EASY DEATH (1983) Part III: Beyond the Traditional Wisdom on Death CHAPTER 24 Recognition Is the Key to
Enlightenment a talk by Da Free John November 26, 1980
MASTER DA FREE JOHN: While alive we suffer the
obstructions that lie between us and Enlightenment or
God-Realization. We cannot recognize the conditions that are
arising and we are manipulated by them. Although we try to
work with the process of living in order to realize life as
a creative struggle, it is our status in the moment of death
that determines the complex of phenomenal existence after
death and until rebirth. DEVOTEE: It seems everyone must cut through the
same limitations in order to surrender to the process of
existence. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: The ultimate spiritual
process is the same, but peoples tendencies are different.
Because you are a different person from the person sitting
next to you, the phenomena that arise for you after death
will be different from those of your neighbor. The spiritual
process is an essential science, a basic process that can be
engaged by any being. Thus, the spiritual process is the
same for all beings. But the tendencies that produce
phenomena, even though they play upon the same universal
structures, are unique to every individual. DEVOTEE: Master, the Tibetan scripture on the six
Yogas of Naropa, which is very similar to the Tibetan Book
of the Dead , describes the bardo state as an opportunity
for attaining Enlightenment. If you have been trained
spiritually and if you have practiced during your lifetime,
then the consciousness of the bardo state after death
provides a vehicle for transformation. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: As this life does! This
experience is a bardo state. This moment is an illusion of
consciousness. The disposition we suffer or enjoy while
alive is the disposition we bring to the bardo realms. We
must rightly conceive of this life as a bardo realm, as a
state of phenomenal awareness conditioned by our
disposition, and, through profound participation in the
spiritual process, we must transform our habit of
associating with arising phenomena. DEVOTEE: Is the Clear Light described in the
Tibetan Book of the Dead the same as the “dharmakaya” or
realm of Perfect Enlightenment? MASTER DA FREE JOHN: Yes, the Clear Light is the
dharmakaya. From the Tibetan point of view, at death one
loses ones relationship to the gross physical realm, or the
“nirmanakaya,” and enters the realm of energies, or
“sambhogakaya,” the realm of psychic forces, energies, and
apparitions, in which the being no longer has the capacity
for the visibility and self-fixation of nirmanakaya. Having
lost ones embodiment, one tends to wander in the bardos of
the sambhogakaya, unless by recognizing those phenomena one
transcends them. Just as, through the mechanics of death,
the being is separated from the nirmanakaya or physically
manifest state, the being must also break through the
barriers of psychic possibility or the world of dreams in
order to realize the ultimate Condition of phenomena. DEVOTEE: I see now why the Tibetan tradition
describes so many bardos. The being must transcend all the
forms of manifestation, gross and subtle. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: Yes. One can visualize beings
and environments in the after-death state that are very much
like those in the nirmanakaya, or the ordinary gross state.
Likewise, one may encounter all kinds of higher beings, more
and more glorious realms, or terrifying realms, hellish
realms, terrible apparitions, and fierce, devouring, angry
beings that seem to control your fate. You can feel
threatened, you can feel as if you are in hell, or you can
feel as if you are in heaven. The tendencies in the being
accumulated through habit association, habit energy, or
desire determine the phenomena that arise after death.
Although the Tibetan Book of the Dead describes all these
phenomena, it fundamentally offers a philosophy of
transcending phenomena altogether, including the phenomena
of the nirmanakaya or waking state. DEVOTEE: If I understand it rightly, the Tibetan
tradition holds that at the point of death, regardless of
the state of being or realization, every being enjoys a
moment, an instant, of the light of the dharmakaya. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: Every being enjoys it now!
The Buddha nature, the dharmakaya, Brahman, the power of
Brahman, the Great One, the Divine, is absolutely obvious in
this moment, at death, and in every moment after death. In
every moment of phenomenal existence, that fundamental
Condition is tacitly obvious. Reflecting and reacting to
psycho-physical phenomena, with which we are associated, we
tend to animate a superficial consciousness. In every moment
we are tacitly inhering in the dharmakaya, or the
fundamental Reality, the Nirvanic Reality, the
Buddha-Nature, Brahman, but we do not recognize phenomena to
the point of Realizing our inherence in that egoless,
absolute Reality. DEVOTEE: The traditions lead you to believe that
you will enjoy a glimpse of Reality in the moment of
death. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: Recognition is possible in
the midst of any sudden transformation of your habitually
fixed state. The moment of death is such an opportunity,
although somewhat glamorized, but the same opportunity is
also available in the waking state. Therefore, it is
recommended that beings strive for Enlightenment while
alive, not just grasp the opportunity at death. Your capacity to recognize phenomena and inhere in the
Divine Transcendental Reality must develop while you are
alive, because the same mechanics that are effective in life
are effective after death, and your ability to transcend
them after death will not be greater than that which you
enjoyed in life. You must generate a profound capacity to go
beyond phenomena regardless of what arises. Merely because
something different from your experience in life may happen
at death does not mean that you will suddenly develop the
capacity for transcendence. In fact, you will not. You will
have no more ability than you have now. Like all beings you are called to the Dharma or the Way
of recognition of all phenomena while you are alive, so that
when death comes, as it inevitably does, you will
demonstrate the capacity for transcendence in that event.
