Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Splendid to see you all here and to be so fondly welcomed. It is a privilege for me. I must begin by saying how delighted I am to be here at the Shambhala Centre again - to be invited here on a third occasion. As time proceeds, Khandro Déchen and I feel it increasingly important to consider the profound implications of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's work in the West. What he established here is unique and vital. In the last few years, we realise increasingly that a close affinity exists - although we are ostensibly of different lineages, tradition, and cultural origins. In some senses we both seem to approach Buddhism from the perspective of the Mahasiddhas. The tradition of the Mahasiddhas is crucial to us, and it is without doubt that Trungpa Rinpoche was a Mahasiddha. The Mahasiddha tradition is something we consider vital for people in the West in terms of understanding the heart of the Tantric teachings. However... before I begin to discuss the Khandro Pawo Nyi-Da Mélong Gyüd - I would like to say a little about the idea of `truth'. If anybody came expecting any truth, then this is probably the time to leave [laughs].

We were all raised in a Judæo-Christian culture; this is what exists here. And I think that because of that, we tend to approach religion as truth. Now this is really tricky when it comes to Buddhism, because Buddhism is in excess of 90 percent method. It doesn't really deal with truth, in terms of what is really taught. What is taught is a method of realising truth. The truth is not actually taught; but a method of realising truth. So the methods of realising truth can be very different.

The fact that teachings contradict each other is only a problem if you deal with teachings as truth. If you deal with teaching as method, the fact that they contradict each other is not a problem.

There are yanas - yanas are the vehicles, things through which we approach truth; methods of realisation, and these methods are very different. I'm not sure about other religions; I've not studied them, but I have a feeling that Buddhism is unique in having vehicles that are expressed as vehicles. This doesn't particularly make it better or worse; maybe it makes it different. But I think it's important that we understand the idea of vehicle in order to understand what I'll be explaining over the weekend; that's really crucial. I think different religions in the world have inner teachings. But a yana is not some kind of inner teaching. It may well be a more profound level of teaching, but what is meant by yana, or vehicle, is that one can get in it and move and arrive somewhere. It has a base, there is a path, and there is a fruit. The fruit of all Buddhist yanas is the same - it's realisation. But the base is different according to where we are and what our level of understanding is, what our practice is, what our experience is as human beings. And the path will vary according to the base, according to what we understand.

Sometimes I can spend an entire weekend, as I think I did last time, talking about the yanas. I'm not going to say too much about that this time. I'll talk about it purely as an introduction. Because in order to understand the Khandro Pawo Nyida Mélong it's important to understand where it comes from in terms of the vehicles. Because one thing you will find as you hear a variety of Buddhist teachings, is that they contradict each other. And often people find it a problem that teachings contradict each other. So it is important to understand why it is not a problem. The fact that teachings contradict each other is only a problem if you deal with teachings as truth. If you deal with teaching as method, the fact that they contradict each other is not a problem. Like a spade does not contradict a toothpick [laughs], a sword does not contradict a hammer. These things are different; they have different purposes, therefore they are different.

So a vehicle, then, has a base, a path and a fruit. The base is where we are, how we are as individuals, and what we understand. The path is what we do from that basis. The fruit is where we arrive. Now these three should always exist in connection with each other. This is quite useful, really, as a way of looking at anything. Because this idea of base, path and fruit is not only connected with Buddhism, but one could apply this to almost anything: one could look at political structures, philosophical structures, through the idea of base, path and fruit, and understand them; understand what their purpose and value is. One could look at any religion from this point of view and say, "What is the base, path and fruit here?" If you have that perspective, then actually you never need have a problem with any religion, with any philosophy. Because one can see what its benefit might be to a person who's approaching it from a particular angle. One of the reasons that I always stress this is that there's enough argument in the world without creating more. I wouldn't like this teaching on khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong to create more argument in the world. Obviously, if you look at this teaching, and if you look at the teaching on celibacy, you'll see that they are in direct conflict with each other. So it's important to understand this idea of method, and that method differs, but the truth that method gets at is the same.

Not everyone wants to be a monastic; not everyone wants to be celibate. So this is a specific kind of method; this is a method that is specific to male-female relationship.

Question: In regard to base, path and fruit, Rinpoche... I understood that you said that the basis was what we understand; and it was my understanding that in Buddhism the base is referred to as primordial wisdom, not what we think of as what we understand.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Zhi?

Question: Yes.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Yes, this is true. But the word base is also used in other ways. There is zhi as the real base, but there is also my fictitious base; my samsaric base. The way we are using the word in this part of our discussion relates to our level of understanding: where we are, how we comprehend that primordial base. If we discuss the word zhi in the context of the teaching of Dzogchen, we are speaking of `the primordial base' - that is what is meant by `zhi'.But in terms of the other vehicles, we are not dealing with that sense of primordial base. The reason for this is that this is not the base which is apprehended. From the perspective of Sutra, the base is that I'm confused. That is the base. Then - where do I go from that base? I proceed from that base in terms of cutting through confusion according to the principle of renunciation. Let's take the example of being here in this room. Let's call that `the fruit' We're all here. This is the fruit. What is the path from that perspective? The path is however we got here. What is the base from that perspective? The base is wherever we began the journey which culminated in our arriving here. Now according to `my path', it is impossible that any of you are here - because I came from Heathrow. If none of you came from Heathrow, if none of you followed that path, then how can you be here? If my path is the one true path [laughs] none of you are really here. [laughter] So - if you really want to be here, you will have to leave, [laughter] go to Britain, start at Heathrow, and come back again; then you will really be here. You will really be here because you will have followed the one true path. [laughter]

So as you can see, this does not always work. Because you can say, "Well I started a bit closer..."

"Never mind! You have to go to the base." So base is being used in that sense there. When one comes to Dzogchen, the base, the path and the fruit are identical, so one may as well say `the base, the base and the base'. We'll maybe look at that a bit later on in the weekend.

Something else I should say is that public teachings, when one doesn't know the audience, are horrific. For everyone, perhaps. Because everyone has a different level of understanding, perhaps. And what I try to do always, is to teach for everyone as much as I can. Which means that some people will be bored, because I'm working at too simplistic a level. There will be some people who are confused, because I'm answering questions at some more advanced level. But I'll try and cater to everyone. If you're getting too confused, let me know. If I use words you don't understand, then I'll explain them.

So this particular teaching, in terms of method, is the khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong. I'll explain what this means. What was left out of the public title was that this was a male-female relationship. Now what is important here, is not that this is a statement that there is something specific about male-female relationship that is more important than gay relationship. It is just that this particular teaching does not concern itself with that - because it is method, and method is specific. Method applies to one thing in particular, one way of working. So in the Sutras we have a way of working that deals with monasticism. Not everyone wants to be a monastic; not everyone wants to be celibate. So this is a specific kind of method; this is a method that is specific to male-female relationship. That is not to say that some of the principles within it could not be applied to gay relationship; that is quite possible, apart from the fact that there would have to be an extrapolation on that theme. Now this particular teaching is a gTérma; so what we are dealing with here is not some kind of universal principle that is a truth. And that therefore that which lies outside of it is not truth. Would anyone like to ask me questions on that? Is that really well understood? I'd really like in some ways to be able to address a gay audience on this subject. It would be useful, apart from the fact that I'm not aware of that kind of teaching, even though occasionally gay people have asked me if I can extrapolate on this theme for them a little bit, and I've done so; but these things really need to have life breathed into them, which means that the person teaching must be physically, energetically, and at a mind level within the subject. So I can't really do that anyway; it's not my subject to teach. I'm kind of stressing this, because I'm fundamentally apologetic about it.

