Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions

Joseph Goldstein: I think we’re all faced with this dilemma in a certain way. Because of modern technology and just how things have unfolded in the world, all of these teachings are available to us, all these teachings from different traditions and great masters in the different traditions, and one evolution of my understanding of one dharma is in the very beginning, I think that I was trying to propose that they’re really talking about the same thing. I’ve changed that a little bit because with the different traditions, there are significant differences in understanding, and so I don’t want to overlook those differences. So the evolution in my own mind is, yeah, it’s important to acknowledge that and at the same time to see that underlying the differences there is this one central aspect of what liberates the mind, and that is the mind free of clinging or free of grasping.

James Shaheen: Hello, and welcome to Tricycle Talks. I’m James Shaheen and you just heard Joseph Goldstein. Joseph is co-founder and guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. He recently wrote an article called “Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions” that will be published on Tricycle’s website later this month. In my conversation with Joseph, we talk about why he sees non-clinging as so central across Buddhist traditions, how dual and nondual awareness can complement and support each other, the dangers of becoming attached to emptiness, and how selflessness can offer a radically unique way of understanding ourselves and the world. So here’s my conversation with Joseph Goldstein.

James Shaheen: So I’m here with dharma teacher Joseph Goldstein. Hi Joseph. It’s great to be with you.

Joseph Goldstein: Hi James. It’s always good to connect.

James Shaheen: Right. So Joseph, we’re here to talk about an article you wrote recently called “Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions.” So to start, can you tell us a bit about how you came to write the article?

Joseph Goldstein: Well, I was motivated to write it as I became more aware of kind of some contemporary sectarian divides among traditions, you know, where it’s not uncommon for practitioners in one tradition or another to think of their particular practice as being the best or the highest or the quickest, and then the other traditions may say the same thing, or the most authentic. And so just in being part of this contemporary dharma scene, I’ve always had the inclination to try to find what’s in common between the different traditions rather than take a sectarian viewpoint that one is better than the other, or, as I said, quickest, highest best. And when I explored it in myself and through some study, I realized that there was one thread which is really central to almost every Buddhist tradition, and that is that non-clinging is a central piece of understanding liberation and understanding freedom. And this is common, as I say, to almost all Buddhist traditions.

And so I began to see non-clinging as a way to talk about what actually frees the mind, what quality in the mind or what factors in the mind lead to liberation rather than getting attached to any particular method or tradition for getting there. So that’s basically what motivated me, and in pursuing it, I really uncovered a lot and discovered a lot for myself. So it was a really interesting process of the role non-clinging plays in Theravada, Mahayana, in Vajrayana. So even though the metaphysics are different and even some basic understandings are different in terms of nirvana and what buddhahood means, but underlying those differences is this common thread that in some way the basis for them all is the mind free of grasping.

James Shaheen: So since non-clinging is so central to your idea of one dharma, could you flesh that out a little bit and say what you mean by non-clinging?

Joseph Goldstein: Well, I can use a few synonyms. I think clinging in one way is pretty self-explanatory, when we’re holding on or grasping at things. But the essence of it in terms of liberation is expressed in one discourse from the Pali canon where it says nothing whatsoever is to be clung to or adhered to as I or mine, and whoever understands this, whoever realizes this, whoever practices this has realized, understood, and practiced the whole of the dharma. So it’s quite a succinct statement.

James Shaheen: Yeah, it’s a pretty sweeping statement.

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, it is. But I think the core point of it is this understanding of non-clinging to any notion of self of I, which of course is common to all Buddhist traditions, but seeing through that we might say illusion or a fancier term for it would be cognitive dissonance. Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine. And that’s the deliberative aspect of non-clinging.

James Shaheen: You know, you mentioned earlier this idea that one’s tradition is superior to others, what Analayo calls the superiority conceit within Buddhism, or, you know, just the notion that one tradition is the best or most authentic, but you focus particularly on contemporary conversations in this article on dual and nondual awareness. So first, can you tell us about nondual awareness? Why is it sometimes privileged over dual awareness, and how does it create its own duality?

Joseph Goldstein: Well, I think one of the aspects of that which brought it to my attention in a way of highlighting that, and it’s basically highlighted in just one part of the article, because as I explored things further, it really got into many other ways of non-clinging outside of that framework of dual and nondual. But I do begin it and open it highlighting that because nondual teachings have become very popular these days. Just as mindfulness back a decade ago, all of a sudden mindfulness became au courant, you know. And now it’s nondual teachings I feel kind of replaced that, and it’s a very appealing concept. I think we intuit, “Oh, nondual. That sounds great,” without necessarily really exploring both the meaning of it and also its place in the broader spectrum of the Buddha’s teachings. So that’s why I was emphasizing it a bit.

