The Ground. The Path to the Nature of Mind. Tatyana Chernigovskaya, Konstantin Anokhin, Sangnak Rinpoche

Rinpoche, thank you very much for this meeting. [Rinpoche speaks Tibetan] I would also like to greet all of you. I am very glad to be sitting at the same table with you. It is a great honour for me. I am very glad to meet with you here today and to talk with you about certain topics. We are scientists, and we study how the human mind, consciousness and the human self are made, and how the human brain works.

But we do this within the traditions of Western culture, which developed as Western science — or, as it is now, world science. It has accumulated a great deal of knowledge in this field. But we understand that there is another vast civilisation with a completely different experience bearing on those same root, key questions of human existence. And in this conversation we are trying to enter into elements of that experience, to understand it, to find a common language.

All of us, you could say, are engaged in research. We all want to know how nature and reality are made, and what they are. And although we all share a single aim, in certain matters we of course differ. Our approaches and our methods differ, but our aim is one and the same — the cognition of truth, the cognition of reality. And in our tradition we use this knowledge for the benefit of all sentient beings. We use it in order to bring benefit to sentient beings.

We understand that there are two great obstacles in our conversation today. The first is that these two civilisations are like two different worlds, and there is no simple translation between them. Not merely at the level of words and concepts, but of the deep philosophical systems standing behind them. That is difficulty number one. Difficulty number two is that we, the scientists sitting here, are trying to penetrate the mysteries of the experience of Buddhist philosophy and science with the only instrument we have — the intellect. And we understand that, according to the foundations of the Buddhist teaching, this is not the way of penetration.

So our attempts today will inevitably be limited and insufficient. But perhaps, as a beginning to this conversation, we would ask you to say a few introductory words about what you consider key in the teaching and practices of Buddhism, in its path and its foundations, including in particular the Dzogchen teaching to which you belong.

Yes, it is indeed true that the Western and the Eastern world are, you could say, two different worlds. You could say two different planets. Culturally, in some things we stand far apart from one another. Geographically we are also situated far apart, but as for our inner dimension, our inner emotions and experiences, the very same emotions and the very same experiences are inherent in all of us. So we can build a common language, one built upon our inner experience. You asked me to say a few words.

In Buddhism — about the Ground, and about the consequences that follow from the Buddhist foundations. So I would like to say a few words about the Dzogchen tradition, the tradition of the Great Perfection. I am wearing white robes; the colour white points to what the Dzogchen tradition calls the Ground — in Tibetan, gzhi. We distinguish a triad: the Ground, the path, and the final result — the fruition. The Ground is the view. In the Dzogchen tradition, the view means that all phenomena are primordially pure. In this sphere of primordial purity, in this space of primordial purity, all fixed notions collapse, all our conceptual constructs. All our limitations — and it is in this sphere that we can find a common language.

This sphere is primordial purity itself. Primordial purity is the absence of conceptual constructs, in which an element of delusion is present. That is the Ground; that is the view.

So, the Ground is primordial purity. When we gain conviction that all phenomena are primordially devoid of even the slightest self-existence, of objective existence, we begin to see that our habitual fixed notions — for instance, that scientists exist separately and Buddhists exist separately — that all such limitations are lifted, they vanish, they collapse. That is, there are no Buddhists who are Buddhists by their own nature. There are no scientists who, in and of themselves, from their own side, possess some scholarly quality that would make them scientists. And in just the same way there are no self-existing Buddhists, and no self-existing phenomena. And when we abide in this understanding, that all phenomena are primordially free of self-existence, then all those points that indicate that we are all different, that we are all unlike one another — all of them are lifted. We see our fundamental commonality.

A question. Throughout your talk you use the word "we." And in Western culture, in Western civilisation, we cannot exist without the word "we" or "I." Few people give any thought to a clear understanding of the nature of this "I." Everyone speaks about consciousness, about the mind. But there is always an "I" present in all these phrases: "I feel, I perceive," "I am a scientist," "I am a Buddhist." Could you unfold a little what the understanding of "we" or "I" is in Buddhist philosophy, in Buddhist science, and in Dzogchen?