So this is the Tantra of the mirror that reflects the sun and moon of the khandros and pawos. If we understand the title we can all go home.

I'd like everyone to understand that, and to understand that what is being expressed is at the level of method; and that there are methods for different people, they exist. In terms of Tantra, one thing that is very important is that whatever the state of being, there is a potential method for using that state of being for liberation. Because Tantra operates from the principle that we are distortions of the realised state. Whatever our style of dualistic distortion, that is also our method of liberation. There is no mental or emotional state we can enter into which is divorced from the realised state. However good or bad we get, we are connected with the realised state. Because of that, we will see reflections of the realised state in however we are. So if you look, for example, at various forms of psychiatric illness, you will occasionally see really remarkable things manifesting in people. There is a level of psychosis when one can manifest non-dual types of statements. I've heard psychotics say remarkable things. I've been impressed. I've thought, `That's very interesting! That is so close to something here', apart from the fact that the person is psychotic, so there would be naturally some method there through which one can work.

This is a very powerful thing about Tantra, and also something that gets it into deep, deep trouble with psychotherapy. [laughter] Or maybe with some psychotherapists, because it is a very dangerous position: that whatever your mind state, that can be a method of realisation. Naturally there has to be some teacher who has the power, the capacity to help us in that way with that particular mind-state. There were certainly various Lamas in Tibet who specialised in helping people in psychotic mind-states. This is certainly possible. Maybe possible for only for a very few, but certainly possible.

So this is one of the interesting perspectives that Tantra has to offer: that whoever I am, whatever my neuroses are, they are part of my qualification as a practitioner. So there is no part of me, as I am, that has to be left out. Even I can be a practitioner, with whatever there is there. Any questions? Am I making sense to everyone? Oh, hmm! [laughter] So then, after that long apology for the subject, khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong: I'll translate this. Khandro: kha means sky; it comes from the word namkha. Dro means going. So khandro which is short for khandroma, is lady who moves in the sky. The Sanskrit word is dakini, but literally sky-going lady, maybe sky-dancer is sometimes used as a poetic translation of this. Now khandro is the female principle. Then there is the word pawo, and pawo means warrior or hero. This is the male principle. Nyida: the word nyi is short for nyima which means sun; da for dawa which means moon. So khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong: mélong means mirror. And the last word gyüd means Tantra. So this is the Tantra of the mirror that reflects the sun and moon of the khandros and pawos. If we understand the title we can all go home. [laughter] This is an interesting thing about any Tibetan teaching, that the whole body of the meaning is contained in the title. So this`Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon' is a kind of an abridged version of this.

Now here the words sun and moon also apply to women and men. The sun is female, the moon is male. So it's the mirror that reflects the sun and moon of the khandros and pawos. But the interesting thing here is that the khandro reflects the pawo's sun; and the pawo reflects the khandro's moon. Because from this particular perspective, male and female contain each other. So this particular teaching deals with relationship. And I'll explore that over the weekend, but before I do that I'd like to say a little about the particular lineage from which this teaching comes. This teaching is a gTérma. Does everyone know this word, gTérma? Or rather, does anyone not know this word gTérma? The word gTérma means discovered treasure, and it is a particular style of teaching that arises within the Nyingma school. And there are various categories of gTérma. There's what's called Sa gTér, which means earth gTérma, and these are teachings that were left in Tibet by Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyel. And these teachings were hidden for rediscovery in future times. So these are physical objects, physical texts which are hidden and later discovered at times when the teaching in general was in need of being refreshed; this is the idea. There's then what's called Gong gTér. This is gTérma that is hidden at the level of Speech, and this is discovered in future generations by disciples of Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyel, or disciples of those disciples. And these are spontaneously realised at certain times. Dudjom Rinpoche was a great master of Gong gTér in this century. Then there's what's called Dag-nang gTér, or pure-vision gTérma. This is the style of gTérma at the level of Mind, that is, it was never concealed. It simply spontaneously arises from the manifestation of Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyel that is the nature of your own Mind. So these teachings arise spontaneously for realised masters at any time, at any place, in any culture. And the quality of all these particular gTérma teachings is that they are appropriate to the time.

Gender is an open space, according to the teaching of khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong.

So the gTérmas of Aro Lingma were discovered very early in this century by a female gTértön, that is a discoverer of gTérma, called Aro Lingma. She received her name from the teaching. Her original name was Khandro Yeshé Réma. But when she discovered the gTérma in pure-vision from Yeshé Tsogyel, she took the name Aro Lingma. The word Aro: A means A. A is the primordial sound. Ro means tasting; but not in the sense of tasting food. Ro is not the word that's used; ro is a special word; it still means tasting, but it has the sense of experiencing. So Aro: experiencing the primordial A. Lingma: Ling means place. Ma means person of the place. Translated this means something like Lady, as in Lord and Lady. So Ling means something like... There's no really useful translation of ling; ling is something like geographical region; a place where everything is more or less the same you'd call ling. Because wherever you go in that place it's like that. So a prairie is ling, or a pond or a lake could also be ling; a building could be ling; wherever it's kind of like it is there, and however far that goes - that's ling. So Lingma; lady of the place. So Aro Lingma: Lingma is kind of aristocratic in its sense. We have this in Britain still, this aristocracy business, and it has a kind of a massive arrogance about it [laughter] where the Earl of Gloucester, when he goes into a hotel, signs himself as `Gloucester'; not `The Earl of', or not `Harry Gloucester' or whatever his name is. Just `Gloucester'; like he signs himself `the whole county'; because, "Well, I am Gloucester! Apart from me Gloucester is zilch!" [laughter] This sense of Lingma is like, "I am the place!" So there is this sense of aristocratic arrogance that comes through, but instead of this ordinary level of arrogance, here you have the statement that, "I am that knowledge." So she is inseparable from that knowledge of the taste of the primordial A. So this is what the name means: the one who is inseparable A. Her full name is Khyungchen Aro Lingma. Khyung is the Tibetan word for garuda. Chen means great, as in Dzogchen or zhag-chen or theg-chen in terms of Mahayana. What's meant by `great' here is more the sense of complete. So she is the complete garuda. The garuda is the bird which is spontaneously born full-grown and flying from its own egg; the egg explodes and `Phat!' there is the garuda in full-flight. There's no infancy, no diapers [laughter] no other lesson complex. It's flying, it's out there doing whatever a garuda does immediately. It doesn't have to learn how to do that; it is already doing that. So Khyungchen Aro Lingma: the great garuda who tastes the primordial A.

