Nyams and Zap-nyams

Nyams (non-ordinary experiences) are not specific to Vajrayana. Nyams can arise in
the context of any kind of religious practice which sufficiently disorientates the
practitioner. Beyond the remit of religion, any experience which is sufficiently
unusual or perplexing - and of sufficient duration - can also give rise to nyams.

The word 'disorientation' is used here in a highly specific way. It pertains to causing
disarray in the context of our habitual orientation. We are thus disoriented from
duality. Duality generates habituated cyclic patterns in which we grasp at form
through fear of emptiness [1]. This experience could be said to be familiar to
chasing a floating log in the midst of a fast flowing river - when the act of grasping
merely causes the log to spin and become increasingly more ungraspable.[2]

Self-defeating perceptual perplexity arises through form-fixation, due to the fact

that life itself is the non-dual dance of emptiness and form. Emptiness and form are
in continual state of flux. Form and emptiness are inseparable.

Duality is our desire for one partner in that dance - the form partner - to the
exclusion of the other.

The form partner in the dance gives us the false impression of being solid,
permanent, separate, continuous and defined - but these are simply the form
definitions of emptiness. It is not possible to possess the form definitions of
emptiness without being possessed by theemptiness definitions of form:
insubstantiality, impermanence, indistinctness, discontinuity and indefinability.

This preoccupation with shoring up self-definition results in our not being able to
perceive reality as it is. Not to perceive reality as it is makes it either difficult or
impossible to respond appropriately to the phenomena of our perception.

Dualistic orientation requires us to make a continuous effort in order to perpetuate

it. Because dualistic orientation is inaccurate - the perceptions gained through its
mechanism are illusory, inasmuch as they do not correspond with reality. When our
versions of reality collide with actual reality, we are forced to maintain the false
integrity of our illusory perceptions - if we are to continue manufacturing duality.

The fact that duality requires maintenance however, means that it is possible to
disrupt its continuity [3].
Anything that is sufficiently disorienting is therefore likely to have that effect.
Disorientation does not have to be spiritually generated in order to produce
experience which is possessed of spiritual potential. Our lives are composed of
spiritual potential - and it is often simply a matter of recognizing that fact. If we
recognize the spiritual potential we naturally possess - all that is required is
determination in the application of the appropriate methods.

Nyams - or spiritual experiences of many descriptions - are well known to occur

after serious accidents or life-threatening illness. They occur through falling in love.
They occur during strong natural phenomena such as earthquakes or hurricanes.
They can occur whilst seeing or simply experiencing some extremely beautiful
natural scene, such as the northern lights, or strong sunlight streaming through
dark thunderclouds onto green Welsh meadows. Such stimuli can remove us from
the persistence of self-orientation. This is what is meant by the term disorientation
in the context of sKu-mNyé. It is when one is completely absorbed in something
other than self-orientation that nyams are likely to occur.

The Natural Condition of the Elements

Nyams occur when the psychophysical elements begin relaxing into their own
condition. This is another technical phrase. It relates to the manner in which the
elements naturally exist. The nondual reality of being is a space in which the
elements are uninhibited by dualistic contrivances, and are therefore free to move
according to the boundlessness of their nature. In terms of duality, the
psychophysical elements are bound in a state of tensile distorion through the
process of continually recreating reality according to misperception. The possibility
of elemental relaxation is ever-present - because the elements naturally gravitate
towards the nondual state. As soon as we become disoriented from recreating
duality, the elements naturally begin to relax into their own condition. Sufficient
practice of sKu-mNyé undermines intense habituation - and thus, nyams begin to
occur with increasing frequency.

Student Annotations:

[1] This is the technical definition of what is referred to as "addiction"

[2] I very much appreciate this beautiful image of the heartbreakingly sad confusion
of the situation.

[3] This is such an encouraging discovery. If duality where non-dual, it would be

unassailable, but precisely because it is dualistic, because it requires maintenance,
it is vulnerable to being undermined.