Here we return once again to the question of the Ground. It is the primordial purity of all phenomena. This is a very important point, because if we ask ultimate questions, the fundamental question — what is the "I," who is the "I"? — then from the standpoint of the Ground this "I" does not exist. There is no "I"; and since there is no "I," there are no others either. Ordinarily all of us are given to a division into oneself and that which is not me. That is, everyone else, the whole of the rest of the world — "I" and "not-I."

And on the basis of this fundamental duality, this division into "I" and "mine" and that which is not I and does not belong to what is mine, all our conceptual constructions arise. In all our judgements we rely on this fundamental idea that there is some self-existing "I." Such a mode of perception carries an element of delusion. In the Dzogchen tradition such delusion is clinging to duality. Such a division of the world, such a mode of perception, this element of delusion, is like a stain that obscures the mind. My robes are white.

If there is a spot on them, I can remove that spot. In just the same way the mindstream can be cleansed of this element of delusion, of this element of duality. That, in essence, is the Ground, the support upon which the whole of practice is built. Good, then I will ask a simple question. Can you yourself set out part of the Dzogchen teaching on the Ground without resorting to the notions of "I," "we," or "experience"? Because experience is bound up with the one who perceives. To remove those words and still be able to describe the Ground.

Let me put it another way. In complete realisation, does some experience remain, along with someone who can undergo experience — or does experience disappear?

As for your first question, that too is a very important question. In general, words, descriptions of the world in which the pronouns "I" and "we" are present — these are of course our linguistic conventions. And when we speak of the Ground, of primordial purity, of the nature of emptiness, mere words cannot convey it fully or disclose it fully; they can only give a push in that direction. And in the Dzogchen tradition there are various ways of transmitting the knowledge of this Ground. On the relative level we still have to resort to the notion of "I." Necessarily so — without it we would not be able to build any dialogue at all.

There is this relative, conventional level. On the relative level there is an "I," there are causes and effects, there are certain norms.

Relative, conventional truth — without it we would fall into an extreme, the extreme of denying everything. So who are we, after all? And I use the word "we" not in the sense Professor Anokhin does, but simply as a kind of generalisation. Human beings — who are they? Because we do have traits that, as far as we know, no one else has. We have language, which is by no means only a means of communication, but a means of thinking and a means of forming concepts, which at the same time… They are at once our good ability and our bad ability.

Because language is my enemy — as we know, it imposes on us things that may not exist at all. So: all human beings have language, all human beings have the capacity to think and even to picture to themselves what is not before their eyes — that is, a mental life of a kind. All human beings have, for some reason, a need to investigate the world and themselves. My question is this. What did nature, or the creator — it depends on the position you take — what were we created for? Does nature really need us, with our urge to know how it is arranged?

First I would like to say a couple of words about your observation on the nature of language. Yes, indeed, on the one hand language is of course a very powerful instrument. Thanks to language we communicate with one another, we share opinions and knowledge. Language is a special instrument that we human beings possess. Every language is different; every language can describe one and the same object in different aspects. Every language has its own richness, its own inner play of shades. And sometimes it is precisely these moments that help to grasp certain things better, to disclose them better.

Language is, of course, an instrument of our understanding of the world. Relying on linguistic descriptions, we come to an understanding of certain things. So on the one hand language is, of course… language is our great ally, it helps us enormously. But on the other hand, language sometimes creates fictitious things, fictitious phantoms, things that do not exist, and we begin to think that in nature there really are, objectively, certain phenomena that have a presence in our language — but it is only a linguistic convention. So when we make statements about something, we have to keep these two things in mind. On the one hand, that language is an instrument, a very powerful instrument.

But on the other hand, language can sometimes deceive us, and we must be careful in what we say. I would put Professor Chernigovskaya's question even more sharply. You said at the beginning that the basis for our understanding across two different civilisations is that, despite all the differences, we share the same basic experiences and emotions. But other animals have those same basic experiences and emotions too. I see a certain tension here in Buddhism: on the one hand, the goal, the fruit, is freedom from duality and full realisation. But on the other hand, can this path be travelled by someone who has not mastered language and has not become dualistic by virtue of accumulating all the experience transmitted through language from generation to generation in different cultures — in Buddhist culture, in Western culture?

