Going Over The Same Ground

We are coming to the end of talking about the Ground in our small group. We have discovered that the word Ground, sometimes also translated as ‘Base’, consists of three inseparable aspects that are all equally important. Usually they are described as:

• The empty essence.

• The lucid nature.

• The compassionate energy.

  
  

Together these are a description of ‘how things really are’ – reality itself. And we have also discovered that there are a whole load of other words used to mean the same thing: buddha-nature, intrinsic awareness, nature of mind, mind essence, awakened mind etc.

We have also looked at what each of these three aspects means in greater detail and have played around with the usual sequence to help us understand them better. So:

• Compassionate energy - ‘compassion’ here meaning not so much the human feeling of compassion as the innate movement within creation to express itself and recognise its connection. Our sense of compassion is derived ultimately from it so that we get the two types of compassion, that which is cultivated and ultimate compassion which is what the cultivation eventually links into.

• Empty essence: that maddening word ‘empty’ that simply means that our mind has no solid or findable substance - there is nothing there that can be grasped or even defined in anyway. Experientially it is spacious, open. And it is not a dark void because  of its …

• Lucid nature: the awareness that permeates this spaciousness and which is the energy that constantly seeks to display itself as the myriad of appearances. Other words are clarity, luminosity, cognisance. The ability to consciously know. Some of us have gulped a bit here - the energy of the universe is self-aware?

  
  

We have also learnt that this is an important concept because it gives us an idea about where our meditation is ideally going. The Dharma has always taught that by knowing how things really are suffering is brought to an end. This is a huge aspiration – much bigger than just trying to find a bit of peace. To that end, the whole thing of meditation becomes resting in the Ground through ‘doing nothing’ meditations, and the final destination of this is the ability to be able to rest within the Ground continuously. This is called the ‘fruition’ of the practice. And, yes, this is possible.

This then leads us back to where we are in each moment. Here we talked about choosing between samsara and nirvana. Samsara is simply a mind that is dualistically structured and submerged in thoughts and emotions that are driven by deep patterns of ignorance. Nirvana is resting in non-dual or intrinsic awareness. Practice is recognising this possibility and choosing the nirvanic option for short periods many times. And in this way it grows …

We have also had a look at what our mind does with these sorts of concepts, how they so easily get wrapped up in our stuff and become difficult to hear. They can become very abstract, linked to things they have no connection with, or are talking about things we have no feeling connection to. This is countered by really hearing what is being said about non-dual awareness. It is simply the awareness we already have and when we are not entirely submerged in thoughts and emotions, when there is a break, we may find ourselves in this spacious awareness quite spontaneously. It’s not about what we do, but about just stopping and being open to whatever happens. Not a distant god but the neighbour in our back garden. But it does require practice to become meaningful.

Finally it helps me to remember that a ‘space’ that contains every possible thought is never going to be fully or satisfactorily described by thoughts. We can try but until this fruit is actually tasted we can never really know. This leaves lots of wiggle room and over the centuries the Tibetans have used every bit of it trying in different ways to work out the ultimate mystery of the Ground - or Base - or whichever of its many names we prefer to use. But it’s real, it’s always present and there is no where that it is not. In fact it is what we really are.

Now, what comes next is the Path. How we come to experience the ground, grow confident in this knowledge and finally rest in it all of the time. All of the time? Yes, all of the time. (I hope).

NW. 19 October 2026

If you would like to go a bit deeper into this here are a couple of leads:

Dzogchen,Who's Who and What's What in the Great Perfection - a shameless plug for my book. Ground, Path and Fruition are described on p.204 along with links to all the other terms.

Fearless Simplicity – Tsoknyi Rinpoche p.83, also where the whole Ground, Path and Fruition are described.