. If awareness does not
follow the thoughts that appear before it,
it will cause two things to happen: (1)
those thoughts will dissolve and
disappear and (2) nondual awareness,
the nature of the mind, will arise. “One
thought can show you the real nature,
but that nature, that emptiness, is the
same quality of the whole universe.”
In addition, Lopon is also saying that the
reverse is true as well. If the watcher does
follow its thoughts, that will cause two
 * 129 *
very different things to happen: (1) more
thoughts will appear and (2) the watcher
will have dual awareness of those
thoughts.
In making these observations, Lopon is
affirming three of the fundamental
principles of human self awareness: (1)
the watcher responds to the thoughts and
emotions that appear in its stream of
consciousness (2) the watcher can and
does respond to those meanings in a
number of different ways and (3) the
different responses will determine the
kind of awareness the mind will have of
those meanings.8
Finally, and briefly for now, meditation in
general, and trekcho in particular, are
technologies that transform the way the
mind knows and relates to itself. By virtue
of doing nothing, trekcho will dismantle
the machinations of the egocentric mind,
 * 130 *
and spontaneously transform the watcher
of the egocentric mind into the joyous
nondual awareness that is the egoless
mode of self-awareness.

HMV: Thank you. Now, so far we have been

saying that following your thoughts is the
same as believing them. Would it be correct
to say that there is more than one way of
following your thoughts?
LTN: Yes.
HMV: And that if you follow, or believe,
your thoughts, this will cause more thoughts
to arise.
LTN: Oh surely.
HMV: Now is it also true that sometimes the
mind will spontaneously try to reject, or
repress, a thought.
LTN: Yes. Sometimes.
HMV: Will that make more thoughts appear.
LTN: Yes. Surely.
 * 131 *
HMV: If you accept and hold onto a thought,
will that also cause more thoughts to appear?
LTN: Yes. Surely.
HMV: What kind of response will stop the
thoughts from coming?
LTN: Doing nothing. Just keeping in the
natural state. Then the thoughts themselves
will stop. If you try to do something, then
you will not be in the natural state.
HMV: I guess one of the hardest things to do
in the world is to do nothing.
LTN: It is not easy.
 * 132 *
Footnotes
1 This interview was done at Triten Nurbutse
Bonpo Monastery in September of 1994.
2 Karma Chagmey, The Union of Mahamudra and
Dzogchen, Commentary by Khenchen Thrangu
Rinpoche, From the website of Khenchen
Thrangu Rinpoche, www.rinpoche.com.
3 Asanga and Maitreya, 2001, Distinguishing
BetweenDharma & Dharmata. Commentary by
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche. Translated by Jules
Levinson. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications,
pg. 33.
4 John Reynolds. 1996. Golden Letters. Ithaca:
Snow Lion Publications, pg. 51
5 Richard Barron. Treasure Trove of Scriptural
Transmission. Junction City. California: Padma
Publishing, pg. 245.
6 Chogyal Namkhai Norbu and Adriano
Clemente. Supreme Source. Ithaca: Snow Lion
Publications, pg. 166.
 * 133 *
7 From Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s Commentary
to “The Hundred Verses of Advice” by Padampa
Sangye. Buddhadharma, Summer 2003, pg. 21.
8 Concurring and related observations can be
found throughout all of the first three volumes
of The Healthy Mind Interviews.
THE SELF LIBERATION INTERVIEW1

With the perception of the true nature of

phenomena within basic space,
wisdom arises continuously as the
adornment of that space.
Longchenpa2

HMV: When you meditate does a stream of

thoughts ever appear in your mind?
LTN: Yes.
HMV: How do these thoughts appear in the
stream of consciousness?
LTN: They just appear spontaneously. This is
the normal way. And if you don’t touch
anything, if you don’t follow anything, right
after they appear, the thoughts will be
 * 136 *
liberated. You don’t need to do anything more
than that. If you do something, than more and
more thoughts will develop. Continuously.
HMV: When you say “do something,” what
do you mean?
LTN: Well that is the normal way things
happen. You do something.3 However, if you
don’t care about the thoughts, when the
thoughts come, they will disappear by
themselves. There’s no trace. But if you do
something, then everything is created. This is
the simple way. If you are a national leader,
and you give somebody an order, first of all
you have very simple thoughts coming up,
and you immediately take action. You say
something. You give an order to the next
person, and they do something more and
more, and then you have created the Second
World War.
HMV: (laughter) Does it work the same way
in the mind?
 * 137 *
LTN: Sure!
HMV: When the thoughts appear to the mind,
how do they appear? As images? As words?
LTN: They come like waves.
HMV: They come spontaneously.
LTN: For sure.
HMV: Do you actually experience them?
LTN: Sure.
HMV: How do you experience them? Are
they pictures in the mind?
LTN: No. This is mind. It comes from the
nature. And they spontaneously appear.
HMV: When I look at my glasses, I see the
glasses there. When you look at a thought,
what do you see?
LTN: It depends on the thought. It depends
on what you are following.
HMV: Different thoughts appear in different
ways.
LTN: Yes. And you can observe whatever
comes up. If you seriously want to control
 * 138 *
them, then you need to not care about
anything. Good things might be coming up.
Bad things might be coming up. But if you
don’t follow them, then soon after they
appear, they, themselves, will all be liberated
into the nature. Which is also where they are
coming from.
HMV: It sounds like you saying that there is
a causal relationship between the actions of
the watcher and the thoughts. For example,
here it seems like you are saying that if the
mind does not follow its thoughts, that it will
cause, or allow, those thoughts to dissolve
and disappear.
LTN: Yes. And then they go back to where
they came from. There is no separation.
HMV: What do you mean there is no
separation?
LTN: Well that means that the thoughts are
not coming from beyond the nature. They are
coming up from the nature, arising into the
 * 139 *
nature and disappearing into nature. That
means that the thoughts and the nature are
not at all separate. The thoughts themselves
are nature; the empty nature. If you think
that something is there, concretely or
materially, then more and more thoughts
will develop.
Annotation: The nature of mind is an
important technical term in Buddhist and
DzogChen mind science. In its simplest
sense, to know the nature of the mind is
to know the mind the way it really is; to
know the mind in its natural, or
unaltered, state. In the context of
DzogChen mind science, the natural state
of the mind is an awareness that is
empty, nondual, joyous and like space.
The natural mind is also a mind in which
all of the inner appearances – dual,
nondual and predual – are both empty
and allowed to pursue their own natural
 * 140 *
trajectory. When the inner appearances
are left in their natural state, they
spontaneously dissolve and self liberate.
They are spontaneously transformed into
nondual egoless mind.

HMV: Are the thoughts dual appearances? Is

there a subject and object?
LTN: Yes, obviously. Any kind of
consciousness4 is dual consciousness.
HMV: Are they dual in the sense that there is
a subject and object present?
LTN: Yes.
HMV: Are they dual in the sense that there is
a watcher, or awareness, watching a stream
of thoughts?
LTN: Yes.
HMV: How do you know that a thought is a
dual appearance?
LTN: That becomes clear from having
experience with the nature. When you
experience the nature, then you can see
 * 141 *
clearly without subject and object. Things are
coming up spontaneously without there
being subject and object. Then they are
liberated into the nature from which they
came.
HMV: It sounds like you are saying that the
mind can have both dual and nondual
awareness of itself, and that once you have
experienced the nature of mind, you can tell
the difference between the two.
LTN: According to the DzogChen view,
every consciousness is a dual consciousness.
Subject and object are always there because
all of the different kinds of consciousness
grasp5 something. There is conception.
HMV: Is it the grasping, then, the attributing
of a concept of self to a phenomenon, that
defines and creates dual consciousness?
LTN: Yes.
HMV: So mind, or sems, means dual mind.
LTN: Yes completely.
 * 142 *
HMV: And the nature of mind means
nondual mind.
LTN: Yes completely. There is not any dual
consciousness at all.6 Only empty nature.
HMV: Is there awareness?
LTN: Yes. There is awareness. It’s empty.
There is no separation of awareness and
nature. We talk about them as being different
things to help understand it, but it only like
water and wet.
Annotation: Lopon is saying here that
the “nature of mind” is the same as rigpa
– awareness that is nondual and empty. It
is an awareness that both is the
emptiness of the mind and realizes the
emptiness of the mind.

