Non-duality is simple! Audio. July 2025. Berghof, Germany
Non-duality is simple
James Low
The aim of this dzogchen retreat is to let go of our habitual involvement in the myriad forms of duality. In order to let go we need to sever the links between our erroneous sense of being a separate subject, our erroneous sense of there being separate real objects, and our erroneous grasping at occurrences as if they were the occurrence of something.
Das Ziel dieses Dzogchen-Retreats ist es, unsere gewohnheitsmäßigen Verstrickungen in die unzähligen Formen der Dualität loszulassen. Um loslassen zu können, müssen wir die Verbindungen zwischen unserem falschen Gefühl, ein separates Subjekt zu sein, unserem falschen Gefühl, dass es separate reale Objekte gibt, und unserem falschen Festhalten an Ereignissen, als wären sie das Geschehen von etwas, durchtrennen.
This Retreat was based on Chapter 8 of Simply Being
Date: 05-13 July 2025
Location: Retreathaus Berghof, Wiesen, Germany
Audio recording: Recorded by Waldemar Krakor and edited by Jon Lever
Organiser: Martin Brüger
Saturday-05
- 1-01 Introduction to the retreat
- 1-02 Guru Yoga
- 1-03 A part of what is occuring
Sunday-06
- 2-01 Identity and self-existence
- 2-02 Awareness - the ground
- 2-03 Dualistic consciousness
- 2-04 Objectifying yourself - judgement and conclusion
- 2-05 Participating in movement - collaboration
- 2-06 Fresh in each situation
- 2-07 Dependent co-origination
- 2-08 Starting from the space
- 2-09 The Heart Sutra - introduction
- 2-10 The Heart Sutra - form and emptiness
- 2-11 The Heart Sutra - thoughts feelings all empty
- 2-12 The human situation - signs and identification
- 2-13 Unborn and unceasing
- 2-14 Question - taking on another name
- 2-15 Question - relative truth - importance
- 2-16 Comment - realising emptiness of cruel people
- 2-17 Selective attention and destruction
- 2-18 Returning to the Heart Sutra
Monday-07
- 3-01 The space of experience - identitiy - conceptualisation
- 3-02 The Heart Sutra - somethingness has never been born
- 3-03 Question - emptiness and this water bottle
- 3-04 The essence of the mantra - A
- 3-05 Question - sleep state
- 3-06 Question - why call it emptiness
- 3-07 Question - recognising emptiness in our practice
- 3-08 Question - white A and Garab Dorge statements
- 3-09 Comment - a shouting experience
- 3-10 Question - karma if I am not the doer
- 3-11 Transcending the fixity of self
- 3-12 Text - The Direct Indication of Buddhahood
- 3-13 Text - salutation to my own awareness
- 3-14 Text - concerning the practice of these instructions
- 3-15 Comment - hating Trump and Nazis
- 3-16 Text - the profound peace - non-effort
- 3-17 Text - live alone in isolated places
- 3-18 Text - posture - voice
- 3-19 Question - how to deal with noisy surroundings
- 3-20 Question - pain - repetitive thoughts
- 3-21 Listening - reflecting - the pot faults - practice
- 3-22 Text - expel the air - nine-fold breathing
- 3-23 Text - past and future confusions
- 3-24 Spring-cleaning - the dark corners
- 3-25 Text - stay in the present
- 3-26 Text - abiding in non-distraction
- 3-27 Text - meditate on the form of your deity - devotion
- 3-28 Question - the Vajraiana path
Tuesday-08
- 4-01 Face and mask
- 4-02 Semdzin - luminous white A
- 4-03 Questions on the Semdzin
- 4-04 Tethering our experience
- 4-05 Questioning - befriending the ego
- 4-06 Question - stability of visualisation
- 4-07 Question - dissolving of the A - correct
- 4-08 At ease with the uncatchable
- 4-09 Compassion - emptiness - the world we live in
- 4-10 Seeing your own face
- 4-11 Question - glimpses of openness
- 4-12 Question - what does it mean - see your own face
- 4-13 Does the mind have shape and colour
- 4-14 A crystal ball on coloured cloth
- 4-15-Question starting from awareness or content
- 4-16 Fusing and disolving in the Padmasambhava practice
- 4-17 Question - mind leaving the body in dying
- 4-18 Comment - there is nothing separate from my mind
- 4-19 Question - dissolving - closed eyes
- 4-20 Question - mind and ground
- 4-21 Does our mind have size
- 4-22 Question - difference between space and the mind
- 4-23 Question - beyond Mahamudra perception of space
- 4-24 Does the mind come from anywhere
- 4-25 How is the mind here
- 4-26 Question - the mind before birth after death
- 4-27 Does the mind go anywhere
- 4-28 Tonglen practice
- 4-29 Equanimity - generosity - availability
Wednesday-09
- 5-01 Sustaining your practice
- 5-02 Semdzin - the use of Phat!