So she was the discoverer of this gTérma. She lived from 1886 to 1923. And she discovered this body of teachings; and they are largely a body of teachings which are Dzogchen in their character, even when they're teachings of Tantra or Sutra. So it's a very interesting collection of teachings; it is called a cycle; it comprises the maha, anu, and ati yoga yana. It includes sem-dé, long-dé, and me-ngak-dé. The bulk of its teachings are in the atiyoga, or Dzogchen series of teachings. And this particular teaching that we'll discuss this weekend is a Tantra/Dzogchen hybrid. It takes the theory of Tantra and approaches it in terms of Dzogchen. So the theory is khandro-pawo, and it takes this idea, and it looks at it in terms of direct experience. So it deals a great deal with duality and non-duality - and how those two play with each other. What's important now is that we look at some things that may be a little bit tedious for some people, because we're not going to talk about relationships for quite a while now. What we have to look at is Emptiness and Form. It's really very, very important that we have some kind of understanding of emptiness & form, and what that means - before we can look at non-duality; and before we can look at how non-duality and duality play with each other, in terms of our experience.

Whenever Tantra and Dzogchen are presented, and I think especially in terms of this subject - unless the theoretical basis is understood, then there is a great danger of becoming rather simplistic. And I think one of the most important things around this teaching is that one has to avoid concretising it. What do I mean by concretising... I mean trying to understand it. [laughter]Understanding is a tricky thing, you know? Everyone tends to feel bad if they don't understand, because understanding is better than not-understanding. I would disagree with that statement. I would say that often it is better not to understand - if by understanding one misunderstands. What we come to sometimes as understandings, if they're not accurate, we would be better not to understand than to think we've understood out of a need to concretise - out of a need to bring something within the bounds of what we understand: `Oh, yes! I know what that is. I've seen one of those before; it's like this.' But if it's not, it's really tricky. And I think that this really goes throughout this teaching, that in terms of khandro-pawo, in terms of understanding what gender is, I think this is really interesting, because the actual teaching there is that there is no understanding at all about what gender is. Gender is an open space, according to the teaching of khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong.

You're a very passive audience tonight! Maybe it's the gun in my pocket.

So first we'll look at the idea of emptiness, because without an understanding of emptiness, one cannot approach Tantra at all: because the base of Tantra is emptiness. From a sequentialist point of view, one has to practice Sutra; one has to arrive at the base of Tantra. Now there are various ways of doing this, ways of understanding emptiness. One can approach it philosophically. One can look for where a thing is, how it exists. Often the example is a table: one says, "Is it in the colour? No. Is it in the legs? No. Is it in this? that? Is it in the wood? No." And in the end there's no table. That's one way of doing it. And if you're incredibly intellectual, you can take the whole world apart and find there's nothing there; you can take yourself apart and find there's nothing there. So there's nothing anywhere. But you need a profound intellect in order that that can have a profound effect. And if you're like me who has a strictly room-temperature IQ, and we're talking England now, not California, [laughter] then this might not be a useful [laughter] way to pursue things. That is one way to go. Another way to go is the practice of silent sitting; so one sits, one lets go of reference points, one enters into a state in which there are no reference points - this is an experience of emptiness. There are these two methods.

Also in the Sutras, there's the method that's called compassion: active compassion. This is also a powerful means of realising emptiness in terms of self and other. One becomes empty. Sutra is called the path of renunciation, this is its principle. So in all its practices you can see this principle of renunciation. One becomes a monk or a nun; one renounces all kinds of things there. One renounces choice; one renounces choice over appearance, choice over how one conducts oneself - one applies oneself to the 253 vows of being a monk or a nun. One becomes empty; because all one's form is designated - my appearance is designated, my routine in life is designated, and so I am just a person carrying that out. This is a practice of emptiness. Compassion also is a practice of emptiness: I become empty with relation to subjects of compassion - all sentient beings. I'm practising for the benefit of all sentient beings.

So what is practising for the benefit of all sentient beings? There is nothing there; there is simply the practice; because whatever is there, it is not more important than the practice; so there is nothing there. One gains that experience in that way, and there are many approaches. Now here, in terms of Tantra, if we are going to adopt a non-sequentialist approach and say we will begin with Tantra, then we obviously have to find other ways of experiencing emptiness. If we look at the Heart Sutra - the Heart Sutra says form is emptiness and emptiness is form - what does this mean? This is the nature of reality. So how do we experience emptiness here? Emptiness must be reflected in life. It's not simply philosophical speculation; it's not simply something that comes as the result of a spiritual exercise like silent sitting. Emptiness is reflected. Because we reject emptiness and cling to form, it doesn't actually mean that emptiness is that rarefied as an experience. Because we are rejecting it, this is what causes suffering. If we are rejecting it, we must be experiencing it to some degree in order to reject it. Does everyone follow that? Anyone got any argument with that? [laughs]You're a very passive audience tonight! Maybe it's the gun in my pocket. [laughter] So this is very interesting here in terms of what are we rejecting. We must experience emptiness in some way in our lives.

So in terms of Tantra, the perspective is very much that emptiness and form are reflected in everything. We can see the form, but what about the emptiness? There is a whole other way of practising, which is very much portrayed in this lineage of the mahasiddhas that I spoke of earlier, where we find every aspect of life is practice. Because emptiness and form are reflected there - in our relationships, in our psychological evolution, as we move out of childhood - all those different stages - emptiness is reflected. In our work, in our relationships, in our experiences with our friends, with our interests, with our illnesses - emptiness is always reflected. Emptiness could be called life-crisis, or midlife-crisis, adolescent-crisis - whatever kind of experience in which I no longer know who I am. "I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I studied, I worked, I got the qualification, I got the job. Now I'm doing it; I no longer want to do that. I want to escape from that. It's meaningless to me in some way." This often happens to people: they start out with some idea that they want something out of life, and they go for it, they get it, and then they find that somehow it's not what they thought it would be. And this is some kind of a crisis. This is a reflection of emptiness. There are all kinds of reflection of emptiness. And we can either relate with them, in terms of trying to create form, or we can relate with them in terms of experiencing emptiness.

This links in very much with the idea of not understanding. The confusion is not necessarily a problem. When I don't understand what's happening, that causes me discomfort. Therefore I can say, "I must understand what's going on, so I'll struggle with it, I will find an answer, and then I will stick with that answer and say, `Yes! That's what's going on.' And that's what's going on here, also." There are some of you who will think, `I wish I hadn't come here this evening. I thought this was going to be about relationship, and he's talking about all kinds of other things. There was all that Aro stuff at the start, and about some woman... [laughter]... and now he's talking about this, and now he said that he's not even going to talk about this this evening. Maybe I should leave now, but maybe I'm on the wrong side of the room; [laughter] maybe I should have sat next to the door, or... [laughter] ... Now it's getting better; that was amusing. '[laughter] It's kind of interesting, and I think, `Oh, dear, I wonder if they're liking this. Maybe they hate me.'[laughter] So there's a lot of ambivalence in life. In terms of our friends, you know: `Who are my friends? Are these people my friends? Do I like them? Do I always like them? [laughter] Are they disagreeing with me at this point? Have they said something unpleasant about my shirt, or do they not like the colour I've painted the living-room?' There are all these experiences we have of emptiness, when things aren't what we thought they would be; when we don't understand them. When the relationship I have with a friend is tricky, so that I don't know whether I like this person anymore, or I like them but I'm not sure they like me. There was that time when we were so close, and now we don't seem to be close anymore. Is this a phase this person is passing through? Will it be alright again, or has it terminally shifted? So do I put effort into it anymore, or do I accept that it's shifted?