So what it means, you know, what nonduality means, as I was exploring this and writing about this, I realized and came to discover that in different traditions and different contexts, nonduality can mean different things. And so that’s why a discussion about it can get confusing if we don’t define what we mean by the term in that particular conversation.

So just a few examples of different meanings of nonduality, classical understandings. So one that is found very often in some of the later Buddhist teachings of Mahayana or Vajrayana, kind of the union of samsara and nirvana, that samsara and nirvana are one, not two, whereas in Theravada Buddhism, they’re really seen as two quite different realities. So one meaning of nonduality refers to that.

Another meaning of nonduality, and this in my mind gets a little more subtle and interesting, is the duality of existence and nonexistence, and nonduality refers to something the Buddha taught, which I find really interesting. He said, we can’t say things truly exist because everything is constantly disappearing, and we can’t say that things don’t exist, because things are continually appearing. So instead of positing or reifying the notion of existence and nonexistence, the Buddha talked about it in terms of dependent origination, where there is no substantial entity which persists over time, but everything is arising out of conditions in the moment and transforming moment to moment. And so it collapses the duality of existence and nonexistence. So that’s another meaning. There’s yet another meaning, and this is the one that I think probably has the most immediate relevance, perhaps, for practitioners: the collapse of the subject-object distinction. Instead of seeing subject and object as two different things, nonduality collapses that distinction.

So it’s more specific than simply the collapse of subject-object. It’s specifically the collapse of self-as-subject and object. So in other words, instead of, maybe we are hearing a sound and instead of the perception,”Ooh, I’m here hearing the sound there,” so there’s that separation of subject-object, in a more selfless mode, and this can be expressed linguistically, and this is a kind of practice in itself that I really have been talking about a lot. Instead of “I’m knowing the sound,” which is dualistic, reframing it as “sound being known,” so that when we put it in the passive voice, self as subject has disappeared. There’s no I; it’s just a sound being known. But there’s still a subject because in passive voice construction, sound becomes the subject. And so in that way of framing things, subject and object become one.

James Shaheen: So it seems to have a lot to do with framing because if, take the second example, do things exist or do they not exist? It’s an incorrect frame. It’s a question that makes assumptions that trap us.

Joseph Goldstein: Correct. Very good, James.

James Shaheen: And the other one, when you talked about the third example of the subject-object distinction collapsing, it’s also that the question is, is it an example of selflessness? I mean, is it just another way of putting it? Because people can sometimes think of nondual or nonduality as some undifferentiated oneness or the absence of all distinctions. But that’s not exactly it. I mean, selflessness seems like a better description or an analogous description, say, in Pali Buddhism. Is that fair?

Joseph Goldstein: Yes. Oh yeah, I think so because, yeah, the nature of the subject, self-as-subject distinction from the object collapses in the realization there’s no self in the first place. And so I have found that framing things, framing nonduality in terms of selflessness, even though selflessness is not necessarily the easiest concept to understand, I think it is more easily understood even on the conceptual level and on a practical level than the term nonduality, because often people hear that term and it sounds good. You know, the emotional response to it is “Yeah, that sounds right.” But often people don’t really know what it actually means, especially in terms of how they’re living their lives, whereas selflessness, because it’s a more ordinary concept, we have a sense of what it means even in a very ordinary way. For example, we might just speak of someone as being very selfless as ordinary parlance, and we would have a sense of what that means, whereas if we said, “Oh, that person is really nondual,” well, what does that mean? I think there is some value in what you’re suggesting of thinking of nondual in this particular case as referring to selflessness, or it meaning the same thing.

James Shaheen: You know, I guess a misunderstanding of nonduality, or a sloppy understanding of it, which I admit I’ve been guilty of myself. I mean, you’re right, it has an emotional appeal. But if I think, well, what is it really? I’m a little bit lost. But it can also tip into a kind of nihilism, like nothing seems to matter, because there is no self, there is no other, and it’s just this one undifferentiated mass. But there is a corrective in Buddhism, and you quote Padmasambhava who said, “Although my vision of emptiness is as vast as the sky, my attention to the law of karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour.” So go ahead and say something about your understanding of that. 

