I wish you a merry Christmas James. You have brought light and transmission through and through my being. No thanks can contend with what was given through the wisdom and compassion that works through you and many others.... but, I would still like to thank you from the bottom of my being!! The lineage transmission through your compassion and teachings have introduced the ground into my heart. I hope to help others at least 1% as much as you help the dharma spread.... Thank you. .
We allow ourselves to be deluded because of the basic proposition; anything is better than nothing. Nothing is the big fear. That there will be just some empty void, a desolation, an abyss, the abject condition of falling out of the dreamed of hope, the paradise, falling through a gap in which all that seem to contain and reassure and validate our existence is experienced as a bunch of empty signifiers, as insubstantial as the fluff on a dandelion at the end of its life and that the winds of fate just blow us hither and thither and in that fear we cling. We want to hang on to something and it doesn'treally matter what it is and that is truly desolate - James Low
Chapter 8: Spiritual Development and Understanding the Mind 03:05:11 🛠 Opportunity for growth through challenges 03:08:28 🧭 Nonduality and freedom 03:15:53 🔄 Cycle of mental poisons 03:17:27 🧲 The search outside yourself 03:19:06 🎓 Intellectual fascination and its pitfalls 03:21:43 🏠 Finding home in the mind 03:24:46 🧘♂ The practice of "relaxation" on the spiritual journey 03:29:46 🛤 The different approaches in spiritual practice
Chapter 9: Living the Presence and Understanding Reality 03:37:36 🌟 Experiencing presence and impermanence 03:42:28 🌟 Buddhist practices for dealing with uncertainty and anxiety 03:46:04 🤝 Helping others without external judgement 03:49:26 🌅 Developing a compassionate and detached attitude 03:56:05 🧠 Recognising the fluidity of the mind and the illusory nature of the ego
Chapter 7: Exploring the Mind and Identity 02:47:30 🧘 Experience of the mind resting 02:48:27 🌀 Potentiality of the mind 02:49:52 🎭 False identification in the mind 02:51:06 🔄 Passing nature of identifications 02:53:01 🧘 Balancing space and mental arising 02:54:19 🌌 Passing identity and conditional actions 02:55:38 🌈 Recognising and releasing identifications 02:57:42 💥 Symbolic roles and flexibility 03:00:26 🔄 Samsara and duality
Chapter 11: Understanding Emptiness in Everyday Life 04:35:35 🍲 Living in the Moment and Cooking 04:37:23 🤔 Engaging and Analysing Existence 04:39:07 🗣 Language and the Construction of Reality 04:41:40 🧠 Projections and Creativity of the Mind 04:44:12 🛠 Tools for Understanding and Connection
Chapter 13: Practising Emptiness in Everyday Life 05:11:23 📚 The deconstruction approach in everyday existence. 05:17:43 🥘 The practice of Emptiness in everyday life. 05:28:49 🕰 Utilising resources for the spiritual journey 05:29:36 🍊 Observing constructs and illusions 05:31:52 🧠 Limitations as a path to enlightenment 05:34:36 🌈 Discovering the richness of human experience
Chapter 6: Understanding and Balance in Life 02:14:31 ⚔ Death of limiting thoughts 02:19:34 🧠 Understanding the Velcro Effect and Identity 02:20:48 🎭 The Nature of Roles and Qualities 02:22:41 🧊 The Need for Balance in Education and Experience 02:24:18 🤹♀ Understanding Contextual Skill
Chapter 3: Deconstruction and Self-Knowledge 33:33 🌐 Deconstruction of ignorance and self-knowledge 35:39 🤔 Ignorance and the construction of narratives 38:34 🌌 Constructing narratives and impermanence 43:15 🧩 Deconstruction of narratives and communication 54:27 🔍 Challenging the illusion of the self 58:32 🌀 Nature of emptiness
Chapter 12: Exploring the Nature of Phenomena and Deconstruction 04:48:58 💬 Deconstruction and Meanings 04:55:03 🌟 Understanding Relationships and Shared Decisions 05:02:02 🤔 Emptiness as the absence of an inherent nature. 05:02:27 🚗 Characteristics of objects and contexts. 05:03:19 🚘 The interaction between entity and context. 05:04:27 🌌 The nature of phenomena and the relativity of knowledge. 05:06:10 🧩 The internal multiplicity and insufficiency of knowledge. 05:08:18 🧠 The trap of absolute knowledge. 05:09:31 🌐 The demystification of conceptual reality.
