Here is the Quintessence of the Great Responsiveness Path:
The Mantra:
The following mantra should be used during the Great Responsiveness Meditation. There is a natural break between the first part and the second part. Intone the first part to yourself after you settle into your practice and have accessed one or more of the elemental inner spontaneous sounds. At an appropriate time during your meditation session, or at the end of your session, intone the last part to yourself. You can also repeat the first part as many times as you feel will help your concentration, if, for some reason, your absorption is broken and regained. The Tibetan text at the end should be intoned as well after the last part of the English text. This short Tibetan mantra is from the prophecy of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö 2026–2032.
Having turned my hearing around, to the ever-present elemental sounds of intrinsic naturing within, and let go of the mirror-like character of awareness and all its phantasms and distortions, I rest in the coherent continuity of that which appears, to be…
… and suddenly, spontaneously, an epiphany arises: I am not other than this naturing, and I dissolve, no longer delimited, distinct, nor other than, this plenum of Responsive Naturing, empty of selfish concerns, so that only love remains, to benefit all.
The Explanation:
Some explanation of the above might be helpful, but the important points in the text of the mantra above are linked to articles that expand the points in detail. The following is a precise orientation to those articles.
Turned My Hearing Around:
“Turned my hearing around” has two senses.
The first is that you have turned your focus away from conditioned sound — which seems to originate outside yourself, which is our naïve understanding — to unconditioned sound which arises spontaneously in your mind.
By breaking the association of what you hear, from any external conditions in response to which your experience of sound normally arises — an association that leads to the simplistic and incorrect understanding that sound comes to you from outside your body — you can then directly experience the nature of mind.
This is called awakening.
The second meaning of the phrase “turned my hearing around” takes this new understanding about sound to its fundamental truth: ‘You’ aren’t ‘hearing’ anything; rather, ‘you’ are manifesting what you seem to be ‘hearing.’ (And it is like this for all the senses.)
This places your presence where it truly is: on the productive side of the manifestation of the experience of sound within your mind.
Once you have accomplished this and can maintain this perspective shift, you may suddenly recognize that this has brought you face-to-face with the absolute, and the realization of the perfect nonduality of this aware-naturing, which is the cognitive (aware) and productive (naturing) responsiveness that manifests as all phenomena. The phenomena include everything you have confused to be your true self, and also, everything that you qualified as being other than yourself.
This responsiveness is characterized as self-less, meaning that there is no entity that is responsive; but rather, there is only the activity of naturing all that appears, which is neither directed by an intentional entity, originated from an entity, nor is the result of an entity’s nature.
Instead, this responsive activity is simply the cosmos of arising ordered forms clearly presenting in each and every moment, which is completely void of any intrinsic self, either in the resulting order, or behind the responsive activity. In other words, this is not the result of a complex set of causes that are compounded into a resulting effect.
This responsiveness is evidenced by the intelligible formal order that is the activity of this responsive naturing — not the result of the activity, as if it is some constructed thing. Thus, we can re-cognize (recognize) this activity for what it truly is, and comprehend the character of the activity. The nonduality of aware-naturing, empty of an intrinsic self, means that the activity is cognizance in action, but also that this cognizance is a reflexive recognition of things done. It is not personal knowledge, because there is no intrinsic self — no entity that has knowledge of something. This is critical to understand. Without an intrinsic self anywhere, there can be no “knowledge of something,” but only “knowledge as activity.”
Thus, Enlightenment is simply the clear recognition of this selfless nondual naturing.
The ever-present elemental sounds of intrinsic naturing within:
The elemental sounds are the inner spontaneous sounds of the four elements that are associated with the energy chakras. These sounds are ever-present, neither arising, nor passing away. It is our ability or non-ability to turn our hearing around that allows us to notice that these sounds are always already there. Our turning our attention away from the sounds naturally reduces or ends their appearance in our mind, but this is a result of our focus of attention, not the ever-present nature of these sounds. These sounds are the resonances or reverberation of the naturing of our body, including the mental phenomena of sensations, perceptions, and thoughts. “Intrinsic naturing within,” as used here, refers to the omni-intrinsic naturing of all that appears. It is not saying that we do have an intrinsic self nature, rather, the omni-intrinsic naturing is universal to all that appears.
Let Go Of The Mirror-Like Character Of Awareness:
Breaking the subtle mirror-like perspective of being aware of something, while on the productive side of this naturing, means leaving all that confusion of perceiver and perceived behind, and resting simply in the resulting clarity — rather than having ‘flashes’ of insight now and then. And this is the final dissolution of ‘you’ into the selfless responsive perfection that is the Absolute.
This is the achievement of the complete Realization. To reach this, is the final perfection of one’s path.
And I will add, for those encumbered with doubt and misunderstanding of what sound is, that the recognition of nonduality brings with it the clarity to see that this nondual reality has always been the case, and has neither an origin, a coming into being, nor a dissolution, because there is nothing (no thing) that is subject to change.
Thus, the reason that our naïve experiences of sound are faithful to the occurrence of the conditions that we promiscuously call “sound,” is due to the nonduality of aware-naturing, empty of any entity (self), which recognizes the conditions — much as a dancer viscerally recognizes the quality of her performance — and responds to the conditions.
And this response is not other than conditioning, and thus is recognized as such… in an infinitely-nested recursive organic coherent structuring of formal activity.
The performative savior-faire of the responsive naturing is not unlike that of the perfected ability of a dancer to dance well, and perhaps divinely, without conscious intervention. So it is not held in some kind of memory, which is then retrieved and implemented, but is, rather, immanent in the accomplished activity, and known via the activity.
Being “aware” then, is not a state of an entity “itself” towards something “other,” but rather is simply the impersonal recognition of the impersonal activity of naturing, starting from an imputed limited perspective.
I rest in the coherent continuity:
Coherent continuity is the impersonal recognition of the activity of responsive naturing. This means it is not separate from that naturing. It is not some other thing, some observer of the activity, nor is it an entity. This is why it is characterized as ‘impersonal’. Resting in the coherent continuity means to have one’s attention focused on the activity of naturing, as evidenced by the felt coherency of what is being natured with the actual potential and contextual conditions, as well as any affective intents, of what was immediately known. The common word ‘awareness’ and even ‘consciousness’ are abstractions of this felt coherency. To simplify this point, resting in the coherent continuity means being focused on the ‘showing up’ of something, rather than experiencing what has appeared.
That which appears, to be:
That activity known as “mind,” the coherent continuity of which is the “nature of mind.”
To be:
The phrase “to be,” is not an indicator of futurity appended onto the previous phrase, “of that which appears.” Instead it affirms that everything has a reason that is attested to by the coherent continuity that we recognize in each vignette [put link here].
That which appears does so as a fulfillment of the latent potential, contextual possibilities, and affective intents, if any, that led to this creatively responsive naturing of this reconfiguration. These are the reason that is fulfilled Now.
I am not other than this naturing:
This refers to the reversal of one’s normal perspective. Rather than being on the side of the appearing, one’s true perspective originates within the naturing to that which is natured.
I Dissolve:
“And I dissolve” is the recognition that I dissolved already, which led to the sudden epiphany that I am not other than this naturing, so the assertion, happening after the actual dissolution of self, is the intellect noting that fact, letting the egoic self-identity also dissipate. This is the way Great Responsiveness works.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ། :
This Tibetan mantra means:
I have found my way!
May this benefit all (beings),
May this benefit all (beings),
So shall it be.
It is pronounced: e-ma-ho pen-no pen-no so-ha!