The tension I see is that in order to be free of duality, you first have to travel the very path that distinguishes us from other animal species. A path where our brain, our mind, our intellect fill up with concepts, begin to think by means of those concepts, acquire the concepts embedded in various teachings — in Dzogchen, for example. And then it has to strive to step out of everything it has attained.

As for concepts — that in the end concepts must be left behind. In the Buddhist tradition of Dzogchen there is agreement on this point too: that up to a certain point we must enrich ourselves with concepts, with knowledge. But when a certain moment comes, we leave all those concepts and all that knowledge behind. There is a moment when they are no longer needed — but until that moment, we must study, we must learn, we must master all these notions and conceptualisations. But when the right moment comes, we leave them behind. At that moment full realisation opens up. That is as regards travelling the path.

Next. As for mind, the human mind, I think there are certain terms in which we may not understand each other. In the Dzogchen tradition, when we say "mind", it is the collection of the eight or six kinds of consciousness — that is, the aggregate of the six or eight kinds of consciousness is what is called mind. For example, in the Dzogchen tradition we distinguish the ordinary mind from what is called knowing, ultimate knowing or ultimate wisdom. This word may sound too religious — primordial wisdom. Instead of that word you may substitute, for instance, the ultimate nature of being, or ultimate reality, fundamental knowing, or the state of enlightenment, the state of a buddha.

In the Dzogchen tradition a distinction is drawn with the ordinary mind, which is formed out of the functioning of the six kinds of consciousness. This mind is the storehouse of our ordinary notions, our tendencies, our conceptualisations, our ideas about the world — our dualistic ideas about the world. In the Western picture of the world, the brain, or consciousness, or what is called "mind" — is, roughly speaking, a kind of container that has to be filled with knowledge as a child grows and is formed, both as a personality and as anything else, as a specialist. The Western picture of the world is oriented for the most part toward the outer world. To find out how matter is arranged: if you start dividing a cup, what molecules will be there. That is, toward the outer world.

And there is almost nothing in education that would look in the other direction — what am I like, even if we have no agreement about who "I" is. But still: what is in me, what in me must I change, what in me must I develop. When we bring children up, when we teach children, we teach them anything you like — except things like how to cope with your emotions. Not only how to cope, but that you have them at all. They don't even know that. I am convinced now, and I am convinced after this trip to India and Nepal, that we need radical changes in the very idea of education, precisely in this direction — to draw children's attention to the fact that emotions are a complex domain, that you have to cope with your own emotions, to act so as not to cause pain to others. And not only people — it might be a butterfly, whose wings there is absolutely no need to tear off in order to watch how it lives afterwards.

According to the Buddhist understanding, it is the receptacle — or, in other words, the storehouse — of our habitual imprints, impressions and notions about the world, all of which are based on dualistic perception. It is this duality that creates the sense that there is an "I" and a "not-I", which we spoke about earlier. Toward everything connected with "I", attachment arises in us. Toward everything that is not "I", that does not belong to this category of "I" or "mine" — we can feel anger, aggression, rejection. So understanding these points, understanding how our inner world is arranged, is a very important point. It helps us to weaken or to uproot certain negative emotions — aggression, anger and the like. At the basis of all these emotions lies duality: "I", and attachment to everything connected with "I". And "not-I", that is, everyone else, the others — and as a rule we feel indifference toward them, and sometimes aggression, hostility and the like.

And this mind, which is precisely such a storehouse of our habitual mental tendencies, impressions and notions about the world — this mind, by force of those habitual notions about the world, begins to act in a particular way. And according to Buddhism, at the basis of everything lies our inner world. Our inner world creates the outer world — that is, our bodily existence, our interaction with those around us. So we too must, as you were saying, pay attention to what is happening inside us. Of course, research into outer phenomena is very important, and its significance should not be diminished, but along with that we must also not forget research into inner phenomena, inner appearances. This will help all of us.