Joseph Goldstein: So just to highlight the point you were making, you know, that quote from Padmasambhava, the same idea was expressed beautifully by the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn, who founded the Providence Zen Center many years ago, and he had a great line. He said, “There’s no right and no wrong, but right is right and wrong is wrong.” And it conveys the same thing so that on one level everything is empty, and in the realization of the emptiness of phenomena, the insubstantiality, so good thought or bad thought, it’s all empty. There’s nothing much there. However, on the relative level, which is the level most of us are living on most of the time, you know, where we are living in the idea or view of self and other and things being right or wrong or wholesome or unwholesome, it’s essential that we pay attention to that level because it has consequences. And this is the whole realm of karma, you know, that actions bring results depending on the motivation in our mind and the quality of our mind. So we do want to be paying attention to these distinctions: Is this skillful? Is it unskillful? Is it wholesome? Is it unwholesome? And we’ve seen many examples of even quite established teachers who can get into trouble if there’s attachment to the view of emptiness without the integration of the relative level in which things have consequences, and so this integration is just really important.

James Shaheen: You know, to this end you quote Nagarjuna who said that, “It is sad to see those who mistakenly believe in a material concrete reality, but far more pitiful are those who are attached to emptiness.”

Joseph Goldstein: Right, yeah, because with the attachment to emptiness, if there is that attachment, and of course many people develop the wisdom of emptiness, then that realization emptiness of self, that’s what emptiness refers to in this context, and also that nothing has substantial reality but everything is in a process of continual change, insubstantiality. If we’re too attached or attached really at all to either side, if we’re attached to emptiness, then it’s so easy, as you said, oh yeah, nothing matters because it’s all empty. And if we’re attached to the other side of being attached to the relative and not seeing the empty nature, then we’re caught up in a lot of suffering because it’s the understanding of emptiness which is very liberative, you know, it helps to free the mind, and that’s why, as Padmasambhava said, as Seung Sahn Seonsanim said, it has to be an integration, and they’re not two different things.

So if you think of a cup, just in your mind, imagine a cup, I mean, you all know what that is, and it has a certain solid, substantial reality, and we drink from it and all of that. If we looked at the cup through a high-power microscope, “cup” would disappear. It would be a whole different level of reality in which everything we know about cup is irrelevant because we are perceiving this on a completely different level, you know, of subatomic particles. The interesting thing is that these two levels are not apart from one another. It’s in the same moments, experience seen on different levels. So I think understanding the unity of the relative and ultimate is really important, and one might call that nondual.

James Shaheen: Right, I mean, to take that a little further, you’ve mentioned this before and others have mentioned it. You have a teacup and it’s a teacup and it’s useful, and so you understand its relative use, but when you drop it and it breaks, you’re also fine with that, sort of, as long as you don’t step on it. Right? 

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah.

James Shaheen: OK, so there are a lot of different doorways to non-clinging, but in this essay, you highlight the three characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and non-self as common entry points across traditions. So let’s start with non-self. That’s the one you spend most time on. So first of all, how do you understand non-self? I think you’ve talked about that some already. 

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, so I think it’s helpful to understand that from the Buddhist perspective, the self is not there in the first place. The self as a substantial reality is not there in the first place. So it’s not something we have to get rid of; rather, it’s interesting to see how and why does this sense of self come about so strongly? I mean, this idea or belief in self is so deeply conditioned, and that’s why the whole teaching on nonself is counterintuitive. It just goes against our common sense understanding of who we are. Of course, there’s a self; however, this is the whole point of Buddhist practice, is to see how this felt sense of self is created in the first place. Why is this so deeply conditioned? And it’s pretty easy to understand, I think, if we frame it in terms of the felt sense of self appears whenever we’re identifying with any aspect of our experience.

So, for example, a thought arises in the mind. Well, a common phrase that’s used very often is often the thought is the thinker, right? There’s no one behind the thought who’s having it. The thought arises out of certain causes and conditions. It thinks itself and then disappears. However, usually we are not even particularly mindful while we’re having the thought, so we’re just lost in the content. We’re lost in the story of all these thoughts, lost in the stories of our minds, and in being lost, there is this conditioning, we could say attitude or relationship of identifying with it, I’m thinking or my thought, but the “I” and the “mine” are extra. That’s just something we’re adding to the basic process of thinking.

And so this was expressed very clearly in one of the most explicitly nondual teachings in Theravada Buddhism, and I know you’re familiar with this. It’s one called the Bahiya Sutta where this guy came up to the Buddha while the Buddha was on alms rounds. He was just so motivated. He was determined to get enlightened. He had traveled a long way. He said, “Please teach me.” The Buddha said, “Wait until we’re back in the temple,” but the guy was insistent, so the Buddha gave him this very brief teaching: “In the seen, there is just what is seen; in the heard, there is just what is heard; in the sensed, which is smell, taste, touch, there’s only what is sensed; in the thought, there is just what is thought.” And then it goes on. The next stanza is when we see that there’s no you there, no you here, no you in between; there is only this phenomena, sound, sight, smell, taste, touch, thought. These phenomena are arising and being known moment after moment, and there’s no I or self or mind involved in it when we’re seeing it that clearly.