You must become capable of this process while alive,
however, because in the process of changing phenomenal
circumstances, that capacity will not be generated
spontaneously for you. You will suffer the same limitations
of attention that you suffered while you were alive.
Furthermore, after death the powers that control attention
seem much more profound than they do in life. DEVOTEE: The text on the six Yogas of Naropa
mentions that if you do not grasp Enlightenment while alive,
you will not be able to “hold on” or practice at the point
of death. You will be shocked by the dropping of the
nirmanakaya. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: Attention moves and is fixed
by tendency until we can recognize and transcend the habit
of attention itself, the habit energy associated with
consciousness. The business of life is to realize the
process of recognition whereby we transcend the habit energy
of attention. This is also our business after death. While we are alive, phenomena impress us very directly,
but our attention tends to be superficially associated with
them, and we do not recognize them as they truly are. Just
so, we also fail to recognize phenomena after death, when we
have lost the environment of the nirmanakaya, the physical
embodiment that controls attention. After death the realm of
subtlety and energy controls attention. Our condition of
existence is still fundamentally the same, however, because
attention is still controlled by phenomena, although then
they are more subtle than the gross phenomena of life. Enlightenment or the spiritual process is the recognition
of phenomena or the phenomenal energies that control and
manipulate attention. If you can begin to recognize the
process of identification whereby you determine an
independent, egoic self-sense, then while alive you may
realize the dharmakaya, the Divine Truth, or That which
becomes radiant throughout the whole of your existence.
Likewise, after death you will enjoy the capacity to
recognize phenomena and pass through them, transcend them,
be Happy, and be Enlightened, or pass directly into the
Samadhi of ultimate Realization, even though phenomena may
continue to arise. Once Enlightened, you may be reintroduced into the stream
of phenomena to serve some higher, radiant, Enlightened
purpose. You may be reborn to fulfill the Law of that
Dimension of our existence that is beyond the repetitions
created by fear and reactivity, the Law that is the
fundamental force inherent in existence and that produces
all phenomena out of Enlightened Fullness. Such a rebirth,
so-called, is different from the rebirth of the ordinary
being conditioned by reactivity and self-possession, because
of the Enlightened capacity to recognize phenomena. This
capacity for recognition accounts for the spiritual
differences among beings in life and after death and between
death and rebirth. Apart from that Enlightened disposition,
however, our experiencing and perceiving are conditioned by
the habits of attention, the cause-and-effect,
action-reaction processes that arise when we do not
recognize phenomena but rather allow phenomena to determine
our destiny. The fact that we are apparently embodied or that
attention is distracted in perception and conception is not
the problem. The problem, if we can call it a problem at
all, is that we do not recognize these phenomenal states. We
do not realize the Condition in which they are arising, and
we do not transcend the conventions that they impose upon
us. It is not that we must rid ourselves of all phenomenal
states and realize the zero of a false nirvana. Rather, we
must recognize what arises and radiate the power of the
Transcendental Reality, or the dharmakaya, or the free
energy of the sambhogakaya, into the play of manifestation.
Then existence becomes radiant, transfigured, a truly
spiritual manifestation. Whether one Realizes the Spiritual Reality or not, the
play of manifestation is a process of cycles of birth, then
death, then after-death, then reintegration with phenomena
and rebirth. Enlightenment does not prohibit such
transformations of attention. Enlightenment is the force of
the recognition of those transformations, which are not
created by the Divine Nature or the very Divine or the
Buddha Nature or the dharmakaya at all, but spontaneously
continue without cause. Nothing inherent in the phenomena of
existence should cause us to try to bring them to an end.