We can see emptiness in terms of our wardrobes too, you know? We look at them and think, `I bought that. [laughter] I don't know why anymore. [laughter] I must have liked it at some time; now it's there, and it's... [makes an unpleasant face] ... What's more, it's expensive, so I don't really want to give it away, but I don't want to wear it either. I don't know what to do with it. [laughter] Maybe I'll just have my own private museum called "Clothes I Used to Wear" or "Expensive Clothes I Used to Wear".[laughter] I can't sell them because no one wants them; they're out of fashion. Like my fifty-three inch bottom velvet loon pants.' Did you ever wear those things? [laughter] My brother and I had the largest bottom Levi's in the world. I bet you didn't know that! [laughter] We used to buy three pairs: his, mine, and a third pair which were the largest pair they had in the shop - 60 inch waist, whatever, massive, huge things. And then we'd cut up the third pair and we'd these vast insets into them. And they were so big it was almost impossible to ride a bicycle with them on; you'd wrap them round your leg three times with stuff [laughter] otherwise they'd get in the chain. And we used to walk along the road in those things, and everyone would say, "Whoa, look at those..."[laughter] You could have started housing projects in those things. [laughter] But people don't wear those things anymore...

Question: It's coming back into fashion.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Is it? So emptiness is possible in all these things. What's interesting there is saying, "I had an appreciation of that. And where is the person who had an appreciation of that? Or where is the person who had an appreciation of that man or that woman? We had a relationship for a number of years, and I found that person's face attractive; I found their whole manner attractive. I was very, very sad when this person left me; it took me a long while to get over it. Now I'm with somebody else and we're going out for dinner with that person, and I'm thinking, `What happened to that? I no longer see that.' I look at that person's face, and I notice all the little peculiarities about it that used to be very endearing - but now they're just peculiar. And that strange little squeaky voice, [laughter] or whatever that person had that I used to really like and I think, `God, that would irritate me! How did I ever listen to that person talking?'" So where is the person who had the appreciation?

So I always think I'm the same person; and emptiness is there in terms of who we are. It is very accessible, and we can practice that in our daily lives in terms of not rejecting the emptiness of any situation - the emptiness of confusion, the emptiness of ambivalence, the emptiness of personal identity. The emptiness of having fun: Am I really having fun? Am I enjoying this? Or am I just going through the motions of this? I guess these are all kind of negative experiences I'm talking about here, but what becomes interesting is when we look at positive experiences of emptiness; because we reject these as well. Like being happy - there's not a lot you can do with that. Happy is very unsatisfying from the point of view of ego. This is why most great art is about misery. laughter Beethoven's 9th being an exception. But if you look at most happy art, it's kind of twinky! [laughter] There's not a lot of happy art around that you'd say, "Oh, this is high art. The world will remember this!" That's interesting in itself, because happy is very empty; happy has no past or future, which is why we get rid of happy by trying to protract happy. But as soon as you try to protract happy you have to climb outside it in order to look around to see the obstacles to happy, in order that it can roll on; so you stop being happy. Because I've become fearful that happy is going to stop.

Happy is also rather boring at some level, if you can't simply be there: `Right, happy now... oh, that's good, so what do I do next then?'[laughter] What I want to do now is get back to happy, but I'm already happy. It's great trying to be happy, or moving towards happy: "I'll be happy when I get this...Oh, now I've got this. Oh, that's a shame![laughter] It's kind of nice for a while, but now I want to do something else. I want to stick a chisel in my foot or something. [laughter] So I can get happy again in some other way: I can put a plaster on it, rub something... Oh, that's better. Now I feel happy again."[laughter] This applies to sexuality a lot. This is also an empty experience. There is nowhere to go at that point. So actually remaining with happy is quite a practice, that is quite challenging. Happy is quite threatening.

When I first moved to Cardiff, I met a doctor who had a lot of relationship problems. He used to talk to me about them. After a while he said, "You know, I'd really like to refer some of my patients to you." And I'd say, "Oh, ok, well sure, if you like," and that developed into a kind of a therapy practice that I had for a while. People used to come and see me, and often people who were depressed. And that was very interesting. I learned a lot from that, in terms of how people find great security in being depressed; and how the whole idea of happy, which is what they say they want to be, is impossible from that position. Because what they were all saying was, "I want to be happy according to the rules of depression," which is not possible, because one has to let go of the security blanket of depression in order to be happy. Happy is a big risk: happy is creative; happy means moving in any direction and taking challenges on, and going out there and saying, "Yes, I'll do that. I'll become involved there. I'll put out energy." And that's a big risk, because it all might fail, it all might collapse. So happy is very precarious. Creative is very precarious. Creative is always empty, because it might not work; people might not like it. If I want to make security out of creativity, it's kind of doomed. It doesn't offer security, really. Unless I don't want security from it, and then it offers security. We'll get onto that more tomorrow.

As soon as we get into Tantric-speak, we get into paradox. So we have to start looking at emptiness, and how emptiness is not emptiness; how emptiness is form; and how form is not form; form is emptiness. But as soon as we grasp emptiness and form, it becomes emptiness. Or as soon as we grasp form as emptiness, it becomes form again. One cannot separate them. This is a very, very important statement in the Heart Sutra which is really the heart of Dzogchen, if one really understands the Heart Sutra. And the best place we can understand this is within our own lives, and within relationship. So this is really the heart of this practice: understanding emptiness and form and how that manifests in terms of relationship, in terms of falling in love and what that is.

So tomorrow we'll start looking at relationship. We'll start looking at what falling in love is, how that manifests as both neurosis and as an expression of the enlightened state. I think here I should say that the reason that Khandro Déchen started teaching on this subject was because we were in a bookshop once, in Walnut Creek. They sat Khandro Déchen and I next to the incoming books, and we looked at them; we had about a half-hour: we got there too early. And there was a whole bunch on relationship, so we started looking at them. We thought, `What are people saying about relationship these days?' So we read the kind of intros to them, and we passed them backwards and forwards with each other. We were kind of dismayed that they all seemed to say the same thing. I can almost quote one of them. It said, `Falling in love is a relatively harmless pathology, which when it's over, the real work of the relationship starts.' And we thought, `That's depressing!'[laughter] This is what people are picking up and reading; this is their concept of what life is like in terms of relationship. Now it's not that we actually disagreed with them, at one level. Because this is an assumption that can very easily be made. There would be many people who would agree with that and say, "Yes, Yes! I know that. That's what it was like for me twenty or thirty times, three times, ten times... It's always like that." But we would say that that is not how it has to be. That is how it almost invariably goes, and there is a very good reason why it tends to go that way. But simply because it tends to go that way does not mean that it has to go that way.

So selfish motivation can also create results that are far from what selfish motivation wanted. And lack of selfish motivation often produces things that selfish motivation might have desired. It's very interesting, and that kind of double-think is part of the paradox that underlies our dualistic situation.