You spoke about pain, about the fact that we must understand that others can also feel pain — not only human beings, but other forms of life as well. Butterflies, for instance. All of this is very important. And in the matter of education, of how we should build education, we must of course try to take these points into account: feelings, the experience of pain in one's own experience. This is inherent in other forms of life as well. All beings avoid pain, all strive for pleasant experience, for experiencing what would satisfy their needs. This, of course, we must take into account. And when we build a system of education, we must also move away from certain established stereotypes. For example, as regards meditation.

In the Dzogchen tradition, meditation means sustaining presence. Sustaining it continuously, awareness. Being aware of our own inner world, our own inner experience, we will act more carefully in what we do, so as not to harm another inadvertently, by accident. We have to present certain topics in the right way. Many people today think that meditation means sitting in the lotus posture with your eyes closed. But that is not necessarily so. Real, genuine meditation is when a person sustains awareness in any circumstance whatsoever, sustains presence, and is not distracted.

That is why in the Dzogchen tradition it is said that non-distraction, or sustaining presence, is the very principle of meditation. And in matters of education, when we explain something to others, we should also point out how to move away from old, harmful, perhaps deeply entrenched stereotypes. Let me say something as, perhaps, a summary of how I understood the previous part of our conversation. In Western science a very influential theory arose, born from the work of British evolutionary biologists. In the course of the evolution of life, this theory says, DNA — this molecule, these genes — worked out how to synthesise proteins, how to build cells from them, how to build an organism from cells, and how the organism can reproduce and pass DNA on further. From this point of view, which came to be called the selfish gene and which became very popular, our organisms and our lives are a mere instant between past DNA and future DNA.

From our discussion it seemed to me that Buddhism faces roughly the same situation. All the richness of our knowledge, our language, our concepts, teachings and teachers, our mind, our personality, is merely an instrument for moving from a previous state of the Ground, or even from a certain non-attainment, to the next state of the Ground. And I would say that I see a tension in this; I see a problem in it. The tension of not understanding, the sense that something here is off. And it seems to me that if we are going to think that our "I", and the way we exist in this world, all the colours of the world that we perceive, all the sounds, all the music, all the love, all the suffering are duality, and that this is only an intermediate phase on the way to attaining a complete transformation in the end — then I don't understand what kind of world I would want to live in. It seems to me that if you went straight from DNA to DNA without having a body, or from full realisation to full realisation without passing through this phase, then our life as human beings, without all of this, would be devoid of meaning, it would lose its meaning.

I see in this, perhaps, the dialectic of that process in Buddhism, but also a difficulty. So we get cut out, as it were? Yes. It turns out that we cut out a piece the way you do when editing a film, certain pieces get cut. And some sort of device, yes, one that... That is not a good position for us to be in at all.

[Rinpoche speaks Tibetan] Right now we are touching on very fundamental things. Perhaps we are approaching these fundamental things from a purely human point of view. Underneath it all, we attach great importance to our own existence. And we ask ourselves: how can that be? We are crossing ourselves out. We don't exist, and we are merely machines.

Perhaps it is we ourselves who grant ourselves an exceptional importance. Perhaps all of us are in a state of dream. It doesn't matter how long that dream lasts. This dream may last a few moments, or it may last an entire eternity. But while we are inside this dream, we believe in the reality of everything that exists, we believe that we hold an exceptional status, that there must be a meaning. But when we wake up, it no longer matters how long the dream lasted — an instant or a whole eternity — that dream is already over.

At that moment the transition into another state is already complete. May I ask one important question? From your point of view, Rinpoche, is there morality in nature? Though I don't really like the word "morality" — I don't know how you will translate it. Well, perhaps the second version will come across too. Or is nature cynical?

It doesn't care what happens to earlier species, what happens to individual beings. That makes no difference to it. It has its own job to do, as it were. Because in our Western picture of the world, nature has no morality. That doesn't mean that it is cynical. But the view is that this is our own domain, as it were — that's where such subtle things belong.

And nature is neutral, it is indifferent. Do we mean non-human nature? Non-human? No, I mean everything in general, if one can put it that way.