Rather, we should relate to them through Enlightened
recognition. If we are incapable of recognizing phenomena, then we are
limited to the game of cause and effect or its opposite, the
negative reaction of reducing ourselves to zero or
no-experience. Both illusions-the self-indulgent, egoic
exploitation of phenomena and the false nirvana-are false
paths, paths of fear and bewilderment. Enlightenment is
recognition, inherent transcendence, whereby even this
dimension of Reality becomes an Enlightened force that
associates us with all the ultimately positive qualities of
relationship. DEVOTEE: Master, somehow I had understood
Realization of the Clear Light to be a terminal, ultimate,
and absolute event. MASTER DA FREE JOHN: This conception of zero is
common to Western consciousness. It is because of this and
other like structures of consciousness that Westerners find
it difficult to understand Buddhist texts on such states as
Shunyata (“emptiness”), or the void, or Nirvana. The
tendency of Westerners to associate such conceptions with
the zero of nothingness undermines the paradoxical
suggestion in Buddhist literature of the identity or
equation of Nirvana and samsara. Realization is utterly
coincident with phenomenal existence, and it is not at all
coincident with the motive of dissociation or separation
from phenomena. This life, this world, this experience, is the Clear
Light. If you cannot recognize it as such in Truth, then you
are only associated with phenomenal conditions themselves,
and with the pattern of arising experience. Thus, you can
conceive of Liberation only as separation from this
experience. But when you recognize this experience, then the
paradoxical equation between the Clear Light of Nirvana and
the multiplicity and complexity of samsara is evident. That
Nirvana and samsara are the same is obvious, but it is also
a paradox. It cannot be explained, because its Truth is
coincident with this present experience, not something else
to which we can point and refer. The process whereby Enlightenment is achieved or Realized
is the same in every moment of this pattern of arising! It
is always a matter of recognizing phenomena as nothing but
modifications of what the Buddhists call the Mind, or
Fundamental Reality, and what I call the Radiant
Transcendental Being. Whatever arises has neither
independent significance nor necessity and is fundamentally
transparent in the moment of recognition. Enlightenment is associated with recognition whatever the
phenomena, whether gross or abstract or subtle, and whether
arising in life or after death. What arises after death is
subtle or abstract. The forms that typically arise in
ordinary life are gross forms, but during our lifetime we
may also encounter subtle and abstract experiences, which
must also be recognized. Such subtle experiences are not the
signs of Realization or Enlightenment. They are
characteristics or attributes of consciousness. The fact
that we can attain a state of subtle awareness, therefore,
does not signify that we are Enlightened or exalted to a
great spiritual plane. Very often, the capacity for subtle or abstract vision is
regarded by practitioners of yoga to be an end in itself. I
have criticized traditions that value abstract and subtle
visions of light or some Divine Being in some other world.
To regard the having of subtle visions (that is, phenomena
not associated with gross manifestation to be Enlightenment
is precisely the illusion that must be overcome from the
point of view of the highest teachings. To regard any phenomenon as exclusively Divine or
Illumined or Enlightened is the illusion. While we are alive
we associate happiness and pleasure with what we desire. We
do not therefore recognize the things we desire but rather
let them determine our experience. Likewise, after death or
in meditative states we are similarly attracted to subtle
and abstract visions, and we take similar pleasure in
them. The phenomena that may arise after death and in
meditation, like those that may arise during outward, waking
life, have nothing whatsoever to do with Enlightenment. They
are demonstrations of our possibility for experience and
knowledge, and they must be recognized rather than held on
to. To cling to an abstract form of light is ultimately no
different from clinging to some person in the waking state,
or to some environment, some pattern of associations in the
gross state or of visions or apparitions in subtle worlds.
All clinging to phenomena is egoic and self-possessed,
creating forms of confinement and illusion that prevent us
from recognizing the true nature or Condition of phenomena.
Enlightenment or God-Realization is the Realization of
ecstasy, or self-transcendence, based on the recognition of
all phenomena, whether gross or subtle or abstract. All phenomenal appearances are dependent on the same
psycho-physical, egoic structure. Thus, the same problem,
so-called, faces us in death that faces us in life. We are
attracted to or repelled by what arises, reacting either
positively or negatively to phenomena. This principle is
true in the waking state while we are alive. It is true in
dreams. It is true after death. It is true in all the
categories of our possibility during life and after death.