Now how you fall in love is completely and utterly mysterious. I can't help anyone do that. I can maybe give some hints, like, `avoid being a schmuck.'[laughter]`Shower enough.'[laughter]`Change your clothes occasionally. Show interest in other people. Be less self-obsessed. You stand a good chance.'[laughter]Beyond that, there's not much I can say. However, how you stay in it once you've got it is completely mechanical: step by step, how you stay in it, or how you fall out of it, is completely understandable, logical. That is both very exciting and also somewhat depressing as well, because usually when Khandro Déchen and I talk about how to stay in love forever, someone in the audience says, "Whew! That sounds very hard, though." And we say, "Yes, sure. But it's either hard or it's hard."

I have a stair machine at home - because if I don't get on it and work on it, I get fatter, and fatter, and fatter. That's what life is like for me. [laughter] I have that kind of metabolism. I don't like the stair machine. I'm not sure what it feels about me... Now people who talk about exercise - and learning to love your body and all that stuff - talk about `enjoying' exercise. I've been exercising for fifteen years; I've never enjoyed it, I never will enjoy it; I just do it because I have to do it. Now it's hard, and I don't like it. But if I don't do it, then other things are hard, like going shopping is hard. Because you walk down the hill, you buy the shopping, you climb up the hill, it's hard. But if you get on the stair machine enough, then you go shopping and it's not hard. So it's a choice. It's either hard or it's hard. [laughter] I prefer it to be hard on the stair machine and easy doing the shopping - that's just my choice. But in a way, there is no choice; because either it's hard or it's hard.

That's interesting: either it's hard and it's creative and something comes out of it, in terms of relationship. But that hard is actually easier than the hard of making it easy, which is miserable. And we'll look at it tomorrow. It's very interesting, because all the language that arises around this is kind of paradoxical. When we take an easy option, is it an easy option? If we take a selfish option, is it really a selfish option in terms of something I'm going to enjoy? So, by taking a selfish option, am I getting something for myself out of this, or do I only think I am, because what actually comes out of it for me is unpleasant? So selfish motivation can also create results that are far from what selfish motivation wanted. And lack of selfish motivation often produces things that selfish motivation might have desired. It's very interesting, and that kind of double-think is part of the paradox that underlies our dualistic situation. All the logic around that is back to front but makes perfect sense from the point of view of non-duality. As soon as we stray into duality, paradox arises in terms of how we unwind it. So we will look at that tomorrow as well.

Is there someone here who has no idea of what I'm talking about with emptiness? Is there anyone who would like me to say more on any aspect of what I've said so far?

Question: What did you mean by `the rules of depression?'

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: The rules of depression are: I don't do anything, therefore I'm never challenged by anything, which means I never fail. And that always works. I may have ideas of what I could do, which means that I can express those ideas to people. And they can say, "These are jolly good ideas," so that validates me as not being stupid - that I am a creative person. But then I'm always quick to say, "But of course, the powers that be or the money available is not there, and of course it just wouldn't work so I can't do it." And then everyone says, "Oh, that's a shame. We can understand why you're depressed." And so, therefore, I'm a success without being a success. I never did it because I couldn't do it; therefore I couldn't have failed. And sometimes when you have someone like that and you actually give them the resources and the time, it's very frightening. And I've actually seen people who've really thrown a wobbly about that [laughter], as we say in Wales. Like, "Oh my god! Someone is offering me the money here; they're offering me the space; they're offering me the time. So I'll get sick instead, or I'll do something so that I can't do it; because if I actually go into it, if I invest that energy into it, it might not work." So those are the rules of depression.

People have said to me that practice is easier in the East; it's more spiritual there. And I've always said, "Hell it is!"

The rules of depression are also very interesting in terms of being ultimate. When I was counselling, I never had a stupid depressive; they were always very intelligent people - very bright, very spacious in their intelligence. They could slide into the ultimate view very easily, in a nihilistic way. I had a lady who was a very talented artist. And she said one week, "I'm thinking of starting painting again," and I said, "Great!" This was just as she said good-bye. Next week she came back and I said, "How's the painting?" She said, "There's no purpose. Whew! Why paint? For what?" I said, "You're absolutely right; there's no purpose. You're miserable; I'm happy; where do you go now?" I'm not going to argue with you. I'm not going to say there's a purpose in doing anything. There is no purpose. Great, I accept that. However, painting can be fun. Painting is its own purpose; everything is its own purpose. There's no purpose outside whatever is. And that is either ecstatic or it's depressing. It's ecstatic if that liberates me into doing it. Why? Because I want to; it's occurred; it's happening; I'm involved with it. It's not going to accomplish anything for me, apart from in the moment. But then that's a great excuse for not doing it; there is no purpose. Why do it? For whom? For where? For why? There's no answer for any of that.

Unfortunately, with depressives you can't say, "Find a hobby; collect stamps; load guns."[laughter] You know, if your level of intelligence is low enough, then you can get a hobby, and then you'll get happy. And you'll get happy because you're involved: because you have to go out and find the stamp, you have to stick the stamp in the book [laughter] and you know, that involves effort. And anything that involves effort involves the sense-fields, and those open up instead of closing down.

But that's a whole area... You know depression is part of the Space neurosis. Usually when I talk about the five Buddha families, this is one of them. But they all have rules. [laughter] And we like to be within those rules. Even though they're self-destructive rules, we understand them. So depression is very secure. `I stay in bed for weeks. I smell worse. No-one comes round.' That's certain.

So emptiness then... We have philosophical emptiness, where we look at an object and see that there's nothing there that we call an object. We can look at that easily in terms of fashion: this is a desirable object; now this is not a desirable object. Is the object either desirable or non-desirable? And we say no, it's neither. It's dependent on other circumstances. This is fairly obvious. If it's fashionable, if a lot of people like it, then it's a good thing. If a lot of people don't like it, it's a bad thing. I mean in Britain at the moment, we have a lot of stripped pine stuff that was made in Victorian times. It's stripped because they put paint on it because it was cheap wood at that time. It was usually in working-class kitchens. Now it's in upper middle-class kitchens, having been ripped out of working-class houses where they put Formica in instead. They've had the paint stripped off them; they've been treated with wax; and there they are, the pride of some middle-class home. This is a wonderful... I mean, I really love the West. People have said to me that practice is easier in the East; it's more spiritual there. And I've always said, "Hell it is!" It's really not at all. I mean, this is a great place, because we've got so much teaching here! These incredible examples [laughter] of how some junky piece of a working-class home is now part of some hundreds of pounds of Welsh dresser that is now in someone else's kitchen... And it moves, and whatever it is, this is what it is! This friend of mine, the doctor, he showed me his camera one day. He'd bought it several years previously. It was a Nikon, and the paint was wearing off it. And he said to me, "It's looking good, isn't it?" And I said, "It's looking great." Now, for anyone who doesn't know what that means, the idea that the black paint is wearing off your Nikon and the brass is showing through makes it look like a professional camera; it's been around. So it has that certain kind of look. And a week later, he bought a new car, and he'd been to Safeway with it, and someone had let a shopping trolley run down the side and scratched the metal off, and he was really cross about this, he was furious. And when he calmed down a bit, I'd said, "Well doesn't it make it look more professional, now the metal shows through?"[laughter] And he kind of grinned because he know what I was saying. It's like it's okay on the camera, but not okay on the car. The same phenomenon - but it's apprehended differently: my Levis are faded, that's good; my shoe is scuffed, that's bad. So this is a very interesting teaching on emptiness.