And just one subtle point in that discourse, it’s just different objects of experience being known, but people often may not be identified with what’s arising but still be identified with the knowing. Oh yeah, they’re being known. By whom? By me. But as we get into the practice more deeply, we begin to find ways of cutting through even the identification with knowing with consciousness. And so then the mind is just really free.

James Shaheen: So you just drew from the Pali canon to talk about how we might approach the idea of selflessness or how we might practice. But you also say that the practice of nonduality can be helpful in realizing and experiencing non-self, and you talk about a particular experience you had of nondual awareness while going on a walk. Could you tell us about that experience? Hearing the bird?

Joseph Goldstein: Right, right. Yeah, so I was on a self-retreat and I was doing walking meditation outside. And I was not doing particularly slow walking. It was just kind of a normal paced walking, but being as mindful as I could. And then I heard a bird, you know, so there’s the sound of the bird. At first, my first response was to look up in the sky and see the bird making the sound. So me here, bird there. But then, quite quickly, something shifted, and that shift got expressed in a little haiku poem that arose in my mind:

Bird song
in the empty sky
of mind.

So then it’s not like the bird was in the sky and I was here in that dualistic perception, but rather the sound of the bird was just an appearance arising in the mind, but with no separation, no duality. And so then it was interesting for me to just toggle back and forth between, oh, bird up in the sky, bird sound coming from the sky, or bird sound an appearance in the mind. And it was just really interesting to do that.

James Shaheen: You know, it’s interesting too, to reference what you said before, even there, there’s still a sense of self as subject and the duality of knowing and what’s being known. Can you say something about that?

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, I mean, there could be, there’s not necessarily. But there could be.

James Shaheen: Right. Sort of a subtle sense.

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, that is a very key element as we explore non-clinging and even nonduality. One of the really subtle aspects, which I just mentioned a little earlier, is seeing the subtle identification with awareness itself. So even if there’s nondual awareness, if we have not seen the empty, selfless nature of awareness, then there’s still a subtle level of clinging that’s going on.

James Shaheen: Yeah, and it’s easy to miss that at a very subtle level. It’s very easy to miss it and think, “Oh, I’ve had a moment,” but in fact I’ve had a moment.

Joseph Goldstein: Right, right. So one of the ways, and we’ve talked about this at different times, one of the techniques that I think I just mentioned earlier was using this passive voice construction of sound being known. And so this is very easy. Whenever we’re hearing a sound, and it could be in sitting meditation and sounds are arising or when we’re out in the world, sounds being known is just a completely common experience. But then the question that can help to cut through identification with the knowing is asking a further question. OK, sounds being known. Then the further question is “Well, known by what?” And so sometimes I’ll be sitting and maybe there are some predominant sounds happening, maybe some birds or whatever sounds arising. And I’ll be in that mode: “Oh, sounds being known.” And then while I’m sitting, I’ll pose the question in the mind, “Can I find what’s knowing the sound?”

So then it’s really turning the mindfulness back onto this mysterious experience of knowing, when we look: Can it be found? Can something be found that is knowing? And when we look, we see there’s nothing to find, and yet the knowing is happening. So this is kind of the mystery of consciousness, but in the nothing to find, that’s one way of beginning to cut through the identification with the knowing, because there’s nothing there to identify with. So it gets very interesting, and I suggest for people listening, even if some of this you’re not quite sure what all this means or the relevance of it, I would suggest just really playing and exploring in some very simple ways, you know, “Sound being known. OK, known by what? Can I find what’s knowing?” And not in the sense of trying to look for an answer, but just having the question motivate the exploration.

James Shaheen: Well, it’s like the Bodhidharma anecdote you tell of I can’t pacify my mind.

Joseph Goldstein: Oh, right.

James Shaheen: Right. Why don’t you say that briefly?

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah. So there’s this famous interchange between  Bodhidharma, who is this being who brought Buddhism from India to China, and there’s a lot of stories about him living in a cave for nine years, and this guy came who would become his chief disciple or one of his disciples. And the guy came full of suffering, and he was beseeching Bodhidharma to help him relieve his suffering to pacify it. So he goes to Bodhidharma and says, “I’m in so much suffering, please pacify my mind.” Bodhidharma says, “Show me your mind and I’ll pacify it.” The guy says, “I’ve looked for it everywhere and can’t find it.” And Bodhidharma says, “There, it’s already pacified.”