HMV: My experience has been that when a

person first starts meditating, that many
thoughts, a stream of thoughts, will appear in
a person’s mind. Is that correct?
 * 143 *
LTN: Sure. This is the nature.
HMV: And then after a person has been
meditating for a while, the thoughts begin to
slow down.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: And sometimes they even disappear.
Is that correct?
LTN: Yes.
HMV: Eventually, it seems that gaps will
begin to appear in the stream of thoughts.
Periods of time occur when there are no
thoughts appearing. Sometimes those gaps
will last for a very long time. In your
experience, can that happen?
LTN: Yes. What do you mean by gap?
HMV: By gap I mean a period of time in
which there are no inner appearances.
Nothing appears.
LTN: Then what is there?
HMV: Nothing.
LTN: Nothing?
 * 144 *
HMV: Well there is an awareness present.
LTN: What is awareness?
HMV: It’s just awareness.
LTN: What’s it aware of? To be aware means
seeing or knowing something. Otherwise
there is no awareness.
HMV: It is aware of space.
LTN: Space. Ok. Who at that time is knowing
that empty space?
HMV: Nondual awareness. Rigpa.
LTN: Oh yes. This is the point you see. Is this
rigpa consciousness?
HMV: No. It is not consciousness.
LTN: Ok. Then what is rigpa?
HMV: It is just the awareness of empty space.
LTN: Just space.
HMV: Just space.7
LTN: Nothing else?
HMV: Nothing else.
LTN: Ok. Only space. Why do you call this
awareness? Space itself can not see anything
 * 145 *
or know anything. It is empty. Then what is
aware?
HMV: The awareness itself. It is aware of the
space and itself.
LTN: Ok. Just aware. Then how do you
control it at that moment? How do you stay
in that state?
HMV: Well actually I don’t try and control it.
LTN: You don’t do anything?
HMV: Nothing.
LTN: Ok. Completely empty space.
HMV: Completely empty.
LTN: Ok. There is no awareness. Nothing to
see. Nothing to know. Only space exists.
HMV: There is only space, but it also
definitely feels like there is an awareness
present within the space, and my experience
has also been that single inner appearances
can continue to arise within this space.
LTN: Yes.
 * 146 *
HMV: The inner appearances continue, but
they dissolve as soon as they appear.
LTN: Yes they continue, but is something
changing, or does the space go on?
HMV: The way it seems to me is that the
space goes on.
LTN: Never changing.
HMV: Never changing.
LTN: Ok.
HMV: It never changes, but again, individual
inner appearances will sometimes come into
the space.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: But as soon as they come into this
space, they dissolve.
LTN: Ok.
HMV: And then they’re not there anymore.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: And then there is space again. Maybe
for a long time.
LTN: Ok.
 * 147 *
HMV: And then perhaps another single
inner appearance will come and then
immediately dissolve. And then it’s gone.
LTN: Ok. Who sees?
HMV: Just the awareness.
LTN: You say this is awareness, but it is only
space. Nothing else.
HMV: My experience is that when these
single inner appearances arise, they come into
the space and then immediately disappear.
LTN: Yes.
HMV: In addition, my experience has also
been that when these single appearances
dissolve, different things can then happen.
For example, sometimes when a single inner
appearance arises and disappears, light will
come. Light appears.
LTN: What is light?
HMV: My eyes are closed. And inside, a field
of light appears. The space is now filled with
light. In your experience, can that happen?
 * 148 *
LTN: (Long pause) Yes. The conditions for
the thought come up. Or as you say, light.
Where does the light come from?
HMV: Nowhere. From the nature.
LTN: From the nature. So nature has some
power.
HMV: Oh yes.
LTN: So if you have experienced this much,
this space itself, if you don’t touch anything,
this space is not normal space. It has special
qualities.
HMV: What do you mean by special qualities?
LTN: I’m going to tell you now. This is not
normal space. Normal space is only space. It
is a space because material things are not
present in that space. Nothing is there. This
other space is special because it liberates
thoughts. It liberates consciousness. It looks
like space. You have to use words to describe
it. But it is not real space. This condition has
this special power. Everything, nirvana,
 * 149 *
samsara, happiness, sadness can sponta-
neously appear.
HMV: Are you saying that everything takes
its origin from this space?
LTN: This special space has power. We call it
lhondhup. There is nothing to point out in
the space. But this nature is also completely
and originally pure. You can not take any
negative actions in this space. Therefore this
space is also called pure or kadag.
Everything is supreme bliss,
equal to space itself –
the expanse of dharmakaya.
There is nothing that is not free within
the expanse of dharmakaya.
Longchenpa8

And kadag and lhundup spontaneously exist

within this space. And if you don’t care about
staying in this condition, you won’t need to
check anything. There is no one to check. But
 * 150 *
it is there. You don’t need to check something
that is pure or something that exists
spontaneously. They are there.
HMV: Everything that appears in that space
is pure.
LTN: Yes. Whatever appears, you don’t have
to do anything. Good things can come. Bad
things can come. Sometimes very bad
emotions come up, and sometimes good
things come up.
HMV: Do negative emotions change when
they come into that space?
LTN: If you are able to keep still without
being disturbed, if whatever comes up you
don’t care, if you are remaining in that space
without being disturbed, then you are ok. If
you are able to do this, and if you are
seriously and continuously practicing,
gradually all of the negative actions and
emotions, all of the negative things become
weaker and weaker. Finally they disappear.
 * 151 *
HMV: Ok.
LTN: Pure and impure, samsara and nirvana,
both come from this basic nature. Eventually,
however, pure and good things like light, or
energies, or bodhicitta, the ten paramitas will
start coming without you even expecting
them, and they will appear even before the
emotions come. And now you are
continuously practicing without being
disturbed by visions.9 Eventually all of the
visions can be stopped. There are no visions
at the end. So that means that our life is
normally vision. And you have to realize that
these visions, everything, are from the same
source: the nature. And also that they are
empty form. They are liberated into empty
form. And then everything is liberated into
the nature. That is the final practice.

Annotation: Buddhism has, over the

course of its history, developed four
 * 152 *
different elemental techniques for
transforming egocentric mind into
egoless mind. Each of the vehicles of
Buddhism – Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajra-
yana and DzogChen – has a different
transformative technique that defines the
practice of that vehicle.10 The defining
transformative technique of DzogChen is
called self liberation, or rangdrol in
Tibetan.
From the perspective of DzogChen, the
meditative techniques of the first three
Buddhist vehicles all use dual mind to
create subtle forms of ego. They create
ego in the sense that they define an
(egoless) state of mind then seek to attain
that state of mind in their meditations.
DzogChen, in contrast, does not cultivate
a predefined state of mind. The
meditations of DzogChen work on the
premise that if you leave your mind in its
 * 153 *
natural state, it will spontaneously
transform itself into nondual egoless
mind – like a snake spontaneously
slipping out of its own knots. This
spontaneous transformation of dual
mind into nondual mind is self liberation.

“Not fettered by any fruition,

the natural mind is free.”
Longchenpa11

In the extended passage above, Lopon

describes the state of awareness that
allows self liberation to occur. He says
that within the totally open, space like
awareness that is the nature of the mind,
all dual thoughts and emotions are
spontaneously self liberated into pure
phenomena. “You can not take any
negative actions in this space.”
He then names some of the different
types of pure phenomena that can and do
 * 154 *
arise as a result of self liberation: light,
energies, bodhicitta and the ten
paramitas. He then closes his discussion
of self liberation by making the very
interesting point that self liberation is the
spontaneous transformation of inner
appearances, or visions, into their empty
forms.

Then what happens is that you find that in

your normal life the visions are all still there,
but that on your side, the nature side, there is
no grasping. The visions that you have are
now all recognized as empty form. Then it is
similar to the thodgal12 visions.
If you don’t have experience with the
thodgal visions, then you will always have to
be thinking that the normal visions of life are
empty, that everything is empty. Then you
still will not have completed the DzogChen
view. If you do integrate with these visions,
 * 155 *
then they come from the empty nature, they
themselves are empty forms, and they are
liberated back into the emptiness that they
came from. Then finally everything is
completely empty form and disappearing,
and all of the visions are finished. This, then,
is the fourth vision according to thodgal.
 * 156 *
Footnotes
1 This interview took place at Lopon’s monastery
in the Kathmandu Valley in June of 1997.
2 Richard Barron. 2001. Treasure Trove Scriptural
Transmission. Junction City, California: Padma
Publishing, pg. 23
3 When Lopon says here that, “You do
something,” he means that the egocentric
watcher responds to the meanings that appear
in its stream of consciousness by either
accepting, rejecting or following them.
4 For Lopon the English word “conscious-ness” is
a translation of the Tibetan term “shespa.” This
is a consequence of the history of the translation
of the term “shespa” into English. “Shespa” is a
tech-nical term in Buddhist psychology, and it
refers to six different types of dual moments of
consciousness that appear in the stream of
consciousness. What Lopon is really saying here
is that all of the shespa’s are dual, as opposed to
nondual, moments of consciousness; which is
true. He is not, however, saying that all
 * 157 *
awareness, or all consciousness as the term is
used in English, is dual.
5 Two quick points here. Once again, Lopon is
using the term “consciousness” as a synonym
for a dual moments of consciousness, or shespa.
Secondly, the term “grasp” is a translation of the
Tibetan term “dzinpa.” As Lopon says here, to
grasp a phenomenon is, by definition, the act of
attributing a concept of self to that
phenomenon. It is the watcher that grasps inner
appearances, and it does so by repressing,
attaching, or following one.
6 This is both a linguistic and empirical assertion.
Either way, the point that Lopon is making here
is that when the mind abides in its natural state,
there are no dual moments of consciousness, for
example the thoughts or emotions, present in
that state. He is not, however, in any way
suggesting that the nature of mind is a state of
mind in which awareness is not present.
7 Empirically, the term space is being used here to
refer to an awareness that is like space. It is an
 * 158 *
awareness that is like space in the sense that it is
totally open to the meanings that appear in its
stream of consciousness. It does not reject,
accept or follow those meanings. “Totally open
awareness” is a non literal translation and
compilation of two Tibetan terms: “lahngdoor
maypa” – which means no accepting or
rejecting, and “jaysoodrong maypa” – which
means no following.
“Lhundup” is a technical term in DzogChen
mind science that is usually translated into
English as “spontaneous.” Tulku Thondup
Rinpoche has said that the term refers to the
“spontaneous perfection of appearances.”
(Masters of Mediation and Miracles. Shambhala
South Asia Edition, pg. 33) As such, Lhundrup
is the spontaneous transformation of thoughts,
emotions and predual inner appearances (gzhi
nang) into nondual egoless mind.
“Kadag” is another technical term in DzogChen
mind science. It is usually translated into
English as “primordial purity.” His Holiness the
 * 159 *
Dalai Lama has said that kadag “corresponds to
… emptiness,” and that it is “the main subject
matter of the second turning” of the wheel of
dharma. (His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
DzogChen: The Heart Essence of the Great
Perfection, Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, pp.
87 & 165) In this reading, “kadag” refers to the
emptiness of phenomena. There are also
contexts in which the term “kadag” is used to
describe and refer to empty awareness, or rigpa,
and that is how Lopon is using the term here.
Longchenpa uses the term in much the same
way when he says that, “The principle basic
view of [Dzogpa Chenpo] is of primordially
pure and naked intrinsic awareness.” (pg. X of
Richard Barron, 2001. Treasure Trove of Scriptural
Transmission.)
8 Richard Barron. 2001. The Treasure Trove of
Scriptural Transmission. Junction City,
California: Padma Publishing, pg. 184.
9 There are, according to Lopon, three different
kinds of visions that appear to the mind: (1)
 * 160 *
karmic, or dual, visions (2) Zhitro visions of
deities and (3) nondual, or todgal, visions. Here
Lopon is referring to karmic visions.
10 Even though it is true that each vehicle is
defined by a core meditative technique, it is not
at all unusual for practitioners in one vehicle to
use techniques from other vehicles as well. See,
for example, Jigme Lingpa’s description of the
daily routine he followed in his first three year
meditation retreat. (Van Schaik, Sam. 2004. Ap-
proaching the Great Perfection. Boston: Wisdom
Publications, pg. 102.)
11 Barron, Richard. 2001. A Treasure Trove of
Scriptural Transmission. Junction City,
California: Padma Publishing, pg. 323.
12 There are two types of meditation practice that
are unique to DzogChen practice. Thodgal is
one of them. Thodgal is a meditation in which
one learns to cultivate the spontaneous
perfection of (inner) appearances.
LOPON THEKCHOKE
 INTRODUCTION

Lopon Thekchoke does not actually talk

in spontaneous Doha – the mystic poetry of
the tantric Buddhism of medieval India – but
he does sing. Lopon Thekchoke is, by nature,
a man of uncontrived natural lyricism.
Extended metaphors and ancient figures of
speech pour forth from the Lopon. He sings
without singing, and he is both playful and
serious.
In the collection of interviews that follow,
Lopon will be describing the nature of the
nondual mind. To be more specific, he will be
talking at length about both the subjective
and objective aspects of the nondual mind.
But wait, you say. How can it possibly be
that the nondual mind has subjective and
objective aspects? Is it not true that the
 * 164 *
nondual mind is nondual? Is it not true that
the nondual mind is a mind that is devoid of
subject and object? It all depends upon how
you define duality and nonduality.

