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Something New

Nigel Wellings

How do we learn something new? Especially when it’s not a new behaviour or a new thought, but an entirely new type of experience - particularly one that is described as something that cannot be put into words. Within spiritual disciplines this has often been likened to a new taste - we can say something is sweet for as long as we like but until it is actually tasted the description is virtually meaningless.

The new thing I am thinking about here is rigpa. This Tibetan word denotes a certain type of spacious awareness in which we have the experience of everything, including ourselves, arising within it. So what’s just happened when we read this? Assuming you do not already experientially know what this means - have tasted the sugar - how is the mind making sense of something it has no knowledge of?


Observing myself I notice that I immediately reach for understandings that I already have and try to build on them. However, they are inevitably not what is being described - how could they be if it is something unknown? - and so what I imagine is simply wrong. Here, in the case of rigpa, I immediately think it is a special kind of emotional experience, perhaps something calm or blissful. After all, the description was a spacious awareness - is this not an ‘experience’? However, I also know that it is described as ‘non-dual’ and this is a real facer because it is obvious that everything I experience has so far had a ‘me’ in it experiencing ‘something else’. So plainly lots of dualism here. Hmmm.


Returning to self-observation I can see that I’m going through a process of trying on ideas and experiences that might fit what is being described. And the more I learn about this thing called rigpa, I’m also going through a process of discarding what I previously thought. I have little insights like: “Oh, it’s not as bigger jump from my ordinary mind as I imagined”. Or, “So, my normal dualistic way of perceiving doesn’t disappear, it’s still there but now, somehow it feels like it’s happening in a bigger space”. I have an image for this process. It’s like there is something on the other side a big ravine that I must build a bridge to reach. My first attempts use pieces of wood that I already have and I tentatively extend them over the gap. Most of these simply totter over into the void and are quickly lost but gradually, gradually something begins to build and, although it does not yet reach the other side, it wobbles towards it. Then at a certain point something from the other side reaches out - a real glimpse of rigpa - and the two sides tentatively meet. Now something new is contributing to the building of the bridge, something that was not there before. However, I’m not out of the woods yet. I’m still cloaking this new thing in my old understandings, but what is different is that there is now something new even though I cannot quite find words for it and when I try I end up giving up in frustration. I can sense it, but I can’t say it.


I guess this type of bridge building across to what is unknown is something that we all first encounter when we are children. It requires of us that we be good with failure, that we can tolerate the sensation of not knowing. However, if we cannot then different defences snap into place. I may just give up immediately, telling myself it’s not worth the bother. I cling onto the known, not even allowing myself to be stretched a little. Or I may delude myself, thinking that my first attempts to understand are correct, that I’ve got it when plainly - given that something really is unknown - I cannot have. The too quick understanding that saves me from the anxiety of having to make the journey. Of course, those of us who are interested in rigpa - frankly a very niche interest  - will in all likelihood have been doing some prep before. Rigpa requires the foundation of a calm mind, and although this can be conceived before being experienced, it does require the cultivation of curiosity, suspended judgement, kindly acceptance of where we are and the suspension of all ambition. All qualities that are needed for the far bigger reach of rigpa.


NW. 20 January 2024

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