Today I'm sharing my top four ideas that help me progress on my non-dual journey. These ideas will
help any confusion or feelings of being lost, and hopefully help you improve your understanding of
non-duality and how to practice it effectively. So without further ado, here are four practical
tips and ideas for practicing non-duality and shifting your experience. The first key idea is:
That conceptual understanding is essential to access non-duality. There seems to be
this apprehension to give clear instructions and advice. Religious systems and structures can make
it really difficult to reach or access teachings on non-duality. And more modern teachings can
be presented with some sorts of mysticism and ambiguity that makes it really difficult to know
what the practice actually is. If you want to practice anything you need to know very clearly
how to practice it. I believe we would all be in a more empowered position for progress, if we could
speak about non-duality more openly and freely. Although non-duality is beyond concepts and also
beyond words, words still ARE, a very useful tool to help us move closer to insight, and ultimately
enlightenment. Because you really just need to know what you're practicing, to practice it. And
so, the easiest and most obvious way to approach non-duality is by conceptual understanding,
which then will make practice so much easier. The second point that has helped me is: That
if you're not experiencing non-duality you are lost in thought. You are lost in subtle concepts
(that you may or may not be aware of) about your being. This means that the experience of duality,
is the result and experience, when you do not have the mindfulness to notice very subtle thinking.
This is useful to know because otherwise you might spend your entire lifetime never making
significant progress towards the recognition of no-self. Usually, when we first start out,
we try to access non-duality through thoughts. Because this is how we're used to moving through,
being in, and relating to the world. We're not even aware that thought is our main relationship
to being. But if you can understand that this is probably what's happening, and then begin to
discern this, you'll start to realize how much of your practice is actually just sitting with
different kinds of thought and thinkings. And with this awareness you can of course,
stop being lost in these thoughts and concepts and begin letting go into non-conceptual presence.
When I first started to practice I would wonder why I wasn't recognizing non-duality. Wondering
what I had to do, or what I had to figure out... But this was the problem. The problem was that I
was only thinking. And so I wasn't noticing these present and convincing thoughts of confusion, that
were clouding my ability to be with the natural and aware non-dual nature of mind. And please
know that it's not a mystical way to get there. Experienced teachers will stress this point,
that non-duality is no secret, rather it's quite ordinary. You don't have to understand something
about the universe, do prostrations, or pray. You just have to be more aware, develop mindfulness.
And that's incredibly practical and most importantly, actually achievable! The great
insight from this point, is that if you then sit down and try to access non-duality, with
this new knowing, and your experience continues to be conceptual, dull, or confusing; you know
that this is because you haven't developed enough mindfulness to be aware of thoughts
as they arise. To sustain non-duality, you have to be mindful to the point where you notice every
thought you have, the moment it arises. This might seem impossible, but it's very important,
because it isn't impossible and it is a prerequisite for non-duality.
Because otherwise you would be lost in thought and therefore lost in duality. The problem for
someone who doesn't feel confident in accessing non-duality is the persistent question of: What to
do? So one quick way to help you make progress is to really simply point out this 'what-not-to-do,'
especially because it eliminates so much mistaken practice. You're almost only
left with how to do it, which makes practicing non-duality much clearer. The third point is:
That consciousness is already non-dual. This is a phrase that made my non-duality practice so
much clearer. My assumption when I first began to practice was that there was something to do.
But, what this idea points out is that consciousness is already non-dual. So
there's nothing I need to do. Non-duality is just a question of whether you're noticing it or not,
and noticing isn't effortful. It's an inherent quality of consciousness. Consciousness is aware.
So if you can align to that, non-duality will be obvious. But what if your experience doesn't feel
non-dual? Well, you you go back to the first point: It's because you're lost in thought.
Sounds easier, huh? But practicing is the only way to get there. The fact that we already have it is
important for us to grasp. We don't have to bring in something extraneous. We don't even have to
develop anything. We already have everything. We just need to uncover it. It's always been there.
It's absolutely perfect just as it is. But we don't recognize it. It's as if we're standing
in the sunshine, and then we go inside, draw the shutters, and say that it's dark. But the sun is
shining the whole time." And the last non-dual pointer is that if when you're practicing the
non-dual nature doesn't feel obvious, if it feels mundane, or if there's no clear recognition,
just try to let that be for a moment longer. Because awareness can develop, without your
intervention, when you sustain it like this. When non-duality doesn't seem obvious or easy,
the usual habit for people is to try and solve this with conceptual thinking, by trying to
figure out what's wrong. But since non-duality is... non-dual! Approaching this with effort
and thinking is not going to work. Instead, see if you can let the mundane feelings or confusion be,
and let them be for a moment longer than you might otherwise think. Awareness will develop
naturally and you can move closer to non-duality. One of my favorite teachers, Tsoknyi Rinpoche,
always emphasizes the importance of this dropping, or letting go. And in that short moment of letting
go, there is freedom. But our tendency to tense up, question, or "understand" can be so strong
that we don't notice this short moment of non-duality. That is what is keeping
us stuck in confusion. So the lesson here is that we just need to have a bit more courage
to experiment with how to let go completely, and how to let go for more than one moment.
Knowing that we will find non-duality amongst complete non-grasping. Worry about if you
"did it," later. Don't do that whilst you're practicing. Otherwise your practice will just be
filled with those worries. Those worries strangle the opportunity for experience,
and you need more experience to feel confident in your realizations. There are even more nuances
you can add into this picture and there are more specific instructions that might be necessary to
improve your practice. But in some regard, these are the coarse points for realizing non-duality;
both sitting down and off the cushion in your day-to-day life.
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