If without either subject or object,

The other-dependent existed empty of duality,
Then by what would its existence be known?
Chandrakirti1

There is, to be sure, a duality at the core of

the human mind’s experience of itself. It is a
duality in which the mind fights with itself as
the watcher tries to control the expression of
the meanings that arise in its stream of
consciousness. Often, for example, we find
ourselves fighting with our emotions to keep
ourselves from expressing them, and this,
then, is the ultimate sense in which the
human mind is dual. It is a dual mind
because it is a mind that has divided itself in
two for the purpose of controlling itself.
 * 165 *
This is, of course, a recurring image in the
history of western ideas. Five and a half
millennia ago, The Gilgamesh portrayed
human beings as being both half god and
half animal. Plato’s divided mind was a mind
in which reason had the endless and not so
enviable task of controlling the appetites and
the passions.2 Freud gave us a dual mind in
which one part of the mind, the ego, controls
another part of the mind, the id. Jung’s dual
mind is a mind in which the ego controls the
self. Winnicott gave us a mind in which the
false self controls the true self. And so forth.
Buddhism, in contrast, sees this apparent
duality of the socialized mind as a delusion.
It sees the duality and conflict described by
Plato, Freud et al as being delusional aspects
of a control dynamic created by the ego to
sustain its belief that it has the identity that it
thinks it has. Buddhist psychology sees this
control dynamic as being the means by
 * 166 *
which the ego creates a system of delusions
that it builds for the purpose of preserving its
sense of identity, and it goes so far as to say
that even the identity, itself, is a delusion.
DzogChen mind science describes the
details of this self preserving control
dynamic. Once again, it is a dynamic in
which the mind grasps, or preserves, its
identity, or concept of self, by constantly
taking one or another of the following three
actions:
(1) Repressing, or rejecting, thoughts
and emotions that are inconsistent
with its identity.
(2) Attaching, or accepting, thoughts
and emotions that are consistent
with its identity, and
(3) Creating and living in recurring
inner narratives that support its
identity.3
 * 167 *
In other words, the egocentric mind is a mind
that is constantly altering its reality for the
purpose of holding onto its sense of identity.
And herein lies the essence of the
DzogChen definition of duality. DzogChen
mind science takes the position that the mind
with an ego creates duality, and that it
creates duality for the purpose of preserving
its identity. It says that the egocentric mind
creates and recreates duality in every
moment by grasping its thoughts and
emotions, and that it grasps them by
rejecting, accepting and following them. It is
this grasping that divides the mind into self
and other and makes the mind dual.
A nondual mind, in contrast, is a mind
that does not grasp, define or control itself. It
is a mind that leaves its stream of
consciousness in its natural state. It is a mind
in which the subject of awareness is like a
space that allows the objects that appear in its
 * 168 *
stream of consciousness to flow through it
unimpeded and unaltered. As a result, all of
the appearances that arise within the
nondual mind self liberate4 into nonduality.
The nondual mind is a mind in which
rigpa, the subjective aspect of the nondual
mind, knows itself as clarity5 — its objective
aspect.
 * 169 *
Footnotes
1 From Verse 72 of Chandrakirti’s
Madhyamakavatara, as quoted in The
Conventional Status of Reflexive Awareness: What’s
at Stake in a Tibetan Debate? Garfield, Jay L.
Philosophy East and West, Volume 56, Number
2, April 2006, pp. 201-228.
2 Plato, The Symposium and The Phaedrus.
Translator: Benjamin Jowett. New York: Dover
Publications, 1993.
3 Once again, the act of believing and living in the
stream of consciousness stories created by the
ego is called “following” by DzogChen mind
science. Whenever the mind represses or holds
onto a thought or emotion, it causes one of these
inner narratives, or habitual pattern of ego
thought, to appear within the mind. Please see
Volume II of The Healthy Mind Interviews, pp. 55-
60, for a thorough discussion of the nature of the
habitual patterns of ego thought and their
function in the egocentric mind.
 * 170 *
4 Self liberation, which is a translation of the
Tibetan term rangdrol, is a technical term in
DzogChen psychology. Please see the
annotation on pages 162-164. for a discus-sion of
the nature and import of “self liberation.”
5 Please see the section entitled “Clarity” in this
volume for an empirical discussion of the nature
of clarity.
THE LOPON TEGCHOKE
INTERVIEWS1

“Effulgent Rigpa is rigpa

that arises from the ground,
… as the appearance of the ground.”
His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama2
 “In the pure state one speaks of the
inseparability of luminosity and emptiness,
which are the five wisdoms of a Buddha.
These wisdoms are entirely ungraspable,
yet they appear. The nature of their
appearance is nondual, yet they do appear.
They are the union of dharmata and
emptiness or spaciousness or
the union of wisdom ad spaciousness.”
Thrangu Rinpoche3
NONDUAL MEANINGS
 INNER APPEARANCES

HMV: Why do people have thoughts?

Horses don’t have thoughts. Computers
don’t have thoughts. Babies don’t have
thoughts.
LTC: Thoughts arise because of the mind,
and babies and even small animals do have
thoughts.
HMV: Ok.
LTC: Animals and babies don’t have
grasping thoughts, but they do have
meanings.
HMV: Meanings appear in their mind?
LTC: Yes. They grasp the meaning. For
example, a horse, when he hears the sound of
a river flowing nearby, immediately prepares
to go and drink that water. Even though it
 * 178 *
doesn’t know the name of the water. In the
same way, if a baby just once touches a fire,
after that, it will never touch fire again. Even
though the baby doesn’t know the name of
the fire. Babies and animals do not grasp
objects by knowing their names.
HMV: But at the same time, the horse does
know, when he hears the sound of the river,
that if he goes to the sound, he will find
water to drink.
LTC: That’s true.
HMV: Now in your understanding of the
mind, when the horse hears the river and
knows that he can find a drink of water, is
that what you would call a meaning?
LTC: Yes. That’s a meaning.
HMV: Thank you.
LTC: He knows the meaning, but he doesn’t
know the name.
HMV: Now when the horse hears the stream
and knows there is a drink of water nearby,
 * 179 *
does the horse have an inner appearance that
says, “Ah, there’s a stream over there where
I can get a drink?”
LTC: Yes. In the first moment, the horse will
know that there is water. In the second
moment, it will have a thought that says the
water will quench its thirst.
HMV: Ah! Does that thought appear as a
dual thought?
LTC: Yes.
Annotation: In talking about the mind of
a horse that hears a running stream off in
the distance, Lopon is making a
distinction between two different kinds
of inner appearances that can and do
arise in the human stream of
consciousness. Lopon is saying here that
there is one type of inner appearance that
simply gives meaning to a person’s
experience of the world. The horse, if you
will, hears the sound of running water
 * 180 *
and realizes that there is a stream that
will quench his thirst nearby. This is a
meaning that the horse’s mind gives to
the sensory experience of hearing the
sound of the water running in the stream.
The second type of inner appearance is
what Lopon is calling a name. It is an
inner appearance that evaluates and
attributes a concept of self to a prior
meaning.
This second type of appearance brings to
mind the oft-heard formulation in
Tibetan psychology that a dual mind is a
mind that thinks that “this is this and this
is that.” It is a mind that grasps its own
thoughts by attributing a concept of self,
or identity,4 to them. Here is a passage
from an interview with Penor Rinpoche
in which he discusses this very type of
grasping:
 * 181 *
HMV: What does it mean to grasp
a thought?
PR: It is thinking “this is this” and
“this is that.”
HMV: Ahh. Are you saying that
the act of grasping a thought is the
act of attributing a self concept to
that thought?
PR: Yes. If you don’t meditate
much, when you see something,
then you say “this is this, this is
that.” That is called grasping.5

The dual mind grasps its meanings by

attributing a name, or self, to them. In
contrast, nondual awareness does not
grasp the primordial meanings that it
gives to its experience, and as a result,
they dissolve and become nondual mind.
 NONDUAL AWARENESS AND
INNER APPEARANCES