James Shaheen: I love that.

Joseph Goldstein: I do too, and it’s really helped me, you know, because sometimes if I get caught in some kind of mind distress or other, because I’m so familiar with the story, all I need to do is remind myself, “Oh, already pacified,” you know, the mind can’t be found, and it comes back to a place of ease.

James Shaheen: You know, just to wrap up the duality-nonduality bit, you suggest that rather than viewing them as metaphysical statements describing an ultimate state, we can see them as complementary modes of viewing experience. So you’ve told a story to me several times about how these two modes complement each other from your own experience of trying very hard, say, with U Pandita to arrive at something. Do you want to tell me about that?

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah. So, as you know, mostly I have completely immersed in the Theravada teachings of vipassana, but I’ve also done some practice and study with some really great Dzogchen masters, so I have a little bit of experience with that, although not the same depth as I have in vipassana or longevity in the practice.

So I was on a retreat with Sayadaw U Pandita, and he was a very demanding teacher, and in that system, that particular method of vipassana, which there are many ways of practicing vipassana, but in this particular method there’s a lot of emphasis on different stages of insight and how you go from one stage to the next and next and next until nirvana.

And because so much emphasis is on that framework in the path of practice, something to be cautious about is getting caught up in a lot of striving: “Oh yeah, I want to get to the next stage,” and so always reaching out for the next. So I was on retreat, and at a certain point I found my mind in that kind of clinging, that kind of wanting. And then the Dzogchen perspective, which I had already practiced somewhat, came to mind. And their frame is that awareness is already there. There’s nothing you have to get. It’s already here. Everything that you need is already here. And the freedom of non-clinging awareness is present. So the phrase I used at that moment was, “Oh, already aware, already aware.” And just that reframing from a more Dzogchen nondualistic perspective really helped me relax back into the vipassana practice, but without that unhealthy striving or wanting or craving. And so then the vipassana practice just unfolded in a much more easeful way. So we could say that that Dzogchen perspective helped me to unhook from a clinging that I was caught in.

James Shaheen: In the essay, you tell about somebody who writes to you and said, “I’ve had this nondual experience. Well, now what do I do?” So in other words, how do we actually incorporate the insights from such moments of selfless awareness and let them transform our perspective in a more lasting way, a more stabilized way?

Joseph Goldstein: Right, yes, that’s an important question.

James Shaheen: “Now what” is always a good question.

Joseph Goldstein: Now what? Well, one thing that I think sometimes is missed in the presentation of nondual teachings, and this is particularly true in Dzogchen, which, as I say, I am a little bit familiar with, but I think it’s also true in some of the other nondual traditions as well. Certainly within the Tibetan frame and even in Zen, there is this very direct pointing to a nondual experience, we could say, of selflessness, but what is often not talked about now here in the West as nondual teachings have become so popular at least is all the supportive practices that make stabilization of that understanding possible.

And so in Dzogchen for example, there are a lot of preliminary practices and practices explicitly. Strengthening mindfulness and strengthening concentration. So they’re built into that whole tradition. But sometimes people just pick out a glimpse of the final understanding, the depth of understanding, and have a momentary glimpse of that, but without that foundation in the mind that makes possible stabilization in it. So I’ll just give you a couple of examples of that. And this is an aspect that’s been of great interest to me lately. It’s a teaching that comes from the Tibetan and Dzogchen tradition, but it relates to anybody who’s practicing in any tradition. They talk about the undercurrent of thoughts and how for many people in meditation, we’re taught to become mindful of thinking, and mostly it’s kind of the loud, predominant thought. I mean, they’re hard enough to become mindful of. But with practice we get a little better at it. But underneath those kinds of predominant thoughts, there is a pretty steady stream and undercurrent of very light thoughts that are happening throughout the day. It’s like they hardly pierce the surface of our conscious attention. They’re in the background, but when they’re present and we are lost in them, even if they’re a light thought, even if they’re very brief, in the time that we’re lost in them, we are no longer mindful, we’re no longer in nondual awareness. We are caught and identified with that thought. And that’s why in this Tibetan teaching about it, they call this undercurrent of thoughts the thieves of meditation, because we think we’re meditating, and we’re aware of the more predominant things, but we’re missing how frequently the mind drops into this dreamlike state of an unnoticed thought. So that’s why the development of strong mindfulness and stronger concentration can help minimize the times that that happens. 

