Random meeting and teaching with Mark West (Nisargadatta) @ QVB 17-5-24

 Random meeting and teaching with Mark West (Nisargadatta) @ QVB 17-5-24

I had one of those random encounters yesterday with Mark West (a direct student of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in the 1970s, who resides in Sydney). I consider Mark to be one of my teachers, and I attended some one-on-one teachings around 2015 or so at his residence in Kings Cross, Sydney. During that time, I had been able to enable some sort of energetic connection with both Mark, and also the whole lineage of Sri Nisargadatta, which become very devotional and yielded a lot of 'results' on the spiritual plane in general and with progress on the "I am" understanding and experience.

Since then, and perhaps from the first time I met Mark (also randomly) around 2013-2014, I had randomly experienced seeing or meeting Mark spontaneously around the Sydney CBD, where I worked in Town Hall precinct, and in other spots around the Sydney CBD. Sometimes we just have those unusual connections with others and for the time being, or during our lives, we seem to meet that person over and over in a completely unplanned and spontaneous way. A similar thing used to happen with a Tai Chi teacher that I had in the 1990s, Peter Yu, who was a master of Yang and Chen tai chi systems, and whom I trained with in the 90s learning Yang style tai chi. I would randomly see or find Peter walking around the city, and we would have brief chats outside training. This kept occurring until his death in the 2000s, where unfortunately I was not present or aware of this, and just stopped seeing Peter around until I did find out that he had left this plane.

Back to Mark West..

I hadn't seen Mark for several years, though I did seem him very briefly from afar this year or last year, but didn't approach him at that time, since I was busy and he was a bit far off.

I had been having the recurring feeling though that I SHOULD strike up conversation with him, as he looks to be getting on now, as he's in his late 70s, and doesn't look the best health wise. He's lost a fair bit of weight, and seems to have aged considerably due to health issues-- which he later told me he was having. Besides, having the blessing of a connection with someone who has a DIRECT lineage or connection with one of the Advaita "greats" isn't something you find every day.. so I did want to pursue my connection and relation with Mark. I endevaoured to strike up some convo if and when I next bumped into him.

Lo and behold, yesterday I was walking down QVB walk, under George Street, on the way over to my mail box, and I see Mark West walking slowly in front of me, down the escalators, carrying some old bags, an umbrella, and shuffling along. I followed him for a bit, and then when next to him said "Hi Mark.. how are you going, Mr West?"

Right away he was friendly, and asked "How do I know you?", I said "We did some one-on-one teachings a few years ago at your place.. I'm Dean.".. "Ah yes, I remember now..", he said, then he literally launched off into Nonduality speak and delivered a full blown conversation and teaching on nonduality, awareness, consciousness etc., while walking in the busy underground arcade.

We ended up near Pitt Street mall, and I broke in, asking where he was headed, and he said up near George Street CBA.. so I steered him up that way, and I offered to get him a coffee while we continue the 'teaching' conversation, which he agreed. We ended up at the cafe in QVB, near the Northern end, and sat there for a good hour to hour and a half. 

He took out an old worn copy of Sailor Bob Adamson's "Beyond Words, Beyond Mind", which is likely out of print now. He spoke a bit of Nisargadatta, which he can still quote from memory.. and also emphasised a convo he had where he mentioned to Maharaj that "Maharaj had failed because he (Mark) still didn't have the realization..", to which Maharaj replied words to the effect of 'Don't worry about his, Mark, I have planted the seed, and it WILL sprout in due course'. Mark then mentioned to me that the same thing had been done, ie Mark had planted the seed and this would sprout in due course if it hadn't done so already. We spoke of different topics:

- Nisargadatta Maharaj and his approach

- Emptiness in the Mahayana Buddhist teachings

- Douglas Harding's pointers to awareness and self

And then he read a large chunk from Sailor Bob Adamson's book, which is quite compact and points to the nature of awareness, consciousness and presence as the underlying reality of self.

After this, he read a few pages from "Nan Yar", which he also had in his old bag there, and especially around the theme of desire for happiness, and the having to let go of all teachings, books and texts eventually as the main aim is realization of the self, rather than book learning.

I understood at this time (rather than back in 2015 or so), that the whole point of this meeting, and these teaching sessions or nondual pointing sessions, was to actually imbibe the energy of the teaching/teacher, and let the pointing do it's work during that time, so as to establish some sort of abidence in/as pure awareness or as one's nature -- rather than worrying about the content of the delivery or what was actually being said. Let's face it, having heard or read material related to Advaita Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, the three greats of Advaita in the 20th Century (ie Nisargadatta, Ramana Maharshi, Atmananda), or nonduality in general.. over a period of years or decades, then generally you've heard pretty much every single pointer, concept, or teaching device already. It's not the content or any new content or pointing that will bring about an understanding or realisation of Self, but rather time spent contemplating and USING that content to undo obstructions or blocks to knowledge of Self (or Not-self).