HMV: What is the difference between path

rigpa and fruition rigpa?6
LTC: Path rigpa sees it, but hasn’t become it
yet.
HMV: What does path rigpa see? And what
has it not it yet become?
LTC: It has not yet seen the face of rigpa, the
essence of rigpa.
HMV: What is the face of rigpa?
LTC: This is all explained in DzogChen.
(Shared laughter) The face of rigpa has three
aspects: its essence, or emptiness; its nature,
or self clarity, and the universal compassion
of its responsiveness. Emptiness is like space.
Self clarity is like a rainbow. Compassion to
 * 184 *
all is like the rays of the sun. That is the face
of rigpa, and everyone has it equally.
HMV: Would it be correct to say, then, that
path rigpa has not realized the essence, or
emptiness, of the base?
LTC: Path rigpa understands the essence of
rigpa, but it has not really realized that
essence. For example, path rigpa would be
like my hearing that you are Doctor Hank
and that you look like you look. I have not
met you, but I have heard all about you from
someone else.
HMV: That’s path rigpa.
LTC: But when I have actually met you, that
is fruition rigpa.
HMV: So path rigpa has intellectually
understood emptiness.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: And fruition rigpa, in contrast, is
awareness that has had a direct and stable
experience of emptiness.
 * 185 *
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Is fruition rigpa the same thing as the
egoless mind?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Is fruition rigpa the awareness of a
mind that is permanently egoless?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you very much. Now I’d like to
take a moment and ask you a series of
questions about the different kinds of
appearances that fruition rigpa can and does
know.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Can fruition rigpa be aware of dual
inner appearances?
LTC: No.
HMV: Do thoughts and emotions appear to
fruition rigpa?
LTC: No.
HMV: Do habitual patterns of ego thought
appear to rigpa?
 * 186 *
LTC: No.
HMV: Of course not. Does the primordial
wisdom that knows phenomena, dekhona-
nyid togpai yeshe,7 appear to nondual
awareness?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Thank you. Do the kayas8 appear to
fruition rigpa?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Does self appearing timeless
awareness, rangjung yeshe, appear to rigpa?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: When self appearing timeless aware-
ness appears to rigpa, how does it appear?
LTC: Self appearing timeless awareness is
rigpa.
HMV: So it is like a mirror. They are the
same.
LTC: Yes. They are the same experience. To
say that timeless awareness, or yeshe, is self
appearing, or rangjung, is to say it has no
 * 187 *
cause or condition. That’s why it is called self
appearing. Rigpa means awareness is present.
Yeshe means that it was always there.
HMV: Ahh. Primordial. Always there.
LTC: Yes. “Ye” is primordial.
HMV: That must mean that there is nothing
you can actually do to make it appear. It has
no causes or conditions. It’s always there.
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: And so rangjung yeshe, or timeless
awareness, is actually an awareness. Which
must also mean that it is really not an
appearance.
LTC: That’s right. It is not an appearance. It
is awareness.
HMV: But the primordial wisdom that knows
phenomena, an insight, is an appearance.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: And it would also seem like the kayas
are awareness, or rigpa, too; and that they are
not actual appearances either.
 * 188 *
LTC: That’s right. They are not appearances.
HMV: Do empty appearances, or chosnyid,
appear to fruition rigpa?
LC: Their name is chosnyid.
HMV: Is a chosnyid an appearance? Is a
chosnyid an empty appearance?
LTC: Chosnyid can be described as an
appearance as well as emptiness. When you
say chosnyid, it means Buddha nature,
suchness.
HMV: I think of a chosnyid as being a
primordial appearance that is known just as
it is by nondual awareness.
LTC: Oh yes.
Annotation: Lopon is enumerating, here,
the various types of inner appearances,
or meanings, of which the nondual mind
is and is not aware. In so doing, he is once
again saying, without any qualification,
that the nondual, or egoless, mind can be
aware of nondual inner appearances.9
 * 189 *
There seem to be two points of view,
within the DzogChen tradition, as to
whether or not there is such a thing as a
nondual inner appearance. In the course
of doing the Healthy Mind Interviews, it
has been my experience that many lamas
agree with Lopon and take the position
that the egoless mind does know and
realize the emptiness of inner
appearances that give meaning to its
experience. There are also many lamas
who take the position that the nondual
mind is a mind in which inner
appearances do not occur.
If this later position is found to be
empirically correct, it would mean that
the nondual mind is an empty mind in
the most literal sense of the word empty.
It would mean that the nondual mind is a
mind in which meanings simply do not
appear. Lopon’s position, once again, is a
 * 190 *
different one. He says that meanings do
appear within the nondual mind, but that
awareness, or rigpa, realizes the emp-
tiness of those meanings as they arise.

Whatever appears in relative truth

is not denied,
and (yet) the natural state is free
of all fabricated extremes.
This is the ground.
By accomplishing the peace of
the dharmakaya…
One acts without concepts to
benefit beings.
This is the result.
Jamgon Kongtrul10

Given, though, that there are these two

different positions, we seem to have here,
two different visions of the egoless mind.
In one of these visions, nondual
meanings do appear. In the other vision,
 * 191 *
they do not. The import of understanding
which vision is correct lies in the fact that
the answer will determine which of these
two states of mind you cultivate on the
path to developing a healthy mind. This
is one of the important and unresolved
issues about the nature of the healthy
mind that I would like to think can be
resolved empirically.
 PREDUAL MEANINGS:
GZHI NANG

“Rang-dang is an appearance that

illuminates one’s self.”
Lopon Thekchoke

HMV: I would like to take a moment, now,

and go back to the notion that dual mind and
nondual awareness both give meaning to
experience. We’ve already established that
meanings created by the dual mind can and
do appear to the watcher as thoughts. When
nondual awareness, or rigpa, creates a
meaning, when rigpa gives meaning to an
experience of the external world, in what
form does that meaning appear within the
mind?
 * 194 *
LTC: It is very much the same, but we can
only express the clarityxi of nondual
awareness with analogies. We can not
express it in words. It is like a mirror looking
at space, and the space itself is emptiness.
This is the way in which rigpa enters into
clarity. That clarity is emptiness too. Then we
can’t use words. When rigpa knows rigpa, it
is just like the experience of space.
HMV: Is nondual awareness an awareness
that is like space in the sense that it does not
grasp, accept, reject or follow thoughts?
LTC: Oh yes. In the state of rigpa, when rigpa
knows rigpa, you know and understand the
attributes of rigpa.
HMV: What are the attributes of rigpa?
LTC: The attributes of rang-dang, or self
illumination.
HMV: What is rang-dang?
LTC: Rang-dang is an appearance that
illuminates one’s self.
 * 195 *
HMV: Thank you. When you see a moment
of self illumination as an inner appearance,
does it actually look like rays of light?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Can an appearance of self illumi-
nation create intention or meaning?
LTC: Yes. It can provide both meaning and
intention.
HMV: Does self illumination always appear
as rays of light, or can it appear in some other
way as well?
LTC: Only as rays.
HMV: Thank you. Once again, then, what
does it mean to “know the attributes of self
illumination?”
LTC: It means understanding the exact
meaning of the illumination in a moment.
(Lopon claps his hands)
HMV: Is rang dang, or self illumination, a
nondual appearance that gives meaning to a
person’s experience in the same way that
 * 196 *
thoughts are dual appearances that give dual
meaning to experience? Does self illumi-
nation give nondual meaning to experience?
LTC: When self illumination appears to
rigpa, it is like a reflection appearing in a
mirror. It is like this.
HMV: Are the images that appear in the
mirror inner appearances, external appear-
ances or both?
LTC: They are gzhi-nang, or predual
appearances.12
HMV: Ahh. And once again, does a predual
appearance give meaning to a person’s
experience?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Thank you very much.
Annotation: Lopon is reaffirming, here,
the notion that the nondual mind can and
does give meaning to its experience.13 In
this passage, he is talking about one
specific kind of nondual meaning that is
 * 197 *
known by the nondual mind – the gzhi
nang.14
Lopon says, here, that a gzhi-nang
appears within the mind as both light
rays of self illumination, or rang-dang,
and as a meaning. He also says that a
gzhi-nang can both give meaning to an
experience and create intention. Finally,
he says that a gzhi-nang is an appearance
that is known exactly as it is: “When self
illumination appears to rigpa, it is like a
reflection appearing in a mirror.”

HMV: In our prior discussions of the word

“meaning,” you have said that there are both
dual meanings and nondual meanings.
LTC: Dual meanings, are dual.15
HMV: And would that include, for example,
thoughts?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: The habitual patterns of ego thought,
or bag-chags?
 * 198 *
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: The emotions?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: You have also said before that there
are nondual meanings.
LTC: When you understand that a meaning
is nondual, then it is nondual. But both are
thoughts.
HMV: Is the word that you are using here for
thought rnam-tog?16
LTC: Yes. When there is dual grasping, that
thought will not dissolve. When you have
nondual awareness of a thought, then it
dissolves.
HMV: Does that mean that awareness is not
grasping the thought?
LTC: Yes. There is no grasping because you
understand that it is nondual.
HMV: It sounds like you are saying that one
given meaning can be either dual or nondual.
LTC: Yes.
 * 199 *
HMV: And that whether or not a meaning is
dual or nondual is a function of whether or
not path rigpa grasps or does not grasp the
meaning. If the watcher grasps the meaning
it becomes a dual meaning.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: And if path rigpa is aware of the
meaning as a nondual meaning, then it
becomes a nondual meaning and dissolves.
LTC: Oh yes. (Laughter) It’s like muddy
water. The mud disappears by itself.
HMV: Now what kind of appearance is that
original meaning, the meaning that can be
either grasped by the watcher or realized as
nondual by path rigpa?
LTC: In the first instant, there is a dual
meaning, and it arises from there.
HMV: It seemed to me that you were
actually saying something different before;
that there is an original meaning that was not
dual in the first place; and that it becomes
 * 200 *
dual because the watcher grasps it. So how
could it be dual before hand; before it is
grasped?
LTC: Before grasping a dual meaning, a
nondual meaning will not be there.
HMV: Ok. So the original appearance is
neither a dual nor nondual appearance, but
there is a meaning.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Then what type of meaning is it?
LTC: At that time, both dual and nondual are
not there.
HMV: I understand, but there is an
appearance.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: So what type of appearance is this
appearance?
LTC: Dual, nondual; both are not there.
HMV: That’s true. I understand. (Laughter
all around) It looks to me like this appear-
 * 201 *
ance that is neither dual nor nondual is a
gzhi-nang.
LTC: Yes. (Laughter) You are truly in
Longchenpa’s lineage.
HMV: Now do you think there is such a
thing as a primordial meaning in the mind?
By primordial meaning, I mean the first
meaning that appears within the mind in
response to an experience.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you. Now could we say that
the gzhi-nang are the primordial meanings of
the mind? Are they the first meaning that the
mind creates in response to an experience?
Let me give you an example of what I mean
by first meaning. Suppose I walk into this
room and I see you for the first time in four
months and I feel happy. It is not dual. It
hasn’t been grasped. It is not nondual
because it has not yet dissolved into rigpa. It
seems to me that this feeling of joy, the gzhi-
 * 202 *
nang, is the first meaning that my mind, the
base, gives to the experience of walking in
the door and seeing Lopon after four months.
LTC: Yes. That is the first meaning.
HMV: And that first meaning is a gzhi-nang.
LTC: Yes. This is an example of a gzhi-nang.
That first meaning, that arising of joy, that
can be used as an example of a gzhi-nang.
HMV: Thank you. Now given that you have
said that there are both dual thoughts and
nondual thoughts, could we call the gzhi-
nang a third type of thought? Given that it is
neither dual nor nondual, I am wondering if
we could call it a pre-dual appearance? Is
there a word in Tibetan for this appearance
that is neither dual nor nondual?
LTC: Gzhi-lay yöd-pa.
HMV: Thank you. Could you translate that?
LTC: Gzhi is base, isn’t it? From the base
there is that first movement.
HMV: Ah. The first movement of the base.
 * 203 *
LTC: Yes. In DzogChen the first movement
of the base is called gzhi-lay yödpa.17
HMV: Thank you very much.