James Shaheen: What I was thinking about it with those light thoughts, the interesting thing about them is when you do become aware of them it’s interesting how even these so-called light thoughts or undercurrent of thoughts can drive our actions, and we’re completely unaware of it.

Joseph Goldstein: Absolutely. OK. So, a good example of how it functions for me is if I’m watching a movie or a TV show or something, and very often, if it’s a drama of some kind or other, or even a nature program, there’s usually a soundtrack of music going on, but usually we are so engrossed in the story that very often we’re not even very aware or conscious of the soundtrack. However, that soundtrack, and it’s the reason why they have them, is totally manipulating our emotions. The music all of a sudden speeds up and gets tense, and all of a sudden we’re watching this program and feeling super tense, and then the soundtrack becomes mellow and, OK, everything relaxes. So this soundtrack is profoundly influencing how we’re experiencing, in this case, it would be a movie. This undercurrent of thought is just like the soundtrack. We’re hardly aware that they’re there, and yet they are conditioning our minds and reconditioning, and sometimes it may be fine wholesome states, but very often it’s not. Very often these thoughts are just reinforcing maybe a sense of self or greed or desire or thoughts about some argument we had and so conditioning more aversion. So it’s a powerful force that is mostly unrecognized, and that’s why I find it so interesting.

James Shaheen: Yeah. You know, I’ve heard you talk about soundtracks before, so I tried it out, and it kind of wrecked the movie for me.

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, exactly.

James Shaheen: It sort of depends on our not paying attention and just being taken in. It’s part of the art, you know?

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just think of all the money you’re going to save by not being taken in.

James Shaheen: Right, I just watch baseball now, so there’s no soundtrack. Well, there is, sort of.

Joseph Goldstein: So one thing I would say is, and I really was playing with this on a self retreat, and this would be a really interesting exercise, I think, for people who want to explore this a little more. And it could be even outside of a formal sitting, you know, maybe just going about one’s day, and if the thought occurs to one, maybe just to take five minutes in whatever one is doing—going for a walk, washing the dishes, doing this or that, but just to take five minutes with the intention that as we continue doing what we’re doing, we’re going to really keep an eye out for these very light thoughts that intrude that come up, and I think it will be very noticeable that there are many of them, many more than we think. So then if we begin to become aware even of some of them, it’s really interesting to pay attention in the moment of going from being lost to being aware of them. In that very moment of transition, just to acknowledge what it felt like to be lost and what it feels like to be awake, to be aware. Because we’ve just gone from one to the other in that moment, the contrast will be very clear, and it feels like when we go from basically a deluded state to a state of awareness, the state of wakefulness, and the image that just came to mind now feels like it’s coming up from being underwater and coming to the surface and taking a deep breath. All of a sudden there’s greater clarity, greater ease, greater openness, and we hadn’t even realized that we had not been in that state.

James Shaheen: When I heard that teaching on retreat with you, an interesting thing about that was that instead of feeling frustrated that I had been lost, I became infinitely curious about what the difference between those states actually was. So that curiosity drove the practice. So getting lost just felt like an opportunity to come back and see that difference.

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, exactly. That’s perfect. That’s perfect, James. And, I think one reassuring comment one can make to oneself to get out of that pattern of judging oneself for being lost or discouraged from being lost is to remember that for every time you get lost, that many times do you also awaken. So why not emphasize that moment of awakening and seeing the difference rather than emphasizing being lost and then judging oneself forced. So it’s just as you say it, it provides an opportunity to really deeply understand the difference between delusion and wisdom.

James Shaheen: We’ve been talking about different paths to non-clinging. So how can these different approaches support each other rather than be in conflict with each other? Can you give us some examples of what this integration might look like in practice? 

Joseph Goldstein: Well, I mean, one example was what we talked about before when you know my being on retreat with U Pandita and getting caught and then bringing in a Dzogchen perspective of “already aware.” So that’s kind of an integration of teachings from two different traditions. And it could be, from the other side, and there are many examples of that from the other side, somebody who is practicing in a basic nondual tradition of practicing that. But there very likely will be many times when in the course of a day, just involved in our regular daily activities or in a sitting where we get caught up in some powerful story that’s arising. You know, it could be about work, it could be about relationships, it could be about the world, and suddenly we can hardly remember what nonduality is. It’s not the first thing that may come to mind if we’re in that situation of suffering because we’re caught up in a very strong emotional state or reactive state. So then the more perhaps accessible approaches to free the mind would not be trying to go nondual on it but really to emphasize the mindfulness and the wisdom, the investigation, of what exactly is going on in the mind: Is it just a lot of thoughts? Is there some strong emotion that we’re not being mindful of and so that we’re identified with? So the very precise recognition and mindfulness of the specifics of what’s going on, which is really the strength of vipassana, and the mindfulness, the development of mindfulness through that practice where we get so clear about what the object is, and it doesn’t need the nondual frame at that time, because we are lost in some intense experience. So we really want to unpack that experience and see, OK, how is the mind getting caught? What am I holding onto?