It's only the struggle that makes it confusion: wishing to understand. If you don't actually know, and it's all right, then there's no struggle there, it's a very interesting state; it's an experience of openness, of emptiness - or ambivalence.

In Tibetan culture, or culture here at the turn of the century, a thing was a thing. It was a good thing and everyone thought it was a good thing; a bad thing and everyone thought it was a bad thing. But here! What's a good thing and what's a bad thing is so variable! It changes year by year. One really has to confront that, that we really live in a world where everything is... its value is empty! Like gold: what is that worth? Well one could say, "that's always worth a lot." There's never been a time when gold hasn't been worth a lot; it's always precious. Apart from the fact that if I have eight pounds of it in a rucksack, and I'm in the middle of the Sahara, I may just throw it away in order that I can get to where there's some water. Or someone passes with a container of water, and you say, "Oh, give me drink," and they say, "Well, it will cost,"

"How much?"

"Everything in your bag."

"Sure!" So it's worth a container of water, or it's worth whatever it's worth: It's worth a lot, it's worth little. It's very interesting. But there are examples like that that are kind of Tibetan examples, like the worth of gold, what's it worth? But we have those examples all around us in everyday things. We don't have to imagine some imaginary position of being in the Sahara with all this gold. We only have to open our wardrobe door [laughter] and say, "Well, there it is! I paid that much for this. I wouldn't put it on anymore." That's what that is. It's great. It's a wonderful place for that. [laughter]

Question: I wanted to say, it was like that in Australia - the golden mile, and in the middle of the outback - and water was more precious than gold then, before they made a pipeline. It was very real for those people.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Yes, and it's really valuable to hit circumstances like that; because it gives you a real perspective of relativity. I would also say that if you're having an argument with your partner, and you're being really acrimonious, and they go out in the afternoon and get hit by a car, and they're critically ill in hospital, and then you go into terminal regret about what you said. You realise this is a really important person, and I shouldn't have been arguing; and that was a completely trivial thing I was arguing about. Often, when there are life circumstances like that, if you can actually grasp them to say, `What is important here?' That is really useful.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: So, emptiness and understanding it: either philosophically, that is one aspect; we can really look at that. We can sit; so silent sitting is very important in terms of realising what I am when there is no definition there; when there is no thought there to prove that I exist. So that's experiential emptiness. In terms of how one arrives there in a formal manner, through the practice of shi-nè or shamatha. Then we have existential emptiness in everyday life, in terms of being open to our own confusion, of not concretising situations. Allowing ourselves to be confused. Because confusion really... What would you call confusion without struggle?Wisdom.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Hmmm.

Q2: Openness.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Hmmm. It's only the struggle that makes it confusion: wishing to understand. If you don't actually know, and it's all right, then there's no struggle there, it's a very interesting state; it's an experience of openness, of emptiness - or ambivalence.

Q3: But that's different than being confused and not knowing you're confused. You're talking about someone who knows they're confused, and it's not a problem?

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Yes.

Q3: Okay.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Well, if you don't know you're confused, it's certainty then.[laughter] So, when you say, "Yes, I know what this is all about"... Tricky! If you really do know, it's fine. But if you don't know, but you think you do know, then that's really a problem. It's like opinions. Everyone feels they have to have an opinion on things. I'm not sure if it's true here, but in Britain there's a certain idea that you're stupid if you don't have an opinion on something; you have to have an opinion. People will say, "What's your opinion on this?" And if you say, "I don't know," then you're some kind of shallow, wishy-washy person. And if you say, "Well I don't have sufficient criteria for evaluation," well I guess they think you can at least use a few words, but [laughter] that's not good enough. And that's very interesting, because one doesn't have to have opinions. One can shelve that desire to say, "That's a good thing; I approve of this. That's right." It's really...

I'm reminded of - I don't know what street it is in San Francisco; it's one of the ones that goes down to the beach past the park, the Golden Gate Park, one of those roads - Fulton, I think... long, long street. And I was walking down it, and there was a dog in the distance, and it was doing very weird stuff. It was leaping onto its back legs and then falling down onto its back, kicking its legs around, and beating its head on the wall, and springing around. And I thought, `Whew! What is this dog here? What's it doing?' It was a long ways away, and I was watching it, and I had various ideas about it. I thought, `I heard one time that someone gave their dog a whole bowl of beer to drink and got it drunk. Maybe someone's got this dog drunk.' And I thought, `It's a mean thing to do to a dog.' I walked on a bit further and I thought, `Well, maybe it's rabid. I think I'm going to cross over; I'm going to keep away from that dog.' And as I got closer, I suddenly realised that it was a bin bag, a black plastic rubbish bag. [laughter] And then, it looked nothing like a dog. And I tried to see it as a dog again, but it wouldn't be a dog again. [laughter] But if I'd not walked that close, I would have gone off and said, "You know, I saw this dog..."

That's kind of interesting. We do that with objects, and we can find out the error of our perception. But then, with concepts, with people, with ideas... There was a... I can't remember who it was; it was Scott, I think... landed on some South Sea island in a large boat, and they took these canoes to come to the shore. And the natives said, "Where have you come from?" And they said, "Across the water there." And the natives said, "What? In these things?" And they said, "No, in the ship out there. That big thing." And they looked out, and they said, "Well, we don't see anything out there." So they got them in the canoes, took them to the ship; they climbed into the ship, got off it again and went back to the island, and then they could see it. And once a few of them had seen it, they could all see it. It was there. But it hadn't been there before. That's fascinating! I often wonder how many things I don't see because I'm not expecting to see them. Because all that can exist is what I know can exist. If I don't know it can exist, then it can't exist. Unfortunately, I believe that Barry Manilow exists, so he must exist. [laughter] So when I hear `Copacabana', I can't avoid it, because I know it exists. [laughter]

Question: What were you going to say about ambivalence?

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Well, I'm not sure about that... [laughter]... I mean, ambivalence is very interesting. When I arrived, the day before yesterday, I got together with my students, and we had a meal together - a very nice meal, and people brought along all kinds of things. One of the students brought along a particular piece of cheese that was the nastiest thing I've ever put in my mouth, [laughter] and I ate most of it because it was so close to disgusting that you had it there and you thought, `Oh, am I going to throw up or am I just going to grin?'[laughter] It was just the best piece of cheese I've eaten in a long time. Now that's an ambivalent experience, you know, because you think, `Hmm! This is really pushing the limit of my tongue here!' [laughter] And people can be like that. You know, friends, objects: Is this something I really like? Or is this something boring? Or what is my relationship with this? What is my relationship with myself? What is my relationship with the temperature? Is this a nice, warm day, or is this too hot? Is this too cold? So you're feeling that edge rather than saying, "This is alright;" or rather than saying, "This is bad; I hate this." To say you don't really hate this. "There's a part of me that likes this..." So simply allowing that to move. This would be a practice of emptiness. That's very important, in terms of all our sense-fields, in terms of appreciation. There's a kind of a shimmer there, often, between like and don't-like; and that we always want to concretise in terms of: `Like, I like this table but I don't like that one. So this is a good one and that's a bad one.' Because it simplifies existence and makes it coherent. And what we want to avoid is incoherence, because we want pattern; we want things to conform. And when they don't conform, we're unhappy. But the problem is, with making everything conform, is that when things cease conforming, we are thrown by them.

