NATURAL AWAKENING

Advanced Nondual Training

Peter Fenner, Ph.D.

Manual table of contents

Acknowledgements XIII Guidelines for this Manual XV

PART ONE: Distinctions and Practices of Nondual Transmission 1

1 Introduction: the Radiant Mind model
A contemporary and accessible presentation of timeless wisdom A contentless transmission The Radiant Mind approach

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2 Presencing unconditioned awareness

Beginning a session Discovering your own process Distinguishing nondual awareness Is the nondual an experience, state or space? Entering a different paradigm The nondual isnt a subtle affective experience or meditational state Purity Foundations, bridges and resting places Starting at the end: working at the result level Undoing the path We are talking about This! Paradox and nonduality Collapsing the distinction The progressive presencing of co-emergent wisdom The reliances

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3 Creating the space: setting the mood, pace and atmosphere

An anti-frantic atmosphere Going nowhere, doing nothing Not knowing

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NATURAL AWAKENING: Advanced Nondual Training

Spiritual transformation is different from spiritual knowledge Demonstrating not knowing The need to create meaning Nondual Transmission in one image In time and on the pleasure-pain continuum Working in the here and now Listening to the tensing: past, present and future Beyond pleasure and discomfort Positive experiences Bliss The healing power of sensate bliss Letting things be: noninterference Cultivating a homing instinct Not conditioning the future Not conditioning the next moment Preferring neither speech nor silence: giving equal value to both Natural contemplation: effortless meditation Attachment to suffering: not making problems out of problems Is that a problem? Re-labeling this feels uncomfortable as this feels different Not denying our conditioned existence Denial and being real Living without resistance

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4 Nondual relationship: the union of wisdom and intimacy

Intimacy Nondual wisdom Pure listening Energetic resonance No separation: one consciousness Relating to people as streams of consciousness Listening to, and engaging with, non-verbal conversations Suspension Allowing silence to emerge in an uncontrived manner Playing at the edges of silence Adjusting to silence

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Communicating in deep silence Working creatively with silence Discerning different qualities of silence: sensing if people are in deep meditation or protecting their beliefs Reading the depth and stability of interiorized presence in peoples foreheads Serenitythinning out our thoughts Nothing to think about Being with nothing Nothing is hidden: you dont need to go looking Distinguishing between a report and a request When to use I, you and we The nondual use of I and you Distinction between being and having an identity

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5 Continuous presence: releasing glitches in the flow

Creating glitches Working with your own identities Deconstructing yourself: working with your own conditioned identities that can arise in nondual facilitation Ability to experience the nondual in reactive situations Feeling irrelevant to the process at times Not getting lost in personal experience Complete in the unconditioned Ways to achieve completion Ways to reduce slippage Correcting the oscillation between polarized beliefs: gently moving people into positionlessness Mind empty: nothing to say Working in eternity Handling conversations that are easy to get caught up in Nondual inquiry as a form of spiritual bypass! This is intellectual and abstract! Is there love in unconditioned awareness? Radical intimacy Working with the question of love in the here and now How will this change mewill I be happier?

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NATURAL AWAKENING: Advanced Nondual Training

Does nondual awareness influence the conditioned? What about choice? Illusion and reality I cant see whats really there! The creative function of ambiguity and the conversion of confusion into objectless awareness This is all unreal! What can I do when I lose nondual awareness? I dont have the time How can I maintain this state? Integrating the nondual: How do I apply this in daily life? The best preparation for the future is always to rest in pure awareness

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6 Mastering ways to stabilize presence: some skillful means

Observing fixations Spiritual fixations Fixated about fixations Lenses through which to observe fixations Bodily awareness Fixations do not require fixing There are no obstacles! Introducing the idea of constructions Recognizing the soft spot in a construction Thinking something is true doesnt make it true Nondual inquiry: deconstructive conversations Feeling the difference between constructive and deconstructive conversations The unfindability of unfindability Nondual inquiry as a specialized conversation The impulse for inquiry Types of deconstructive conversations Shifting to a meta-position Natural koans Who am I? What is this? When and how to pose these questions

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Making the unconditioned into something Removing concepts: tracking and managing the gradient of the nonconceptual transmission Experiencing nothing Experientializing the space of nondual awareness Seeing throughthinking about nothing Speaking from the unconditioned Contentless conversationstalking about nothing Two types of nothing Declarations Interrupting Rejecting an interpretation Nuanced inductions Describing and revealing The four ways of talking about nondual awareness Coherence and discrepancy in the language used to describe the nondual Identifying three ways of talking about unconditioned awareness Checking questions Dancing in the paradoxes of nonduality Articulate contradictions Dance stepsmoving out of the mind into nondual awareness

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PART TWO: Resources

Appendix 1: The lineage of this work Appendix 2: The Heart of Liberating Wisdom Appendix 3: Verses on the Realized Mind Appendix 4: The Natural Freedom of Being Appendix 5: Chandrakirtis Deconstruction of the Self

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Bibliography References

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