So one example of a teaching that’s found in the Pali canon and is also found in later traditions where the Buddha, and this is really powerful, when he says, let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present and cross over to the further shore. And so a lot of our suffering is because we’re caught up in thoughts of the past or thoughts of the future, or very identified with thoughts in the moment. So if that teaching comes to mind and we see thoughts of the past or just thoughts in the moment, and when we can see that, then it becomes easier to see the empty nature of the thought. “Oh yeah, this is just a thought. That’s all it is.” As my first teacher Munindra-i would say, the thought of your mother is not your mother. It’s a thought. The thought of anything is not the thing, it’s a thought. So when we can relate to whatever emotional turmoil might be happening and the thoughts associated with them, “Yeah, this is just a thought in the moment,” it gives us access to relating to it in a different way. And it’s the same thing about thoughts of the future. You know, it may be with anxiety or worry or whatever suffering arises from those thoughts. “Oh, this is just a thought in the moment.” And then not holding on even to the present, which I love. I love that last line. Let go of the present as well. Let go of attachment to the present. So this is bringing in a teaching from the Theravada into a nondual practice where the nondual frame may not be particularly effective at a particular time. So then we bring in other approaches, and I think this is all in line with the understanding of the Buddha’s teachings as skillful means. You know, we find what’s skillful in any particular moment.

James Shaheen: You know, I think this is an apt description of your trajectory of thought over the decades, or at least since I’ve known you. You describe your practice as “not clinging to anything as being I or mine, and then waiting to see where that leads.”

Joseph Goldstein: Yes.

James Shaheen: So this is how we got here.

Joseph Goldstein: Well, it is, because I think we’re all faced with this dilemma in a certain way because of modern technology and just how things have unfolded in the world. All of these teachings are available to us, all these teachings from different traditions and great masters in the different traditions, and one evolution of my understanding of one dharma in the very beginning, I think that I was trying to propose that they’re really talking about the same thing.

I’ve changed that a little bit because the different traditions, there are significant differences in understanding, and so I don’t want to overlook those differences, even in the conception of ultimate reality, the understanding of nirvana, the notion of buddhahood. So there are big differences in how the different traditions understand these things.

So the evolution in my own mind is, yeah, it’s important to acknowledge that, and at the same time to see that underlying the differences there is this one central aspect of what liberates the mind, and that is the mind free of clinging or free of grasping. So I’ve begun to see that as really the platform or the, or the foundation for different aspirations and what, which traditions fulfill one’s own particular aspirations and practice.

So that’s just my own evolution in how I’m holding all this.

James Shaheen: Yeah. Maybe you answered my next question already, whether we want to or not, everybody has some sort of metaphysical frame or some story they tell themselves about reality. It’s just how we operate. Say I’m a Zen student and I’ve taken the bodhisattva vow and I vow to save all sentient beings and to become a Buddha myself and to come back and back and back until everybody is free. I may be a Tibetan Buddhist engaged with bardo teachings and I am preparing to navigate this passage so that I can have a favorable rebirth. And the question that might arise is doesn’t this affect not only how we move in the world and what we practice but the goal itself? So you’ve been positing that non-clinging is something that they all share, and that’s what you are operating from. Is that right?

Joseph Goldstein: Yes, so it is acknowledging the differences but seeing that the way to accomplish any of the goals of different traditions, even when they might be different, the way to accomplish them has to go through the doorway of non-clinging. And so for me, giving emphasis to that begins to get away from sectarian viewpoints that one way is the quickest of the best or the whatever, but rather to see for each of us what serves us best to accomplish non-clinging in the service of whatever our aspiration may be.

James Shaheen: Right, I’ve heard you say what works to liberate the mind, so it’s an intensely practical approach, and once established in a particular tradition and knowing it well, it becomes possible to borrow from other traditions if it works to liberate the mind.