"Yes, maybe, but okay, it's beautiful. So maybe let's change the language a little bit. Let's say a gobbit of phlegm slips into the cosmic spitoon."

So in search of security, we lose the security that we could have in embracing the insecurity of the fact that things don't conform. If we accept that things don't conform; that they shift; that they're likeable one moment, not likeable another; that things change, there is no security there, but that is the basic security: that everything shifts, everything moves. So one enters this kind of logic here that if one wishes to be secure - if I'm insecure and I want security - I can't get it. Because an insecure person can never get security. Because whatever security I get as an insecure person, I've got it: which means I'm insecure about it. So if I'm in a flat, and I'm insecure because the landlord might put up the rent, or might do that, so I buy a house - that will make me more secure. But if I'm an insecure person, then I'll worry about the house. Now this is a good part of the world to worry about your house. [laughter] It could not be there tomorrow, along with most of the other houses around it; that's quite possible, and that's very interesting. [laughter] That's... I've never experienced an earthquake, but I bet it must be something! I've always relied on that stuff there [pointing to the ground]; I walk on it. [laughter] It's never started moving; that's really very powerful practice. Has anyone here ever been in one of those? [much laughter]

Question: We call it land-surfing.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: That must be really something, when the whole earth element starts doing that, and you can't rely on anything then.

Q2: It makes you feel very insignificant, too... Out of control...

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Umm. Yes. So that's a fabulous experience of emptiness. And then when it's not happening, there's the threat that it might happen, anytime! That's great! This is the best place in the world to live, really, [laughter] in terms of Buddhist practice, you know - that emptiness could happen in a very unpleasant way. [laughter]

Q3: Pema Osel Ling sits right on the fault...

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Yes!

Q3: ...and it's interesting, I haven't heard a lot of conversation about it. Have you Josh, about feeling secure/insecure?

Q4: No

Q3: I've never heard that conversation, about how the sangha feels. I remember having the thought about it when I first moved down there... It's a great place to put a Buddhist centre, right on a fault... [laughter]

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: Fabulous! Someone once said there's only one fault in California. I said, "No, no! There are several!"[laughter] Sorry, just a joke of mine. [laughter]

Q5: A couple things... One, I can't really think of any place that the survival of a house is completely secure. And also I find it very interesting that...

Ngak'chang Rinpoche: ... insecurity of security. This kind of a language is based on an emptiness and form division that is not real. When we use the words... I think I'll say a little bit tonight, before we close, on non-duality and what that means, because this is something that is often... not exactly misunderstood... but there are different understandings of non-duality that exist in different systems. And it's important to understand that the Buddhist idea of non-duality is not that everything is one. This in Buddhism is described as `monism', which is one of the four denials: monism, dualism, nihilism and eternalism. All these four are denied as descriptions of reality. So here monism, in terms of everything is one, is not what is meant by non-duality. What is meant is that emptiness and form are not separate. So one could describe this as a pluralistic non-duality. It does not deny individuality. So this is not like `the dewdrop that slips into the shining sea'. [laughter]

At the level of emptiness, emptiness is emptiness. So, yes! We are all one... until we hit sambhogakaya; until we hit nirmanakaya. Then suddenly we are not all one at all; we are all very different.

I was at a conference once where I was on a panel, and we were all asked some spiritual question. It was about Eastern approaches to self and mind. It was a British psychological society conference. Generally they were asking the panel very interesting questions, and I was thinking, `Ooh, I'd like to answer that, that would be nice, yes, yes...' And it came to my term, and I was asked: "It is said that enlightenment is becoming like a dewdrop that slips into the shining sea. What would you say about this?"[laughter] And so I said, "I'd say that that sounds rather schmaltzy, you know?" [laughter] And the man was a little bit upset by this and said, "Why do you say that?" and I said, "Well, what does it mean?" And he said, "Well, I always took it to mean something ineffable, i.e., beyond words." And I said, "I would have thought that silence was better for ineffable subjects If you can't speak about them, maybe don't speak about them." So he said, "but it's beautiful!", and I said, "Yes, maybe, but okay, it's beautiful. So maybe let's change the language a little bit. Let's say a gobbit of phlegm slips into the cosmic spitoon."[laughter] He said, "That's certainly not beautiful." I said, "Maybe, who knows?" I know a joke about that, actually... [laughter] ... Don't encourage me! [laughter] And I said, "You see, is everything that is beautiful meaningful? Or everything that is meaningful beautiful?" It doesn't really make any sense. One actually has to understand what that statement is, and that statement is a monist statement. It is a statement in which duality and non-duality are thought of in terms of individuality being an aberrance, so that enlightenment is being non-individuated.

Now these four denials are not actually being denied in themselves as being reflections of reality. If one looks at monism and says, "Everything is one; there is no individuation," this is not untrue, entirely. My emptiness, your emptiness... Are these different? In terms of emptiness, there is no division between us. There is no division between us and the floor. At the level of emptiness, emptiness is emptiness. So, yes! We are all one... until we hit sambhogakaya; until we hit nirmanakaya. Then suddenly we are not all one at all; we are all very different. We are incredibly individuated. So individuation and non-individuation are form and emptiness. Individuation and non-individuation are also non-dual. So the whole idea of non-duality here is very subtle. Form and emptiness are non-dual. This goes really far beyond the idea of `we are all one'. We are all one, yes, we are all individuated. And those two statements are indivisible. So it's emptiness and form being non-separate.

But as beings who divide emptiness and form, who reject emptiness in order to adhere to form, everything is a manifestation of emptiness and form. If we try to realise how emptiness and form are non-dual, we can only speak of that in terms of paradox, because language is dualistic. We cannot speak of non-duality in anything but paradox. If it wasn't a paradox, it would be dualistic. So a paradox is, in itself, a statement of two things that oppose each other that don't actually oppose each other. So whenever we're talking about our state, in terms of Tantric language, we start to enter into this strange dance in which everything is always the opposite: the only real security is insecurity. A statement like that is intrinsically a Tantric statement. That when one really understands how emptiness and form are non-dual, then paradox is completely logical. So paradox is the logic of Tantra. Once one understands that, then everything opens itself up in that sense, particularly the male-female relationship in terms of the khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong, because it's based on that quality of paradox, and of paradox that reflects paradox, which becomes particularly interesting in terms of the Dzogchen view that comes through here, in which we're not only talking about emptiness and form as non-dual, but we're talking about duality and non-duality being non-dual. That becomes very interesting in terms of relationship. So we will explore that tomorrow. I think we'll maybe finish there, and I'll do this little period at the end for people who won't be here after tonight. [laughter] And I'll just kind of give you a brief breakdown of that. And if later you'll maybe like to avail yourself of tapes, then you can hear it in a little more detail. Khandro Déchen and I are writing a book on this at the moment, but it won't be ready for two to four years [laughter] like these things are, but it's about a third written at the moment, and it goes into a great deal of detail.

