Looking at the Thought-Other-Outer

Ever-changing Montana skies and landscapes

First, the outside. Rinpoche took the example of a mountain. We call it a mountain, but what is it, exactly, that we’re calling a mountain? Is it the trees? The rocks? The vegetation? If we take away the vegetation, is it still a mountain? Let’s focus on one part of the mountain: a tree. If we take some leaves o of it, or even a whole branch, is it still a tree? Is it the bark that contains the tree-ness? Let’s analyze this some more. What we’re calling “bark” is made up of lots of little cells. Have we gotten down to the real “mountain” yet? Or the “tree”?

We might say that the DNA of the cell is the tree part. We’ll forget for a minute, the other parts without which the tree would die.

Let’s break this down even further. Now we come to the level of molecules, then atoms. What’s left of “tree-ness” when it’s just a bunch of electrons, protons, and neutrons? Science tells us that there’s proportionally as much space between the parts of the atoms as between the planets of our solar system. And scientists also tell us that when we get to the subatomic level, we can’t even be sure they’re things, particles anymore. As I mentioned in Book 1, there’s been a debate among scientists as to whether these quantum building blocks are particles or waves. I personally wish they would’ve settled on calling them by one of the terms floating around as they discovered this minute level: “wavicles.” They didn’t consult me, and moved on to calling it “wave-particle.” Boring.

If we were traveling with an infinitesimally small lens, we could pass through that “solid” tree, no problem. Continuing our journey using this tiny lens, we could pass from the inside of the tree to the outside of the tree, and not even notice the di erence. We would mostly pass through space, waving at the occasional wave-particle outside our window. At this level, there’s really no detectable di erence between the thing we were calling a tree, and the rocks and air around it, never mind the mountain! David Bohm (remember him from Book 1?) might say that we’ve moved past the explicate and are staring at the implicate. The Buddha would say we have now used Sublime Insight—Vipassana—to look into the true nature of phenomena as they appear outside of us.

The ego can get a bit rattled at experiencing reality much closer to its true Way of Abiding. After all, the ego has a vested interest in being a separate, distinct thing. But at the same time, this is what we’ve been longing for, for untold ages: home.

Once we arrive HOME, why not rest there for a bit? Eventually a bit longer. Then longer. Gently, gradually extend that delicious moment of true rest, in true home. Rest in Shamata until you notice you’ve been following thoughts (again!). Do this analysis with whatever you’ve just thought about.

Are you ready to try this analysis for yourself? When you are, bring this section of the book into your Round Robin session—into the Shamata session in particular. We also have recordings of me leading this, on our

website Namchak.org. See what you actually experience, as you fix your gaze of Sublime Insight on a thought or thing—your object of support, or a “distraction” such as that lady’s pencil scratchings behind me. As you look into its true nature, what do you find? If you’d like me to talk you through it, go to our website. Better yet, go to a Vipassana retreat taught by Namchak Khen Rinpoche. He is Tulku Sangak Rinpoche’s brother, and an accomplished scholar and meditator. He also happens to be a skilled and delightful teacher and inspiring human being. Again, there are also the other groups I mentioned earlier.

If all this seems a bit far-fetched, consider another example that Rinpoche gives us, from everyday life: a floater, those faint little things in your eye, that appear to be “out there.” But in that case we know they’re not. A classic Buddhist example is a person with jaundice thinking The more our view the world is yellow. We accept those aligns with true reality, di erences between appearance and the happier we’ll be. what’s inherently real. Why not these other examples? We’re not in the habit of seeing a mountain or tree as non-solid. But as we consider and observe again and again, living with and getting used to that perspective, we might live increasingly

Namchak Khen Rinpoche in an action pose in Montana

Springtime in western Montana

from that perspective. And remember, the extent to which our view of reality di ers from true reality is the extent to which we’ll su er. The reverse is also true: the more our view aligns with true reality, the happier we’ll be.

Another Outer Analysis

We tend to assume that the things outside us are separate, and stably existing. We thought that mountain was. There’s another, fascinating journey we can go on, to examine the “reality” of outer things. We can examine them from the point of Relative Truth.

Many years ago, I bought a beautiful wooden shrine cabinet for Rinpoche, for his room in Nepal. It was intricately carved, brightly painted in jewel tones, and trimmed in gold leaf. He was delighted with it, and put his most sacred scriptures, o ering bowls, statues of enlightened beings, and other such things on and in it. He had representations of the Three Jewels contained in this lovely cabinet—the statues were bodies, the scriptures were speech, and the stupa was a sacred geometrical symbol of enlightened mind. He prostrated in the direction of this shrine every day.

Then he began to notice that someone else was enjoying his shrine, but in a very di erent way. It was quickly being perforated by termites! They found it delicious! They lived in, ate, and pooped in the shrine all day and all night.

From his point of view, the shrine’s purpose was to hold the Three Jewels, and the termites were committing a sacrilege. From their point of view, it was a new home, with plenty to eat. But at the same time he thought, “Who’s to say who’s right? If this were a democratic process and we were to take a vote, I’d lose! The Buddha, who can see this from Absolute Truth, as well as from both of our points of view (Relative Truth), would agree with both of us.” We humans could never eat the shrine if we tried. The termites eat nothing else. Is it food? A home to live in? Something to hold sacred objects and books? To some dogmatically zealous non-Buddhists, the shrine cabinet might be seen as an a ront to their beliefs, a sacrilege to be destroyed. To a very poor, freezing non-Buddhist, it might be seen as firewood.

You get the idea. Even within this Samsaric dream, from di erent beings’ perspectives, it’s something very di erent. What is it, really? You can see why we call this Relative Truth. One or another appearance—shrine, lunch, home, Devil’s work, or firewood—is true only relative to the observer.

Then there’s the whole fascinating question of dreams. Rinpoche wrote a whimsical, yet profound allegory of a debate between waking and dreaming consciousness. Of course, Daytime (waking consciousness) asserted that it was more real. To give you a bit of a summation/paraphrase of the conversation: Night Time (dreaming consciousness) said, “When you go to sleep and experience a dream, isn’t that just as real?”

“No, of course not. You have to wake up from a dream.”

“Well, you have to go to sleep. Then you’re in my realm. Besides, when you die, you’ll have to wake up and leave that longer dream you call ‘real life.’”

The debate went on like this, without either being able to show their view to be the right one. As I sat by my father’s bed during the last month of his life, his senses “Peace, peace! He is not dead, he doth not sleep/ He hath awakn’d from the dream of life” From “Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

withdrew. His vehicle for participating in this dream was falling apart, and he was going to have to go. Who knows where he went?

And when we experience one of those now-familiar movies while on the cushion, where do those thoughts go? Where exactly did they come from?

When you notice a thought on the internal screen of your mind, rather than getting engrossed in the internal video, what if you look directly at it? What happens? For me, when I catch it in the act like that, it goes “poof.” It’s like it was a balloon, popped by the sharp, direct observation of my mind. Or like a thief when the homeowner turns on the light. “Well, you have to go to They slip away. Where do they sleep. Then you’re in my go? Who knows? But now realm. Besides, when you we’re not caught in a movie. die, you’ll have to wake Now, once again, we’re ready up and leave that longer to rest in simple awareness. dream you call ‘real life.’” Whether a thought comes or not, no problem. We can use that thought as the object of our practice and simply look directly at it. Poof. Rest. Ahh.

From all these various angles, we can see that the phenomena we perceive, whether “things” or dreams or thoughts, are woven together into a coherent story in our minds. They have no inherent existence without the mind. This is what’s meant by the term “no-self” in Buddhism. Well then, shall we look right at that mind, the thinker?