When we speak of morality, we have to understand that this too is a convention. In certain coordinates it exists, in certain systems it has no place. So it too is a convention. When we dream — and here again I return to the metaphor of the dream — we may see all sorts of things, all sorts of events. Some events are pleasant, some events are terrifying. In a dream we may dream of a tiger. And we believe in the reality of that tiger.

It is a tiger; although it does not exist, it can frighten us, it can terrify us. It is exactly the same with morality, from the standpoint of our human perception — I would say that morality exists, but I would not grant it an objective status, as if it existed apart from and independently of human perception.

I think we could ask you to speak about the foundations of the path, but first I wanted to finish and state my own point of view, the scientific one, which bears on the questions we have been discussing with you. The key word of this theory is a new concept, "the cognitome", in which all our personal traits acquired in childhood come together — our preferences, our parents. The places where we lived, our school, our knowledge, the books we have read, our friends, our experience. In essence, this is our inner world. And now I want to say two things that seem to me to contradict this point of view within Buddhism. First.

You said, and I quote: "According to Buddhism, our inner world lies at the basis of everything." But according to my theory, without us, without the cognitome, the inner world does not exist. It vanishes. The cognitome vanishes — the inner world vanishes. Second: according to Buddhism, the main task, the practical task, is not only to overcome suffering but also to attain happiness. According to my theory, without the cognitome, without accumulated values, desires, preferences, a love of music, there will be no happiness.

Happiness cannot be experienced if the I vanishes, that is, if the cognitome vanishes. How can attaining the complete dissolution of the I lead to happiness? Along with that, according to the theory, happiness vanishes, because there is no one left to experience it. All the values are gone. As for the second point, the destruction, the disappearance of the I: if the I vanishes, how can we speak of attaining happiness when there is no I at all to experience that happiness? The I exists. The I is preserved.

When we reach the final phase, that is, realisation, this I is simply in a different state. It is an I that is bound up with the state of enlightenment, of awakening. It is the I that is called a Buddha. That is, I am like a Buddha. I would like to ask you a question. I have been speaking about my own point of view.

What do you think this "I" is? I think the "I" is a structure that I call the cognitome, and to a large extent this coincides with the definition of mind you gave — as the repository of all our basic representations and knowledge. I can see how, step by step, through the mechanisms of memory and learning, it is formed in the brain; and if you transferred this structure together with the brain into another body, the "I" would move across with that structure. And if that structure breaks down in diseases of the brain, in Alzheimer's, then the human "I" begins to break down as well. That is why the link between the "I" and the brain is decisive for me.

It is an aggregate. The "I" is something that arises within the mutual conditioning of many components. In Buddhism this is called the principle of dependent origination, interdependence. For example, in the work of one famous Buddhist pandita named Shantideva, in his work it says: if the "I" exists as something singular, independent, as something possessing a self-existing status, if it can be singled out — then where does it exist? Is the "I" my hair? Is the "I" my teeth? Is the "I" my flesh, my blood? Taken one by one, none of these components of ours is, on its own, the "I".

My brain in itself is not the "I". If I isolate my emotions, my feelings, my experience from my bodily existence, then on their own they will not constitute the "I" either. The "I" does exist — it exists within dependent origination. An independent "I", an operator or an agent, does not exist. The "I" is, rather, an aggregate of many things. When we understand this, it means we have gained the understanding of the view, the understanding of our own Ground, our own natural state.

When we remain further in this state, we see that others arise whenever there are ideas of an independent "I". If we do not leave this state, if we are not distracted, if we do not step out of this understanding, that is called meditation. So meditation is very simple. When we are not distracted, when we do not step out of this understanding that everything is interdependent, that everything arises within these wholes, these aggregates, that everything depends on everything else — that is meditation, that is the path. You were speaking about the path. The path is just this.

I understand this deeply, Tatyana Vladimirovna. In my own view, I cannot give a clear definition. For me it is all somehow blurred, because, first of all, I am different not only in different periods of my life, but yesterday and today, or this morning and this very evening. That is the first thing. Dissolved within me are many other "I"s with whom I have talked. And these are not only living people — they are mountains of books that have been read: in a certain sense my "I" includes Plato, and Schopenhauer, and Mozart, and Bach.