Annotation: Empirically, then, there are

three different types of meaning that can
and do appear within the human mind.
There are dual, nondual and predual
meanings. The status of any given
meaning is determined by the kind of
awareness that the mind has, or does not
have, of that meaning.
For example, a dual meaning is an inner
appearance of which the mind has dual,
or conceptual, awareness. It is a meaning
that has been grasped18 by the watcher –
the subject of dual awareness. A nondual
meaning, in contrast, is a meaning that
has not been grasped by awareness. It is
a meaning of which the mind has
nondual awareness.
 * 204 *
In the passage that you have just read,
Lopon is confirming the notion that there
is also a third type of meaning that is
neither dual nor nondual. These are the
predual meanings. They are predual in
the sense that they have not yet become
dual or nondual. They are not yet dual
because the watcher has not yet
conceptually grasped them. They are not
yet nondual by virtue of the fact that
awareness has not yet realized their
emptiness. Lopon goes on to say that
DzogChen mind science has recognized
the existence of these predual appear-
ances, and that it calls them “gzhi-nang.”

“The Great Primordial Basis is the state

which previously
has neither become enlightened through
realization of its self essence,
nor strayed into mind by not realizing it.”
Pema Ledrel Tsal19
 * 205 *
Lopon also goes onto say that the
predual meanings are the primordial
meanings of the mind. A gzhi-nang
is the first meaning that the mind
attributes to a given experience. If
the mind grasps, or attributes a
concept of self to a primordial
meaning, it will immediately become
dual mind. It will be transformed
into, and thus appear as, a stream of
thoughts and emotions that are a
recurring pattern of ego thought.
If, on the other hand, the mind has
nondual awareness of that first
meaning, if it realizes its emptiness,
nondual mind will arise as the
timeless awareness, or yeshe, of the
egoless mind.20
The import of realizing that there are
predual appearances is that once you
realize that there are predual and
 * 206 *
nondual meanings, it becomes clear
that there are meanings within the
mind that are not creations of the
ego. These are meanings that can be
expressed without manifesting or
creating more ego.
In addition, it reinforces the notion of
leaving your mind in its natural
state. If you leave a gzhi-nang, or for
that matter any other meaning, in its
natural state, it will spontaneously
transform itself into nondual egoless
mind.
 NONDUAL MEANINGS:
PRIMORDIAL WISDOM

HMV: There are times when countless

thoughts are running through my mind. At
other times, there are long interludes in which
there are but a few thoughts coming and
going. During these periods of relative quiet, I
become increasingly aware of the appearance
of single thoughts within my mind that
appear and then instantly dissolve and
disappear just like that (I snap my fingers).
LTC: At that time, you are on the path.
HMV: It has been my experience that four
different kinds of transformation can and
consistently do occur immediately after a
single thought dissolves like that. Some-
 * 208 *
times, for example, a feeling of joy will arise
after the thought dissolves. Sometimes the
feeling of compassion will appear. Some-
times there will be a temporary cessation of
all inner appearances; a single thought will
dissolve and then nothing new will arise for
a period of time.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: The fourth thing that can and does
happen after a single thought dissolves, is
that a large insight of one kind or another
will immediately arise in my mind. It might
be an understanding of the nature of mind,
or perhaps an understanding of rigpa. It
could be any number of things.
LTC: That insight is primordial wisdom, or
togpai yeshe.21 It is enlightened mind.
HMV: Do you mean that it would be
enlightened mind if those insights were
present all of the time, as opposed to coming
and going for moments at a time?
 * 209 *
LTC: Yes. The enlightened mind is a
permanent chain of nondual moments. If you
are in dharmakaya,22 there are no thoughts. It
is like the permanent nature of the sky. There
is a permanent stream of nondual moments.
HMV: Would that be the same thing as saying
that enlightenment is a permanent stream of
nondual moments of primordial wisdom?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you. That’s very helpful. Given
that these temporary moments of insight are
not enlightened mind, what would you call
them? Are they simply moments of
primordial wisdom?
LTC: Yes. Initially, primordial wisdom lasts
for a very short while. Gradually, as you go
on practicing, the primordial wisdom, the
gap, increases. At the same time, the deluded
minds will decrease. When you reach
Buddhahood, then the deluded appearances
will cease altogether.
 * 210 *

HMV: Then only the kayas23 and primordial

wisdom will appear.
LTC: Yes. (Emphatic) When the recurring
patterns of ego thought are no longer being
created, then the delusions of the samsaric
mind will, over time, gradually subside. And
then primordial wisdom will increase.
Annotation: Having already said that the
mind creates and knows predual
meanings, or gzhi-nang, here Lopon goes
on to say that: (1) the mind also creates
nondual meanings and that (2) the
phenomenon of primordial wisdom is
one specific type of nondual meaning. He
describes the experience of primordial
wisdom, and says that it is a moment of
insight that arises immediately after the
spontaneous dissolution of a single
thought.
Lopon then goes on to say three very
interesting and empirical things about
 * 211 *
the completely egoless, or enlightened,
mind. One, the egoless mind is a
permanent stream of nondual moments
of primordial wisdom. Two, dual
meanings cease to appear in the egoless
mind. Three, only the kayas and
primordial wisdom appear in the fully
realized egoless mind.

HMV: Would it be correct to say, Lopon, that

when a person is in the process of developing
an egoless mind, that thoughts and emotions
continue to appear in between the moments
of primordial wisdom?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Is it also true that once primordial
wisdom becomes permanent, that thoughts
and emotions no longer appear in the mind?
LTC: Yes. That’s correct. You have thought it
out very well.
HMV: One more question in this vein. When
a person is experiencing moments of
 * 212 *
primordial wisdom, what is it that holds
them back from having a permanent stream
of nondual primordial wisdom?
LTC: It is prevented by the delusions created
by the recurring patterns of ego thought. The
power of these recurring patterns is very
strong, and they prevent you from staying in
a longer stream of primordial wisdom.
HMV: Are you saying that by following24
your habitual patterns of ego thought you
keep your self from remaining in a
permanent stream of nondual wisdom?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you very much. Finally, for
now, does primordial wisdom always appear
as a large insight? Or can it appear in some
other way as well?
LTC: Primordial wisdom is always an insight
like that. While you are on the path,
primordial wisdom has to be continuously
appearing. It is essential.
 * 213 *
HMV: Why?
LTC: To attain enlightenment. That is the
path.
HMV: Is it true, then, that one progresses
along the path to enlightenment by having
increasingly frequent moments of primordial
wisdom?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you very much.
 PURE APPEARANCES

HMV: Now in the same way that fruition

rigpa is aware of both empty phenomena and
the primordial wisdom that knows
phenomena, can it also be aware of pure
appearances, or dag nang?
LTC: When you say pure appearance, what
kind of experience are you referring to?
HMV: Ok. My understanding of a pure
appearance, which comes primarily from my
reading of Jigme Lingpa’s life and work, is
that it is a vision that appears as a sort of
movie in which a person sees, and gets a
direct teaching from say Longchenpa, or
Maitreya or some other teacher.25
LTC: Yes. Yes. (Enthusiastically) Pure
appearance.
 * 216 *
HMV: Is that an accurate description of a
pure appearance?
LTC: Yes.26
HMV: And just to be sure, would an example
of a pure appearance be the appearance of
Longchenpa to Jigme Lingpa.27
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: And are pure appearances
experienced by fruition rigpa?
LTC: Path rigpa.
HMV: Ahh. Path rigpa. How is the
experience different for fruition rigpa?
LTC: All of these experiences are experiences
at the path rigpa level. Because Jigme Lingpa
had so much faith in the DzogChen path, and
so much faith in Longchenpa, he saw the face
of Longchenpa because of the power of his
faith, even though he hadn’t seen rigpa yet.
At that time, Longchenpa introduced rigpa
to Jigme Lingpa. At that time, Jigme Lingpa
saw rigpa.
 * 217 *
HMV: Ahh. And then once Jigme Lingpa
knows rigpa, does that mean that he stops
having experiences of pure appearances?
LTC: Yes. All of these experiences are on the
path. Pure appearances are a way of helping
you realize the ultimate. It is part of a
sequence of experiences that occur on the
path. Pure appearances arise before the
coming of the primordial wisdom that knows
the suchness of appearances. Primordial
wisdom arises because of the prior
appearance of pure appearances. And then
because of the realization of the primordial
wisdom of appearances, the realization of
rigpa will then arise.
HMV: Is a pure appearance a dual or
nondual appearance?
LTC: It can come as a dual appearance.28 The
arising of pure appearances depends upon
having strong faith, the strength of your
 * 218 *
virtue. Pure appearances can appear even in
a Bodhisattva’s mind.
HMV: Do pure appearances come from a
subtle bakchak?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Would it be correct to say that a pure
appearance is a dual appearance, but that it is
a dual appearance that helps a person realize
nondual awareness, or rigpa, later on?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Does a pure appearance function as a
meaning for path rigpa?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Can an empty appearance, or
chosnyid, function also as a meaning for
fruition rigpa?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Can a gzhi nang, or predual appear-
ance, function as a meaning?
LTC: To fruition rigpa?
HMV: Yes.
 * 219 *
LTC: Oh yes. Gzhi-nang and chosnyid can
both give meaning to fruition rigpa. All
appearances function to give meaning.
Fruition rigpa is like a mirror. And the
appearances are the kayas.
 CLARITY

HMV: What does clarity actually mean?

