Just Look, Do Nothing

You know when you see one of those images  that can be seen in two ways – look at it one way and it’s two people facing each other and then look again and it’s a single vase – well, it’s much the same with dual and non-dual awareness. I’ll try to explain.

When most of us first hear about non-dual awareness we have a fantasy that what we perceive around us will somehow change in a really profound way. I certainly did. And then as the years of study and meditation unfold it becomes apparent that what we imagined to be a really big deal is much simpler and less complicated than we first thought. We begin to actually believe what has been said to us right from the beginning: non-dual awareness is something entirely natural and already present. It’s not an altered state of consciousness that is brought about by doing stuff like concentrating very hard for long periods of time - like mindfulness of the breath or reciting a mantra for instance. It’s just ordinary mind - the mind that already exists.

So let’s test this one out. What’s happening in my perception as I sit here writing this blog? I have the raw data – colour, form, texture – pouring in through my senses and within my mind I order it into recognisable forms that I then react to in a variety of ways - basically like or dislike, want or not want. This is what is called ‘dualistic’ perception. The raw data of the senses is being ‘read’ as a me and everything else other than me. (Although this is a bit odd because we have exactly the same relationship to ourselves also. I see parts of my body, especially if they can be detached like hair and nails, as not entirely me and also physical and emotional sensations that come and go, and even some thoughts. It’s as if the essential ‘me’ sits somewhere just behind my eyes and everything else is other.) So this is like seeing the diagram as the two faces looking at each other.

Now, the only thing that is different about non-dual awareness is that the ordering of and reacting to the raw data of the senses is – perhaps for only a moment initially – suspended. The raw data - sights, sounds, sensations still continue just as before. There is no flash of light, no everything doing something different and a bit weird. It’s all just normal. When this shift happens we discover four things. Firstly, it is entirely possible to be aware while not being identified with either our thoughts or emotions. Thought and emotions, when resting in awareness and not identified with, simply come and go on their own accord. In the language of the tradition they ‘self-liberate’. Secondly, the raw data of the senses, what is perceived through awareness, is actually awareness itself – not something outside of us and separate from us that we are aware of. This is particularly emphasised by the insight that ‘I’ do not possess awareness as something happening inside me, but rather all the sensations and feelings (raw data) I interpret as ‘me’ are arising within and as awareness – it’s actually the other way around which is obvious when we really think about it. Third, the felt-sense quality of awareness is a limitless spaciousness. And fourth, as the practice deepens, the sense of a subject – me, the meditator - gradually dissolves fully into the reality of awareness simply knowing itself. So altogether this is like seeing the single vase. It begins with just a sudden and tiny shift in perception that can and does move back and forth in an instant.

Once we have an experience of this all the ways of describing non-dual awareness begin to make sense and become obvious:

• Naked awareness - this means just awareness without the addition of identifying and evaluating what we are aware of.

• Open awareness - an awareness that is open to the senses, not closed off or restricted in any way. An awareness like the sky.

• Primordial and Intrinsic awareness - something innate within us, basic, unconstructed, essential. Something that has always been and is present.

• Pure and Pristine awareness - an awareness that is like a mirror, no matter what is reflected within it, its surface is not changed or sullied in any way.

• Self-existing and Self-arising awareness - an awareness that is not dependent on external causes for its existence.

• Awake awareness - emphasising that is not simply consciousness, it is capable of knowing itself. This phrase signals it’s a our buddha-nature.

What also becomes obvious is why the instructions for recognising and resting in non-dual awareness are what they are. Non-dual awareness is what is left when the misperception of reality caused by naming and reacting stops. Because of this we have to learn to do nothing – which is extremely difficult, much more difficult than simply learning to do something else. Qualities that further this are:

• Non-meditation - the ability to rest in awareness and trust that when not followed or engaged with thoughts and emotions will spontaneously dissolve. It requires no effort on our are part other than remain aware and undistracted.

• Non-distraction - this with no intention is the razors edge of the practice. Lean too far one way and we are back in our dualistically functioning mind, and too far the other and we are trying to achieve non-dual awareness. Both destroy our practice.

• Non-modification - this then follows, the ability to remain present without wanting to improve or change what is arising in anyway. The cultivation of equanimity.

• Non-thought - this, achieved through concentration practices, along with a drowsy mind, is one of several states that it is important to distinguish non-dual awareness from. The first is a calm meditative state that requires a great deal of intention to achieve and the second is when distraction overwhelms us. Non-dual awareness is vivid, alive, and because it is natural it is not entering into the same static state each time we rest in it.

Finally, non-dual awareness is just what happens when we relax and stop layering over the immediacy of our senses with our reactions. Almost impossible to describe but immediately apparent the moment it’s known. However, it remains important to make the distinction between the practice of doing nothing, or letting be within the flow of spacious awareness, and allowing ourselves to be unconsciously submerged and swept along in a mind caught up dualism. To choose to do nothing requires that we first notice we are doing something and then decide to stop. And the picture with the two faces? They tell us just how close and yet difficult to grasp this whole thing is. One moment it's two and the next one … and then it’s two again.

NW. 6 August 2026