Joseph Goldstein: Yes, yes. And that last phrase I think is really important. I’ll just reframe it a little bit. You know, our minds are all conditioned so differently, and so for some people really staying strictly within one tradition and not drawing on others, not even exploring others, that for some people that is an effective method, because there’s less opportunity for confusion or just going back and forth and not going deep in any of them. So that’s a totally legitimate path of practice. For other people, and I consider myself one of these, I’m just interested in the broad range of traditions, recognizing the importance of having to really establish a depth of practice in one before beginning to explore others, because unless we’re firmly established in our understanding, it can get really confusing. But once we have a depth of practice, then, as we’ve been talking about, drawing on elements of different traditions, I find very helpful and interesting and inspiring.

James Shaheen: Yeah, I mean, my experience is that coming to the teachings in this country meant that I would necessarily be exposed to other teachings, and once exposed to those teachings, it’s really hard not to question either your own or the value of perhaps opening to another. But I do want to end the podcast with a really lovely story you told about the coming together of two traditions, or the recognition in one master of the same realization in another. It took place at IMS. Why don’t you tell us about that story? It’s really quite beautiful.

Joseph Goldstein: Yeah, so one of our teachers in the vipassana tradition was this extraordinary woman. She was a student of my first teacher, Munindra-ji. Her name was Dipa Ma, and she was really extraordinary in so many ways. She had a lot of suffering in her life, a lot of loss. Her husband died, two of her children died, and she was so overcome with grief, as can imagine, a huge amount of suffering. She was living in Burma at the time. At that time, it was all part of the British Raj. And friends said, “You have to go to a meditation center. You know, you may die from this grief. You must take care of yourself.” It turns out that she just had this extraordinary, in Buddhist terminology, called parami, just background, one might say, of background of development, in the Buddhist context, undoubtedly from past lives, where she just advanced so quickly, both in Vipassana and in concentration. So within weeks, she had just reached high stages of enlightenment and all the powers of the mind that can come from concentration. And there’s a wonderful book about her called Dipama, for anybody who’s interested. Very extraordinary.

So we invited her to come to teach at one of our three-month retreats here at IMS. And during that retreat the 16th Karmapa was also visiting the US. And through some connections we invited him to come to just give a talk at the three-month retreat. And so in Tibetan fashion, and this is typical, they came and the students came and they kind of erected this beautiful high seat with brocades. And so his Holiness the Karmapa, this is the last one, the 16th, was sitting on the seat, and after his talk, people would come up for a blessing, and he had this kind of ritual whisk, and so people would come up and bow and he’d kind of bop them on the head with the whisk in blessing.

Well, Dipa Ma was there, and she was sitting right up front and she came up for the blessing. And when she came up, instead of the whisk, he took her head in his hands and touched foreheads, which is a Tibetan cultural expression of just indicating mutual respect and connection. And it was so interesting to me just watching all this and everybody getting bopped with a whisk, and then Dipa Ma comes and His Holiness really takes a moment in some form of acknowledgement. And of course I could have no idea really of what either of their minds were really like. But in seeing that, there was just this strong sense of that acknowledgement of some kind of mutual understanding, some mutual understanding of love and emptiness, something like that, love meeting love, wisdom meeting wisdom. And it was just such a beautiful moment that transcended, in that moment, it just seemed to transcend the differences, of which, as I just mentioned, there are real differences in the concept of reality. But in that moment, it just seemed to go beyond that. So it just felt like a wonderful and beautiful expression of a possibility. You know, if we can honor that in each other, regardless of what practice we’re doing, what tradition we come from, you know, can we tune in to the love? Can we tune in to the wisdom, to the compassion that we all share? And to me that is just a really beautiful way to hold the multiplicity of traditions and methods that are now available to us.

James Shaheen: Thank you so much, Joseph. Anything else before we close?

Joseph Goldstein: No. That feels like a good place to end.

James Shaheen: Yeah, it’s a beautiful place to end. So Joseph Goldstein, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us. For our listeners, be sure to check out Joseph’s article on Tricycle’s website. Thanks again, Joseph.

Joseph Goldstein: OK.

James Shaheen: ​​You’ve been listening to Tricycle Talks with Joseph Goldstein. Tricycle is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to making Buddhist teachings and practices broadly available, and we are pleased to offer our podcasts freely. If you would like to support the podcast, please consider subscribing to Tricycle or making a donation at tricycle.org/donate. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, so write us at feedback@tricycle.org to let us know what you think. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. To keep up with the show, you can follow Tricycle Talks wherever you listen to podcasts. Tricycle Talks is produced by Sarah Fleming and the Podglomerate. I’m James Shaheen, editor-in-chief of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Thanks for listening!