- 5-03 Practice texts and language - translation
- 5-04 Text - remaining relaxed in non-distraction
- 5-05 Text - do not block the flow of experience
- 5-06 Shamatha practice
- 5-07 Questions on Shamatha practice
- 5-08 Sharing Sadhana texts
- 5-09 Question - visualise the Guru
- 5-10 Question - Shamatha and Dzogchen
- 5-11 Text - whatever sudden thoughts appear
- 5-12 Text - following after thoughts
- 5-13 Question - sense of a thought coming
- 5-14 Text - without forcing a focus
- 5-15 Breath - inhalation - holding - exhalation
- 5-16 Text - free of thought
- 5-17 Question - environment - support for practice
- 5-18 Question - pleasurable experiences in meditation
- 5-19 Question - fear - tension in the body
- 5-20 Text - lucid calm abiding
- 5-21 Text - Outer objects - merely names
- 5-22 Text - illusory appearances - developing Vipassana
- 5-23 Text - examine thoughts - look at awareness
- 5-24 Question - looking at the examiner
- 5-25 Question - not seeing anything without self-substance
Thursday-10
- 6-01 Star for a day
- 6-02 How to proceed
- 6-03 Question - living under oppressive regimes
- 6-04 Text - sky-like state - free of objects
- 6-05 Question - attached to the Dharma wave
- 6-06 Question - three statements of Garab Dorge
- 6-07 Comment - entering retirement
- 6-08 Text - many swirling thoughts
- 6-09 Lineage personality and transmission
- 6-10 Text - the power of subtle thoughts
- 6-11 Question - how could learn from CR Lama
- 6-12 Text - What is looked at - without grasping
- 6-13 Question - how to stay true while telling lies
- 6-14 Question - release grasping on the perceiver
- 6-15 You cannot grasp an apple
- 6-16 Guru Yoga - quality of receptivity
- 6-17 Text - looked at - looking - looker
- 6-18 Karma
- 6-19 Text - free of objects beyond limits
- 6-20 Guru Yoga - the body
- 6-21 Question - releasing the filaments of sensation
- 6-22 Question - thoughts or all mental occurences
- 6-23 Text - wandering in confusion
- 6-24 Question - continuity - duration - tiny existence
- 6-25 Question - imputing - undermining belief
- 6-26 This is a miscount! 6-26 did not exist as a record
- 6-27 Upholding Dharma
- 6-28 Text - spontaneity of thought
Friday-11
- 7-01 The status of the body - Vipassana
- 7-02 Discussion on Vipassana
- 7-03 Question - mixing meditation practices
- 7-04 Seemingly other than the field
- 7-05 Idea appearance and ground
- 7-06 Text - thoughts go wandering
- 7-07 Text - do not enter into evaluation
- 7-08 Text - the essential point of the view
- 7-09 Text - the play of actuality
- 7-10 Question - nyam of no thought - awareness
- 7-11 Question - the longer vision - after this lifetime
- 7-12 Non-dual with the ground
- 7-13 Text - if one follows after movements
- 7-14 Text - the essential point of the view
- 7-15 Text - if thoughts arise very strongly
- 7-16 Visualise a blazing fire - practice
- 7-17 Question - sky-gazing practice
- 7-18 Question - dissolve in Padmsambhava practice
- 7-19 Text - sinking foginess stupidity
- 7-20 Text - purification practices
- 7-21 Text - wisdom and merit
- 7-22 Text - objects of the six senses may manifest
- 7-23 Text - thoughts manifest
Saturday-12
- 8-01 Resentment
- 8-02 Text - stillness - movement - awareness
- 8-03 Question - how to relate to the teaching
- 8-04 Question - the term recollection
- 8-05 Question - discrimination - discernment
- 8-06 Satisfaction - excitation - killing in tantra
- 8-07 Question - ignore Trump
- 8-08 Question - no refuge recitation
- 8-09 Comment - creative response with emptiness
- 8-10 Question - challenged by contrasting actions in one person
- 8-11 Comment - carving Trump out of the field
- 8-12 Question - yes it is empty but it is real
- 8-13 Text - free of bewildering movements
- 8-14 Text - the basis of things to be purified
- 8-15 Question - the emptiness of cup and awareness
- 8-16 Question - patterns and potential
- 8-17 Question - setting boundaries
- 8-18 Text - whichever of the afflictions whatever thoughts
- 8-19 Do not interfere
- 8-20 Text - open to happy or sad thoughts
- 8-21 Question - looping around - repetition
- 8-22 Question - at ease in duality
- 8-23 Question - repetition of the radical
- 8-24 Comment - getting out of ourselves in groups
- 8-25 Semdzin 3 - laughter
- 8-26 Semdzin 4 - struggle of the Asuras
- 8-27 Questions on the Semdzin
- 8-28 Demons and the non-human world - fears
- 8-29 Uncertain times
- 8-30 Text - meditation abides in its own place
- 8-31 Text - to express this it its briefest form
Sunday-13
- 9-01 Leaving - people dancing
- 9-02 Repelling all troubles - dokpa
- 9-03 Text - direct experience - self-liberation
- 9-04 Text - colophon
- 9-05 Semdzin 5 - sounding Hung
- 9-06 Semdzin 6 - sounding Ram
- 9-07 Imagining
- 9-08 Question - text - freed from bad births
- 9-09 Question - grasping - special experiences
- 9-10 Sustaining Dharma activity
- 9-11 Question - anxiety - losing the open ground
- 9-12 Question - sensitivity - shamanism - protection
- 9-13 Question - Semdzin 13 - sound of existence
- 9-14 Question - the infinite quality of awareness
- 9-15 Coming to the end