Chapter 4: Acceptance and Balance in Zen Practice 01:00:35 🚪 Opening Dharmic doors 01:18:04 💡 Living in the infinitude of the moment 01:23:04 🧘♂ Accepting everything in meditation practice 01:26:22 🤔 Accepting what we receive without frustration 01:29:45 🌀 Balancing attention without fuelling negative thoughts 01:33:24 🧠 Questioning investment in thoughts
Chapter 2: Detachment and Fluid Identity 18:15 🛌 Detachment and Control 20:00 🌱 Identity Construction and Existential Weight 21:35 🌀 Challenges of Fixed Identity 25:29 🧠 Challenge of Mental Clarity 27:35 🌀 The fluid nature of existence 28:03 🧘 Flexibility through meditation practice 29:11 🔄 Fluid identity and varied manifestation 31:47 🧠 Karma and conditioned habits
Chapter 10: Deconstruction of Reality and Meanings 04:08:53 🔍 Deconstruction and destruction 04:11:46 🏢 Construction of reality 04:14:20 🧠 Words and meanings 04:17:48 💑 Understanding in relationships 04:21:38 🚗 Conventional nature 04:25:34 🌐 Construction games
Chapter 5: Identity Beyond Conditions 01:43:38 🌍 Acceptance versus Participation 01:51:44 🌀 Nature of activity in Zen practice 01:54:38 🍀 Karma and luck in life 01:57:48 🎭 Tragic heroes and self-development 02:01:06 🧘 Meditation practice: the nature of the mind 02:07:18 🎭 Identity and consciousness beyond conditions
Chapter 1: Practice and Buddhist Vision 00:15 🧘 Mental Clarity Practice 02:16 🌍 Buddhist Worldview and Practice 04:43 🔄 Flow of Existence and Identity 06:32 🌟 Creativity and Reality 08:42 🌀 Disidentification and Transitional Conditions 10:00 💭 Perception and Impermanence 11:47 🛌 Identity and Inner Narrative 13:59 🧩 Identity Construction and Habitually Repeated Beliefs 16:00 🔄 Acceptance of the Dynamics of Life
We are the children of space, our real nature is space, we are ungraspable. We have all these stories about ourselves but they don't sum us up. So from the practice of dzogchen the key thing is to start to live in the presence of the moment and to accept the absolute impermanence and flow of all phenomena. To move from control and avoidance towards a lived vibrant participation. Which means never being sure, never being settled. Why do we want to be settled. What is the value of safety. Things are always occuring. What are you going to nail it to. Samsara is a state if terrible amateurish DIY in which we are all try to nail ourselves onto secure territory with drills and we are putting it through our toes and our eye balls, we are all pinning ourselves to things that just doesn't work. You put something on the shelf and it falls down. You create a sense of who you are, you think you've now got a good relationship and suddenly it's gone, how the hell did that happen. You think I put all these hours into working it out, I thought it was going to work out this time, where the hell's it gone. We're not trained, we're not skilled tradesmen - James Low
Hi James, could you please elaborate on the difference between awareness and consciousness. I felt a bit lost there around 1:30:45 Maybe there's another video where you already touch this matter, or maybe it could be touched in a future one? Thank you so so much for all the wonderful material throughout the years! Kim
You will never get enlightenment because there is nothing to get. What you can do is participate in the flow of existence in a seamless way where you are part and parcel of the revelation, you are part and parcel of the richness of possibilities and you are part and parcel of the ground openness, which is open from the very beginning. These three aspects are traditionally in the dzogchen tradition called the nature of existence or the structure of the mind. That our mind, our awareness is unborn from the very beginning. Unborn means it hasn't come into existence as anything. If you look for your mind you can't catch it, it's not a thing. If you meditate or you work in a creative way with other people and you open to them what you experience is the flow of stuff; heat, light, thoughts, imaginations and so on but who is the one is present with this, this presence which is the ground identity of ourselves is not a thing. You can't catch yourself - James Low
I wish you a merry Christmas James. You have brought light and transmission through and through my being. No thanks can contend with what was given through the wisdom and compassion that works through you and many others.... but, I would still like to thank you from the bottom of my being!! The lineage transmission through your compassion and teachings have introduced the ground into my heart. I hope to help others at least 1% as much as you help the dharma spread.... Thank you. .