LTC: Clarity means clarity of speech. Clarity
of writing.
HMV: Does that mean that the intention
upon which clear speech and writing is based
is a moment of primordial wisdom, or togpai
yeshe?
LTC: Yes. The intention is primordial
wisdom, and as a result, you are able to do it
with clarity.
HMV: It sounds like you are saying, then,
that clarity is a clarity of expression.
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: A clarity of expression that is based on
the clear awareness of a moment of
primordial wisdom.
 * 222 *
LTC: Yes. A lama named Gyelwang Nyima
once told me that nothing obstructs his
writing. It just comes out naturally. He also
told me that his speech comes naturally, too.
Looking back, I think this is something like a
clarity nyams.29 Because when you want to
sing, that joy is there. And when that joy
comes out naturally, that is clarity nyams.
HMV: Sometimes people say that the
sambhogakaya30 is clarity.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: What does it mean to say that the
sambhogakaya is clarity?
LTC: The sambhogakaya refers to phenom-
ena. The sambhogakaya means enjoying;
enjoying something you are eating for
example. When you are enjoying, you are
enjoying the dharmas.
HMV: By dharma, do you mean all of the
phenomena, or dharmas, described in the
Abhidharma?31
 * 223 *
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Are you saying, then, that the
sambhogakaya is enjoying the phenomena of
one’s mind?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Thank you.
LTC: That is the main enjoyment of the
sambhogakaya, but you could also enjoy the
beauty of the ornaments on a statue.
HMV: So it can also be the enjoyment of the
material pleasures of life, as well.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: So now we have two different
definitions of clarity. One is a clarity of
expression in which a person’s speech and
writing are a clear articulation of primordial
wisdom, or togpai yeshe. The other is a clarity
in which you take pleasure in phenomena.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Is there a connection between these
two different kinds of clarity?
 * 224 *
LTC: Yes.
HMV: What is the connection?
LTC: The connection is that yeshe means all
knowing awareness, and the phenomena are
the objects. That is the connection: awareness
and object. When you mentioned earlier the
phenomena of the Abhidharma, those are the
phenomena. Yeshe is aware of them.
HMV: Are you saying that when yeshe is
aware of the emptiness of a phenomenon,
chos-nyid, that it creates a clear intention that
can then be clearly expressed?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: And that this is what clarity is.
LTC: Oh yes. (Emphatically and with
Laughter)
 * 225 *
Annotation: As Lopon has said before,
primordial wisdom is the awareness that
knows the suchness of a phenomenon, or
meaning. Here, Lopon is saying that
clarity is the ability of primordial
wisdom to know and express a meaning
as-it-is. It is tempting to conclude, from
his presentation here, that clarity has
both a subjective and objective aspect. To
my eye, the DzogChen literature uses the
term in both ways. The subjective aspect
of clarity would be the empty awareness
that knows phenomena with clarity. It is
an empty, or nondual, awareness that is
clear because it is not obscured by dual
appearances. The objective aspect of
clarity would be the clear phenomena
that clear awareness knows.
 * 226 *
Footnotes
1 This section is a compilation of excerpts from
interviews that were done with Lopon during
three different periods of time: January 1998,
November 2004 and March 2005.
2 His Holiness the Dalai Lama, (2000) DzogChen:
The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection, Ithaca:
Snow Lion Publications, pg. 176
3 Thrangu Rinpoche, (2001) Looking Directly at
Mind: The Moonlight of Mahamudra. Dehli: Sri
Satguru Publications, pp. 63-4.
4 Historically, the origin of Buddhist thought was
the notion that a person does not have a self. In
the Sanskrit language of Indian Buddhism this
was expressed as the idea that human beings
don’t have an “atman.” The term “atman,” and
its Tibetan equivalent “dag,” have, historically,
been translated into English as the word “self.”
To my eye, the word “self” is, for a number of
reasons, a problematic rendering of both of
these terms. Basically, the problem is that the
English word “self” has many meanings, in both
 * 227 *
western psychiatric theory and in everyday
common parlance, that are far removed from
the meaning of the word “atman.” Nonetheless,
it would be difficult to abandon the translation
of “atman” and “dag” as “self,” given that this
tradition is so well established. But a better
rendering of these is definitely possible, and it
would be the term “identity,” as used by
Richard Barron, or self concept. In an attempt to
acknowledge both the translation history and
the true meaning of “atman” and “dag,” I will
often use at least two of English translations of
these terms simultaneously, as I did here.
5 Interview with Penor Rinpoche at Namdroling
Monastery in Bylekuppe, India on March 17,
2006.
6 Rigpa is the empty awareness that realizes the
emptiness of phenomena. Path rigpa is
temporary nondual awareness that comes and
goes on the path, and fruition rigpa is
permanent realization of nondual awareness, or
enlightened mind.
 * 228 *
7 For an empirical description of the phenomenon
of primordial Wisdom, please see the section of
this interview entitled “Nondual Meanings:
Primordial Wisdom.”
8 The kaya doctrine is a key doctrine in the
history of Buddhist thought. In its essence, the
kaya doctrine says that a Buddha has more than
one aspect, and each of those aspects is called, in
Sanskrit, a kaya. There have been, in the history
of Buddhist thought, many different
formulations of the kaya doctrine. Lopon
Thekchoke, like the DzogChen tradition itself,
defines the kayas empirically – as being
different aspects of rigpa, or egoless awareness,
and that is how the term is being used here.
Please see the chapter titled “The Kayas” in
Volume III of The Healthy Mind Interviews for an
empirical discussion, by Lopon Thekchoke, of
the nature of the three kayas.
9 Lopon has already taken this position in
Volume III of the Healthy Mind Interviews. He
did so by discussing, at length, two different
 * 229 *
types of nondual meaning that are known by
the nondual mind: (1) the primordial wisdom
that knows phenomena, dekhona nyid togpai
yeshe, and (2) the empty moments of
awareness, or chosnyid.
10 Ringu Tulku, 2006. The Ri-Me Philosophy of
Jamgon Kongtriul the Great. (Translated by
Ann Helm). Boston: Shambhala Publi-cation,
pg. 235.
11 Clarity is a technical term in Tibetan mind
science that seems to have different meanings in
different contexts. As a response to the question
that I have just asked, Lopon is using the term to
refer to nondual thoughts, if you will, or
meanings. Namkhai Norbu, in The Self Perfected
State, uses the term in much the same way. He
describes clarity as “the pure quality of all
thought and of all perceived phenomena,
uncontaminated by mental judgement … If we
don’t follow thoughts, and don’t become caught
up in mental judgement, they too are part of our
natural clarity.” Clarity, in this reading, is a
 * 230 *
phenomenon that is known as it is. Please see
the “Clarity” chapter of the Lopon Thekchoke
interviews in this volume for a more extensive
discussion of the nature of clarity.
12 The nature of predual appearances will be
discussed in the following passage.
13 Please see Volume III of The Healthy Mind
Interviews for a more extensive discussion, by
Lopon, of the nondual meanings of which rigpa
is aware.
14 As we’ll be seeing later on in this section, a gzhi
nang is more properly understood as being a
predual phenomenon, or meaning. In calling it
nondual here, it is simply being said that a gzhi
nang is not a dual phenomenon.
15 Lopon used the Tibetan term “nyi-dzin doonta”
for dual meaning.
16 The English word “thought” is often a
translation of the Tibetan word rnam-tog, and a
rnam-tog is always a dual phenomenon. So
when the translator presented me with this
response, in which a nondual meaning was
 * 231 *
being called a “thought” in English, I asked this
question to see if the translation was correct.
17 The next two lines of this passage were deleted
as they contain a host of technical terms, but for
those of you who know these terms, the
remainder of this passage has been included
here:
HMV: Is that when nang-sal becomes
chee-sal?
LTC: (Laughter) Oh yes. These things are
not discussed in Sutrayana. They are
only found in DzogChen.
18 Once again, “grasp” is a technical term in
Buddhist psychology and it refers to any action
the watcher takes by which it attrib-utes a
concept of self to a phenomenon.
19 Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, 1996, The Practice of
DzogChen, Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications,
pg. 58.
20 Longchenpa describes this dynamic in greater
detail in the chapter entitled “How Samsara and
Nirvana Originated” in Tulku Thondup’s The
Practice of DzogChen, pg. 209.
 * 232 *
21 “Togpai yeshe” is a shortened version of
“daykhona nyid togpai yeshe.”
22 Lopon is using the Sanskrit term “dharmakaya”
empirically, here, to refer to a specific state of
mind. Experientially, the dharmakaya is one of
the describable aspects of nondual awareness.
Doctrinally, the dharmakaya is usually
presented as being one of the three bodies, or
personalities, of the Buddha. Please see the next
footnote (#23) for further discussion of the three
kayas.
23 As the term is being used here, the kayas are
three different aspects of rigpa, or nondual
awareness. For an empirical discussion of the
experience of the kayas, please see the chapter
entitled “The Kayas” in Volume III of The
Healthy Mind Interviews. For a brief discussion of
the history of the trikaya doctrine, please see the
annotation at the beginning of that chapter.
24 “Following” is one of the three elemental forms
of grasping. To “follow” a recurring stream of
ego thoughts is to believe the content of those
 * 233 *
thoughts and to live in the stories that those
thoughts create.
25 Experientially, a pure appearance, or dag nang,
as Lopon is confirming here, is an ongoing
visual, or visionary, experience in which a
person receives teachings from a Buddha or
Bodhisattva. They are of particular importance
in, but not only in, the DzogChen tradition. For
example, Asanga had pure visions of Maitreya,
and the Fifth Dalai Lama had pure visions of
Padmesambhava. In Bourguignon’s typology of
altered states of consciousness, which is the
definitive typology of the anthropological
literature, a pure vision would be called a
“trance.”
26 “Pure appearance” is the established translation
of the Tibetan term “dag nang.” Given that a
dag nang is actually what we would call a
visionary experience in English, I think that a
better translation of dag nang would be “pure
vision.”
27 Sometimes, in the Tibetan tradition, a pure
appearance takes on historical significance and
 * 234 *
becomes well known. One such famous pure
appearance in the DzogChen tradition is a
vision that Jigme Lingpa, an 18th century
DzogChen practitioner had of the 14th century
scholar-yogi Longchenpa. For an excellent
presentation of the pure visions of Jigme Lingpa
and a discussion of their significance, please see
Janet Gyatso’s Apparitions of Self. Dehli: Motilal
Banarsidass Publishers, pg. 200.
28 Penor Rinpoche, in an interview in March of
2006 at Namdroling Monastery, also took the
position that pure appearances are dual
phenomena.
29 A clarity nyams, or salwai nyams, is one of the
three types of nyams, or moment of nondual
experience, that is described and recognized by
DzogChen mind science.
30 The sambhogakaya is one of the three kayas.
Please see footnotes # 21 and 22 for further
discussion of the nature of the kayas.
31 The Abhidharma is a body of literature that is a
group of commentaries on the Hinayana sutras
 * 235 *
of early Buddhism. Amongst other things, the
Abhidharma literature contains a systematic
psychology that lists the different types of
phenomena that appear in the mind. In the
Abhidharmic, literature these elements are
called dharmas.
32 “Watcher” is a translation of the Tibetan term
yulchen, and in Tibetan mind science the
watcher is the subject of dual awareness. Rigpa,
in contrast, is the nondual awareness that is the
subjective aspect of the egoless mind.
NONDUAL AWARENESS
 DELUSION AND
NONDUAL AWARENESS