So this is one of the occasions in which neurosis or grasping actually produces spiritual practice. It produces it because samsara doesn't actually work. Not even as samsara.

This will be fairly skeletal. The theory of khandro-pawo-nyida-mélong is found actually in all the Tantric systems. And that is that men are externally compassion, internally wisdom; women externally wisdom, internally compassion. This is the basic theoretical model. What is meant by internal and external you could call manifest and un-manifest, overt and covert, these qualities. Now what is meant by wisdom and compassion? These words are kind of massive, in terms of what they mean in a Tantric context. They are not simply wisdom knowing about something and compassion being kind to people; this is not what these words mean. This is an aspect of what these words are, that is part of the spectrum of what these words are. Thug and thug-jé, method is thug or thug-jé; wisdom is yeshé, meaning primordial wisdom here. When we talk about compassion and really in Tibetan terms, in Tibetan Buddhist terms it should always be `active-compassion', often what we mean by compassion in the West is a feeling. Here it's something active; bodhicitta is always active. Now in Tantra the word bodhicitta has a much wider meaning than it has in Sutra, because it means energy; it means communication; it also means lust, desire, appreciation. These are not separate from compassion in terms of Tantra. So if you don't have sufficient lust or desire, in terms of Tantra, then compassion is impossible. Because desire is what exists in terms of connecting things. It's based on appreciation: "I want that," even at the level of neurosis, is a statement of communication. And compassion is always communication. It's a perception of someone in their state and what one does about that on the basis of that. That is very important.

So compassion is really a vast word. Wisdom is a vast word. One can call compassion and wisdom form and emptiness. So form is inseparable from method, because form is impermanent. Do we all have that? Does everyone understand that? It is also particular; specific. It's linked with method. So method is always particular and specific. That is the quality of method, of form. Now emptiness is non-particular, non-specific. There are these qualities about these two words. And you can practically cut the dictionary in half and call them form and emptiness words. Unfortunately, most of our language is based on `form equals good, and emptiness equals bad'.So we'll say rational and irrational; the word non-rational is a modern invention. [laughs] Because people have started to see that rationality is not everything; and there is this word `irrational' that has a negative connotation, so we'll create the word non-rational. It's interesting that people have done this; it's a discovery. So we have different words then. We have rational as a form word, we have non-rational as an emptiness word. We also have these as male and female. That male is form, emptiness is female, in terms of the outer manifestation. Then there is also the inner manifestation. Now, what is important here, and why it is so difficult to condense this teaching into a very short space, is that it is very easy to misinterpret this as making a statement about men and women that make them different in some way, or intrinsically different; that is a very easy trap to fall into with this, so you have to avoid doing that.

Because both men and women are both emptiness and form; they are both pawo and khandro. It is not that one is totally khandro, the other totally pawo, because each contains the other, and this whole question of khandro-pawo-nyi-da-mélong-gyüd is the experience in which men and women reflect each other's inner khandro and pawo, in terms of their being. This is an accident that happens with human beings. They hit some kind of trigger with each other, something is reflected, and openness happens. So falling in love, in terms of the nyi-da-mélong, is spoken of as being a nyam, and a nyam is a spiritual experience. It's not a realisation, but it is a spiritual experience. The nyam of falling in love is called khandro-pawo reflection. And this is where we see for a moment, or a day, or a month, an aspect of our entirety. So one comes to value the other person a great deal. And one enters, interestingly enough, into a spiritual practice when one falls in love. One automatically engages in the two prongs, or the two forks, of spiritual practice according to Buddhism, which are... wisdom and compassion. Wisdom equates to being open, compassion equates to being kind.

At first the emptiness is that there is no commitment stated, and that keeps the whole thing very empty, very electric. Once commitment is stated, one then needs some other kind of emptiness; because emptiness has to be there. So then emptiness occurs in terms of one's practice here.

Everybody who falls in love becomes open and kind to their partner, at least for a period of time. And the more open and kind you are, the more openness and kindness you get back; so the more openness and kindness you put out. So this is one of the occasions in which neurosis or grasping actually produces spiritual practice. It produces it because samsara doesn't actually work. Not even as samsara. Very important to realise that, that samsara isn't a gross state of naughtiness. Samsara is merely something that doesn't work. It doesn't achieve what it sets out to achieve; it fails. That's what's wrong with it; it's non-functional. And being non-functional, it actually provides causes for realisation; it cannot help but do that. That is also because it's non-functional. So part of its non-functionality is that grasping, in terms of romance, produces spiritual practice. Maybe not for long, because when one is sure of one's partner, one starts to retract that kindness and openness. And that's how the whole thing falls apart. But as long as you keep putting it in, as long as the emptiness is there in terms of, `Ah, I'm not sure if this person will stay or not', like it's very nice at the moment, so I must really keep being like this.

But then, as soon as this commitment thing happens, not that there's anything bad about commitment, but what one tends to do is then say, `OK, I can relax now...No, I don't think I'll do that for you, I'm too tired; or I'm not interested in this idea of yours; I'm interested in all the rest, but not this one.' One starts retracting, and after a while one's partner starts retracting. And the more you retract, the more you retract. So somehow the emptiness has to be there. At first the emptiness is that there is no commitment stated, and that keeps the whole thing very empty, very electric. Once commitment is stated, one then needs some other kind of emptiness; because emptiness has to be there. So then emptiness occurs in terms of one's practice here.

This is where one actually practices in terms of nyi-da-mélong, when one takes one's partner as one's teacher. So that men actively seek out threat in their partners, threat to their form. Women seek out challenge to their emptiness. Men, or male Tantrikas, vow to see the entire phenomenal universe as wisdom-display, as female. Women Tantrikas vow to see the whole of the phenomenal universe as method, as male. And this is very interesting in terms of being a definition of gender. What makes you male is that you regard the phenomenal universe as female; what makes you female is that you regard the phenomenal universe as male. Which means that there is no rôle model. This is very interesting also - that the role model is an empty one. It's defined by what is `other', rather than being defined `being female is this, this, this, this, this'; `being male is this, this, this, this'. These are what's called convex definitions; they poke out; they have form. In terms of being a Tantrika, it's an empty definition, because I am male because I view everything as female; or I am female because I view everything as male. So here, in terms of the practice of the nyi-da-mélong, one is working with one's partner in terms of one's partner being the yidam, being the enlightened being. So there are all kinds of qualities here that are very important, such as trust and openness, trust and respect. All the kind of qualities we would find in ourselves in terms of relationship with our yidam practice are all there in our partnership.

That's it; without going into detail, that's about as cramped as I can make it. But I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend talking about that. Obviously, that is very cryptic. I'll have to talk about that a lot more. I suggest you listen to the tapes now. But I'll be spending the rest of the weekend going into a lot of detail about that, about what's meant by gender in terms of emptiness and form, wisdom and compassion, these words pawo and khandro; also the words pamo and khandropa, and that's a whole other aspect. Also about the idea of tralam-mé, or poetic turbulence. That's far too complex to talk about now; I'll be talking about that as well. Splendid! Thank you! And as Mri said, there's some article on the website which goes into this more, but then I'll be talking about it a lot more than was in the article this weekend.

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