And I myself am dissolved in many other people with whom I have talked and whom I have somehow influenced. And I don't mean that I influenced them for the better — it varies; perhaps for the worse as well. So where the boundaries of this "I" of mine lie, I do not know. That is why my answer is far more unsteady than the one Konstantin Vladimirovich gave. Well, I agree with everything you said.

I would agree with you that our "I" is dynamic, that it is always undergoing change. Our yesterday's "I" is not the "I" we have today. Yesterday we might have been in a state of euphoria, and today shedding bitter tears of sorrow, of grief, and so on. Our "I" is always changing. And Buddhism says that there is no permanent, eternal, independent, self-sufficient "I". No such "I" exists.

I would agree with you that the "I" is an aggregate of changing moments. The "I" is a stream of shifting states. And you also mentioned that your "I" is made up of the "I"s of other people. Not necessarily living people. Not even necessarily people. And the "I" of others influences your "I", your personality.

And it works in the opposite direction as well. Your "I" can influence the personalities of others. And today the word of scientists carries very great weight in society. I would simply like to say to you that in this world your "I", the word spoken by you, carries more weight than, say, a word spoken by other people. So scientists, of course, carry a very great responsibility. You can make our world a little brighter, better, kinder. All of us, of course, are moving in that direction.

But in today's world people listen to you more, and so at the end I would simply like to say that you have a special mission, a special task. Research can take many forms, discussions can take many forms. And it would be good if in our interaction we could always find some constructive element. If through your actions you help strengthen peace throughout the world, in Buddhism this is called accumulating merit, accumulating virtue, accumulating wholesome energy. And at the end I would simply like to dedicate our merit so that all sentient beings may be happy, so that all of them may be free of suffering. And I hope that in the future we will also be able to meet and continue our conversations about the Ground, the path, and the final fruition.

All rivers in the end flow into the one common world ocean. All our knowledge will in the end lead to knowledge of the nature of reality. And we may belong to different traditions, hold different views, use different methods. But in the end we have one and the same goal. All of us, every one of us, is a small stream making its way toward that vast, great world ocean of knowledge. I hope that, despite the differences in our views, we will in the end all reach that great ocean of knowledge together.

Knowledge of ourselves, knowledge of the world, knowledge of the nature of reality. Because in the end, in the Ground everything is united. I spoke earlier about the primordially pure nature of all phenomena — that in this nature there are no self-existing objects, no self-existing properties or characteristics. And when we understand this fundamental nature, the empty or primordially pure nature of being, we see that all limitations fall away. All contradictions are resolved. I hope that we will always remember our one shared goal.

Let us remember that, despite all the differences, we are all moving in one and the same direction. We are all striving to merge with the one world ocean of knowledge. I offer prayers that on this path we may have no obstacles at all.

Well, my impression, for one, is that I have been talking not merely with a representative of another civilisation, but with some sort of extraterrestrial altogether. It is a completely, completely different world — the one we have been immersing ourselves in these past days. It's built — I don't know whether out of atoms or out of what — but it's definitely not divided into the categories the world is divided into for a Western person. It's a completely different relationship to space and to time. Time that flows slowly. Nobody is in a hurry to get anywhere.

There's no need at all to follow the algorithms we're used to in our life. A very intelligent and profound person — but this is just my subjective impression from talking with Buddhists. They're somehow completely luminous people. Either there's literally a smile on their face, or if there isn't, it still shows through — quite clearly shows through. A very, very clear, intelligent, deep gaze, and a kind of legible movement of the face — although... Everything I've said up to now was on the theme of "aliens".

And now I'm saying: yes, but these are aliens who are one of us. That is, we come from one common human race. In general, this is very interesting not only for scientists who, like us, want... Who want to finally pay attention to what the best and brightest minds have been working out for millennia. In one of the joint works of Pyatigorsky and Mamardashvili there's a thought made in passing that really struck me — namely, that thinking is very hard. Because it's hard to hold a thought, to follow it — you keep getting carried off: now to the right, now to the left.

And holding a thought so that it actually arrives somewhere — that's very hard work. It seems to me that Buddhists, probably because of their work in meditation, can do this incomparably better than others. That's my impression. It's the same in prayer. Just try holding it. I'd say the following about this: that yes, of course, culturally, for different civilisations...