HMV: Does the egoless mind ever have

nondual awareness of the delusions of dual
mind?
LTC: If you are dreaming, and if you don’t
understand that it is a dream, then you will
have dual awareness of that dream. If you
understand that it is a dream, you
understand that this experience is your own
projection. Then the realization will come
that there is no need for you to grasp the
dream because it is delusion.
HMV: Ahh. It sounds like you are saying
that one of the gifts of realizing that the dual
mind is a delusion, is that you will stop
 * 240 *
grasping it. You come to realize that given
that the appearances of the dual mind are all
delusions that they don’t matter. And that
because they don’t matter, you don’t have to
do anything about them. You don’t have to
reject, accept, follow or believe in, the
delusions.
LTC: Yes. Grasping will dissolve.
HMV: So if you realize that your thoughts,
emotions and recurring patterns of ego
thought are delusions, you will stop grasping
them.
LTC: Oh yes. If you understand that objects
are like a delusion, then it is possible to stop
grasping them. If you grasp an appearance as
if it is real, then you will have dual awareness
of that appearance. If you don’t grasp it,
because you know the appearance is just a
delusion, then there is nondual awareness.
HMV: Is grasping an appearance the same
thing as creating a delusion?
 * 241 *
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you. Do thoughts, emotions
and the habitual patterns of ego thought
dissolve when you stop grasping them?
LTC: Oh yes. They dissolve. Then only
nondual awareness, or rigpa, remains.
HMV: Would it be correct to say that rigpa is
the egoless mind and that the watcher of the
dual mind is the ego?32
LTC: Oh yes!
HMV: I’d like to take a moment now to
compare the watcher and rigpa as a way of
understanding the differences between the
egoless and egocentric mind.
LTC: Ok.
HMV: The watcher, or ego, grasps inner
appearances and as a result has dual
awareness of those appearances.
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: And as a result, a person suffers.
LTC: Oh yes.
 * 242 *
HMV: In contrast, is it true that rigpa does
not grasp – it does not accept, reject or follow
– inner appearances, and as a result, it has
nondual awareness of the inner appearances
it knows?
LTC: Oh yes. Yes.
HMV: Is this the fundamental difference
between egocentric and egoless awareness?
LTC: Yes. That is the fundamental difference.
Annotation: DzogChen mind theory
holds that the two modes of self
awareness have two different types of
subject, if you will.1 The subject of dual,
or egocentric, self awareness is called the
“watcher,” which is a translation of the
Tibetan term “yulchen,” and in Tibetan
theory, the watcher is a single thought.2 It
is a single moment of mental con-
sciousness, and as such, it is an imperma-
nent phenomenon that appears when
specific circumstances cause it to appear.
 * 243 *
The subject of egoless self awareness, in
contrast, is the nondual awareness that is
rigpa. Tibetan mind theory sees rigpa as
a permanent phenomenon. It has always
been there within you, and its
appearance is not something that is
caused by a set of circumstances. In fact,
if you try to make it appear, it won’t.
When I look at awareness empirically,
there is one specific sense in which I am
not so certain that this theoretical
formulation is correct. To my eye, it
seems that there are definitely two modes
of awareness, or self awareness, but that
there is only one subject, or one aware-
ness if you will, present within the mind.
It seems to me, that this one awareness
has two different states. In one state, it is
clouded over with the thoughts and
emotions of the dual mind, and in the
second state it is not. Sometimes a
 * 244 *
kerosene lantern smokes and sometimes
it does not.
When awareness creates and is thus
obscured by the thoughts and emotions
of the dual mind, it is the subject of
egocentric self awareness. When
awareness is clear because it is not
creating thoughts and emotions, it is the
subject of egoless self awareness, and as
such, it realizes the emptiness of the
phenomena it knows.
But then again, this is just a matter of
theory, and no matter how you frame it,
there definitely are two different modes
of self awareness. In this last passage, the
Lopon has confirmed that two of the
defining differences between these two
modes of self awareness are that: (1) they
have different ways of responding to the
meanings that appear in their streams of
consciousness and, as a result, (2) they
 * 245 *
have two different ways of knowing
those meanings.
Egocentric awareness, as Lopon says
above, is an awareness that accepts,
rejects and follows the inner appearances
that it knows. As a result it has dual
awareness of those appearances.
Egoless awareness, in contrast, does
nothing, and in so doing, it leaves the
inner appearances in their natural state. It
has, in consequence, nondual awareness
of the meanings that appear before it.

HMV: Would it also be correct to say that

when rigpa refrains from grasping inner
appearances, that as a result, those
appearances dissolve and become joy?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Does that joy become nondual
awareness?
LTC: Yes! (Laughter all around)
 THE FUNCTIONS OF RIGPA

HMV: You have said before that primordial

wisdom appears when rigpa recognizes a
predual appearance, or gzhi-nang, as a self
appearance.
LTC: A predual appearance has two aspects.3
One is awareness and the other is the
appearance, itself. When the awareness
grasps the appearance as an “other,” duality
is created. Then the thoughts come. When the
awareness recognizes the appearance as a
self appearance, then there is no duality.
Then the appearance dissolves.
HMV: Ah, then there is self liberation.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: And then the appearance becomes
primordial wisdom.
 * 248 *
LTC: Oh yes, and then there is one more step.
The primordial wisdom dissolves within
itself, and then primordial rigpa, or timeless
awareness, appears. The primordial wisdom
dissolves into rigpa and rigpa appears.
HMV: Given that thoughts dissolve into
primordial wisdom when rigpa is aware of
them, and that the resulting primordial
wisdom dissolves, in turn, into rigpa …
LTC: That is all correct.
HMV: Would it also be correct to say that the
function of rigpa is to transform the thoughts
and emotions of dual mind into the nondual
mind they have always been?
LTC: Yes. If primordial wisdom is not born,
then emotions and thoughts will be born. In
the minute in which primordial wisdom is
born, then enlightenment comes. That is the
function of rigpa.
HMV: Thank you. It seems then, that you are
saying that rigpa actually has two functions.
 * 249 *
One of its functions is to allow thoughts and
emotions to self liberate and become nondual
mind – primordial wisdom and rigpa.
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: Is this the main function of rigpa?
LTC: Yes. That is its main function.
HMV: Would it also be correct to say that
rigpa has a second function: the prevention
of the formation of ego? It seems to me that
by allowing thoughts and emotions to
become primordial wisdom, rigpa performs
a second function: it prevents the formation
of ego.
LTC: Oh yes. It is like the sky. No matter how
much you say that there is some substance in
a space, in actual fact it does not exist.
HMV: So rigpa is an awareness that is like
space, and when thoughts and emotions
appear in the space that is rigpa, they
dissolve into the nondual mind that they
have always been.
 * 250 *
LTC: Yes. That is true. Whatever appears to
rigpa, rigpa is aware of it as a self appear-
ance.
HMV: There seems to be one important
difference, though, between recognizing a
flower as a self appearance and recognizing a
thought as a self appearance. When I see a
thought as a self appearance it dissolves, but
when I see a flower as a self appearance, it
doesn’t dissolve.
LTC: Yes.
 RIGPA AND IDENTITY

HMV: Does fruition rigpa see itself as having

an identity?
LTC: While in samsara, there is an identity.
HMV: Are you saying that path rigpa sees
itself as having an identity?
LTC: Even fruition rigpa thinks it has an
identity.
HMV: Let me make sure I am understanding
you correctly. Are you saying that fruition
rigpa will also have an identity?
LTC: Yes. Yes.
HMV: Is that an identity like the ordinary
identity of say wanting to be a good doctor?
Or is it the identity of wanting to be a
bodhisattva?
 * 252 *
LTC: Whatever you desire, that identity is
there.
HMV: Identity is still there in egoless mind,
fruition rigpa.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: So it sounds like you are saying that
both egocentric mind and egoless mind have
an identity.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Would it be correct to say that the
difference between the two is that the
egocentric mind grasps its identity and
egoless mind does not grasp.
LTC: Yes.
Annotation: This is same issue that was
discussed earlier at the end of the Dalai
Lama interview, and it seems to be one of
those questions to which there is more
than one answer within the DzogChen
tradition. In doing these interviews, it
has been my experience that some lamas
 * 253 *
take the position that the nondual mind
has an identity, and some lamas take the
position that it does not. For example,
Khenpo Tsewang Gyatso, and many
other lamas as well, have said that the
nondual mind does not have an identity.4
The Dalai Lama, in contrast, seems to
agree with Lopon Thekchoke. His
Holiness went so far as to say, in the
interview published in this volume, that
not only does the egoless mind have an
identity, but that one must actually
cultivate what he calls a “positive ego” in
the process of developing an egoless
mind.
This is more than a mere theoretical
position. In deity yoga – the predominant
form of meditation in Tibetan Buddhism,
one actually creates a positive identity for
one’s self. One of the essential dynamics
of deity yoga is the practice of visualizing
 * 254 *
a deity and then identifying with the
deity you have visualized. Here is Janet
Gyatso’s description of the creation
phase of deity yoga in which this
identification takes place:
“Then a series of objects are
visualized that culminate in a new
self image of the practitioner as a
Buddha or deity … The desired
fruit of creation meditation is the
personal transformation of oneself,
a deluded being … in samsara, into
an enlightened Buddha.”5
At a more fundamental level, even the
process of cultivating an egoless mind is,
in and of itself, a form of ego.
Perhaps, then, as Lopon Thekchoke is
saying here, the defining difference
between the egocentric and egoless mind
is not that one of them has an identity
 * 255 *
and that the other one does not. Perhaps
the defining difference between these
two states of mind is that whereas the
egocentric mind does grasp its identity,
the egoless mind does not. I would like to
think that this is another one of those
essential questions about the nature of
the healthy mind that can be resolved
empirically.
 RIGPA AND MANDALA

HMV: Can rigpa be aware of a mandala?