Truth is always associated with the recognition that
phenomena are nothing other than non-binding modifications
of the fundamental Reality, the Radiant Transcendental
Consciousness or Being. When this is tacitly realized to be true, when we can
therefore recognize whatever phenomena arise, then we exist
in the state of Enlightenment, fundamentally free. Whatever
arises is not binding in any ultimate sense. We remain
radiant, or the fundamental Reality remains Radiant, even in
the face of what arises. But if we do not enjoy this
capacity for recognition, then phenomena themselves are our
limit, a process of changes that transform and control
attention and produce binding effects. In recognition there is no bondage, but apart from
recognition of phenomena-pleasurable or painful-there is
only bondage. This has been the fundamental and highest
Teaching since ancient times, and it is the same Teaching
that you consider with me. DEVOTEE: Master, when I took certain drugs before
I came here, I experienced the phenomena of the red light
and the white light described in the traditions. Is that
vision a simulation of the death experience? MASTER DA FREE JOHN: Yes. Death removes you from
the setting of gross phenomenal states of perception and
conception and associates you with subtler ones.
Hallucinogenic drugs in effect associate you with phenomena
similar to those that arise after death. Under the influence
of the drug you may not tend to experience such phenomena
with the same clarity as you will after death, partly
because the return of bodily states is imminent. The
necessity to transcend phenomena is therefore not so urgent,
since you will return to your so-called normal state
eventually. Nevertheless, one can experience through the use
of drugs the same subtle, abstract phenomena that one can
experience after death. Likewise, through techniques of meditation and the force
of uncommon experiences one can withdraw from the perception
and conception of gross conventional reality and its
relations and associate with abstractions of light and sound
or with subtle, visionary apparitions of energy that have
discrete individuality. Such subtle and abstract phenomena
may arise through meditation, shocks, drugs, death-any one
of many disturbances to our conventional state of gross
perception can regenerate or awaken us to the perception of
these phenomena. They are not, however, identical to the
Mystery or the Great Affair, because merely to have these
perceptions is not to transcend them, not to be Enlightened.
To take a drug does not yield any great capacity for
recognition. Neither does conventional meditation or the
shocks of life. If your entire attention is reduced, or expanded, to the
perception of a radiant spot or a great field of light, you
can realize the experience to be not fundamentally different
from the ordinary experience of the waking state in which
you are seeing others and environments. In The Knee of
Listening I have described this recognition or realization
in my own case. I experienced all kinds of great yogic
phenomena, but always there came the tacit recognition that
having a subtle, mystical vision was not fundamentally
different from perceiving in the ordinary way. Nothing
different happened in meditation from what happened in
ordinary awareness. The features of the phenomenal
appearance changed, but the fundamental pattern or structure
of awareness of phenomena was the same in the abstract and
subtle states of awareness as in the gross states of
awareness. Nothing was changed fundamentally by changing the
features of the objects of awareness. This recognition made it tacitly clear that Realization
has nothing whatever to do with the changes of experience
that can be attained by any means. God-Realization is the
recognition of the habit of association with phenomena. In
the course of my own spiritual practice, therefore, this
disposition of recognition became primary and ultimately
consequential, and all the other media or means of attaining
experiences became unimportant. Thus, in the history of my Teaching Work with people I
have constantly criticized that disposition in us that is
fascinated with the possibility of an alternative reality or
the possibility of subtle or abstract phenomena.
Nevertheless, in the Way that I Teach, we do not prevent
such phenomena. In fact, in the devotional and meditative
exercises that we engage, all kinds of gross or subtle or
abstract phenomena may arise. All of you can report such
experiences. The spiritual process is not a means for attaining those
experiences, but it is the process that can, that must, go
on in the midst of those experiences. If now, presently, the
experience arising is essentially the pattern of gross
awareness, or gross phenomenal existence, you must recognize
that. If now you are having a vision of a subtle being or
subtle environments, the Spiritual Master in a form of
light, heavenly worlds, gods, goddesses, you must recognize
that. If now you are seeing white light, yellow light, blue
light, a spot, a field of light, radiance, you must
recognize that. To recognize all phenomena, all experience,
is the Teaching. We must recognize that whatever is arising, even this
moment of gross perception, is a non-binding modification of
the Radiant Transcendental Reality, what is called the
Buddha Nature, or Nirvana, or Brahman, or Parabrahman, or
Very God, or the Ultimate Divine, or the Truth. Whatever the
name given to the Ultimate Realization, it is That which
must be Realized on the basis of the recognition of whatever
is arising. Therefore, it is not necessary to achieve an
alternative reality or an alternative state of experience in
order to be Happy or to realize the Truth. Rather, Happiness
or the realization of Truth is a matter of recognizing
whatever happens to be arising. More: Attention,
Death and Realization Transcending
the Cosmic Mandala