But beyond that I wouldn't sign off on the claim that everything is different. I'd look precisely at the universals — at what we as human beings, despite millennia of differences and cultures, single out in the same way, because that, perhaps, is exactly an attempt to come closer to the essences. If Eskimos, Europeans and Chinese all find some common categories in our inner world — then that's what we should be looking at, that's what we should rely on. If you like, it's an independent experiment run many times across different cultures, in order to gather statistics and validate that there are common factors. It's like Chomsky's linguistic universals. He says that, despite there being six or seven thousand languages on our planet, there are universals characteristic of all of them — not characteristic, rather ones that form the basis of all languages, no matter how different they are, and they are fundamentally different.

What's meant there is that all of humanity possesses a single, as he puts it, genetic inheritance. That is, it's a genetic universal. But here we're dealing with two special things. First, that these universals in different cultures are acquired as a result of a person's collision with the world. not inherited, not genetic — it doesn't come from the child. That's the first thing.

Consolidated, for example, in Buddhist teachings or in the philosophical teachings of the West. And the second distinctive thing is that… These are mirrors built on a turning toward the human inner world, and Buddhism sees it in a particular way and gives particular features and classifications of kinds of mind, of properties of mind and consciousness. And in the West, you know, in today's research that same line is being developed — the basic axiomatic features of any kind of consciousness, of any subjective experience.

If it turns out that this axiomatics, worked out in Buddhism and in Western culture and science, is completely incommensurable, then I give up. In my view, that can't be the case. All people, regardless of culture, have the ability to work with a world that isn't in front of their eyes — with the mental world. Human beings are the ones who can picture what has already vanished, what is only yet to be, or what doesn't exist at all — I've just made that up myself. Everyone has this; this is our homo sapiens. That's what we are, against the background of all the differences and all the stupidities humanity commits, including right now. So what, after all, is the very most universal and common thing that people have as a group?

Have you already asked this question? If that's what characterises human beings, while Buddhism speaks of mind and consciousness as universal, present in animals too… And you're asking the question: what makes us different? Yes, I understand, there's a trap here. How to look at the world — as something divided up by various boundaries: these are cups, those are tigers. Well, that's too general.

I see what you're driving at. The boundary is a very right one for them, because it lies within their system of values. In Buddhism's orientation toward the fruit, toward the result, it's connected with experiences, emotions, feelings — the sentient and the non-sentient. In the Western system of thought the idea of relativity — that some things are defined only through their relations to others — is the central idea of existence, going all the way back to Plato. Our culture is duality, it's the traces of our differentiation: in music, as you were saying, in subtle movements, in memories, in acquired skills, in acquired knowledge. And the meaning of what Buddhism, Dzogchen, says is that our direction is to return back to non-duality, to dissolve down to that basic level. A mission, as it were.

We were talking about this today. At first you called it a container, I think. Rinpoche called it a storehouse. All right, a storehouse, excellent. It doesn't matter. In any case, the task of a person who is growing and being formed, in every sense of that word, is to fill that storehouse.

But the goal is unfolding: not just accumulating and stacking it away and then dying. On the contrary, all of it should help a person understand himself as well, not only the world. That is, it's a movement in the opposite direction, a movement inward. That's exactly what I'm talking about. No, it's not a movement inward. Then where to?

It's work inside yourself with this cognitome that has formed. Practices of reflection, of meditation in the proper sense — the path we haven't talked about, but which leads to the purification of that storehouse. And this is where I don't understand. Purification in the sense of throwing out what's unnecessary? Concepts, oppositions. They're born out of the relations of the "I", of the developing organism, with the surrounding world — at first the outer one, and then… A human being has the ability, as you and I were saying, to do this and to differentiate internally as well.

They're all built on this duality. Duality lies at… is, as it were, the base. If we get rid of all of that, what remains? Maybe there's something I haven't thought through, something I don't understand. I still haven't got an answer: what if you dissolve yourself and reach the state of the Ground — who can then report on it, who can remember that state? And if it dissolves, then what exactly, as mind and as content, is carried over into the next body, when a child suddenly starts talking about things? I don't understand why I… Though I'm not saying that I believe in it.

