Beyond Bliss--Non-Duality in Vajrayana Buddhism, Kali Ma (School of Yogic Buddhism) Non-duality is often equated with the stages of bliss and one-ness. Non-thought is often equated with enlighten-


ment. Likewise many stages of meditative experience are often taken to be the fi nal goal. In the Dzogchen teachings of Vajrayana Buddhism, Bliss, Clarity and Non-T ought are considered meditational stages that come and go, but are not the goal itself. In this tradition the goal of meditation and of our spiritual training is something Beyond Bliss. T is presentation discusses the nature of bliss, clarity and non-conceptuality and how they relate to the nature of reality. It discusses each stage of meditative experience, how to work with them, what can be drawn from them and how to prevent them from becoming obstacles to the path. T rough the discussion of these states of being, the defi nition of nonduality is explored and the nature of the non-dual teachings of Vajrayana Buddhism unfold.


T e 7 Saywas–Participating in Oneness, Marti Spiegelman, MFA In indigenous cultures, it is understood that humans are sung into being by the forces that create the cosmos –


we are born as the speech of Spirit, in oneness with the universe. Indigenous people also experience what we call ‘oneness’ as a state of highly evolved collective consciousness in which the uniqueness of the individual plays an active role in the living nature of the whole. It is our job to steward the ever-evolving magic of that conscious ‘whole’ by maturing our own awareness beyond personalized states and participating in the crafting of our world. It is our job to attain and live in wide-awake levels of universal connectivity, wisdom, and love. To meet this require- ment, indigenous cultures have developed methodologies for engaging life by directly embodying the principles of energy and consciousness that organize the universe itself. Among these organizing principles is a set called the 7 Saywas [7 markers], which encode a uniquely Andean technology for maturing the self into an aware participant in the oneness of life. At birth a child’s energy body contains a light code for each of these saywas, and through the time-bound challenges of human experience the child, with the help of elders, brings the light codes alive. T ey become his way of being, maturing his creativity, passion, and level of participation in his personal growth, his role in the community, and his relationship with Spirit. Embodiment of the 7 Saywas returns us to oneness, provides the foundation for the mastery of consciousness itself, and reveals the appearance of dualism as simply the act of creation – the spirits continually singing our world into being.


 C11. Synthesis of Science and Nonduality


How Do You Know? Dissolving T e Illusion Of Separateness., Avery Solomon <aps5@cornell.edu> (Teacher/researcher, Wisdom’s Goldenrod Center for Philosophic Studies) Almost everyone has this belief: the world is out there, and I am in here, and somehow the world gets to be


“known.” But is this really so? Science has brought us new views of reality from quantum theory to big-bang cosmology. But no mystery of the cosmos is as profound as the mystery of how we know a cosmos at all. Cognitive science maps the functions of the brain but can’t explain how vibration becomes experience, we can’t explain human feelings of love, or how consciousness arises at all. It is in this mystery of experience that modern science can interface with ancient wisdom. Simple but profound


reasoning and “experiments in mind” can help anyone who is interested dissolve old beliefs about how we know and turn our view of self and world inside-out. Clues from scientists such as Max Planck and sages Nisargadatta Maharaj and Paul Brunton help guide our inquiry and open us to intuitions about the nature of mind. We do not need special “spiritual” experiences to appreciate the miracle of all experience: every moment off ers the opportunity to know ourselves, to turn around and know the mind by which we know the world. It is thought that has imprisoned us, and thought can help free us. …T ere is no other way out of misery, which you have created for yourself through blind acceptance, without investigation. … Don’t be lazy to think. Nisargadatta Maharaj I Am T at ch. 45


Synthesis of Science and Nonduality using Quantum theory, Gerard Blommestijn <gblomm@gmail.com> T ere are two quite diff erent ways of understanding reality: 1. T e materialistic, sceptical, scientifi c mainstream way: Everything that happens is based on the causal, deter- ministic laws of classical physics plus so-called quantum-indeterminacy, which is a kind of totally random noise, without any causes whatsoever. So in this view free will does not exist, is an illusion without a scientifi c basis.


2. T e non-materialistic, spiritual, religious-mystical nondualistic way: T e essence of reality is Consciousness, T at which experiences, I-ness, which is essentially free and causes everything, in accordance with the prob- abilities that physical laws prescribe. An important question is: How can the immaterial mind or I-ness cause things to happen because we don’t measure energy transfer from it to the matter of the brain?


OCTOBER 20–24, 2010 | SCIENCE AND NONDUALITY CONFERENCE 2010 65


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