Who Knows?

Our small Sangha has now met for the first time this Autumn and we talked about the notion of the Ground within non-dual teachings. Why it’s important and not just an abstract idea to be quickly passed over. What fascinates me is the insights gained from how the others receive ideas like this and the questions they have about them. Stuff that hasn’t occurred to me because, well, we are just all so different.

Several from this evening included; why is compassion one of the Grounds qualities, how is it connected to compassion? This is a really interesting question – let’s unpack it. So we have said that the Ground has three qualities that may not be separated. These are its ‘essence, nature and energy’. Its essence is emptiness, its nature is clarity - the capacity to know, to be aware - and its energy is frequently described as compassion. However, ’compassion’ in this context does not mean simply our human feeling for another person but rather the Grounds infinite ability to express or manifest itself as all the appearances that make up the universe. We could equally say life’s capacity to endlessly take many forms. It’s trying to say that awareness isn’t something cool and distant, a kind of neutral or indifferent mirror, it has within it a warmth that responds and connects. It’s because of this that we talk about innate and cultivated compassion. We cultivate compassion within ourselves and at some point this begins to open out into the spontaneous compassion that is a quality within the Ground – pristine awareness – itself. I guess, if we were a Christian we might say, ‘God is Love’, and also that it is through love that everything comes into being.

The second was whether the Ground is personal to each person? This is also a fascinating question because it potentially opens a very real fault line between Asian/Buddhist culture and us in the West. The answer is no, it’s not personal. And in fact its even more radical because when our individuality in perceived from the side of the Ground we are kind of simplified down to a stream of transient energetically luminous displays and all our self-importance, clinging to a unique personality, or personal history or individual talents, is all levelled out.  Just as they are when viewed from a subatomic perspective. There really is - from the Ground’s perspective - nothing special about me. Well, with the exception that it’s a rare opportunity be to in the position to actually realise this. So is this OK? Does it not kind of nullify all our art for instance, art that is more or less all about personal expression? Am I not more that just a lot of sensations arising in awareness that the brain orders into a self by overlaying them with a deluded frame of meaning? What about ME!!!!

The third was a comment rather than a question. I had asked whether we could find an edge to our awareness when we examined it. What came back was that this question invites looking and this is in itself a dualistic mode of perception – I look from where I am to somewhere other. How true! What is much better is to (try) to think of the limitless energy of the ground as being without dimensions. Though it’s really impossible to get our rational mind around this, it does nonetheless give an immediate feeling of the vast inconceivability of what we are struggling to describe. An awareness everywhere that is also out of time and space!

However, what I really come away with is just how truly special it is to be able to look at these ideas and have a space where we can talk about them freely. What I mean by this is having an environment, a community, where it is equally OK to come away agreeing with the idea or not. And where it is OK to say I don’t understand or feel safe enough to explore the complex emotional reactions stuff like this can evoke within us. There are a great many Buddhist groups that can teach us about the nature of the Ground, its emptiness, its clarity and its limitless energy. But there are very few where you can openly discuss, question and even disagree and your place within the group remains entirely unaffected. We have tried to create such a group and our name suits us well.

Finally here is a shortened version of the refuge prayer that reflects this understanding of the Ground. It’s called the innermost refuge. It means taking refuge in what is real - the only true refuge:

I take refuge in empty essence

I take refuge in lucid  nature

I take refuge in manifold compassionate energy

The empty essence is how things really are – impermanent and interconnected. I very much like Thich Nhat Hanh’s phrase – ‘inter-being’.

The lucid nature is the Grounds capacity to be aware. It is non-dual awareness.

And the manifold compassionate energy is the limitless array of appearances which is the Ground's ‘display’. Now that’s something that only direct experience will be able understand.

NW. 16 September 2026

P.S. Another shameless plug: Dzogchen, Who’s Who & What’s What in the Great Perfection is the easy place to read more about this and see how it links up with many of the things we now going to talk about.