Such a beautiful and heartfelt comment. I concur. ❤️🙏🏻
We allow ourselves to be deluded because of the basic proposition; anything is better than nothing. Nothing is the big fear. That there will be just some empty void, a desolation, an abyss, the abject condition of falling out of the dreamed of hope, the paradise, falling through a gap in which all that seem to contain and reassure and validate our existence is experienced as a bunch of empty signifiers, as insubstantial as the fluff on a dandelion at the end of its life and that the winds of fate just blow us hither and thither and in that fear we cling. We want to hang on to something and it doesn'treally matter what it is and that is truly desolate
- James Low
Another incredibly articulate and masterful presentation of wisdom for the modern world. Merry Christmas James 🎅 🎄
Merry Christmas! I hope you're doing well, James!
Chapter 8: Spiritual Development and Understanding the Mind
03:05:11 🛠 Opportunity for growth through challenges
03:08:28 🧭 Nonduality and freedom
03:15:53 🔄 Cycle of mental poisons
03:17:27 🧲 The search outside yourself
03:19:06 🎓 Intellectual fascination and its pitfalls
03:21:43 🏠 Finding home in the mind
03:24:46 🧘♂ The practice of "relaxation" on the spiritual journey
03:29:46 🛤 The different approaches in spiritual practice
Chapter 9: Living the Presence and Understanding Reality
03:37:36 🌟 Experiencing presence and impermanence
03:42:28 🌟 Buddhist practices for dealing with uncertainty and anxiety
03:46:04 🤝 Helping others without external judgement
03:49:26 🌅 Developing a compassionate and detached attitude
03:56:05 🧠 Recognising the fluidity of the mind and the illusory nature of the ego
Chapter 7: Exploring the Mind and Identity
02:47:30 🧘 Experience of the mind resting
02:48:27 🌀 Potentiality of the mind
02:49:52 🎭 False identification in the mind
02:51:06 🔄 Passing nature of identifications
02:53:01 🧘 Balancing space and mental arising
02:54:19 🌌 Passing identity and conditional actions
02:55:38 🌈 Recognising and releasing identifications
02:57:42 💥 Symbolic roles and flexibility
03:00:26 🔄 Samsara and duality
Chapter 11: Understanding Emptiness in Everyday Life
04:35:35 🍲 Living in the Moment and Cooking
04:37:23 🤔 Engaging and Analysing Existence
04:39:07 🗣 Language and the Construction of Reality
04:41:40 🧠 Projections and Creativity of the Mind
04:44:12 🛠 Tools for Understanding and Connection
Chapter 13: Practising Emptiness in Everyday Life
05:11:23 📚 The deconstruction approach in everyday existence.
05:17:43 🥘 The practice of Emptiness in everyday life.
05:28:49 🕰 Utilising resources for the spiritual journey
05:29:36 🍊 Observing constructs and illusions
05:31:52 🧠 Limitations as a path to enlightenment
05:34:36 🌈 Discovering the richness of human experience
Chapter 6: Understanding and Balance in Life
02:14:31 ⚔ Death of limiting thoughts
02:19:34 🧠 Understanding the Velcro Effect and Identity
02:20:48 🎭 The Nature of Roles and Qualities
02:22:41 🧊 The Need for Balance in Education and Experience
02:24:18 🤹♀ Understanding Contextual Skill
Chapter 3: Deconstruction and Self-Knowledge
33:33 🌐 Deconstruction of ignorance and self-knowledge
35:39 🤔 Ignorance and the construction of narratives
38:34 🌌 Constructing narratives and impermanence
43:15 🧩 Deconstruction of narratives and communication
54:27 🔍 Challenging the illusion of the self
58:32 🌀 Nature of emptiness
Chapter 12: Exploring the Nature of Phenomena and Deconstruction
04:48:58 💬 Deconstruction and Meanings
04:55:03 🌟 Understanding Relationships and Shared Decisions
05:02:02 🤔 Emptiness as the absence of an inherent nature.
05:02:27 🚗 Characteristics of objects and contexts.
05:03:19 🚘 The interaction between entity and context.
05:04:27 🌌 The nature of phenomena and the relativity of knowledge.