The meeting ended with me having to get back to 'the office', and Mark having to get back to where he was headed in the city. We did exchange details again, since Mark's website was no longer around now (as he is retired and didn't have the time or money to maintain it.. besides, Mark was never a highly publicised teacher with a following, unlike contemporaries such as Sailor Bob, that have always had a solid following and need for material-- which Mark has reservations about, in terms of dependence on a guru or messenger for years on end.. but that's another story).

I'll let things run their course for now, as I've not made any immediate arrangements to meet again, but will be open to the prompting or possibility of doing this in the months ahead.

---

(Gleanings from Nisargadatta - Mark West (notes from meetings with Nisargadatta in the 1970s)

Paradox in Nonduality.

Here's a gem by Douglas Harding on the paradox of all or nothing, that gets so many into a bind..

-

Paradox

Your true Nature is the Paradox to take care of all paradoxes: There is nothing that is not you and nothing that is you; 

The Aware Space is and isn't its contents; you care and you don't care; you control things and they just happen. 

This may sound silly, but in fact it is the perfection of wisdom. And it works. Spiritual life is all paradox. It's the union of opposites. It's having your cherry cake and eating it. 

It finds you on the way Home and all the way Home, seated, with your feet up, by the fire of God's love. 

~ From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding

Mind and body like space, and simply the nature of existence.

From Dudjom Lingpa’s commentary to the Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra:

Identifying the Creator of All Phenomena as the Mind: 

“Here is the way to examine the agent, or sovereign, that creates all phenomena as the mind, which is primary among the body, speech, and mind. During the daytime, nighttime, and the intermediate period, due to the mind’s self-grasping, the body and speech appear to the mind. Over the course of a lifetime, it is the mind that experiences joy and sorrow. Finally, when the body and mind separate, the body remains as a corpse. When the speech disappears without a trace, the mind follows after karma and is the agent that wanders in saṃsāra. From one perspective, for those three reasons, among them recognize the mind as primary. From another perspective, none of those three is anything other than the mind; therefore, by ascertaining them as the mind alone, among them recognize the mind as primary. The former perspective is determined in accordance with their conventional mode of appearances, while the latter perspective is determined in accordance with their conventional mode of existence.”

Establishing the Mind as Baseless and Rootless: 

“By examining in that way whether the mind that is the all-creating sovereign of the body, speech, and mind—or of all phenomena—is really existent or really nonexistent, the mind is found to have no basis or root, so it is not established as having any shape or color. The five elements and five [sensory] objects appear like objects of the mind, and your own body appears as its base. But if all these are investigated from an ultimate perspective, they are found to be like space, not truly established as either one thing or many. Ascertaining the origin, location, and destination [of the mind] as object-less openness is the spontaneous actualization of the essential nature of the path of cutting through. This is not something freshly achieved, but is simply the knowledge of the mode of being of the nature of existence.”

Does a dog have Buddha-nature? Does it matter?

A monk asked Master Chao-chou, "Has a dog the Buddha Nature or not?"
Chao-chou said, "Mu!"

Buddhism can be a veritable mine-field of intellectualism and concepts. Koans (or problems or enquiries) were an attempt at one point to directly undercut the need for discourses and rather directly point at the truth of things via directing the mind.

This particular koan stumped me for years. It has that effect if one effectively cuts off all conclusions coming from intellectualising and analysis in attempting to 'work things out'. There is nothing wrong with using the mind, however, the mind coming to a contrived conclusion and sitting self-satisfied in a concept IS the problem.

After "seeing" happened, this koan re-appeared in my consciousness one day while sitting in the park having a smoke.
Its resolution or rather pointing was then so obvious.

How can there be any difference whatsoever in the body-mind mechanism of a human (which reputedly 'has Buddha Nature'), and a dog body-mind mechanism (which reputedly did not)?

Does Buddha Nature lie within an object, without, everywhere or nowhere?

And finally, if Joshu or Chao-chou's response was merely a pointer, rather than an answer? (And that pointer was pointing to the experience of emptiness ('Mu'), and thus the experiential understanding / knowing of the former part of the koan).

Though, that's jumping the gun, and the intention of designer of the koan (like any other koan), was probably that the practitioner would hopefully catch their "self" working very hard on this problem, and in the natural, open seeing of "their self" or lack of inherent existence thereof, the impersonal experience emptiness would ensue.