I'm saying — in what? We're speaking of it as a construct. In what mental thing? It's content, after all, a cast taken from the dualistic state — attained through the relation of a person, of a personality, accumulated over an entire lifetime, to the world around him, to his friends, his family, the people close to him, the ones he loved, objects, toys — the things the child later remembers. So it hasn't vanished. You said, and quite rightly, that this was created by whole constellations of great thinkers. How did they see this problem?

If they saw it, they must have been solving it. How did they solve it? There's one answer, there is no other answer. There has to be a theory. A theory that will explain what this is, proceeding not only from mental experience and introspection, but also from a material understanding of the material world. Because the world — and Buddhism declares this too — is one. We live in a single world; there is no mental world and no physical world, it is whole. It grew complex in such a way that the living was a subpart of the non-living, yet already something else; and the feeling, thinking one was a subpart of the living, yet already acquiring other qualities. The world is vast and single. And in it lives Anokhin, in it live eight billion — almost, however many of us there are now — people, and in it live infusoria, paramecia, little worms, little spiders.

Somehow it accommodates that whole diversity. The world we live in is fit for the kind of life there is on Earth. Life might well be otherwise, too. In this respect, by the way, I'm most likely a Buddhist. Meaning that I share one of the key theses of Buddhism in the aspect of duality: that the objects a person singles out in his state of duality are, of course, relative to himself, or to a bedbug, or to a horse — that is, relative to the Umwelt. And we should probably get to that in our next conversations about meditation.

What sort of truth is it that gets attained as something basic, across the most varied Buddhist teachings, through the process of meditation — that is, through the mind's work on its own understanding? What is that?

No, I don't mean… What do we call it? Is it a hallucination that can be reached through various techniques? In a controlled way. And does that matter? I think it's fundamental. Or is it a realization of natural reality — as Buddhism asserts, of the Ground of everything — which by other paths, including modern physics, including modern scientific theories, has not yet been reached, whereas our inner mental receptive surfaces, if one carries out that inner analysis, meditation, are able to become fibres that sense something.

Well, and a whole mass of mysterious phenomena follows on from that. Is it so or is it not? In short, there's a set of mysterious things that trouble my scientific picture of the world, because they contradict it. That is, I don't think so, but… But could you just brush them aside… You can't brush them aside as though they weren't there.

But the point is precisely that… This has to be approached with the visor up. You can't bury your head in the sand: either you test it and show that it isn't there, or you change your views. It's a dangerous thing, which is why it's so hard to bring yourself to it — because if you accept a thing like that, then the whole picture of the world is different. Everything collapses at once, from beginning to end. And so there's the alternative: better that I live out my life and, God willing, nothing new turns up that destroys my scientific picture.

No, you put it well. God willing, nothing turns up that makes the whole thing collapse. Or else you have to take the risk and go into that darkness, into the contact between these two civilisations. Yes, with that I definitely agree. It's just a very weak position on the part of the Western worldview. To ignore this.

Which means that even if Western scientists aren't afraid to say it out loud, that is in fact how things are. Even if it isn't declared, it's a weak position. "I won't argue with you, because you're talking nonsense." That's not… that's not a position. You can't do that. Because that phrase is read quite differently.

"I won't argue with you, because I have no arguments, because I can't sustain this argument." That's how things really stand. All right, let's still be fair to the people who voice these points of view. "I won't do this, because it's a waste of time, or because it's a domain that can't be tested." There are plenty of arguments, rationally speaking. Well, I just pushed it to the extreme.

Naturally I understand that there are different… All right then. Well, on the whole the conversation was substantial and unfinished. Well, I think it can't be finished at all. How shall I put it to you? I see milestones along this movement.

There's never a finale, but the steps we climb should be visible. Yes, I'm ready to stop there… Let's agree on that. Well, you and I do converge. Yes, we do. So what experience do we have of conversations of this kind? That's an interesting thing too, by the way.

This is certainly not meditation in the real sense, but… it's something in that direction.