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The Mirror of Clear Meaning: A Commentary on the Dzogchen Treasure Text of Nuden Dorje
This commentary by James Low on a traditional authentic Dzogchen text by Nuden Dorje gives a clear and pithy account of how our mind actually is, cutting a clear path through the forest of our beliefs and assumptions, it brings us face to face with the presence of the radiance of our mind illuminating both its open empty ground and the ceaseless appearance of its potential. This text can be a great support for meditators and shows us how to avoid many of the mistakes and misunderstandings that can arise.The presentation is a personal distillation of Nuden Dorje's realization in a manner both beautiful and deeply meaningful. Short verses show with pithy clarity how the various aspects of dzogchen fit together.This book has a conversational style, being a lightly edited transcript of teachings given by James Low in Aracena, Spain over four days in 2019.
248 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 24, 2021
About the author
James Low
112 books27 followersVen. Dr. James Low has been a student of the fourth incarnation of Nuden Dorje for thirty years. He studied Tibetan Buddhism in India with multiple masters and has translated multiple texts with Chhimed Rigdzin. Mr. Low works as a consulting psychotherapist in a London public hospital, and teaches dzogchen meditation around the world.
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December 22, 2022
This is a wonderful book of lightly edited transcripts from a short retreat in Spain in 2019. It’s a mix of Low’s rap (incorporating a lifetime of learning - especially Tibetan and Dzogchen at the feet of great masters in India - and of having been a clinical psychologist in England for 25 years), and a line by line commentary to a traditional Dzogchen text (and terma) The Mirror of Clear Meaning by the 19th century Tibetan master Nuden Dorje. And it all reminds me of Suzuki Roshi’s collection of dharma talks - the classic Zen Mind Beginner's Mind - because of this mix of tradition and personal experience all focused on pointing out the direct experience of this moment, and directed at what could well be first time students/meditators. Low did a previous book of retreat transcripts (Being Right Here) from 20 years before based on this same text, but this one is better and more complete.
There were a few times I found Low’s talk a little rambling (it is after all based on retreat lectures and he is loquacious!) and even sometimes off-putting (as when he strays into the spectre of political correctness commenting on American politics and elections and the pitfalls of modern capitalism), but there were also many more times when what he said opened a spacious door into an immediate experience of the nature of mind.
“Let’s say, for example, that we feel sad. There is the feeling of sadness and then there is the commentary…. Many different thoughts can arise around this, and that activity of engagement of associative thoughts blocks the simplicity of just being sad. If we are simply sad, we are sad for a while, and then it goes.
“This has a great implication for meditation since it means whatever arises in the mind shows the mind, so if you want to find your mind just be with whatever is occurring. The mind is not going to be indicated by something special or extraordinary; it is indicated by whatever is occurring.” (p. 52)
“In different cultures at different times people have developed many methods for trying to control their mind and a lot of these methods involve putting pressure on oneself, which is likely to encourage guilt and shame. The way of dzogchen is different. Dzogchen says that from the very beginning the mind is completely pure, all seeming impurities are adventitious arising due to causes and circumstances. If you sit calmly and observe these obscurations or limitations or negative thoughts they don’t stay, they are just passing through.” (p. 62)
“From the point of view of dzogchen, this primordial fear and anxiety arises due to the illusion of separation. That is to say, ‘I, me, myself’ and who I take myself to be feels like an individual…. I should know who I am because if I am an individual it shouldn’t take long to find out who I am. But of course we are not an individual; we are a multiplicity that we are not in charge of. Ego or self finds itself after the fact of being, and being reveals itself in ways beyond calculation. The ego retreats into the search for domination and control; a totalizing function which then leads to totalitarian discourse: a dictatorship.
“…It is as if we will only be safe if we can control our enemies. Many forms of meditation such as tantric visualizations and purification practices exist inside this paradigm…. The driving force is fear and danger.
“The view of dzogchen is different because it says that from the very beginning our nature is complete; not complete as a totalizing knowable function, but as an infinite awareness. And so the path is to take refuge in ourselves as we are, because our true nature is not different from the Buddha.” (p. 64-65)
"When you look into a mirror you see a reflection you don't see the mirror. The mirror shows itself through the reflection. The mirror is an empty spacious clarity which reveals its quality through the display of reflection.... The mirror is showing itself through its absence of being something.
" For example we have a book with a picture on the cover. This picture shows itself again and again.... But a mirror has no something-ness of its own. The mirror shows the other as self. The reflection is not the mirror. The mirror is like the mind. Our mind is not a thing. It is a potential of showing, and if that potential were already filled with itself it would only show itself, just like the cover of the book shows the cover of the book. But our mind shows many possibilities and on a relative level we are aware of this." (p.69-70)
There were a few times I found Low’s talk a little rambling (it is after all based on retreat lectures and he is loquacious!) and even sometimes off-putting (as when he strays into the spectre of political correctness commenting on American politics and elections and the pitfalls of modern capitalism), but there were also many more times when what he said opened a spacious door into an immediate experience of the nature of mind.
“Let’s say, for example, that we feel sad. There is the feeling of sadness and then there is the commentary…. Many different thoughts can arise around this, and that activity of engagement of associative thoughts blocks the simplicity of just being sad. If we are simply sad, we are sad for a while, and then it goes.
“This has a great implication for meditation since it means whatever arises in the mind shows the mind, so if you want to find your mind just be with whatever is occurring. The mind is not going to be indicated by something special or extraordinary; it is indicated by whatever is occurring.” (p. 52)
“In different cultures at different times people have developed many methods for trying to control their mind and a lot of these methods involve putting pressure on oneself, which is likely to encourage guilt and shame. The way of dzogchen is different. Dzogchen says that from the very beginning the mind is completely pure, all seeming impurities are adventitious arising due to causes and circumstances. If you sit calmly and observe these obscurations or limitations or negative thoughts they don’t stay, they are just passing through.” (p. 62)
“From the point of view of dzogchen, this primordial fear and anxiety arises due to the illusion of separation. That is to say, ‘I, me, myself’ and who I take myself to be feels like an individual…. I should know who I am because if I am an individual it shouldn’t take long to find out who I am. But of course we are not an individual; we are a multiplicity that we are not in charge of. Ego or self finds itself after the fact of being, and being reveals itself in ways beyond calculation. The ego retreats into the search for domination and control; a totalizing function which then leads to totalitarian discourse: a dictatorship.
“…It is as if we will only be safe if we can control our enemies. Many forms of meditation such as tantric visualizations and purification practices exist inside this paradigm…. The driving force is fear and danger.
“The view of dzogchen is different because it says that from the very beginning our nature is complete; not complete as a totalizing knowable function, but as an infinite awareness. And so the path is to take refuge in ourselves as we are, because our true nature is not different from the Buddha.” (p. 64-65)
"When you look into a mirror you see a reflection you don't see the mirror. The mirror shows itself through the reflection. The mirror is an empty spacious clarity which reveals its quality through the display of reflection.... The mirror is showing itself through its absence of being something.
" For example we have a book with a picture on the cover. This picture shows itself again and again.... But a mirror has no something-ness of its own. The mirror shows the other as self. The reflection is not the mirror. The mirror is like the mind. Our mind is not a thing. It is a potential of showing, and if that potential were already filled with itself it would only show itself, just like the cover of the book shows the cover of the book. But our mind shows many possibilities and on a relative level we are aware of this." (p.69-70)
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