LTC: Rigpa, itself, is a mandala. (Laughter)
HMV: What does it mean to say that rigpa is
a mandala? A mandala is a picture, a picture
of the universe, but rigpa is awareness. How
could they be the same thing?
LTC: When you know rigpa, at that time, the
center and the periphery will, by itself,
accomplish rigpa. They are the same thing.
For example, when the sun shines, the light
and the rays come together. It’s like that.
HMV: Do you mean that nondual awareness
projects a mandala in the same way that the
habitual patterns of ego thought project the
appearances of samsara?
LTC: Yes. (Laughter)
 * 258 *
Annotation: One of the key tenets of
several of the different schools of
Buddhist psychology is that the
egocentric mind is constantly creating,
within itself, karmic deposits, or subtle
bakchaks. A subtle bakchak is created
and stored within the mind whenever the
mind grasps a meaning or phenomenon.
The problem with the subtle bakchaks is
that they give rise to the habitual patterns
of ego thought. These recurring cycles of
fantasy prop up a person’s sense of
identity and cause a person to both
misunderstand reality and suffer.
Yogacaran psychology, for example, says
that when a subtle bakchak is activated, it
causes a gross bakchak, or habitual
pattern of ego thought, to be projected
onto that mind’s experience of both itself
and the world. Yogacaran theory actually
goes so far as to say that the egocentric
 * 259 *
mind misunderstands the nature of these
projections and sees them as being its
sensory experience of the material world.
Which is the same thing as saying that
the egocentric mind lives in a world that
is created by the projections of its karmic
deposits.6
Lopon Thekchoke seems to be saying,
here, that an analogous, although very
different, process occurs in the egoless
mind as well. If the egocentric mind lives
in the projections it creates to maintain its
sense of identity, the egoless mind, in
contrast, lives in the mandala, or
cosmology, that is its nondual vision of
the universe.

“Samantabhadra is empowered with

the knowledge of the ultimate, and
…The object of this discriminating
primordial wisdom … dwells as the
pure land of inner clarity … The inner
 * 260 *
clarity of the relationship between
primordial wisdom and its object may
be likened to the way a crystal
produces a spectrum of colors, yet the
rays are actually inherent in the
crystal itself.”
Tulku Thondup Rinpoche7

HMV: Now if I understood you correctly, in

a previous interview you said that rigpa
contains the Buddha bodies and primordial
wisdom.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Is that the same thing as saying that
rigpa contains a picture of the universe?
LTC: Yes. To explain in simple terms, there is
one central figure surrounded by his retinue,
and that is called a mandala. When you have
rigpa, within that rigpa, the central figure is
rigpa surrounded by the five primordial
wisdoms. And that is called the dharmakaya
mandala. For the sambhogakaya mandalas,
 * 261 *
in the center you have the five different
Buddha families, each of which is
surrounded by their own five retinues.
HMV: So there are five different
sambhogakaya mandalas.
LTC: Yes. Five, five, five. In the center there
will be five, in the east five, in the south five,
in the west five, in the north five.
HMV: So there is one Sambhogakaya
mandala, but with five different retinues in
each direction.
LTC: Yes. In this world, this Earth,
Sakyamuni Buddha is in the center.
HMV: And this is the nirmanakaya mandala.
LTC: Oh yes. He is in the center surrounded
by all of the worldly beings.
HMV: In other words, the whole world.
LTC: The whole world.
HMV: So it’s a picture of the universe.
LTC: Yes. Yes. (Emphatic and with much
laughter)
 * 262 *
HMV: And this is the universe of which
rigpa is aware.
LTC: Yes. Without attaining rigpa, without
being born in rigpa, this enlightened realm
will not be attained. For example, if you
don’t have a medical degree, you won’t have
students.
HMV: Would it be correct to say that a
mandala always involves an enlightened
being teaching a group of students?
LTC: Oh yes. There is always a realized being
teaching his retinue. But if the central figure
has not acquired the necessary learning, if he
has not acquired the knowledge and
wisdom, whatever he experiences through
the five senses will not be pure appearances.
Once you have acquired the necessary
knowledge and wisdom, then whatever you
experience will be pure awareness. Then you
will be skillful in everything you say and do.
This is what the mandala means.
 * 263 *
HMV: Are you saying that in every nondual
moment, if enlightenment is a stream of
nondual moments, that the egoless mind
realizes primordial wisdom, a moment of
togpai yeshe, that has, as its source, a
mandala?
LTC: Yes. (Emphatic and with Joy)
HMV: And that this primordial wisdom will
enable you to be skillful in everything you
do.
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Thank you very much.
 THE PROGRESSIVE
REALIZATION OF THE
EMPTINESS OF ONE’S OWN MIND

HMV: Finally now, I’d like to ask you a few

last questions about path rigpa. Is path rigpa
the same thing as the egoless mind?
LTC: Yes.
HMV: Is it temporary egoless mind?
LTC: Yes. Yes.
HMV: Would it be correct to say that when a
person has experiences of path rigpa, but has
not yet realized fruition rigpa, that their
awareness goes back and forth between
being path rigpa and the watcher. Sometimes
their awareness is path rigpa and sometimes
it is the watcher.
 * 266 *
LTC: Yes. It is like that.
HMV: Thank you. Now fruition rigpa, as
you have said, is not aware of thoughts,
emotions and the habitual patterns of ego
thought; they don’t appear to fruition rigpa.
But I think that thoughts, emotions and the
habitual patterns of ego thought do appear to
path rigpa. Is that correct?
LTC: Oh path rigpa, yes. More refined
versions of thoughts, emotions and the
habitual patterns of ego thought appear.
HMV: Do moments of primordial wisdom
appear to path rigpa?
LTC: Yes. Without primordial wisdom, there
is no path rigpa. The name path rigpa will
not be there.
HMV: What do you mean?
LTC: The minute that primordial wisdom
begins to appear, at that time the name path
rigpa appears.
HMV: Ah. How does the realization of
moments of primordial wisdom by path
rigpa help a person realize fruition rigpa?
 * 267 *
LTC: You have yet to see the essence of rigpa
face to face. At that time it is called
ignorance, marigpa. The sole responsibility
of primordial wisdom is to destroy the
ignorance that is present as your conceptions
of self.
HMV: Ah.
LTC: Nondual awareness and primordial
wisdom clean off the dirt that is present as
your conceptions of your self.
HMV: How does primordial wisdom do
away with the ignorance of the self
conception?
LTC: Primordial wisdom is actually nondual
awareness. When nondual awareness
appears, ignorance decreases; it gradually
dissolves and disappears.
HMV: I think of myself as having many
different identities. For example, I see myself
as a doctor. I see myself as a mountaineer. I
see myself as a person that has a big heart.
 * 268 *
And so forth. Now when you say that the
ignorance that is present as these self
conceptions decreases with the coming of
moments of primordial wisdom, are you
saying that in those moments a person
abandons one of their identities?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: So let’s say that maybe I have fifty
identities. Are you saying that as a result of
having an experience of primordial wisdom,
I will let one of those identities go; that in my
heart, I will really let one of them go?
LTC: Oh yes.
HMV: And then there will be forty nine more
to go.
LTC: Oh yes. When you go into the
mountains, when you are at the base camp, at
that time you are a doctor. Now when you
climb the first step, you abandon the doctor
at the base. When you climb another step,
you get even further away from being a
 * 269 *
doctor. As you go higher and higher up the
mountain, the doctor you abandoned at the
base camp is farther and farther away. So as
your primordial wisdom increases, a
conception of self is abandoned more and
more.
 * 270 *
Footnotes
1 Please see the introduction to these interviews
for a more thorough discussion to this notion.
2 See Volume II of The Healthy Mind Interviews,
pg. 53.
3 A predual appearance, or gzhi-nang, is usually
said to have three aspects. When I brought this
to Lopon’s attention, he said that he sees a gzhi-
nang as having just these two aspects.
4 Please see pp. 103-104 in Volume II of The
Healthy Mind Interviews.
5 Gyatso, Janet. 2001. Apparitions of the Self. Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, pg. 189.
6 There is a difference of opinion, amongst both
Tibetan and Western scholars, as to whether or
not this Yogacaran position is an
epistemological or ontological position. If it is
taken as an ontological position, the Yogacaran
view would be that only consciousness exists.
There is no physical world. This is the usual
rendering of Yogacara, and it is the
philosophical position known as metaphysical
 * 271 *
idealism. If, however, Yogacaran theory is read
as an epistemology, its view would be that the
material world exists, but that the human mind
does not know it directly because the mind can
only know itself. To my untrained philosophical
eye, the Yogacaran metaphysic makes much
more sense if it is read as an epistemology.
7 Masters of Meditation and Miracles, South Asian,
Shambhala Edition, pg. 48-49.