05:06:10 🧩 The internal multiplicity and insufficiency of knowledge.
05:08:18 🧠 The trap of absolute knowledge.
05:09:31 🌐 The demystification of conceptual reality.
Chapter 4: Acceptance and Balance in Zen Practice
01:00:35 🚪 Opening Dharmic doors
01:18:04 💡 Living in the infinitude of the moment
01:23:04 🧘♂ Accepting everything in meditation practice
01:26:22 🤔 Accepting what we receive without frustration
01:29:45 🌀 Balancing attention without fuelling negative thoughts
01:33:24 🧠 Questioning investment in thoughts
Chapter 2: Detachment and Fluid Identity
18:15 🛌 Detachment and Control
20:00 🌱 Identity Construction and Existential Weight
21:35 🌀 Challenges of Fixed Identity
25:29 🧠 Challenge of Mental Clarity
27:35 🌀 The fluid nature of existence
28:03 🧘 Flexibility through meditation practice
29:11 🔄 Fluid identity and varied manifestation
31:47 🧠 Karma and conditioned habits
Chapter 10: Deconstruction of Reality and Meanings
04:08:53 🔍 Deconstruction and destruction
04:11:46 🏢 Construction of reality
04:14:20 🧠 Words and meanings
04:17:48 💑 Understanding in relationships
04:21:38 🚗 Conventional nature
04:25:34 🌐 Construction games
Chapter 5: Identity Beyond Conditions
01:43:38 🌍 Acceptance versus Participation
01:51:44 🌀 Nature of activity in Zen practice
01:54:38 🍀 Karma and luck in life
01:57:48 🎭 Tragic heroes and self-development
02:01:06 🧘 Meditation practice: the nature of the mind
02:07:18 🎭 Identity and consciousness beyond conditions
Chapter 1: Practice and Buddhist Vision
00:15 🧘 Mental Clarity Practice
02:16 🌍 Buddhist Worldview and Practice
04:43 🔄 Flow of Existence and Identity
06:32 🌟 Creativity and Reality
08:42 🌀 Disidentification and Transitional Conditions
10:00 💭 Perception and Impermanence
11:47 🛌 Identity and Inner Narrative
13:59 🧩 Identity Construction and Habitually Repeated Beliefs
16:00 🔄 Acceptance of the Dynamics of Life
We are the children of space, our real nature is space, we are ungraspable. We have all these stories about ourselves but they don't sum us up. So from the practice of dzogchen the key thing is to start to live in the presence of the moment and to accept the absolute impermanence and flow of all phenomena. To move from control and avoidance towards a lived vibrant participation. Which means never being sure, never being settled. Why do we want to be settled. What is the value of safety. Things are always occuring. What are you going to nail it to. Samsara is a state if terrible amateurish DIY in which we are all try to nail ourselves onto secure territory with drills and we are putting it through our toes and our eye balls, we are all pinning ourselves to things that just doesn't work. You put something on the shelf and it falls down. You create a sense of who you are, you think you've now got a good relationship and suddenly it's gone, how the hell did that happen. You think I put all these hours into working it out, I thought it was going to work out this time, where the hell's it gone. We're not trained, we're not skilled tradesmen
- James Low
❤
Hi James, could you please elaborate on the difference between awareness and consciousness. I felt a bit lost there around 1:30:45
Maybe there's another video where you already touch this matter, or maybe it could be touched in a future one?
Thank you so so much for all the wonderful material throughout the years!
Kim
You will never get enlightenment because there is nothing to get. What you can do is participate in the flow of existence in a seamless way where you are part and parcel of the revelation, you are part and parcel of the richness of possibilities and you are part and parcel of the ground openness, which is open from the very beginning. These three aspects are traditionally in the dzogchen tradition called the nature of existence or the structure of the mind. That our mind, our awareness is unborn from the very beginning. Unborn means it hasn't come into existence as anything. If you look for your mind you can't catch it, it's not a thing. If you meditate or you work in a creative way with other people and you open to them what you experience is the flow of stuff; heat, light, thoughts, imaginations and so on but who is the one is present with this, this presence which is the ground identity of ourselves is not a thing. You can't catch yourself
- James Low
1:15:00 1:25:15 Samsara Towers Hotel - cute 1:55:14 I totally relate to the new manager thing... 2:22:55 teenagers